This idea about how we build places together for us to share.

And I know several of you are at the 40 and 10 um release night.

So I will we will try not to repeat everything, but we do have a similar presentation to the one we did that night that we're just gonna kind of go through as as well.

And you know, we very much start off, and I think all of us are familiar with the fact that we currently have some real like class A like parks amenities in the city of Bethlehem and between Memorial Pool, Fairview Park, uh Sauken Park, the Rose Garden, like we've worked very hard.

Uh, and Mr.

Alcall has been doing this for 30 years across four administrations to build public spaces that reflect this idea of investment.

And, you know, I think it's important that we start at the beginning about like why do we care about this and who are we doing this for?

And a park is one of the places that we're supposed to share.

We're supposed to share literal space, share conversation, share the sense of community.

And we want parks to represent the diversity of our uh of our community.

So parks are not designed for only wealthy people.

We are designing parks, we're designing our uh amenities for everybody to be able to come and to choose to want to come.

Not that it's a last resort to use, but rather like this is a place that takes tax dollars and invests in a common space for people that live within the city of Bethlehem, no matter who they are, and and and I know that is a that is a belief that all of you that are here currently share about what the purpose is of the public good.

Um, and also I won't won't repeat this too much, but uh just as a reminder, uh, 12 days from now, we are cutting the ribbon on Friendship Park.

Um, so a one week from Saturday at uh 3 p.m., we are kicking off our annual block party with a ribbon cutting for a truly transformational project.

And I know um uh councilwoman uh Laird, you have been uh intimately involved with Northside Alive over the years.

Um, but it's a project that we have spent um a couple of years now seeking the grant funding for working through uh, you know, Mr.

Alcall and his team deserve a tremendous amount of credit and working through all of those different logistics as far as surveys and rights of ways and understanding where utilities are.

But 12 days from now, we're gonna cut the ribbon on what is just going to be a fantastic park with a water feature.

And one of the things that we're trying to do, similar to as we've talked about with Broad Street and other other areas, is basically just kind of set a baseline for what is possible when everybody is kind of moving in the same direction.

Um, and uh we'll talk more obviously that day about Friendship Park, but it's gonna be a huge day for us.

Um, it's gonna be a huge day for the for the neighborhood.

Um, and you know, it's it's an example in Dutco Park, I was just checking with Mike, um, is going to be done sometime within the next month, which is a big part of our choice neighborhood.

It was our initial implementation project, um having to do with that $500,000 choice neighborhood planning grant that we got through the federal government.

And I think all of us have probably driven by there hundreds, if not thousands of times.

And we've you generally don't see anybody in there.

And I think in all my times going to the boys and girls club over all the years when I was a kid and as an adult, like I don't know if I ever saw one person like hanging out in that public space.

And as we are working through the overall choice neighborhood plan, um, that's really gonna be a great project.

And one of the things I think it was last time that council had voted on the resolution having to do with uh uh the the some of the planning dollars having to do with Stefko Boulevard.

Um and Dutco is going to um hopefully help to build some of that momentum and that people are gonna drive by there and see people there and understand that it's not just an institutional space, but it's a place where people go.

And we're hopeful that that has an effect on some of the traffic issues in that area.

Um, but that's an area that we are we are looking at um in depth coming forward.

Um, so why do parks matter?

And I'm gonna turn this over to Kathy in a second, but you know, once again, as you know, six of the other people in this community that understand this, there are parks, these are parks for everyone.

And we very much look at our our most important job is how do you build things for everybody that build connections between people and create common experiences.

It's very easy in this job and in other jobs within the government to respond to self-interest and to respond to the loudest people.

And we very much look at our park system as the opposite of that.

We are grounding the idea, the concepts of equity.

We are grounding the concepts of opportunity, and we are grounding the concepts that this is about the entire city of Bethlehem and this idea that like when you go to a park, like people generally have the same experience, which I think is a positive.

Like you can't buy your way into a better experience in a park.

It is shared by all of us.

And I think all of us have experienced that in different ways.

Um, and we're excited to talk about where we are going over the over the next year and over the next 10 years as well as a city.

And with that being said, I'm going to turn it over to Kathy and Corey to kind of talk about the next stages of the of the plan.

Thank you.

So, you know, this was really a community-driven process, and we'll really go over that as we uh progress through the next slides.

But this screen is really to show you, you know, what we heard from the community, and just to highlight a couple of them.

There's beautiful, accessible community.

You know, parks are a lot of things to a lot of people, and we really needed to keep that in mind as we moved through this process.

So in case you didn't know, we are looking to do 40 parks in the next 10 years.

Um we were grounding them in some core goals as we were identifying what our priorities were, how we were actually going to be implementing this, and just to highlight those, um, we are looking to connect our parks to have accessible places for play, to increase active recreation, strengthen our programming, create climate resiliency, and then look into our maintenance and invest in that.

Oops.

So I wanted to walk you through what our process was.

And it took a little over a year to do this.

Um, but again, wanted just to highlight how much in community engagement happened and how we were bringing the community along the entire time.

And we are looking to continue that as we are implementing the plan each year when we are bringing out new parks to actually go through design and construction.

We will be doing additional community outreach just to make sure that everything that was established in this plan is still accurate, still still the direction that we want to go.

So just to highlight the process, um, started with data analysis, looking at existing conditions, talking about you know, issue areas, things to think about addressing, and then going into different phases of planning, and really that's just the level of detail that they're looking at each park, trying to align goals with uh the community's you know, needs that were identified, and then all the way to the final report, which is now online and live, and you can look at.

Um, so through this time, there was a steering committee.

Um, we met three times, as well as three virtual public meetings, 15 pop-ups.

Um, and there was a survey as well that had great responses.

So again, this was you know a big undertaking by both our staff as well as um the consultant that we hired, but because community engagement was such a core value for this project, we really wanted to make sure that we were meeting as many people as possible and hearing from them as we developed this plan.

So I was lucky enough to be part of the community engagement, and um, I figured we could mention some of the key takeaways for you that we heard during that process.

So uh the community told us loud and clear that they really do like nature-based experiences.

They also favor play and exercise and sports and recreation.

Um, for the community values, maintenance and care came across as number one, uh, second to accessibility and connectivity.

So, you know, both goals of this plan to you know have ADA access and connectivity to our parks, and then obviously taking care of what we already have and then what we will be gaining in the future.

Um, mentioned as as the top parks, so not surprised there, you know, they're our larger, larger parks.

Um, I'll get to it in a minute, but they're classified as regional parks in this new plan.

And so they're really trip generators, I would say they're destinations people want to go.

And so it's no surprise that they showed as the top dimension parks.

And like I said, maintenance and care was the number one community value, but you can see other parks as well include West Side Park, Clearview, Rose Garden, Sauken.

So some of your more well-known parks were were definitely mentioned more than others.

And so speaking to the park types, um, we organized the parks into three different park types, starting at the top with regional parks.

These are typically 10 acres or more offering diverse experiences.

And so that's what I sort of mentioned when I mentioned the trip generators.

So like, you know, Monocasee Park, you have the dog park, you have the ice rink, the swimming pool.

People will travel from all over for those sorts of amenities because they're sort of unique to that park.

Um, and then stepping down in scale, you go to the anchor parks.

So they're sort of doing exactly what they sound like they would do for those communities.

