All right, hello, and welcome to the Parks and Recreation Committee.

Um, let the record show that myself and my committee members are present.

We have one item on the agenda today that is Bill 23.

Um, can I have a reading of the bill, please?

Bill 23 amends the 2026 Trexler front fund Springwood budget to provide for a supplemental appropriation of $13,468.81 cents from the Springwood Trust portion of the Trexler funds unappropriated 2026 balance per general Truxler's will.

Thank you.

And uh Miss Tilliana.

Hello, good evening.

Um, this is a pretty simple one.

It's the Trexler funding, so it's a grant fund, and we're just putting the money into the appropriate account.

Um, Springwood Trust is a separate sort of pot of money that is only allowed to be spent within Trexler Park.

So this is that smaller portion of money, whereas the bigger Trexler fund is able to be more flexible throughout the entire park system.

So um just putting the money into the appropriate account so we could use it.

Gotcha.

Thank you.

Um any questions from my committee members or the dais on this one?

Pretty self-explanatory.

Um any comments from the public on this one?

None.

Can I have a motion to move this forward favorably?

A motion to move it favorably.

I'll second that motion.

All right, seconded by Mr.

Bungle.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

And it will move forward to full council.

Um, any updates for parks and rec.

Sure.

Uh, thank you for the opportunity.

I can highlight uh some of the things that have been going on and some of the things we're looking forward to this time of year is uh anticipation, getting ready for summer.

Um so I wanted to highlight first the this weekend we had um a successful egg hunt at Jordan.

We had a lot of kids out, a lot of families enjoying themselves.

So that was great to see.

Um, and the weekend before we had an event at Franklin Park, which was really well attended, and we were able to get a lot of feedback for our Franklin Park plan, and that's continuing to move forward.

It was great to see um so much council representation.

So thank you, Councilperson Binder and Councilperson Santos for being there.

Um it was great to see so many faces.

There is one other opportunity for the public to get involved in that process on April 30th at 6 o'clock.

It'll be the final meeting about Franklin Park, and then we'll be moving forward with like a final design.

So again, that's April 30th at 6.

Um, and that is at the church there in um in Franklin Park.

And it'll be the final opportunity to really get a lot of feedback before they finalize that plan.

Um a few things that are happening now as we're getting ready for summer with our um summer hiring.

So a lot of the positions we have a lot of applicants, so we're scheduling interviews and we're looking forward to being fully staffed ahead of ahead of schedule this year with mainly Allentown students and residents that are gonna be filling those roles.

And um the places that we do have some gaps and we're looking to fill are for our summer laborers for our parks maintenance as well as some golf course positions.

So if you know anyone that likes to work outside and wants to get their hands dirty, um, encourage them to apply.

They do have to be 18 for those roles.

Um also we are opening the summer playground.

If it's not open, it should be open soon.

The locations will be open for um Allentown residents, it's free to sign up for children.

And um this year we're adding additional field trips and trips to the pool and swim lessons as well, so it should be a great, great season.

Um the maintenance team is you'll probably see them out and about doing a lot of mulching.

We also have some volunteer tree plantings.

One is on the 11th, and there are some other ones coming up in April and some cleanups, Arbor Day, so really just a busy spring and a lot going on, a lot of good stuff.

So but I'm happy to talk about anything that I mentioned or anything you want more information on.

Thank you.

Any questions on that from my committee members or the dais?

I have a question.

Um, so you have no issues any any longer with uh uh finding people who are uh interested in lifeguard.

So this how we get in trouble, not in trouble, but how we get kind of stuck with lifeguards is we have a lot of people interested, and they'd have to pass the swim test and pass the course.

So as we get closer to the swim season, sometimes we'll be scrambling for lifeguards because we have a lot of interest, but maybe not everyone can swim as well as they need to.

Um, but in the last few years, we've been relatively successful filling those roles by starting early and empowering our existing lifeguards to become the trainers and do the tests.

So we're not struggling the way that we were, say, a few years ago.

So I think that goes to show it's successful program and just improving the management structure at the pools because people do want to return year after year.

We I think off the top of my head, it is like 70% returners.

Like we have a lot of kids coming back, which is great.

And we talk about the the kids, what what ages are we talking about?

Um, so at the pools for cashiers, you can be 15.

Um for a lifeguard, you can also be 15.

Um, some of our managers are a little bit older, um, but there's no like age limit for aquatics really.

For summer playground, we ask that you're 16 or older, and then for any of the manual labor positions, you have to be 18 to operate some of the equipment.

Got it.

So we do have some managers though that are um come back year after year that are like that our concessions managers or the pool managers um that they they're required required to reapply each year and we evaluate you know how they how they perform the year before, but we have some strong skill sets there too, so it helps with the flow each year having some familiar faces.

Well, yeah.

Did you yeah, this is my last question, I promise you, because I know that we have.

Um when you when you look for summer um staff, you know, kids.

Do you do you um do you go to different schools?

Have we tried different schools?

So are we working with the Allentown School District?

We do.

We go to um Allen and Deerf and we go to the cafeteria during lunchtime and we'll have conversations one-on-one with the kids to encourage them to the high school students, I shouldn't call them kids, um, to apply to these positions.

So we do go to the schools um and we try to work with ASD as close as we can to get the word out, but we think the best way to do it is really just to show up and and chat with them.

Show up with an obligation, right?

Yeah.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

Any other questions from my dais?

Or from the public.

All right, thank you so much, Ms.

Taluna.

With that, I'll adjourn this committee meeting.

Thank you.

Okay.