Okay, we're good to go.

All right, I'd like to call to order the City of Norman Board of Parks Commissioners meeting for Thursday, August 7th, 2025.

Uh first thing we'll do is roll call, Billy Davison.

Here Christy Isaacson here, Mark Nanny.

Here Cheryl Sheriff here, Tori Ted or Laughlin.

Here, here.

Ellen Esri.

Christy Wright.

Here.

Christina Wyckoff.

Here.

All right.

Very good.

First item is consideration of approval, acceptance, rejection, admitment, and or postponement of the minutes as follows.

Board of Park Commissioners regular meeting minutes of May 1st, 2025.

Do I have a motion to approve these minutes?

I'll motion to approve.

Thank you, Christy.

Do I have a second?

Oh, go ahead.

Thank you, Todd.

Okay.

All in favor.

Any opposed.

Okay.

Approved.

Uh second item is discussion items.

Consideration of approval acceptance rejection amendment andor postponement for the special recognition to honor AIM parks subcommittee for their outstanding commitment and dedication work on the Ames Parks Recreation and Cultural Master Plan.

It's a mouthful.

I can uh take that from here.

We wanted to here here in the parks department, we just went through a two-year, might have been more than two years.

Seemed like at times it seemed like it was lasting decades, but uh we we had uh not only a plan for master uh master planning our park, which kind of outlays what we're gonna look like and what our park system's gonna look like for over the next 15 to 20 years, uh, but it was a full encompassing plan that covered everything from a land plan to stormwater to transportation.

Uh we covered so many subjects and it was a big haul for for the city.

It was a uh big hall for the parks department, and we just wanted to recognize uh the residents who dedicated their time and commitment to making this plan.

We uh as a parks department were very happy with what we got.

Uh th this uh focused a lot on arts and we wanted to make sure that when we start looking in the future and uh how we build out our department and how we build out our park system, uh arts is a big part of it, and we I think we um accomplished a lot of things then uh when the next couple generations start looking at what uh what our park system is at that point uh is gonna be a lot of thanks to the people that that spent their time um and wanted to come out here and outline how our parks department is gonna look.

So we have some uh plaques, and I know that not everybody showed up, but uh I'll call out some names, and I we have our chair, and I don't know if she wants to say a few uh words, but um she said she missed it.

Well you you can come hang out with us at park boarding time you want to.

She said she missed us.

So uh Lee Hall was our chair.

We had Amanda Prince, Dennis Bringham, Jennifer Baker, Marcus Madlock, Mark Nanny, uh Sarah Snack, Cheryl Sheriff, and we had an alternate of Roberta Pells, who uh passed away um through the process, but we wanted to take the time.

We do have awards and we have a special gift for our chair, Miss Lee, to uh and if you want to say anything, we'll um we'll pass these out to those who are here and recognize.

Uh well I just want to say thank you to the parks uh staff and um it was just a really love that um Cheryl Um so athlete represented the Parks Commission on uh the subcommittee and Mark Nanny who's now transitioned to the parks commission um has been uh a devoted supporter of what ended up being one of the number one recommendations out of the parks and master plan, which is a comprehensive trail network, which in multiple venues and multiple places, including all of the um civic engagement pieces we did for A Norman.

It was really astonishing to see how much support there is within our community to continue to look forward and make that dream come true of having a comprehensive trail network at all.

So we couldn't have done it without wonderful staff to support what we did.

So we really appreciate all of you.

So thank you.

Thank you.

If we can get our uh AIM committee who's here for social media, yeah.

It was on an item.

Fantastic.

And I just want to add again that Lee did such an excellent job in um heading up our committee and reporting back to the main committee, and uh just thank thank you for all your work that you did.

We had fun.

Yeah, we did indeed.

Looking forward to some of those being implemented.

Okay, is that all you have on that?

Okay.

Item three consideration or of approval, acceptance, rejection, amendment, and or postponement of previously approved city council items.

I'll try to fly through these real quick.

There's a lot of them.

We had uh we haven't met in a couple months, but we were pretty busy over those last few months.

Uh June 10th, we did present the Westwood Master Plan that uh was at a special meeting, no action was taken on that, so that's still hanging out.

Um the Westwood Master Plan is now in a spot where uh council has requested another presentation, so we're gonna do that at Baca in a uh next month, and then hopefully get it adopted uh sometime by the end of August or early September.

Uh and June 10th uh regular council meeting, we had our Juneteenth uh proclamation along with uh adoption of the AIME master plan, where that might have been first reading of the AIM master plan uh on the June 24th.

We had another proclamation uh for parks and recreation month.

Uh we had uh an amendment to uh a contract with RDG uh design.

Uh it was adding uh this was uh adding ten thousand dollars to our comprehensive plan uh which includes a parks and uh recreation and trails master plan.

Uh we had an amendment to our contract with GSB, who's doing our Westwood master plan, uh final acceptance of a project for sports lighting at WIFAC, which is the Sand volleyball courts and pickleball courts behind the YFAC.

Uh we had a a we granted a bid for the the bid um construction of Bishop Creek Equal Park with uh Downey contracting, which um we are planning on um starting work this month.

Uh the uh we did lease back space at both Irving and Whittier Recreation Centers to operate uh child care programming for the next 25 years.

Uh resolution um transferring 75,000 dollars for an emergency mole project at City Hall.