So they're medium sized and they have a strong focus on play and sports, but they really are like second to those regional parks.

It's like the park you go to in your neighborhood that has a little bit more than maybe that pocket park.

Um, and so, you know, I think a good example is obviously the new friendship.

You know, it'll have a splash pad that's sort of unique.

Um so that's sort of the anchor parks there, the medium-sized ones.

And then the smallest in scale would be the community parks.

And like I mentioned, they're smaller size and typically they serve residents in walking distance of the park.

So there might be a there might be less variety of an experience, but people typically go to that park for the experience.

So you can see sort of how it ranges from the largest parks down to the smaller ones.

Um, and Deco Park is an example of a community park.

Um, you know, obviously we've seen Deco Park in some of the comments.

And I think we need to remember Decko Park is a community park.

So it's meant to be walked to, meant to be used by the students walking to and from school.

Um, less of a park that generates people coming from outside of the area that the park is located.

So just to kind of paint that that into an example for everybody.

And so as I was sort of summarizing all of that, what I really was speaking towards is the idea of a network.

Each of the four distinct areas in our city is part of its own network, but it really's part of one large network, but it's a subset network, I should say.

So there's four areas northeast, central, south, and west.

And so within, let's say, for example, the west side, you would find one of likely every sort of park amenity that we would want to have, uh, maybe minus like us, you know, an ice skating rink.

Those are sort of unique.

That again, that speaks to the regional park draw.

Um, but you would find one of each of something in that network.

And so the idea behind that is people would not have to travel too far outside of their neighborhood in order to access something that they would want to access.

And so it's really meant to be smaller networks within this larger network.

And I would just add to that is, and that's really important for planning purposes because when you're thinking about basketball courts, you're thinking about we have people that go to our parks that could be three years old, could be 70 years old, and we want to make sure that people have opportunities to come use our public space in whatever way they want to do it.

So as we start to think about planning and as we really dive into the details, we're we're thinking to ourselves it's like you obviously don't need to build a pool at every park.

You don't need to build like a full court basketball court at every park.

So you want to be able to create a kind a kind of a sector of parks within the four different areas that allow us to be able to offer all of the different types of amenities.

So, like you're not driving five miles to find a baseball field, but you might have to drive half a mile because like you just can't build everything in it in everybody's neighborhood.

But it's really important when it comes down to efficiencies and how we necessarily connect it and signage and things like that that we're not going to talk super a lot about tonight, but are part of our long-term plan is like how do you connect these networks within.

So, for example, in South Bethlehem, how are you utilizing the greenway to be able to get from like park A to Park B or from neighborhood A to neighborhood B to be able to get to this other amenity that's not there, thinking about it as an integrated system rather than just like a one-off.

And that also adds back into our theory that we want people to be looking at all like if if you build a park, if there's a new park in your neighborhood and it's not my neighborhood, like that's still a win for me because like we are trying to get people to understand that it's not just about what is in your neighborhood, but it's about what's in all of these neighborhoods and how do we connect each other?

So we're not living necessarily in silos.

And so speaking to some of the experiences that we considered throughout this plan, um, we can dive into the five different sort of themed experiences, I'll call them.

So nearby nature is sort of exactly what it sounds like.

So think of like a sawkin park.

You know, you have a lot of ecological restoration, you have a lot of multi-purpose lawns, some ball fields, trail enhancements as they come through the park, but also connecting to you know, our our regional trail network and you know, just the idea of lush shaded parks.

So really connecting, you know, with nature.

Um, playful places um are more of that like children's active play, you could say.

So like wellness loops, anyone could really use those, I guess.

But inclusive play, you know, that's specific to the play equipment, and then nature play.

So, how do we sort of tie in, you know, some more natural elements into the play, maybe uh working with the existing topography, for instance, or just as an example.

Um, and then for cool zones, you have splash pads, pools and aquatics, water fountains, water bottle refill stations, um, fit fields and comfortable courts again, you know, you have your ball fields, soccer, a pickleball, tennis.

Um, and then you have your gathering spaces, which pavilions and uh community gardens, restrooms, and performance and event spaces.

So those are the sort of the five different experience categories that we considered when we were um talking about improvements for each specific park.

So, in addition to those experiences that really are focused on capital improvements, we also really looked into programming and heard a lot from the community about what they liked, what they would like to see more of.

I'm sure many of you have attended uh park programming event, whether or not you realized it was under that.

Um, there's things like movies in the park, music in the park, as well as the summer park program.

Um, but what this plan also allowed us to do was really hear what people wanted in their parks, as well as better set us up for um embracing partnerships and really making it easier for outside organizations in addition to our own staff to still be utilizing these parks and these amenities to their greatest value.

Um, and then the second piece um is really the maintenance, you know, 40 year 40 parks within 10 years is really a big undertaking.

So really needed to kind of fact check check ourselves and make sure that what we were proposing was really feasible.

Um, you know, looking at areas where we can maybe lighten the load on maintenance, look at other areas where in order to achieve what we need to do, we might need more um people to cover it.

So really trying to um be smart in what we're proposing to make our parks, you know, look feel clean.

And it and it's very intentional when we think about as it says up there, and the if you look at the plan, which is available, you know, through We Build Bethlehem and the website, is like we really have minimal amount of staff that cut the grass, like they are doing other things.

And you know, Mike could tell you exactly how many, you know, acres we have to cut.

And some parks get cut once every 10 days, some other parks are cut every three weeks, depending on what the schedule is and how often they're used and things like that.

But one of the things that came up in the plan was obviously this idea of like care and maintenance, but we never about just like the one-time capital expenditures.

You've heard me say it ad nauseum is the idea that there's difference between one-time and recurring expenses, and it's important to be able to think about those.

In this case, we're obviously going to talk about the one-time capital, you know, investments, but also like we want to make sure that we're not setting up a situation.

I'll give you one example is you know, whether or not it's the Rose Garden, the new friendship park, like when you create like the windy paths, like people love that.

Like that is much better than some of the more kind of like institutional ways of creating paths in a park.

But somebody's got a clear snow if need be.

Everybody credit for is like we've really tried to break down, not that silos ever existed, but just bring everybody together.

So when we look at something like a park, we are looking at it from the public works point of view.

We're looking at it from the community economic development point of view.

We're looking at it from our office's point of view, from the council point of view.

We're really trying to take a look at what are all of the different issues that we necessarily need to plan for.

Um, and that's one of the things that this plan really does is it doesn't just call for investments, it calls for a different way to do things within City Hall, as far as having more conversations.

So people are working, you know, across floors, across departments to think about what are the potential opportunities there and how is everything connected.

And one other piece on programming is I think many of us that grew up here probably remember the days when you know you would have a park leader that would be at the neighborhood park from nine to 12 in the morning and six to eight at night, Monday through Thursday.

Um, and that model is really changed about how people have used parks.

But this idea of programming is really important because while capital expenditures are one way to reflect investment, so is maintenance and so is having any type of organized and structured event there.

You don't need to have one there every night.

But even if people are going by and you're like, there's great that somebody's doing something in that space.

It gives people this idea that is a correct one that like it's not just about you build the swing set or you build the park, but you're also thinking to yourself, how are people utilizing that?

And one of the things Kathy mentioned is we're constantly, and I think all of us probably know between you know, swim teams and things like that.

We have outside groups that use some of our facilities now.

