City Council - Parks and Recreation Committee

okay we'll go ahead and continue um the next uh committee meeting is Parks and Recreation that is chaired by council member skip Williams thank you president Hamill uh today we have three items on our agenda one having to do with Cornwall Park and two having to do with galberth mountain so um the first item is agenda uh item 20 I mean I'm sorry 24 023 and uh which is uh dealing with um updates on the uh project at Cornwall Memorial Park which covers a demolition and replacement of the north pedestrian bridge and the conversion of tennis courts to pickle ball courts so the Parks and Recreation staff are are going to give us a brief update for for the city council on two upcoming projects which uh covers a change in use at Cornwall Memorial Park the projects are the north pedestrian bridge which is currently closed uh due to some damage and as I previously said converting um tennis courts to pickle ball courts so at this point uh the council's previous action was this was in the 20123 24 budget and with that I'd like to turn it over to Nicole Oliver who is the Parks and Recreation director thank you council member Williams um good afternoon Council Nicole Oliver Parkson Recreation director um these are two items that are actual changes of use and so under our Park policy we typically have have a neighborhood meeting and we go to parkboard and then final action is by Council they're a little bit minor for your typical agenda so I'm also going to show you a little bit of

information about why Bridge Replacements are so um extensively uh hard to fund and and why we're making the the recommendation on the bridge specifically so those are the things we're going to be covering the process The Pedestrian foot Bridge the sport court and next steps uh so when we have a use that needs repair um we always want to there's so many things right so we always have to evaluate the best thing to do we held a meeting on December 5th to get feedback on both of the changes of use in Cornwall Memorial Park and then we presented that recommendation to parkboard so the um you know where Cornwall Memorial Park is on Cornwall uh Meridian and uh squal way intersects with it um the the locations that we're talking about are at the north end where the bridges are and at the south end where the uh tennis courts and other pickleball courts are located we have a bridge inspection and repair program there are 83 pedestrian bridges in the Park's inventory most are constructed prior to model code um as we uh replace and repair them we are bringing them up to a much higher level of um lastability I don't think that's a word um and uh we're making them much more uh strong they're going to last forever we make them out of steel and concrete now so our program uh highlights the most efficient bridges that require full replacement and oftentimes when a bridge you may recall a Royal Park took a long time to replace because it was deemed to be such an significant repair that it was

permitted as if it was a brand new bridge so so we had to prove all of the things that have to do with uh habitat and impact on flood scour um all of those things these are some examples of the replacement bridges that we've built lately um and those full replacement costs uh could be over $500,000 for a bridge the other the other thing we always want to see is is there an alternate route we do have a backlog of high priority projects that include Taylor dock Walkin Falls waterline Bridge the maritime Heritage Park lower Falls Silver Beach Trail to school Paden bridge at the outlet those are our current list of the top priorities um and we are uh funding those regularly now and putting them in our in our budget so the deficiencies of of the Cornwall Park Bridge um a tree hit it and when we inspected it we already knew it was having some problems but uh once the tree hit it sometimes those problems become much more evident so uh the footings are not designed for scour it's too low it's in the pl FL flood flood plane and it's rotted Beyond repair but it's very historic and when we had the public meeting we heard from many members about just community members about just how um important this bridge was for people um it's been around for a long time uh here is um another picture of that flood from from 2021 you can see it's uh really at its capacity and this is a kind of the same type of thing that it's going to take to cross this Creek again when we replace this bridge this is

up um beta Baker Trail uh up toward Iron Gate in that trail area and so is there another route uh there is one it's 265 ft away so point is we went to the community and said said we're not going to replace this bridge they said it's really really important so what we did was we promised to put it in the future budget as a line item for replacement because the other Bridge um will um eventually need replacing anyway and we don't want to wait too long so that was our compromise for that that particular issue going get the permits and we're going to um reroute the trail that currently the main trail crosses that bridge that's blocked locked and we're going to restore some riparian area and then on to the sports Court resurfacing so right now there is a fullsize tennis court that was uh resurfaced into six pickle ball courts they've been very very very very very popular so the court next door is smaller than a full-size tennis court because of trees and so um what we went through through the the public process and we actually heard from a lot of tennis players which was frankly surprising so um uh we're going to do a compromise here too so we're going to not take out any trees but we're going to take that fulls sizee uh two full-size tennis courts and make it into one full-size tennis court a real full-size tennis court which is going to require some extension into into the um beyond the current footprint and then ALS Al line it as a pickle ball court and then three pickle ball