Once again, we do building maintenance in the parks and recreation department as well.

Uh and then also on June 24th, we adopted the AIM master plan, which more importantly for this group was for the Parks Recreation and Cultural Plan.

Uh July 8th.

Uh, we had an appropriate uh uh funding for an emergency repair at Westwood Family Aquatics Center.

June 22nd, we had an amendment or a brand new contract with Colton Craig Design for a beautification plan at Westwood Golf Course, and then uh this is one that's really cool and long long overdue.

Uh also on June 22nd, we had a interlocal agreement with the Department of Mental Health for the purchasing of Griffin Park.

So we have I don't know if y'all know the news, but we we own a park that has a soccer complex in it that's been floating out there for many decades, but love to take any questions that you have any on any of these council.

I have one quick question.

Was the leak, was this another one?

So you're talking about it, Westwood.

Spring when we get out there, and we we try to fill the pool and this was in addition to the other one.

Well, this is a brand new one for this year.

Okay.

So every single year we have we always find some kind of leak.

Uh we actually knew about this leak.

This was existing all the way back to last year.

Uh it started leaking at some point during the season of the previous year.

We didn't get around to fixing it until we open up the pool.

This one was a little bit more severe than what we we thought it or hoped it was going to be, but uh we were losing several thousand gallons a day last year towards the end of the season, and so uh we got that fixed for this year.

Any other questions on any of these items?

I have a question.

Go ahead.

I was just gonna say a comment about getting Griffin, the land, the murals are amazing.

And I just think it adds an extra bonus to that property now.

They're really cool.

Yes, I agree with you.

So kudos for sure.

I have a curiosity question.

Um on page 64.

Didn't did you I got lost um in the in all of in the 211 pages?

Um wasn't sure.

Did you just go through that?

What the things that you just listed off to that include page 64?

So I believe that is the full ordinance that was adopted to coincide with the parks, trails, and master plan.

But that that's all all the plans were combined in there.

We just made that as one uh we added it all in there, but that's one long action.

I was just curious why on uh on page 64 the section 10 was stricken.

It didn't have any explanation.

Uh that is probably at some point during the ordinance that it could have been between first and second reading that that was taking out.

I I really don't know if that would probably be something if you would like to answer for it.

We can ask the attorney's office.

Okay, I was curious.

Thanks.

I have a question on page um 94.

Uh talked about the meeting on June 24th about the uh Digital Creek Eco Park.

And I was just trying to figure out what the um contracting company will be specifically doing for that for that part.

So it's a brand new undeveloped park, it's right there in car uh on the corner of uh Carter and Alameda.

So it's uh we had a presentation, it's been a while since uh it's been presented, but if if y'all like a refresher, we can probably bring that back at a later time.

But it's completely the construction and development of a of a stormwater-based park.

So the design is complete and done.

We're constructing the park.

Okay, okay, so that's why it's a million dollars.

Okay, yeah.

Yeah, and uh it was very hard to get back to a million dollars.

Uh everything that got designed, uh, the the estimate was I think it was coming in at 1.2, and then when we put it out for actual bid, it came it actually bid out for about 1.8.

So it took us uh about 60 days to get it back to a point where we could afford it.

Okay.

Any other questions?

Okay, we'll move on.

Item four consideration of approval, rejection, adminment, and or postponement of renewing the public parkland decision for St.

James Park edition with the increased land requirement being located adjacent to the existing park land located along South Lake Boulevard.

That's the name of the item.

That's crazy.

I know, yeah.

Okay, I think they did that just to try to tongue tie me.

Yeah.

So okay, uh St.

James Park edition.

You may think, well, that already exists, but you're correct.

Um, if you're to drive down 24th Avenue East, just south of Highway 9, you will get into St.

James Edition.

Um, so what you see in the uh sort of yellow is the rest of the edition, the part where uh you can see the big roundabout.

That's the part they've already built over the years.

It all started once upon a time, a South Lake edition that that part um sort of on the in the southwest corner of the yellow is the old South Lake edition.

Well, they built so much and gave us a little bit of park land, and then uh it all sold off, and and the developers have uh since made it St.

James Park.

So, all along getting back to South Lake and then the original St.

James edition, we uh had a park land decision.

Very obvious, it's over 600, almost 700 houses, more over over 700 when you count in South Lake.

So it's required to have a public park land.

So just kind of getting your bearings there.

It's it's just east of Highway 77 or Classen, just north, it goes extends all the way from Highway 9 down to Cedar Lane.

Um, when they finally build out, there will actually be an intersection at 24th and Cedar Lane Road just by the uh the Walmart and future developments down there.

So uh next slide you can see.

So that's the part that we're looking at now.

The the original plat for all of St.

James, the preliminum uh preliminary plat expired, and or they redesigned what was left to build and brought it forward as a revised preliminaries while you're looking at it now.

So, all of that to say.

Um over the years we have collected parts of the parkland that's shown on the plat.

So the original plat set aside this sh weird shape you see here for a park.

Although it's all eventually contiguous land along South Lake Boulevard there.

So you see, we got in 1980 some odd, we got land from South Lake, and then in 2009, 2012, 2015, um, we've gotten land from the developers that have built St.

James Park edition.

All with the goal of eventually getting all that parkland needed to us, and we will then proceed to build a park.