But like to the average resident, it doesn't matter if the city's running that programming or an outside resident or an outside group is like something is going on at that park that's structured.

And that is something that we're trying to increase in the coming years is being able to find ways to increase that amount of structured like programming, both in-house but also externally as a way to continue to have those connections between neighborhoods and their parks and and and us.

Um, so how are we gonna improve these parks in in 10 years?

You know, we feel it's very important to commit to a goal, which is why we came up with these 40 parks in 10 years.

Some of those 40 parks that we know, the Rose Guard and Fairview Park, they've really seen their line share of improvements.

It doesn't mean that there's not going to be additional maintenance and of things that are going on, but they're just not there.

We have some parks that there's not just quite as much to do as there are in other parks.

Um, so we very much want to commit to a goal.

We want to plan, and we're going to talk more about planning in a in a moment.

We're going to decide how to pay.

And this is very much in the weeds.

Um, but I think we know that when you get a grant, and I also do want to do want to mention I should have mentioned before is like we were able to do this planning through a grant that representative Samuelson and Representative McNeil got from for us about two years ago from Pennsylvania DCED.

Um, so then we hired Omni's, who's a Lehigh Valley based firm.

Many of you uh uh know the fantastic people with Omnis to come in to do this work.

But this this planning grant and all of this work was done with their um with Representative Samus and Representative McNeil's support.

And we want to we want to thank them.

But when you get a grant, like the process by which, and we've had these conversations, and you know, Colleen could tell you in Friendship Parks at the top of the list, is like it's one thing to get the money, it's another thing to understand how long that's gonna take to necessarily be able to build the park.

And that can be a frustrating thing for us, and that can be a frustrating thing for me.

Um, because when somebody says, when is this park getting done?

Like we have an estimated schedule, but we have to go through all the grant agreements.

We have to go through all these different things, having to do state and federal grants that sometimes can slow a project down.

So when you decide how to pay, and I want to thank city council for when the majority of you voted um to the people that did not vote for it or not here, um, voted to be able to make the transfer from the general fund into our capital fund.

Like you allowed us to pay for this first set of parks with our own general fund dollars, which, as you're gonna see, is going to allow us to shorten the period by which it took us to plan to do all the engineering, and most importantly, it allows us to keep promises quicker because people rightfully so.

If they ask, when is this park going to be done?

And we say we have it's a pretty terrible answer to be like, we have the grant, but we're filling out the grant execution agreement, and then we have to put out the RFP, and then we have to do the construction, and then we have to, and people are like, what are you talking about?

So, what we've been able to do, thanks to that city council transfer to be able to, it's when we didn't borrow money last year and we're able to use the general fund, the one-time revenue to pay for one time expenses, it allowed us the opportunity to keep promises quicker and build more momentum.

And I wanted to just talk for a moment, and some of you have heard this before, but it's really important because I think most people still don't understand, is um, this idea of like a grant funded process is just can take like 36 months between when we come here asking for a council resolution to support our application, and then we get it, and then we have to enter into contract and all those type of things.

Like we can skip a lot of this as I'm gonna get to a second when we obviously already have the one-time uh uh revenue to be able to make the one-time expenditure.

Um, I think it was last meeting or the meeting before when council voted on our grant application for um the planning dollars for Stand Island and Minoxy Park.

Like, that's a great example of I think we applied for 250,000, 250,000 from the state.

Like we're not gonna say no to that, but like applying for that before we want to do the plan makes sense as far as like setting expectations and things like that.

Those aren't necessarily construction dollars, those are planning dollars that we're gonna try to get through through a grant.

So, what Mike has done, what Laura's done, what we have, what Kathy and Corey have done is we have essentially taken this process that was 36 months plus, and we have we've brought it down to about 24 months.

If we are using our own dollars to be able to build the park.

And one of the things we're trying to do here is show what is possible when we use our own dollars to then be able to create public pressure, increase that idea of accountability for us for city councils, for future mayors, for future city councils to show people like if you we use our own dollars, we can build parks faster and we can build more of them.

And what we have here, and right now, you know, we announced in uh at the beginning of April at our parks meeting, this first set of parks that we're working on that Corey and Kathy are going to talk about in a moment.

But we were able to put out that RFP for final design and engineering that we are currently reviewing who the people were that were responded with the idea that like every year going forward, we can announce new parks that we are planning in February of one year, go through the design, the community engagement, all that stuff in that year, and then bid the project the next January or February or March, get the person under contract, get the group under contract, build it during like the middle of the summer into the fall and be able to deliver that finished park substantially finished by the end of the year, which is a nobody else is able to do that because people aren't able to use their own dollars on this.

And we're going to continue to use grant dollars when we need to, and some of the bigger projects we have absolutely are going to um require grant dollars.

But so much of people's distrust with government is an uncertainty about when projects are going to get done.

And that's nobody's fault.

Well, maybe people that put too many regulations on how to spend money, but it is not really anybody's fault around here that we can't give straight answers.

And this will allow us the opportunity to be even more honest with people and be able to say, like, if we announce this in February, we have a plan to be able to get this done by the end of the following year.

And obviously, a huge part of that is the continued support of city council to continue to fund the projects as they move forward.

Um, but a huge first step was taken last year when you guys passed the budget and voted for that transfer because it allowed us the opportunity to put those those dollars in there.

And I know I'm preaching the choir in this one.

Um, so um, this choir I'm preaching to.

Um, so I'm gonna turn it back to Kathy and Corey to kind of talk about how we chose parks for phase one.

Yeah, so I can take it take this slide.

Um, so obviously, first and foremost, it was based on community feedback.

You know, who was who was the one showing up to the meetings, who was you know making their voice heard.

Um, some parks had you know more engagement than others, and so I think you know, starting there, um, as we mentioned throughout the process, it was key for us, like the community values and lived experience is really something that that we hold as a sort of the highest value.

Um, additionally, we again back to Kathy's point of like that analysis part of the timeline.

Um, we did pull the environmental justice areas from the PA's environmental tool, and so you know, areas that were historically underserved were identified.

Um places that need ADA accessibility to the park.

Um, so we'll just we just classify that as access because really if it does not have ADA access, then there are certain people that are not able to access that park at all.

And so, starting with can people of all abilities access the park?

Um additionally, safety and security.

So, you know, is there outdated play equipment?

Um, is it safe for them to use?

Um, and that also gets to like the age and use, you know, is it a well-loved park?

Um, chances are it might need improvements faster than one that is is less used.

Um, and just you know, such as like lessening just like the sorry, the the impact.

I'll go to the impact, and then for impact, it's like lessening maintenance.

Is it um less likely to be vandalized?

Can we sort of um like have multiple goals aligned?

And so we sort of used all of those various items um as we were prioritizing the parks for phase one here.

And so many of you already know, so I won't ask you to do the drum roll, but um 40 and 10's first parks are going to be Burning Fritz in the northeast, Madison Park in the south, and Clearview Park on the west side.

Um, these parks do all have something in common, and that is that they are anchor parks.

If you remember the discussion about the park types, um, so it's you know, the ones that sort of are they're not a regional draw, but they're not a small community park either.

It's like right in between.

They are geographically diverse, which is a good thing.

You know, we wanted to sort of spread the wealth, and they all include various forms of active and passive play.