courts next door so it'll end up with four more pickle ball courts and one tennis court this is what was agreed to by the park board and that is what we are recommending at this time we have the funding in our budget and uh we'd appreciate your approval and that is it yeah this item was listed for information and discussion so we're we're not voting on anything so the floor is open for for discussion council member Huffman thank you um thank you for the update about the bridge I have certainly heard a lot about the bridge from my constituents in W two um can you give us an idea of the timeline on that bridge replacement we are proposing to put the funding in the 2728 by anym because we've got to get those other ones done before that don't have an alternate route but that was our commitment to show that we do intend to replace it um but it would be in the future so it'll be in the next budget but it'll be out uh a couple B enums from now okay council member cotton anything sure just thank you for the presentation and and um if any community members are listening um thank you for your your input to this um compromise and I'm looking forward to more uh uh sports facilities in our community okay anyone else council member Anderson and if you don't I don't expect you're going to have this number at your fingertips but um it would be interesting eventually to know how many pickle pickle ball courts we have currently and what's being planned versus how many tennis courts are still

remaining because we did hear from a few people concerned that there won't be uh Parks uh tennis courts anymore and there's still people out there who enjoy that there's a lot of pickle ball and a lot of fans the only the only tennis court in our Park system that doesn't have that isn't jointly striped is walk and falls all the other ones are jointly striped for both Sports and then the only refinished pickle ball only courts are at Cornwall Memorial and soon to open Cordata council member Anderson are they reservable I'm just thinking there is a lot of pickle ball people and you'd be displacing because of the striping you know three sets for a couple of people playing and I'm just wondering if there's any conflict there signed time uh 30 minutes is the max you can be if someone's waiting so thank you we will move on to the next item which is the First Amendment to the galberth mountain recreational use easement uh agenda item 2 4 24 at the request of the watom mountain biking Coalition this amendment modifies the easement to allow the recreational use of class one electric assisted bicycles and increases the maximum allowable number of Trail miles from 65 to 85 on galberth mountain the previous Council action uh to this item was the original approval of the easement in 2018 and I will turn it back over to Nicole Oliver for further presentation thank you um this uh change has been long in the hopper so to speak um and this particular easement change is directly related to the

second item or the third item item under the par committee um these two uh documents go in tandem um and this is a a a joint agreement that was made between um the Waka mountain bike Coalition who's our management agent on GTH Mountain they fulfill all of our obligations um to protect and uh manage the recreation easement um uh janick logging who's the Logging company that um regularly uh conducts logging on GTH mountain and the um Wacom Land Trust which holds the conservation easement on uh in conjunction with the recreation easement so this was a three-way agreement um that is more accurately reflects the reality of the fact that ebikes have are taking over GTH Mountain so um they weren't allowed previously under the original terms of the easan it wasn't something that um was wanted to be allowed back then but they were pretty new back then and now we're we're really just recognizing the reality and accessibility for a lot of people who can't get up there if it wasn't for evikes and then in addition to that um the extension of the the mileage the total allowable Trail miles is a is um increased from 65 to 85 those are the two changes here um and that is all I have to add Allan has been deeply involved in this too so if you have any specific question questions about the legal you can ask him okay before I call on anyone else could you explain the the the increase in miles from 65 to 85 what does that mean well um it's the maximum allowed um developed Trails um as the