And it's one of the park sites that was identified in the 2015 Norman Forward vote.

So we've just built Bentley Park.

Um, we're getting ready to build Bluestem Park.

They're also kind of down in the south east southeast part of the city.

So uh this is the next one or the last one that we'll build off of the Norman Forward funding.

So there's funding set aside to build a park.

We also have neighbor collected neighborhood park fees over the years.

So you can see where South Lake, I don't have a pointer.

I wish I could have a pointer.

You can see where the park land curves around that that's the dead end of South Lake Boulevard right now.

But if you go back one, when they build the if they when they build, no, that's fine.

When they build this rest of St.

James edition, they will connect South Lake Boulevard, kind of in the dead middle on the uh left side there.

That's where they will connect.

So now St.

James and South Lake will connect.

And go ahead and go up to the parkland exhibit again.

The long story of this land is there's also plausibly, potentially, more land that will be available in the future to add to the required parkland.

So St.

James slash South Lake have always had a fixed amount of land they owe by ordinance.

They show on their plats more land that could be parkland once they are done using that land, they have to build detention pond, they have to traverse that land, they have to grade, they have so there's a lot of things they need to do on some of that land.

So whenever they're done, um, based on all their calculations of where they need dirt and where they need detention and all that, they will possibly have more land that they can sell us and we will willingly buy because we've also collected funds over the years from the Renaissance apartments and Chapel Ridge that have been sitting in an account to buy additional parkland.

So here we are today, and really all we're looking at today is the fact that the revised preliminary plat of St.

James as a whole brings their total build out in all of the phases of of St.

James Park edition to 692 lots instead of the 601 lots that were shown in 2003 when it was originally platted.

So your your what we are recommending is that we continue on with the uh recommendation for a public park decision for St.

James Edition, just as a slightly larger amount of land.

We now are required in a total of 4.5326 acres from them instead of 3.96.

We've actually already collected 3.309 acres of them.

So if you if you take all of those numbers and it's in the report, we essentially will at some point here soon we hope get a 1.2 about one and a quarter more acres.

We believe that land is probably available in those areas that are not colored in adjacent to the parkland, which is those strips of color.

So having said all of that, what uh staff is recommending is that we take a land, we continue the land decision for St.

James Edition with the uh, and we've talked to the developer um about continuing that decision and the hope that we collect the uh additional required parkland now and then whatever additional parklands available to purchase later, we'll deal with that later.

So that will help us build a over five-acre park, um almost six-acre park along South Lake Boulevard and fulfill the long ago dreams of South Lake that became the dreams of St.

James Park, which are part of the Norman Forward funding.

So we're we're ready to go at any point on this.

And I will take questions as they come up.

I plan to be here all night, so it should make sense though.

Well, basically, it says staff recommends renewing, don't is it kind of more like revising?

Oh, yeah, yeah, the the plat is revised, but we're just re-upping our recommendation for how to deal with their parkland requirements.

With the increased land requirement.

Okay.

Yes.

Anybody have any questions?

And and this truly hasn't been thought um planned out, right?

The park.

Which one?

Well, what is there a place that where this extra land would be taken from the on the screen right now?

You see those two dashed lines that are uh well, you see three strips of color right there, and then on either end of those, there's some dashed uncolored areas.

That's gonna accommodate most of what's the rest of the requirement for them.

So we want land adjacent to what we are.

We already own the colored strips.

So we want to acquire the connect the areas adjacent to those just to have one big contiguous piece of land.

That, oh, there you go.

That, and then the other one on the uh that one.

Oh, okay.

Those would be the ones we are seeking the deeds for right now, and then all the rest of that around the pond and all that uncolored area.

That's land that they still need to work with to finish building their addition.

They'll have to increase the size of the pond.

They're doing engineering studies to figure out they may need to dredge that pond deeper anyway.

That's land that's not ours, it's not doesn't need to be ours.

That's not part of the required land whenever they're done, one year, five years, ten years from now.

If there's land available adjacent to the park, we'll expand the park and say, Yeah, we'll buy some more land.

We have money in the bank to do that, by the way.

So that's that's where we are.

Is that we we are really trying to wrap up the required land for St.

James Park edition?

And and that's again the developers shown some interest or ability to do that soon so we can move on.

We want to build all the park at once.

We don't want to build two thirds of it and not be able to take advantage of the entirety of the required parkland and build the entirety of the park all at once.

So it's it's really just some deed work we believe.

Is that area in green all gated off?

Like can't can you get to the purple zone from the nothing's to get off?

It is raw land right now.

We you can't if you go out there to work along South Lake Boulevard, you cannot tell.

Well, the detention pond will the detention pond is again in the ownership of the developer, and and it's stays.

Oh, it's just open.

Yeah, you can just do that.

Yeah, it's like in the pension pond any, yeah, in any part of town.

There's just detention ponds all over town.

So that's just one of them.

That's true.

That's true.

So yeah, we are.

But are you gonna do anything with the purple?

No, I say purple.

Um, on my computer, it looks dark purple.

All three of those strips.

Oh, that up there?

Oh, that one up there.

Okay.

So that is also another piece of land that we have acquired, with the thought that someday, so it's part of the the required land, that when they're done with the pond or whatever, we will the best case scenario is we buy some land that connects all the stuff along South Lake Boulevard, even if it's just a strip with a trail on it along the pond.