Um, the mayor already spoke to the idea of the request for proposals that is um ongoing right now as it relates to design and engineering services for these first three parks.

Um, and then as we already mentioned, we'll be doing additional community outreach this summer at the three parks, just to verify the plans that we produced just last year are still valid.

And you know, we want to make sure that the improvements are what the community wants to see.

So you'll find us at those three parks at some point throughout the summer.

And just to add to that, is I believe that our goal is to have that contract for the final design engineering on next council's agenda.

So that's that's the goal is to be able to uh send it over to council for the next uh for the next council meeting, just as a heads up there.

All right.

So um we can dive into Bernie Fritz here first.

So um Bernie Fritz is in the northeast geography of the city, uh, north of Washington Avenue, west of Linden, east of center, just by the Memorial Park Cemetery there.

Um, it is named after the late playground leader, teacher, and coach who devoted his life to Bethlehem youth.

Um, and we obviously continue to honor his legacy today at Bernie Fritz Night.

Um, and Bernie Fritz night this year is being held on July 29th, and that will be one of our pop-up events uh for the Bernie Fritz design concept.

So we will be there that day, um getting feedback on this design that you see here.

Um and just to walk through the design a little bit.

I know it's probably hard to see printed and on the screen.

So we'll trick we'll continue the tradition of active play, um, featuring updated fit fields and comfortable courts.

We will add a splash pad to Bernie Fritz, um, which will also be accompanied by a water bottle refill station.

Um, and then introducing some new playful places, including natural and universal play, and just sprucing up the gathering spaces a little bit, the the um park building there, um, potentially getting a bathroom, a working bathroom in there, and more of those well-liked swing benches um that everyone really liked uh through the community engagement effort.

So and I would just add to that is these are what the goals are, but an important part of our work here, and this is why you go through the engineering and design is figuring out what's feasible and what's not.

And I'll give you just an example is like the goal would be to put a splash pad here, but until we actually go through the process of the like seeing the infrastructure and the engineering and things like that and allowing the engineers, you don't know whether or not that's going to cost 250,000 or 700,000.

So we are very much trying to both take we are listening, but we're also always honest with people that there are certain things that people want that there are concepts that we can investigate, and we're going to trace try to stay as true as we can to that, but there is no way to figure out whether or not you can do some things until you go through and do the engineering, and some of it is subservice and things like that to see whether or not things are feasible.

But one of the reasons why we wanted to do the plan this way and build this very kind of organic group is because we wanted to be able to have those conversations with people and just be straight up and say, look, look, our goal is to be able to do this, but until we go through and see what the estimates are, we can't tell you for certain whether or not we're going to be able to do it.

And unlike having a grant where you get a grant to be able to pay for something, and then if it's more than that, you can just I can go find the money.

Since we're using our own money, it is money that potentially could be spent on another park.

So like we're going to try to be smart about balancing all those different things.

And yes, there's going to be points where there's going to be a difference between like a splash pad is worth it for 250,000 and a splash pad is not worth it for 800,000.

Um, and I just wanted to that was a good example to kind of think about it's like we're not going to spend money unnecessarily when there's that money could go somewhere else and go even further because there are other parks to do.

So we're going to balance all those things together.

All right.

And then we're going to take a trip over to the south side here for Madison Park.

Um, it's located by Wyandotte Street and Ontario, south of Broadway, um, up there up sort of up the hill.

Um, as the area around Ontario Street developed to house Bethlehem steel workers, small pocket parks like Madison were carved out to serve the local community.

Additionally, this was the location of a former elementary school.

So it was sort of carved out for that first and then uh became a park once the school was torn down.

Um for residents, the park is near and dear spot known historically for basketball courts, uh, which have been a hub for local game and community gatherings for multiple generations.

So we want to continue that active play tradition uh with updated basketball amenities, um, updated universal play equipment, uh, refreshed pavilion, um, and uh getting to the mayor's point.

Uh we did we did propose a splash pad here along with the water bottle refill station, obviously housing a former school on this site again, getting under to the point of the utilities.

Uh, we did we did propose a splash pad here along with the water bottle refill station, obviously housing a former school on this site, again, getting under to the point of the utilities, we'll have to see where everything is.

But um essentially, those are the various um proposed improvements coming here.

Um, like I said, there's some street trees, um, obviously repaving the sidewalks around it is a big thing just to get them um, you know, in better shape.

And I do believe they are ADA compliant, but the you know, it's a little uh a little rickety there.

So just refreshing those a bit.

And that's a good comparison as far as the splash pad is concerned from like an equity point of view, is because if you look at Clearview, which we're gonna talk about in a minute, it's next to a pool.

And if you look at Bernie Fritz, you're probably about a half a mile away from Memorial Pool.

But if you're looking at Madison, like there is not any water that is close.

And you're either dealing with um Yasco, which is not particularly close, and especially for kids, crossing line dot and things like that.

So that's another example that if you're looking at the infrastructure or looking at what the costs are, like it may be a situation too, where like, hey, and once again, I'm making up numbers.

I have no idea how much this actually costs, but like 400,000 here is a different choice than 400,000 at Bernie Fritz or at Clearview because of the equity concerns.

And that is something that we're very much centering in making these in making these determinations.

All right.

And then lastly, um, on the west end there is Clearview Park.

Um, it's east of Pennsylvania Avenue, south of Catasauqua Road.

It was established in 1960 as part of the post-World War II uh residential expansion in West Bethlehem.

The park's role grew as sort of that community anchor with the opening of the adjacent Clearview Elementary School in the mid-1970s, and what remains one of the most heavily used neighborhood parks in the city due to its direct connection and central location within West Bethlehem.

Um, so coming to Clearview, um, our new improvements and amenities like nature-based activities that take advantage of you know the large green space that we have there, universal and natural play equipment.

Um to the mayor's point, an added splash pad.

The idea behind placing the splash pad at the park with the pool was equity.

You have a free option, you have a paid option.

And so that's just uh giving you sort of a snapshot as to why decisions like that were made.

Um the added splash pad, updated basketball, updated tennis, um, introducing pickleball.

I I think there's pickleball on the tennis courts already, but they would be actually pickleball dedicated courts, um, and a general refresh of park amenities like benches, trash cans, um, and then the pool house will see receive some improvements as well as the pool house parking.

So that is as of now, the recommended improvements to Clearview.

And then as Corey had said, um, we're gonna kind of have the the big community feedback community meeting at Bernie Fritz on July 29th.

The meetings at Madison and Clearview are still being worked out as far as what dates they would be, but the the they will be in June or July.

Um, Madison is one that may take, we may try for multiple pop-up meetings, like our goal with both Madison and Clearview.

And if you've ever been in Bernie Fritz night before, you know, we get all sorts of different groups to come out.

We got the police, we got the fire truck, we got you know, paramedics, we get different groups in the city to come out.

Is you know, we would want to have similar type nights at Madison and Clearview, the kind that are designed for entire families that would be able to come.

We've talked about having our health fan there as a way to necessarily help to bring people out for some health services, but we really want to make it community focused because we're trying to build these parks in a way that it doesn't matter what your age is, that like this there is something at this park for you.

One of the things you probably know, and I've learned this with a young child, is that you know, if you look at like Bernie Fritz or Clearview, because they're bigger, it's easier to be able to plan as far as what the different uses are on the same space because there's just so much more land.