mountain has become more popular and more um constructed as far as the trail mileage uh it it really does well actually Eric Brown you can come and tell him why you're going to put me on the spot yeah sorry sorry I'm late thanks for coming let's see uh so councilman um good to see you uh the the so when we were originally negotiating this deal I'll be I'm going to be perfectly honest here the valuation of the mountain sorry every my name is Eric Brown I'm the executive director of The W mbay Coalition if you all don't know who I am um and when we were in the negotiations with lesie and Allan and everybody uh a big part of the evaluation was tied to was actually tied into Trail mileage due to its effect on or it perceived effect on the logging operations on the mountain um so the 65 miles was kind of come at based on that valuation since that time of the easement signing in 2016 we've really come to understand or I should say Rob janick has come to the understanding that we're really not affecting his operations on the mountain and so uh by increasing that we're it's going to allow us to do some building out into a different couple different areas on the mountain and uh not only for mountain bike but for multiuse hiking dog walking better connectors that sort of thing so that's hence the additional mileage oh all right thank you you bet okay do does anyone from the committee have any questions yes council member Huffman uh thank you can you explain what a class one electric

electric veh uh bike is and how those are used on the mountain for mountain biking do you want me to use that do that Nicole sure okay so there's three different um in 2018 the state of Washington defined the three different types of of bikes ebikes essentially uh and they Define them as actually as a bicycle um and there's class one class two class three class one is where it's a under a certain speed limit so the Max uh speed that the motor will allow you to will help you Propel which is under 20 M hour um it's it's pedal assist only meaning there's not just a throttle so you can't just give a throttle and go so you have to be pedaling to have the motor help uh Propel you and then under 750 watts is the maximum uh power that the that the battery will the motor will allow you to go so and then there's class two and class three are different speed limits and different power ratings so those are both higher levels and so are folks using the electric assist to get up the mountain so that they can then Coast down it's correct yeah it'd be like the ones that you ride around town like the rad Power Wagons or stuff you see similar to that but again they're only they're only pedal assist not just not just like a throttle like like you would have with like a dirt bike okay are there any further questions from uh council member Hamill uh thanks chair I don't serve on this committee but I wanted to provide some context um regarding this conservation and the recreational uh easement so

I think there's only maybe maybe two or three of us that were were here or present on Council when this um was passed back in the day and it almost didn't get passed it was it was a point of contention the county backed out so just to be clear that what we're talking about the the subject property that we're talking about about uh that's being protected under these easements is 2,000 acres it's it exists in the county it's not in the city of Bellingham but the city of Bellingham this Council uh decided that it was had such high value that we we would go forward and we would spend the money to do both um the wck and the conservation easements we did that in conjunction with the WM Land Trust who are excellent Partners in this um in this endeavor um I wanted to bring that up because um you know sometimes things aren't certain and um the value of galberth mountain to this community is um is pretty elevated we have uh bike manufacturers that are that are in our community we have um uh bike shops we have the breweries that the bikers like to go to after you know um it wasn't point at York sober right now I just I think that there's an economy there's an economical AR argument there's a um there's a health argument going if you've been up on galberth um you you see like these big groups of kids that are led by you know adults and they're and they're learning uh about biking and they're learning these really healthy activities and I I just think there's a huge value in this one I

don't want that to be overlooked when it comes to like the the why part of this is super important like why do we do this because health benefits protect the protect the environment protect the mountain protect the critters um all the all the good things that we're that we're trying to do and I wanted to uh I do want to point you out Eric um Eric's been a leader here uh in the mountain by Community for I don't as long as I've known you um it probably was like I don't know eight or nine years ago when you you and I went up with your president from your board um in up on galberth and we went all over the mountain and it was super clear that um the value not just to Bellingham but to people that are traveling here spending money here recreating here as is really important I want to thank you for your work thanks counc council member Hamill I appreciate that and you know the contention point was really we thought the county was going to step in for anybody that wasn't here council member Lilo Quist and council member Hamill were on the council at that point in time and to be clear that our Council city council voted 70 for this easement and so I think you know I think that's the one thing but it was a point of contention for many years prior to that and we didn't know where it was going to land and the county kind of to be fair dropped the ball and the City kind of came in and picked it up and I really appreciated Allan and Nicole and lesie and the and their crew who really came

