Good afternoon, everybody.

This is Tuesday, August 20th, 2024, 3 p.m.

We're here for a special meeting and a joint work session.

All council members are present as well as parks and recreation commission members Becker, Crib, and Petrillo.

Thank you.

I'm gonna start with item number one, which is a joint workshop for the parks and rec that will be followed by uh political signs.

So Toby.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Council members, and uh distinguished park commissioners.

Thank you for joining us today.

Uh this afternoon we're gonna talk about the revised uh master plan for community park.

This has been many, many years in the in the making.

Um tried to count up how many workshops we've had about community park, and it's been well over a dozen over the years since I've been your city manager, and just this continual uh thought process of how we make the best uh master plan for our residents, visitors, and those who utilize our parks.

And so community park is you know is that jewel that we have on the Colorado River, and a meeting we had probably six, seven years ago.

I I remember Fred Lamb and Danny were at that meeting and kind of a cold winter night, and one of the things that Dr.

Lamb had brought up, he said, can we just see the river finally?

And you know, then we just started that gradual process of creating what is now community park.

For those who haven't lived here all that long, it wasn't that long ago that you couldn't see most of the river from the roadway, it was just a big brush, scrub brush area, and now it's being used uh every day by our residents and visitors.

And so what you're gonna see this afternoon is one of the most beautiful master plans that we could envision.

Again, based primarily on what's best for our residents and those who come and visit Bullhead City.

So you're gonna see fishing piers and dog parks and some amazing things that our architect has put together.

So uh we're gonna have John Griffin from EPG Terracon, who the council hired many months ago to work on a master plan.

And he took all the information from all those workshops, working with staff and and you know, meeting and greeting the community where they were using those facilities and talking to them.

Um anybody who's in the audience, I would encourage you if you're so inclined to do so, to move as close as you can to the monitor.

There's probably about 50 slides that John is gonna show, and uh you'll have a better time seeing it if you're closer to the uh to the monitors in the room.

Um so with that, Mayor, I'll turn it over to John Griffin, who's a uh professional in the uh world of park planning, and uh he'll introduce himself, tell you a little bit about himself, and then he's got a pretty pretty rambunctious uh slideshow that he's gonna be giving us.

And if you don't mind, mayor, um, we can go through his entire presentation, and then council park commission can uh ask any questions that you'd like, and then you'll have time for the public as well.

Thank you.

John?

Thank you, City Manager.

No?

Yeah, I think it's on.

It's on, but it's not that loud.

Yeah, I like just turn it off.

Okay, I'll keep testing to see if it gets better as I go.

Uh Mayor, Council, Parks Commission, residents of Bullhead City.

There we go.

Really appreciate this opportunity to present the work that we've been working on very hard with your staff and and with City Manager Cotter on this master plan for the community park.

Um, as we began the project, we and I don't know if I can go to the first slide.

Hey John, could you do me?

Just hold it up higher.

They'll they'll turn it up, but just so everybody can hear you.

Okay, got it.

Okay, so we've been working on this for a while with with the city manager and and city staff.

Um as part of this process, when we first kicked it off, one of the very first things that was mentioned to us was this particular site, the community park site itself is such a unique opportunity.

It's over a mile of riverfront along the Colorado River that people can actually get out and get into the river, which is very unique for a river walk type project.

Um we were given the the vision to start with and build off of uh that this could be the one of the premier river walks um and premier destinations in the Western United States.

And so as we began this um process, we wanted to start looking at what precedent-setting river walks typically included.

Um, starting with looking at what was at the time the 10 best river walks in the United States.

Many of these you might not be familiar with.

Many of these you might not be familiar with, obviously, I think most people are familiar with San Antonio River Walk.

And as we were looking at these, we were looking at what the common elements were that went into a destination river walk that included the lighting, the nightlife, shade structures, the interface, and that active interactivity with the water itself.

And again, looking at keep going.

What these potential sites could give us for information about what might be the opportunities here in Bullhead City.

So advancing on this, get my slide to go, maybe.

There it goes.

One of them, the Spokane Waterfront Park is maybe a little less known.

Up in again in the city of Spokane in Washington, about keep advancing it, about half the size of what you have here in Bullhead City in the community park.

And giving you in context in green the dimensions of their site versus in orange the size of the community park space just up between the highway and the river.

As we were evaluating this, we were looking at the different activities that were taking place.