Like the Madison conversation, and we have this at different parks that are just smaller that are in the middle of urban areas.

It is a conversation that needs to be very intense and constructive with this neighborhood because it's much more difficult to separate uses.

And you often see this with just what you have as far as a basketball game going on next to a playground, next to a place where people are relaxing.

That's harder at smaller parks.

So you kind of have to decide what do we want this park to be?

It's harder to have four, five, six, seven uses at a park that is that is smaller, like Madison.

So this is the intentionality that we're looking at as far as like how we necessarily do this type of planning and really kind of setting the stage for what we're gonna do in the future.

And the last thing I would say, and then we would open up for questions is one of the other things we announced.

And as I said, we talked about this a couple of years a couple of weeks ago when everybody voted for the uh uh grant application.

Um, DC Nar, who has been a fantastic partner for every city recreation project um for the past 30 years, um, saw the 40 and 10 plan.

They have tremendous confidence and Kathy and the uh and our and our all of our department heads, and they reached out to us and they said we'd like to sit down and talk about how we necessarily can help.

So what we had sent to city council a couple of weeks ago was this idea to be able to get some planning dollars to do master plans for not just Sand Island, which we're gonna take on in 2027, but also Soc and Amenacasy, um, to be able to do three regional parks with one planning grant that will allow us, which are not these kind of 22 month type processes.

Doesn't mean we can't do things, it doesn't mean that somebody's not going to go fix the climbing gym or put in new swings, but as far as master plans, I mean, all three of the regional parks are going to be multi-million dollar endeavors to kind of update those and things like that.

But we're really excited about what the Sand Island Master Plan is gonna be.

I mean, the current Sand Island was built, it's one of the few projects built before Mike Alcall was here in 19, I think it was 1990, 1991 that that that when it opened then when Mayor Smith um, and it just needs needs an update.

And there's a lot of exciting conversations that can be had there as far as like there's only one thing that I know is not moving, that's the ice house.

Um, but when you look at where the tennis courts are, you look at where the playground is, you look at the basketball courts, there's a lot of different potential there to open up the water a little bit to be able to turn that into even more of a destination um that that represents, and as Kathy had said, um, Sand Island is the number one used park we have.

It is the biggest kind of regional destination we have as far as the most people coming down.

It's the middle of our city.

Um, so we're very much trying to center that going forward.

Um, and you know, we are, as we said, we're cutting the ribbon on Friendship Park.

We got Dead Cull Park coming up.

We have a lot of exciting projects going on here, but that kind of gives a little bit of flavor uh about 40 and 10.

And um, I would just finish by saying thank you again to council.

And I know some of you have been there longer than others, but we are only in this position because for 30 years, we've made long-term wise financial decisions.

Um, and we have spent one-time revenues on one-time expenditures, and we don't spend one time revenues on recurring expenditures.

And because of that, we are in a place where we're able to invest in our parks in a way that nobody else is.

And that's that's a big credit to to you for for voting that way and being responsible.

And with that being said, we that will wrap up our presentation.

Thank you, council.

Thank you very much.

Um, I'll first uh ask if anybody else from the administration has any additional comments to make.

Okay.

Uh so I am going to ask our committee members, um committee member who is here, uh, if you have any questions or comments.

Thank you, Chairwoman Laird.

Thank you, Mars, for presentation.

Sorry, I was a few minutes late and full disclosure.

I haven't had a chance to read the final report yet.

It's on my to-do list, but I do appreciate that it's not only accessible to council to anyone following along, it's on We Build Bethlehem.

So I I will make time to look at that.

So some of the questions might just be what's in the final report.

I don't necessarily need, you know, to get two in the weeds right now, but I I will before that just thank everybody for the work that went into it.

I know I'd reached out to Ms.

Collins and the planning department early on, just kind of with some feedback about my part of town.

And I know some of my family went out to some of the community meetings.

And Mayor Reynolds, your point about that access to a park and enjoying a park, it really, whether I rent my house, own my house, rent the apartment behind my house, have family staying with me, have family move in with me, everybody in the neighborhood, everybody in that part of town enjoys these resources equally, has the same access.

And just now that the weather's getting nice, we see it.

My brother and I spent about two hours on the greenway on Friday, and it was nice to see how many people were out there as we walked end to end.

And I educated him on what I could remember about what's coming down, you know, down the road.

And uh he reminded me about the bald eagle nest that we made, made uh uh stop to see.

But uh, I did want to just uh a couple questions.

If we could go the park types slide for my reference, there's a star or asterisk.

What does that represent next to some of the park names?

I may have missed that.

That's it fits in an EJ zone or not.

Environmental environmental justice.

Okay, thank you.

No, no, no problem.

Thank you.

And then in the final plan, does it identify each park exclusively and what a potential next 10 years may look like for that individual park?

So there are there are maps in the plan itself that identify what existing amenities there are and what anticipated amenities there could be based on all the factors, you know, what network it's in, what neighborhood, if it's um so kind of balancing that equity and accessibility within that.

So the maps themselves show that.

And then um as you go through the plan for like the experiences, et cetera, there's some tables there as well.

I I guess I'll jump just to what my question actually is because people ask me the old poll at Sulk and Park, obviously, as we talk about um installing certain amenities once we start moving Earth and seeing what utilities look like.

We don't know the feasibility, but it explores what options or what potential there is in all the parks.

Yeah.

Thank you.

And then there is reference to potential staffing needs over the next 10 years.

Okay.

And I could again I some of the stuff I could look at.

Yeah, and just on the staffing piece, is there's both like kind of like the potential programming staff, but also from like Mr.

Alcohol and maintenance point of view.

And some of it is gonna come down to how much do we, and I'm just making this up is like, do we want to see the grass cut every 10 days or are we okay with it being cut every 14 days?

And like, are those dollars spent better spent somewhere else?

But like thinking about what we're okay with as far as like maintenance people, and I'm once again just making this up is it's like say, hey, look, we want to add two more people to cut the grass um because we think we're not cutting the grass enough.

Like that matters when we think about what design we're gonna put into it.

So everybody wants grass, nobody likes blacktop.

We some of our parks are very institutional, but they also kind of built that way under this idea that like it would cut down on future maintenance costs.

Um, but that's at one of the things that's been on the top of our list.

And and Chris Sewell and everybody within Mike's department has been actively involved in those conversations because we want to build things that five years from now, 10 years from now will still look fresh and vibrant and things like that.

So it is it is included in there.

But some of those longer term uh conversations are ones that we need to that we still have to.

We're we're gonna just build out as we move through the years.

All right.

And then the last question I had was does the plan involve, I know many probably nine years ago, there was talk about selling potential city properties.

One or two may have been um little neighborhood parks.

Does the plan involve taking any parks out of our park inventory?

We did not we did not include that.

It's there's there'll be more conversation about what the potential uses are.

And like as we talked about before, is like where does it fit into the amenities of this particular network?

Um, but it is not something that we are currently we are currently considering.

Okay.

Thank you, Mayor Reynolds.

Thank you, everybody.

Uh recognize that committee member Callahan has arrived.

Uh the presentation wrapped up.

Um, but if you were able to look at the plan online or uh if you have any questions, no, no, I'm good with it.

Okay.

Um, so we have three other council members present.

Um, and I would like to invite you to make any comments that you have.

I see councilwoman Kwatec.

Thank you.