in and and um and Kelly for that matter so everybody really stepped in and made that happen so yeah any further questions from uh oh council member Stone um thank you council member Williams so I just had a couple questions related to the impact so I think as you were stating that Within These negotiations some of the prior restrictions or limitations were concerned about the logging oper operations right on the mountain so I'm just wondering are there separate environmental concerns Andor maintenance costs and concerns related to these changes as far as the additional you know mileage on allowed for Trails on the mountain as well as these class one ebikes and what that impact will will be it's great question so um yes there's maintenance uh concerns and that's certainly something we've considered um we've increased our staff this past year year we added another Trail Builder this past year um we had 66 Trail adopters so businesses in the community who have stepped in and they've adopted 66 of the trails so that really allows us to do better work outside of the not just galberth but also like for instance building the Birchwood pump track or doing stuff within the county or doing stuff off the W Road like we're going to be doing with at olon Creek with the DNR this year so what that's done is that allowed allows us to build capacity the additional mileage and and also the additional use with ebikes will definitely allow will increase usage and maintenance uh but we we feel

like we have a good grasp on it we are looking at Staffing and how we have to address that moving forward into the years ahead that's for sure because preco and now postco things have definitely changed uh with the amount of people using the mountain and plus the amount of notoriety that Bellingham not just galberth but Bellingham has received um with Media Partners and things like that um that that come here specifically there was just a a brand from Southern California who just did their whole media uh uh Camp here last week Canyon is the brand they're actually out of Germany but the US uh uh office is in Southern California so that's just an example of how that what what happens here in Bellingham so briefly and so and this is not meant so I understand that obviously the mountain bike Community has a vested interest in right those expansions I'm just curious um director Oliver I don't know if you can speak from the city Side are there any concerns for environmentally or other with respect to these proposed changes uh we have um you know we do we do rely on our agent uh to to up to uphold the management agreement um we do have some um needs that have been identified especially at the North End of GTH where uh around the Birch Street Trail head that that it's having another even with the the building of the parking lot there is an impact on neighborhoods so we're trying to that's one of the priorities of our um green waste project managers to expand that trail so we can have

less impact on the neighbors as far as um uh maintenance of the trails proper we also are working on expanding the maintenance agreement to cover some of the areas that aren't in the recreational easement that are being currently maintained we do respond to concerns uh when we see them we're working closely with uh Public Works natural resources who also manage adjacent uh properties in the Watershed and we did weigh in on the proposal to expand um to to exempt new Trail building from the seasonal exemptions for Lake Wacom that the County Council was considering so I think we are very very um careful about the impacts and there is a programmatic permit that the county has granted for all the trail repair so things we can point to the ways that we have we have um made sure of that is there any further discussion council member can I just chime in on that I'm sorry I apologize uh one other thing is that uh we meet annually Nicole our staff um her staff and we provide a report if you all haven't receive that I'm happy to share that and then we also do a member meeting in January mid January we present that not only our what we did as far as our accomplishments on Trails our programs like our youth programs Etc but also our financial health for the organization so I'm happy to share that with the council if anybody wants to see any of that and then also that that information also gets go over over to um uh count the counties um because we have a programmatic permit with the

county so that also goes to them as well so they know what we're doing Etc okay council member Huffman I'll go ahead and move approval of the First Amendment to the galberth mountain recreational use easement second hi I'm sorry my mic wasn't on that will be reported to the evening meeting tonight that that we pass the recommendation okay uh our next item is a is another recommendation for galberth mountain um agenda item five um and once again at the request of the watom mountain bike Coalition this amendment to the working Forest conservation easement modifies the galberth mountain working Forest easement to allow the recreational use of class one electric assisted bicycles on on galberth mountain and I will turn this back over to Nicole Oliver for any further presentation this is really just how these two easements work together this is the conservation easement the first one was the wreck easement so we have to modify this one as well to be consistent is there any discussion about this easement anyone council member Huffman I'll go ahead and move approval on this one as well is there a second we don't need one okay then all in favor of approving this recommendation please say I I all oppos motion carries and that will be recorded at the evening meeting as well okay we we have no further business for this committee so I will adjourn the meeting and turn it back over to you president Hamill thank you uh our next meeting or next committee rather is committee of the whole and

that commences at 2:25 um we can go ahead and discuss old and new we'll still need a couple minutes to switch over sure we can start let's go ahead and do do old and new when when our staff is ready for it okay so please remain on the Das