So the people who live in the apartments up there in Renaissance Boulevard can just go across right now.

All they do is walk along the sidewalks along Renaissance Boulevard to Highway 77, down to South Lake Boulevard, and then they're at the park.

But ideally, someday we connect that.

Yeah, so we do own that strip right now because we worked, I think that was a 2014.

We sat down with developers in and said, what if we got this land right now?

Because they were still doing some work in the pond then.

So we took that one acre there.

So that's part of their requirement, too.

I think that's where my confusion was coming in.

I'm sorry.

How is this gonna connect?

And it's just a walkway and just be but we don't know exactly how yet, but we yeah, the the intent of the developer is to when they're done, and you know, there's a thought that well, let's not collect any land uh north of the pond or north of the main park yet, because we don't know, but they know they're not gonna work on that strip that we own.

There's gonna be no changes to that, so we just own that strip in preparation for whenever they're done, because see how that sort of has a peninsula that goes up towards South Lake Boulevard, that big uncolored area.

That pond will probably change shape.

I'm not the engineer, I don't really know this for sure, but it seems like that's where they can dig the pond to have a different shoreline.

So we don't want need, and they don't they shouldn't give us any land right in there because we don't know what's gonna look like.

But when they're done with the pond in year X, then we can say, yes, here's another, you know, three tenths or one half or six tenths of an acre that we need for a strip to connect from Renaissance Drive down to the the park, which by then will have been built for years, and there's people that have enjoyed it, and the the calls we get to people in South Lake that moved there in the 80s going, when there's supposed to be a park down here.

It's like yeah.

Like, well, my grandkids will love it.

It's like, yes, they will.

So we're trying to solve the problem of temporal displacement that the people in South Lake have experienced.

Like, I swear there was gonna be a park here when I moved here back in the 80s.

So we're almost there.

We just want to complete the D work.

So I'm spinning a yarn that may not be relevant, but your my our recommendation to you is that we extend the parkland decision and don't seek private park or fee and loo because there's land available and we'd love to have it.

Okay, any other questions?

Okay.

Staff recommends renewing the park land public parkland decision for the St.

James Park edition with the increased land requirement located adjacent to the existing parkland along South Lake Boulevard.

All park deed work will be finalized as soon as possible to allow for the development of the entire park.

So I do I have a motion to accept that recommendation.

I move to accept.

Thank you, Christy.

Thank you, Christy.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Thank you for taking that journey with me.

Thanks, Jerry.

Thank you, James.

Thanks for your enthusiasm.

I just think we're going to have I am just so excited that the firehouse keeps coming back here with it looks like grant more grants and more money from to improve the firehouse art center.

Item five, consideration of approval, acceptance, rejection, amendment, and or postponement of a donation in the amount of $15,000 for the Firehouse Arts Center Jewelry Studio renovation.

This will actually be $25,000.

Wow.

The firehouse is going to match some of these grant funds with $10,000 to go to the renovation of our jewelry studio.

So I don't know how many of you know Elise Bogart, but she's the backbone of our organization.

Yeah.

So something's really important to us, and we've had eight to ten students in her classes.

They fill up the first week of enrollment.

And so expanding this studio into our South Studio would be a way to kind of efficiently serve that audience, allow them you know more space.

We do surveys after each class.

And so for the past three years, I've been getting surveys that say there's not enough space.

And so they're literally working on top of each other in the small space they have.

It's probably a quarter of the size of this room or less.

So this would double that space and allow for hopefully 12 students to be in that space or comfortably 10.

Elise is also donating to the firehouse a lot of her tools and her jewelry library.

So it's it's enhancing the whole space.

So we're really excited to continue to get these funds from the Kirkpatrick family foundation.

Um hoping to continue to get those in the future.

That's great.

Any questions from Mr.

Couch?

Okay.

Sir, while I think this is a great idea, I'm just wondering if there is anything lost as a result of the stage.

That's a great question.

So we have uh really effectively and efficiently move studios to offer more space so we can have more service to the community and then more enrollment revenue.

And so during the pandemic, our children's space in South Studio was doubled, and then our glass studio was moved downstairs, and so we have worked it out to where uh the children's studio has a ton of space.

Um, but it's really just utilized for you know, crafts and and supplies and that kind of thing.

I think we have maybe an accounting uh desk in there or file cabinet of some sorts, and so um that space isn't being really used, uh it's more storage, and so in this uh renovation uh Fred Grenn Quality Works is doing this for us, and uh they are building shelves in our North studio, and so during this time we'll be kind of switching some of our storage and our space into this new shelving, allowing for more space, and so it won't hurt our our children's attendance.

Um, it's just really finding a place to uh to put stuff.

So great question for for future projects at the firehouse.

We're trying to slow down.

I know these guys really put on the work.

We're very thankful uh for all the help and assistance.

Uh we couldn't do it without parks and rec.

So we're we're hopeful for our uh expansion for Norman Forward 2 coming up as we kind of prepare everything for that.

Um but the Kirkpatrick Family Fund, we're we're easing into the next project with them to be on the exterior of the building to improve our landscaping.

So that's something the staff is is uh really considering, and and we're looking at ways to make the building more accessible for our audiences and just beautifying the space with those future funds.

Happy to answer any questions, please guys.

I guess I'm so we're so we're just asked to approve that they can accept the grant.