Um, I also was um thinking about the maintenance piece, and what really stood out to me was the 50% of the time is used for leaf removal.

Um, and really um thought about the ways that that could be changed in some way.

So I I see opportunities in in understanding the data of where our maintenance staff are deployed and and what their time is being used with.

So I really appreciated that being part of this plan.

Um, the only question I really had was about the current RFPs for the first three, and wondering um, are you looking for one construction manager to sort of take on all three?

How how was that kind of parcel?

So there would be two different contracts, one having to do the final design engineering.

And Mike, you can interrupt me at any point here.

And it with that one, the contract that we would be bringing to council in a couple of weeks.

The goal is to likely hire one firm to do the design and engineering as far as efficiencies are concerned, as far as the ability to be able to reach out to us, obviously, you know, if there's gonna be just we can figure that put out the construction piece, we're not positive yet.

Ideally, you would hire one firm to be able to do it because there'd be economies of scale as far as buying materials and things like that.

But we're not we're gonna have to we're gonna have to see whether or not somebody has the capacity to be able to do that.

Um, because that is a lot of work over the same period of time, and you need to have enough employees that aren't working on another project um to be able to do that.

And you know, I there's a lot of successful firms out there that do it, but the successful firms often bid on multiple jobs and they're multiple places, and you know, we're trying to minimize obviously how long that takes.

So, but that's one of those things that we are gonna kind of learn this first cycle through and see whether or not we're we're almost positive that we're gonna want to hire the same people to do the final design engineering, because that we think makes absolute sense.

The construction piece is one we're gonna kind of determine as we go on whether or not we think one firm has the capacity to be able to do all of that in essentially like the same like four or five month period.

Thanks.

That was all I had.

Okay, any other question.

Councilman Daniels.

Yes.

Um the 40 and 10 is it's an awesome, awesome idea.

Uh parks definitely are the uh the holding place for a lot of our communities, you know, gathering places.

The kids, of course, love them.

I grew up at Madison Park, that was the park near my home.

And the programming back then, as you spoke on earlier, was phenomenal.

There was kids there that were playing games with us and you know, throughout the day.

And unfortunately, we don't have that anymore.

We'll love to be able to bring that back.

Um, but my question, and I'm I have some confusion here.

You mentioned Sand Island, you mentioned Minocase Park, and then these three other parks.

So Sand Island, you were saying would be 2027.

For the master plan, and what what city council had approved was actually master planning dollars for Sauken, Minocase, and Sand Island.

Okay.

When we had initially planned for our master planning process in Sand Island for next year, we had not yet had the conversation with DCNR where we were we were going to be able to apply for the same pot of money.

We thought we were only going to be able to apply for money to do a plan for uh Sand Island, but the same grant would pay to be able to do master planning for Sauken and Menacasi.

But that's just the planning.

That's not the implementation.

That would come after plan the plan is done.

Okay, so as far as the planning and implementation for these other three, like when would the first part go underway potentially?

Yeah.

So that's so that's what we're reviewing.

The RFP for the design.

So the concept plans were put together through the community feedback and engagement process when we did 40 and 10.

So right now we are reviewing the RFPs.

So then theoretically, and we can send you like the month the month schedule and send it to Tad to get it out.

But those this year is going to essentially be planning, and then next year is going to be construction, with the idea that we're going to be done by the end of next year with construction for Clearview, Madison, and Bernie Fritz.

So this year is going to be engineering, utilities, community engagement, send all that stuff over, can bid the project, January, February, get them under so they can then do their construction from the middle of the summer through the fall.

Okay.

And be done by the end of next year.

All right.

Um the only, and I'm glad to see Madison in there.

I would have loved to have seen Yasko in there.

Um, and the only reason why I say that is because Madison and Yasco are the two primary parks that most people and children use on the South Side.

The other parks, um, I don't even know why some of them are even parks at this point.

Um, and actually, since I said that, Enix Park on Pawnee.

Uh, it's an afterthought, uh, to be honest with you.

And I believe that was the wording and then and an old park study that was on the website at one point.

I haven't been able to locate it recently, where each park uh was basically given.

Uh, what's the word I'm looking for?

They were they were uh like prioritized.

Exactly to that, yeah.

Um, and Enix was one on the low end along with a number of them on the south side.

And I I have to bring up the south side because I live on the south side.

Um, and of the parks that have been improved within the last four or five, six years, the south side hasn't seen much of anything as far as capital improvements are concerned.

There was a couple hundred thousand dollars put into Sauken to shore up uh some issues due to flooding down there.

Um, but outside of that, unless I'm wrong, I haven't seen any real improvements to any of the parks on the south side.

So there's obviously been the greenway continuation, which is kind of I don't consider that a park.

Uh it is it is I understand if it is a it is a public space, it is by definition a park, and um, but however we design it, however we want to define it.

Um, but there's also been a lot of money that's gone into Yasko as well.

Um, as far as the basketball courts are concerned, the splash pad, different things as far as the pool is concerned.

With within the last several years, but I will tell you that Yasko and Kathy had kind of or Corey had referenced the fact that Madison is like an anchor park is like Yasko is obviously an anchor park there as well.

Um, and it's also one that we've been heavy on helping with the programming with swimming lessons and things like that through Yasco.

Um, but it is going to be another one that will be that will be talked about um in the in the coming coming months and the coming years, as far as like what it is that we necessarily could could make some make some investments in.

Because that is one that that is one that came up in the community feedback as well.

Um, and one of the things that came up in Yasco was as much as it is the capital improvements, it was the potential for programming, potential for how do you get more kind of supervised uh programming there.

And I know that's something Anna has been focusing on with C D C A D C B and things like that.

So, like that's actually Yasco is a good example of one that there are capital improvements to be made, but the programming piece of it is like what's going on on a day-to-day basis there is the type of thing that we don't necessarily need to wait to spend capital dollars on, which is part of our ongoing kind of programming conversation, both internally and also externally, as far as like third party groups coming in.

But as far as one of the other things too that we're actually talking about now, and we have a meeting coming up on is like the idea of being able to have more, I almost want to say kind of like flexible programming leaders.

So, like in the pools, for example, like if pools are don't have enough lifeguards, there's like substitutes or remove people over there.

So the type of ideas like if we have two or three summer help programmers that we currently don't have now is like do you send somebody over to Yasco for four or five days in a row to help to like organize programming and things like that?

Those are ongoing conversations that we're having.

But like the programming piece at Yasko is one that has come up a lot about how can we do more supervised organized activities, which isn't gonna have to wait for any type of plan for us to do.

We're just actively talking about that now.

No, the programming would be awesome, uh, definitely.

Uh, but just as far as the actual park itself is concerned, outside of the the pool, um, the basketball courts that I did notice were patched up and painted last summer, I guess it was.

Um, they have a splash pad that halfway works.

Um, but there's really not a lot of play equipment there.

And I think for the most part, it's because of that huge rock.

Rock rock.

Uh yeah.

I I guess getting rid of that would be a bit much.

Um, but yeah, I mean, something um needs to be done with that park.

Um, it's I I've spoken with children there with their parents, and most of them are pretty upset with the way that the park is set up currently.

And I I know you can't do everything for everyone all the time, but um, it just seems that most of the improvements are on this side of town, you know, at a tune of seven, eight million dollars, and the south side is getting two, three, four hundred thousand dollars.

