Speaker numbers apply only to this recording. Names come from transcript evidence. “Possibly” marks uncertain attribution.
The Board of Park Commissioners met on Thursday, October 15, 2026, at 5:30 PM in Council Chambers at La Crosse City Hall. The meeting lasted approximately 70 minutes and was adjourned at 6:40 PM. All nine commissioners were present except Eileen Kirsch (excused). The board considered ten agenda items, including agreements, concept approvals, event permits, fee schedules, and capital project updates. All voting items were approved, with one abstention on the La Crosse Loggers use agreement.
Good evening. I am going to call to order this meeting of the Board of Park Commissioners. It's Thursday, October 15th, 2026 at 530. Commissioner Kirsch is excused. Everybody else is here in Council Chambers. Our first order of business is approval of the minutes. And just to note, we didn't have a September meeting, so these would be the minutes of the August meeting. Motion by Councilmember Weston. Second by Commissioner Young. Any discussion about the minutes? All right, seeing none, can we please vote all in favor of approving the minutes? Any opposed or abstentions? All right. That motion passes unanimously. Our next item is notices and discussions. Do any commissioners have any notices or discussions they'd like to share? Any staff member have any notices or discussions they'd like to share? Okay. Okay. Commissioner Wilson, go ahead. You can push your button. Hi. I just wanted to say I was at the uh ribbon cutting ceremony for the new Goose Island connector bike trail that's today in it. In the rain, unfortunately, but uh it's great to have that new trail, and it looks like it'll be a good addition. Okay. So this kind of is kind of a moving piece. So the first thing is why? Like why do we have why are we restating this lease? First, as you kind of look at the lease, there are four sections of the lease that have been approved throughout the years with the uh the first use agreement and then the first, second, and third amendments. What this does is this current restated use agreement pulls all of those um agreements amendments into place. Um then this document bec it will supersede all of those documents and then become the controlling document going all the way back. Um then I know your questions are going to be what changes. Um the first thing is the loggers made a significant investment in new field tour for the 2026 year. Um this will then extend the agreement beyond the twenty thirty-four year into twenty forty-three. So this extends the loggers in Copeland Park until twenty forty-three, which for us is awesome, right? This it's good for both parties, and we're really happy with that. Um other changes that are in this document that would be different than the other ones would be the scheduling aspect. Right now, the schedule this um the scheduling of the stadium is in um the city's hands. This will now place the scheduling of the stadium in the loggers' hands. This in part will reduce staff time within our department as um requests become available. You know, we have our normal users of the loggers and the steam and the school district, but in the in the spring, we get inundated in a pretty good approach by outside users to try to use the field because their fields are not ready. So this then kind of puts all of that on the loggers, which for us we are just okay with because they have to reach out to the loggers anyways. So it pulls that away from us, which we're happy with. Um and then what that'll what that does is reduce staff time within our department, which also has helped for us to be efficient.