Not really, so it's approving the uh the renovation in the amount of 25,000.

So they're doing 25,000 worth of work is this basically we're accepting the renovation work that they're gonna do because it ultimately belongs to the city.

Any work that they do in there is city property, they can't pick up and take the jewelry studio with them.

So this would be a 25,000 dollar donation to the city of Norway.

Any other questions?

Okay.

Um staff recommends accepting the donation of $25,000 for the renovation of jewelry studio at the Firehouse Arts Center.

Do I have a motion?

I so move.

Thank you.

Second, second, thank you, Tori.

All in favor?

Okay, any opposed?

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you all so much for your help.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Item six consideration of approval acceptance, rejection, admitment, and or postponement of the annual report from Moore Lindsay Historical House Museum.

All right, first off, I noticed that there was a duplicate page in your report that's still not headed from last year.

So we have a new copy with that page ticket now.

Thank you.

Until I was putting the packets together my packet together, and I said, Why is there two big threes?

All right, so thank you guys for all of the support of the more Lindsay house that the parks uh parks and rec department does.

I'm not gonna go over this whole 13, 16 page report, whatever it ended up being, but we'll just get a few highlights.

So we have celebrated our 50th year this summer.

Um we I mean the parks bought the house in or the city bought the house in 1973, but we opened in 1975, so it's been 50 years of being the Norman's historical museum.

So that's pretty exciting.

Um we had a pretty good year.

Um first thing I'll point out is on page two of our report, our updated organizational goals.

We got a grant from the State Historical Society to do some new strategic planning and have an expert come in and teach us how to do it so that we can now do it on our own annually instead of doing it in five-year chunks.

Um we've got some new goals there.

Um our programming has been more or less the same as last year.

Now we added a new um topic for adult program.

We have watercolor painting workshops now, and we upped our children's classes by 20% because they keep filling up, so I'll keep offering them.

Um let's see.

Our participant numbers were up about 22% from last year with just a hair under 2,000 visitors.

I think we came in at 1998.

So most of our visitors come under the category of general admission, which means they're there for a tour or to use our research library, things like that.

But then our numbers are going up for people who are coming for our events and our programs and our rentals.

So that is awesome.

All of that's getting good or coming good.

Um I'm so sorry.

My notes are not matching up with my pages.

Where are we at here?

There we go.

Fees and income on page five.

I did just want to point out that last year we got a $2,000 sponsorship from OEC and a $20,000 grant from the Arts Council.

And the next two years that Arts Council grant has gone up to $26,000, and we've applied for $10,000 from OEC, and they're making that decision right now at their board meeting.

So I should know by tomorrow if we'll be able to expand our programs this year.

Um and then our projected budget looks very similar to this last year's budget.

We've got a couple of little increases, not little, minor, but not tiny increases in our website and software, our programming and our contract labor.

Um, because as we hope to expand that programming, we're gonna need to pay our teachers, and um obviously our programming supplies are gonna go up, and we need new ticketing software because the old stuff, the free stuff is just not cutting it anymore for the number of people we've got coming through.

Otherwise, yeah, that's really all I have that's different or new this year.

So did anybody have any questions about anything?

Christy Isaacson.

I know you just have a question on the uh the um the fiscal year 2425 expenses.

Yes.

The miscellaneous items a little bit larger than usual.

So is there you're just still figuring out what that is, or can you tell me what it is?

What it is?

I would have to double check, but I think a lot of that is um stock for our gift shop.

When we buy things for our gift shop, the amount that we have to buy from wholesalers means it's like four or five years worth of stock.

So it only pops up every once in a while that we'll have to restock something and it's a big expense.

So I think that's probably what the majority of that is.

Yeah, that would make sense.

Let us know if it's something else, please.

I actually, yeah, there is a line item for gift shops, so maybe it's not.

Well, that was income.

Not expenses.

Oh there is one for expenses as well, and that's I that's smaller than I'm expecting, so I wonder if I accidentally missed categorize something.

Right.

I can double check that though and let you know if you um this is sort of on me for not asking this a few years ago.

No worries.

Is your 990 on the calendar year but your financial fiscal?

Okay, I'm sorry.

Well, we used to do our report as well.

Honestly, usually it was just a year from the date we were um right, submitting the report, and then it got easier to standardize it and do it as fiscal year.

Yes, since that's what our grants want and all of that.

So yes, but the 990 is calendar year, so it doesn't the numbers are not as matching.

Yeah, it's confusing.

I understand.

Thank you.

Yeah, no problem.

All right.

And I'll I'll check that miscellaneous and then email it to Carla, and she should be able to get it to you guys.

All right, perfect.

All right.

Well, thank you.

Okay.

Any other questions?

Okay.

All right.

I think we are now to accept do we need to vote to accept.

Um do I have a motion to vote?

Acceptance of the annual report from the Moore Lindsay Historical House Museum.

Thank you, Todd.

Second.

I'll second.

Thank you, Christy.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay.

That would be forwarded to council.

Norman forward update.

I think Norman Ford update.

And do what?

Oh, no photo.

But the uh it's got a uh lucky for y'all, it's a lot shorter than it was about two years ago.

But the uh uh the big Norm Ford thing we had going on this past month.

We did uh uh have about I think it was $30,000 in Norm Ford money at Griffin that went to uh the painting of the silos.