Yeah.

So when we're looking at equity, yeah, it's not there.

I I would tell you, at least during my kind of 20 years here, is between the improvements that we've made to Sauken Park, and I will tell you, and as you've said, is like by definition, the in South Bethlehem, some of the kind of defined parks and defined areas are just not by like the urban kind of landscape is not necessarily the same as some of the space in other areas.

But between Sauken, I think the greenway altogether is going to cost about 20 million dollars over like a 20-year period between Yasco, but it's part of the reason why we have prioritized Madison in an area where listening to people in the neighborhood as well.

And you said, and I lived in that neighborhood for several years, 20 years ago as well as it it just it's one that people feel was not a lot of there wasn't a lot of interest in, which is why we prioritized it as far as the first one is concerned.

Um, but the more funding that we have, the more parks we're going to be able to do.

Um, and I do want to give credit to Anna Smith, who is really focused on this programming piece over the past couple of years as well.

And we've tried to work with her and work with the recreation bureau as far as increasing the programming, increasing swim lessons, increasing basketball, increasing things like that.

Um and you know, we've seen some some there, but there's always there's always more to be able, there's more to be able to do.

We built the skate park, um, which continues to be busy um 15 years ago, um, which is really kind of the first of its kind.

Um, so we're we're trying to make, we're trying to make as many investments as as we can in different areas and and we'll continue to do that.

But your point on the programming, especially at Yosco is what I think is kind of like the thing that we can focus on the most in the short term.

And as far as Madison is concerned, I actually received an email um from um constituent uh neighbor up there who complained of the slide being broken.

Um there's a blue uh swing on the swing set, this large blue swing.

I've never seen anything like it, but they're saying it's dangerous, the kids are falling out of it.

Um I went up there yesterday to take a look, and the slide is actually boarded up, so you can't even go on the slide.

Okay.

Outside of that, there's really not much other, you know, play equipment up there um for them to deal with, for them to work with, play with.

So if you guys can take a look at the slide, I don't know if there's something you can swap out temporarily, if there's an old piece of equipment somewhere you can move in there temporarily.

We can we can certainly do that blue swing that we can certainly take a look and see see where it's at.

And I'm assuming the city was already up there if it's boarded.

Yeah, I I don't know about that particular slide or that particular swing, but I do know that one of the things that we're working on as well is um that there is an annual kind of maintenance fund that helps to replace fix these things, and that's kind of operated that's been going on for a while.

So it's if you show up to a park, it's not necessarily a brand new park plan and things like that, but there's a new swing set or something was broken and things like that.

So we can absolutely do some research to see see what that kind of history is and if there's any temporary improvements before the park is kind of done in like the next like 18 months.

But we'll we'll absolutely look into that.

Thank you.

Something to add to that.

If you do find something right now, we are going around the parks checking on various things.

And when someone brings something to our attention, we appreciate it because then we can go address it.

So with there being 43 parks, it's hard for us to catch everything.

So we do look forward to so anytime you want to email um please let us know, send pictures, whatever it is.

Send pictures.

I actually I have some pictures, so I'll send them over to you.

They really do get get on for you.

So if there is an issue, we'll we will check it out and really take care of it.

Replacing something right away sometimes is hard because when you have just the slide a couple of years ago, just to give you an example, um, there was a tube that was broken.

And that's what it is, actually.

It's a tube.

And what um happens with the tubes is you take them out.

We have to look all over the place to find your staff fees.

So it's not as easy back.

So we do our best and you have to make it safe.

Sometimes what we have to do is take it off the two um safety panels there, but we we do our best to replace it.

Just sometimes hard to find the um pieces that you don't want when you need them.

Okay, yeah, because the woman that emailed me, she was upset because she has to take her grandchildren to Fountain Hill.

Yes, okay.

I'll take it out.

I'll run over tomorrow.

Thank you.

That's all I have.

This is also the period of time where a lot of our parks people are going out there to put down new mulch and things like that.

One of the things that happened this year that is the worst is when you get those, it's great for people, but when you get those real like warm days in like March and April before our maintenance guys have the opportunity to go out there and they're doing other things during the winter, so they can't go out there to like check a slide in January or February because they got other stuff going on.

So when they get to it in March with the amount of people we have that are working on this, it sometimes is like sometimes we don't necessarily discover what has broken in the last month or so.

But I mean, if it's bored up, sounds like there's some type of plan.

So we'll get to that information then as soon as we can.

Okay, thank you.

Councilwoman Leo.

Uh just a couple of of quick things.

I also did want to call out the uh the programming um and give a big thank you to Corey as well as well as everyone.

You were there for the public and green space committee meeting that happened just recently, where there was a portion of this that was presented to the public and green space committee, and there were tears.

Um, there was like we're seeing a culmination of activism that's taken place over a couple of years when it comes to not just water in the park, but the idea of cooling stations, um, a cooling station as like whether it's a water fountain or a splash pad in places that are just hotter um in Bethlehem than other areas.

So these are are incredible things at uh public or public and green space.

We also threw our support around the Southside Sluggers, the the shooting stars, whatever they called and the the um swimming program in Yosco.

So the need for programming continues to be there, but there is a big push for it, and I really appreciate that.

Uh the other thing that I wanted to call out um was a bit about uh Socken Park.

I know we've had conversations about Talk and Park.

I I don't believe um a pool would ever make sense there again, given the floodplain and everything, but the investments that have already been made there.

I live right behind Sauken Park and seeing that park be so alive, and it is very alive on the weekends and at weeknights.

So it's really good to see this.

Um you talked about the pace of grants, and I think part of our community frustration as well as elected frustration with bureaucracy is you join to do good things, and then you realize good things take 15 years, and you hope that you can do a good thing, and that the council after you will continue to value it and hold it.

Um, so to be able to cut that level of red tape to see something done immediately is not just refreshing for the community, but it's refreshing for public servants who get exhausted with not making traction.

Um appreciate the the thought process.

And yes, also council plays its role um in doing the support, but being able to walk the path together where we're actually making progress is a really really good thing.

Um, so I just wanted to call that out again.

And the other thing was Ducko Park.

It's funny to me, I've heard a lot of conversation regarding that park recently because so many people didn't realize it was a park.

And it was like, what is the city doing putting a slide there?

And it's like, actually, it's always been a park.

Um, drove past that place multiple times, never knew it was a park.

So as the city continues to change, it's really good to see like our parks becoming parks, people being able to call them out as parks um and prioritizing the way the public uses the parks, whether it is water, whether it's cooling stations.

Um, it's just this is a net positive.

The only like the only concern that I have, which continues to be a concern, and we've talked about this before, is it's 40 and 10.

Uh, and there is not a single like the term that is 10 years.

So I hope that the councils and that come after us, the mayor that comes after us, continue to value this work and do it to completion so that we can do 40 in the 10 years that it would take to do it.

Thanks, Council Council President.

And I would tell you is the good news is we're gonna be able to get most of the big projects done in the next four years.

Um, so 40 and 10, and as you talked about, and the projects we're going to talk about in the future, between the master planning for the big parks and then also those anchor parks, um, some of those other community parks just take less investment as far as like a capital dollars amount.

Um, so we're very much focused on what are we able to do over the next we said, like think of this as like cycle one where we announced the first set of parks in like April of 2026, is that we should be able to get a lot of those done in a way, and especially through different funding that we're thinking about over the next couple of years, that we are basically making those promises and starting starting the starting the train in a way that like it's not going to be able to be slowed down.

I have one thing I want to say.

Um, in reference to Salcon Park, I just want to respectfully disagree with the the pool situation.

And I know I've been told before that the possibility of a pool going into Salcon because of the flooding um is nil to to never.

Uh I guess I would like to see why that would be the case, how much flooding has taken place and why that area of land couldn't be built up to accommodate a pool before we knock it out all together.

And I and I think I think that's part of the reason why we've hesitated to make any temporary decisions as far as what to do there is because that's going to be this one of the centerpieces of the master planning for the community and for everybody is like what do you do with that and also what is feasible?

And as far as like I don't know, once again, I'm not saying that this I'm just thinking about the different options.

You fill the park in, do you try to turn into a splash pad?

Do you take the fence down?

Like what do you you know do you try to rehab something there and turn it into something else?

I think that would be the centerpiece of the master planning conversation, which we don't think is our right necessarily to go in and do something that then makes the master plan conversation more limited or more difficult to do, or take more.

And let's say that like we just said, hey, we don't want to look at this anymore, and we choose option A.

And then by choosing option A, we've taken option B, C and D and made all of them 500,000 more in the future, um, which is why we're so excited that we're going to be able to do this this master planning for SOC and Minocase and Sand Island at the same time.

I can't wait to see it.

Uh, you know, because Southside, we only have the one pool, Yasko, very small pool.

Yeah.

Um so yeah, I would just love to see a pool back at Sulkin somehow.

Maybe I'll pay for it.

I I was a lifeguard there.

I was a lifeguard there for four years.

So I loved it, I love to be in a lifeguard there.

Okay.

Um, so I think that that is everyone's uh comments from the rest of council.

Um I want to echo the thanks and kudos for the hard work on this.

Umni's did a great job.

Uh and I think it's a really good example of um us as a city leveraging our local experts.

Um where it's a consultant, but they are from our general community and and did a fantastic job.

Um the announcement event uh or the reveal event was great.

It was wonderful turnout.

I was so glad to see that and glad to see people bringing their children to uh you know, experience what civic engagement can look like and get excited about the parks.

Um and then some of the uh programming that's already started, like the walks.

Um, I actually have a family member who went on the first one and signed up to go on the second one, which I think is right now.

Yeah, uh they're they're down there on Sand Island, I think.

Uh so he said so uh, you know, I I heard great things about it, and I'm glad to see that.

And very glad based on public comment that we had here at council and concerned emails about water fountains and bottle filling that that's in the works already for these first few parks.

So um, you know, thank you.

I'm hoping that as the public engagement events uh for planning those first three continue that um or get started, uh there could be either canvassing or mailing to the immediate addresses, um, not necessarily the property owners, but the people who live there if they're renters, uh, to be able to come and you know definitely participate.

And that's one of the plans.

And once we get the firm under contract, um, but this next stage, and we've talked about this before is like you hire somebody from the outside because you either need the expertise or you don't have the time.

So one of the things that Omni's was good at was being able to help us to do some of that community engagement.

But now these community engagement moving forward is going to be Kathy and Corey and everybody within their own department talking about housing, all that kind of stuff, but it includes neighborhood solicitation, reaching out to people, talking to, for example, a Clearview, Clear Elementary School, whatever the different institutions, you know, Anna's been involved up there as well around Madison.

So trying to get to all these groups with enough time period, but that involves the neighborhood as well.

Um cool.

So uh I had a couple of other questions.

Um 40 plus in 10.

Uh, how many parks are not included?

How many properties that are technically considered parks are not included in the 40 and 10?

But depends what you define as a park as far as as far as like public spaces concerned versus what is a park or whatever.

That was actually a follow-up question.

Is Payroll Plaza considered a park?

Oh, yes.

It is okay.

Is that included?

Yes.

Okay.

It's it's there under the community park.

Okay, cool.

So yeah, what is it?

17 list.

We spent a lot of time in the beginning of this deciding what are we going to include?

And initially, Payroll Plaza was not considered a park.

But we talk even the memorial, um, the steel workers memorials considered anything that is a gathering space, we've added as a park.

Great.

So 43 is pretty much as comprehensive as you're going to get.

That's great.

Um when we're looking at the data about uh how many hours are spent with leaf removal and mowing and clearing snow on paths, and so that's more as we add more paths.

Um can we explore, like you said, okay, maybe we mow every 14 days instead of 10 days, for example.

Uh, can we also explore?

Do we actually need to collect all the leaves?

Some I know we do because of the gutters and everything.

Um, but could there be areas, especially if we're doing e uh ecological restoration where we can actually cut out bigger portions of that, or say this for the winter is not a cleared path.

Or we I don't know if we're allowed to not clear like an internal park path and say this is for snowshoeing in the winter.

Um I like where your head's at.

Um I would tell you that I think it would depend on we'd have to have like a legal conversation about what signage you need and so on and so forth.

But it hits at a bigger point, is like how sustainable do we want to be?

And what ends up happening, and I don't care about this because I don't mind explaining this to people, but we have some of these areas that are like no mow areas.

Yeah, and you know that monoxy and things like that, and some areas around like stream banks and things like that.

And some people understand what it is, and other people look at that and say, like, and that contributes to their like the city's not taking care of the care of the maintenance of the parks.

Like, no, no, this is intentional that we're choosing not to do it.

But there's also balancing acts.

And I'll tell you, like there's one place in the city where you don't allow that where we don't mow, and people in the neighborhood said kids go back there to drink underage.

So, like you're balancing those factors, but the idea about like doing this in a sustainable manner, some of it comes down to like what are people just willing to deal with as far as like the complaints are concerned and whether or not we're okay with explaining what we think is the problem or why we did that intentionally or not.

And like I personally don't have a problem explaining it, or I don't think we have a problem explaining it, but it's something we just get feedback on because different people have different feelings in that.

But I would tell you that like our minds are very open to that.

Great.

I reference to 50% of the popular voters for each collection, not just the department.

Right.

Oh, across the city.

That's not the city.

Okay.

Good to know.

Good to know.

Um, and then the only other uh could we consider uh in looking how to implement the plan would be in cooling stations, um or cooling features.

Um could missing stations or were they looked at in uh those uh features like as possibilities for the different parks because I'm thinking about maybe it does come up that it's not um feasible to do a splash pad where we would ideally like to, or maybe it's a park that is near a senior center, and they're not necessarily gonna be going in the splash pad, maybe their grandkids are, but it's gonna be 95 degrees and humid in a largely unair conditioned neighborhood, and they would benefit from a cooling like a misting thing like they have at the amusement parks.

Um is that on the radar?

I think everything is a consideration, and one of the things that we're looking to do as far as talk to different whoever the firm is is come back to us with different options and like what is possible and what is not possible.

Um, so absolutely if it exists, it will be considered as a possibility.

All right.

Um, I think that that was all of my questions.

Just thank you again, and thank you for taking the time to be here and go a little bit more in depth with um this committee uh outside of that public uh presentation that we had a few weeks ago.

So um if there's nothing else, I'm gonna give us uh about five minutes until we dive into our full council meetings.

So uh this was for informational purposes only, and uh we did not make any decisions or votes tonight, and this meeting is adjourned.