Uh we uh had a ribbon cutting and it was probably about three weeks ago that we ribbon cutting cut that and I would say probably uh out of all the art always gets our Norm Ford art gets a lot of uh comments on the on social media, but this is probably the most positive one I we've had so far.

I haven't seen anything negative about it.

It got a lot of interest, especially if those uh as she was painting it, um people driving by the park or going down 12th Avenue.

It's just so big and large.

Um the the canvas was awesome.

So we we always say you're your placemaker, and that is probably our you know, you start thinking about placemaking things or or in parks, and you know, one of the first things we think about Norman Parks is the silos at Griffin.

Uh uh that's one of the biggest things that we have.

So we're happy to get that done.

I think everything else is uh uh still working out on Saxon.

Uh don't have a hundred percent on that just yet.

I know that's taking a while, but we're working uh to get that to completion, and a lot of that is to um hitting a little bit of a pause button on that to wait for uh the the development that was happening out there next to Saxon, which will bring down a lot of our cost uh for infrastructure for the little piece we're trying to do neighborhood park-wise.

Uh I we're still waiting on land exchange uh out at Northeast Lions.

Once that happens, we are gonna uh send out a RFP for uh uh playground right there so that that we can get everything in uh I always always want to always get confused with the park I live next to the high meadows is not Highland Village High Meadows.

Uh is right there right next to Northeast Lions.

If you remember our our plan is once that gets accepted and we have that property from the schools, we're gonna take high meadows to make that uh a part of Northeast Lions.

We'll bring that land decision or park decision to you before we do it.

Uh anything else uh missing, James.

I think it's been Mark is kind of starting.

It's a new part.

And you all came to the Wayne Morgan, yeah.

We did the way more.

Yeah, William Morgan.

When was that?

That scene seems like it was in June.

So it was okay.

We probably missed that since uh this seems like a forever ago, but yes, Dan is the next new park, I'm at the leagues.

So we're starting in variation bases, though we have any questions about ongoing Norm Fords kind of going um slow and steady, kind of and kind of as we planned as we get to the the back end of everything.

Uh and I think the only big projects we have left is Saxon and the possibility of uh the uh Canadian River Park if that comes to fruition if we can get land.

When does the uh forward officially 2030?

Uh I think it goes all the way to the end of 2030.

So when we collect on that, and we will still see some playground projects going probably into 32 ish range.

Uh so that we'll still have money collected that we're using for projects, even past that mark.

The Canadian Rivers do you have a property in mind?

No landscape.

Yeah.

The original idea was to work with the the Bob Moore family in a state now to gain property of that in the negotiations or talking talks of a lease or purchase or donation of the property just hasn't had a whole lot of momentum uh in in past years.

So recently we've had a little bit of communication with the Moore family.

We're kind of kind of waiting to see uh and they're probably waiting to see what uh if they ended up developing um some of that.

So they might have uh the priorities might have changed with that, but we did not have a property that we owned going into that, which is kind of one of our we had didn't have a whole lot of properties on some of our projects going into um uh some of the Norfolk things.

So that's the one the big one we haven't got wrapped up yet.

And we're we're still talking to more family and still have pretty high hopes that we'll come to a uh some kind of agreement soon, I think.

Great.

Yeah, we agree.

Um any other questions about moving forward division updates.

Hi everybody.

How's it going?

Great.

So this month in Parks and Recreation, uh, we just wrapped up the uh educators, Norman Educator's Day at the Young Family Athletic Center, where in partnership uh really the Trey Young Family Foundation uh put on this event at the Young Family Athletic Center.

We just helped uh facilitate it, but we were able to get lunches and donations to over a thousand uh Norman Public School teachers throughout there.

Um it was a lot of people in that space, uh, but it went really well, and that we got a lot of uh a lot of praise from Roman Public Schools, and it's always good to help out our community there.

Uh we have a big update for our Westwood uh family aquatic center.

We're going to the back to school hours uh starting on Monday.

Uh so coming up here, so that's where we go.

Uh only morning activities during uh the week, and then we go 12 to 6 uh during the weekends, weekends, so Saturday and Sunday, and that's for our pass holders, and then one to six during uh for general admission there.

Uh for our young family athletic center.

We also have our Trey Young uh Academy.

Uh, they're doing new tryouts.

Uh we still have some going on right now, and tomorrow we still have those age groups available.

Uh we had a large turnout here.

We had over a hundred people sign up for yesterday's session.

We've got around 50 or so for this one as you it's as the ages go, they get thinner and thinner.

Uh, but uh tomorrow's, I think we have somewhere in the 45 range signed up too.

So it's great to see that program expand.

That the Trey Young Academy is our kind of next level.

Uh you don't so if you have your league play, you then you'll go up to that next competitive play where you'll go and do tournaments and other places.

It's like a traveling team kind of setup there.

Um, but not the full-on crazy AAU going into Florida and playing in Disney World type stuff.

Not quite there yet.

Uh we also have our youth volleyball league is open.

Registration's open now, and that's for ages uh from or from grades second to seventh grade.

Um, and we will cut off registration here at the end of the month.

So if you know anybody, have them sign up there.

Uh we've got adult night tomorrow, uh, Friday night at the Westwood Family Aquatic Center.

And so that is our last big event.

Uh we're wrapping up aquatic season.

So this is the last big hurrah we've got with an adult night.

Um love to see you guys out there.

It's a great time.

But uh we also have the Labor Day Scramble.

Uh that's September 1st here at the Westwood Golf, and it's a four-person scramble, and they have uh people that come from all over the town and do I mean it's a really fun kind of event of like watching Rick organize the tournaments and everything.

I love I love watching him do that.

Uh we've got uh lastly our legacy fest here is uh wrapping up the band auditions.

So Legacy Fest is what we started last year.

It is what you would kind of call a battle of the bands for the unknown bands.

So we put out a registration there, and we're asking anybody under, I think it's 2500 uh influence or on social media.

If you have less than that, you can't be this big giant band, you know, putting in there.

Uh you they come in, we look through all of them, and then we pick the top six uh to play a small set in front of a crowd, and they we have cash prizes, and everybody gets paid to be there.

So even if they're as long as they're selected, they're gonna get paid and they're gonna get a paying gig.

Um, it was a really cool event that we did last year because we we had somebody on there that she she came up and she sounded amazing.

Like her interview and everything, her audition, absolutely amazing.

And she said that was the most people I've ever played with in front of.

I'm terrified.

I don't know how I did it.

I blacked out, but she did amazing.

She came, I think she came in third.

Like it was a really a really awesome setup here.

And so that's the point behind this event is to really get a good uh get Norman artists uh place to play that they usually wouldn't get in front of.

And so we're really excited about that one.

And if you know any local bands, that you're like, I mean, they just play in the garage, tell them to enter because I it's it's a great time.

When is it again?

Uh it is September 13th.

Uh the deadline is technically August 10th, and I would love to, yeah.

I would love to.

We're probably gonna expand it a little bit more just to try to get more in there and everything, but that's what we've got.

Oh, our after school program.

School's coming back, so after school is coming back.

And so we have a total of I believe I'm gonna say 11 hours in between when we 11 hours of break between summer camp after school program.

Go.

They got it.

I saw something today on Facebook because something went on at Trey Young about a pickleball thing or a so from the from the point, is that the one cosmic pickleball?

Oh, yeah, cosmic pickleball is where did that go?

Oh, it should have been in my little notes.

And there was there's two things I thought I saw.

Yeah, so cosmic pickleball is this Saturday, August uh 10th, I believe, and it is a really cool setup we've got going.

Basically, we take the light house lights down in the gym there, and we've got a bunch of large black lights that we set up, and uh it's where we've got tape on all the paddles, line tape, everything glows, the nets glow, the balls glow, and yeah, it's I mean, if you've ever seen it comes from have you heard of the Savannah Bananas?

There's a secondary team called the I think Chili Peppers or something like that.

It's it's something ridiculous along that, but they do cosmic baseball, and it was a very high level where they took every single light in the baseball stadium and turned it into a black light.

And this they had glowing neon jerseys, glowing neon bats, the ball, everything was full black light.

And I'm like, I don't know if we can turn a whole baseball stadium, but we can surely do a basketball gym for a little bit.

And so it's gonna be a really neat event that's gonna be something special, and it's five dollars for non-members and free for Wi Fac members.

So if you're a Wi Fac member, come on down, and if you're not come be a WiFac member.

Pay five dollars.

Yeah.

Thank you.

And there's also a big Zumba event Saturday.

Correct.

Yes, there's uh Aqua Zumba uh is coming out.

There were we have an instructor from the national instructor.

Yes, I was like, it's I think it's Daniel.

Um I'm so sorry.

It's Daniel.

You don't know me.

Yeah.

Uh but yes, we have an instructor coming in from Ohio uh to teach a Zumba class there on Saturday, I believe, uh, from 10 to 11.

And it's he's a very influential um and has a lot of followers and everything.

I won't act like I know what's up in the aqua Zumba world, but I hear great things.

Yes, thank you, Cheryl.

My my notes are probably a little bit.

So that was always Denise is great.

Talk about from the point, too.

So from the point uh that was the other thing, wasn't it?

Okay, yeah, from the point.

So from my understanding, and that's we're still flushing a couple things out here, but it is uh Trey Young.

Uh yeah, yeah.

Trey Young is having a basketball camp there at the Young Family Athletic Center, and it is uh available.

You can register now to come out.

It's for kids.

Yes, it's like uh six to eight or four to eight, or it would small.

Yeah, yeah.

And so basically it's a basketball camp, and Trey Young's evolved and everything, and yeah, it's gonna be really cool to get that involved.

We've been wanting that for a little bit.

That was the yeah, that was the other thing.

I saw the two things today, and it was on the I was like, additionally, we also have uh indoor soccer coming to the 12th Avenue Recreation Center as an open gym time.

So it's free, open, come in, you can play indoor soccer.

Sorry, we got a lot of stuff going on, and it just gets cosmic indoor soccer, cosmic indoor soccer.

That's next.

We got the black lights now.

We might as well.

Yes.

So it is oh, I got I know I had that one.

I know I had that one.

It's on there.

We go every Thursday, six to eight.

Every Thursday.

No, it's open to anybody.

Yeah, it's just open, open.

Sure.

No, that I mean it's oh uh so open play is the opportunity for the community to come together and experience different skill levels and everything.

Most of the time they mediate themselves, it's like open pickleball play.

There's people that have high ratings, like a 4.0, and some of them that are new to the game, and that's usually a coaching moment.

And then if there's usually the experienced players will find themselves and you know make their way to a to an area that's uh on their own.

Yeah, but it's a fun uh any of our open gym times at like at the Young Family Athletic Center.

It's a it's a community time for everybody to come in and experience different levels of play.

I'm just really curious about the outdoor soccer thing.

So, how do you there's several games going at one time?

Do you have how do you split the courts?

Because the ball will be.

And there's two basketball courts, and there's a we have a curtain that we pull in between them, and so there'll basically we have two soccer courts available that will be set up inside of it, and then it's open to breaking it down depending on the people that are there and breaking it into half games to where you can just play on one goal or doing a full match.

Okay, okay.

Uh no, it's a it's a full-blown like rafter to see uh floor curtain.

Is it solid though?

Is what I meant for like when the ball goes past.

Yeah, you won't be able to ball.

Yeah, you won't be able to knock through it.

I couldn't get through it, so I hope a ball couldn't.

It's kind of like it's kind of like the curtains at YFAC.

Yep, very similar.

It's connected to the ceiling from all the way down to the floor.

Oh, it's it's not the board.

This is just yeah, yeah.

This is a fun open event.

Um if you're expecting high-level surface texture.

No, uh it's still a gym floor.

Yeah, getting involved, doing different things.

That's what uh our recreation centers are here to serve the community.

So we've done a couple surveys out in the kind of the area and seeing what we could bring in there, and that's one of those programs.

Yeah.

Well, thank you guys.

I'm sure there's a bunch of other stuff we're going on, but I know these guys gotta do.

I know, I'm going, I'm going.

Thank you guys.

Enough of the fun stuff.

Hello, uh, park development, which includes forestry and park planning.

Um, you've heard some of the things we're working on.

One we've been working on a lot is getting that land deal done down at St.

James at Park Edition.

Um Bishop Creek Eco Park.

Like I said, we they had a pre-work meeting, and they should be mobilizing next week, I think, setting job trailers and um getting the big billboard out of there.

We're gone.

Yeah, it's coming.

We canceled our contract.

Um YFAC, um, we're finishing up the rear courtyard and landscape and all that stuff uh in and around the in between and around the um um football, uh, sand volleyball and pickleball courts.

So that's coming.

Um we next council, they will be accepting the community wildfire protection plan, which we developed with the it's really a fire department plan, but a lot of the money comes to the forestry service.

So our Forester worked a lot with them, and that'll be something that will help them to implement all sorts of things to make us fire wise and fire ready uh in Norman Urban Forest Master Plan.

We've just done a review of a final draft that'll be coming, I think, to next month's park board.

So you'll get a chance to look at that to kind of lay out the next 15 years of our uh forestry work uh uh and growth of that division.

Um let's see.

Uh it's been since since this happened.

So we had a crew come down from American Ramp Company and work at the skate park doing some repairs to the mini ramp and getting that done.

That was good.

Working on some graffiti, we went over to Creekside Bike Park.

Uh Colin helped put together a work day over there to kind of help refresh some of that area.

We're doing gonna do some more work coming up on some of the jump line stuff uh at the at the bike park.

Um, like we said, Blue STEM and Northeast Lions and Morgan Park, all the park things that we're doing.

Um it's a new fiscal year, so we have some funding that we requested and got uh for our facility projects.

We're gonna do some replacements of some of the some of the uh curtains and borders at the Sooner Theater stage, not a whole lot.

There's some that just been worn out.

Um Amy left, but we finally got a report back on how to repair some uh some uh foundation issues or flooring issues really uh underneath the historic house.

The chimney we thought was having trouble, it's really just some support that's missing where they built uh where they did the foundation work.

We need just it's gonna need some just jacks put under there because we we were panicked that the chimney was falling, but it's not the chimney solids, just that some of the joists where they had attached near the chimney had had kind of uh some of their supports had gone away, so we're gonna rebuild that.

Um depot, that's not our project.

But in case you were wondering, uh work stopped there for a minute on the platform redo.

That was an Amtrak thing.

So when Texas decided not to fund the Heartland Flyer, that stopped all work, but it started back up because I guess they've got another year of funding, so that should be defenced and reopened soon.

Again, not our project.

We're gonna do a little bit of work on fixing some of the sidewalks out in front of the depot here in this new fiscal year.

And uh, as you know, we're doing the firehouse uh renovation upstairs, and then we also added some gutters to some areas where there's water coming in the patio.

And um just very recently, hot off the presses, latest news.

If you've noticed Main Street medians out by Sinclair Station Panera Bread are completely barren.

There's one that is completely empty where they've been rebuilding the Bishop Creek or Merkle Creek or Cross.

So we are uh working on a landscape revision plan for that area because those are areas that this parks and rec departments of beautification island.

We've maintained it for decades.

So we're working on a renovation of that as a uh sort of first stab at renovating all of them eventually at some point.

So we're taking advantage of existing work to do a uh landscape renovation out there and many other landscapes in uh our park planners working, Megan's working with us on uh several things.

Westwood tennis center, by the way, also at the next council meeting.

We're gonna approve uh some some work to improve and replace the very old lights on the very oldest ports out at Westwood, knowing that there's maybe a master plan to redo the whole place someday, but they're really past the end of their life.

So renovating those, freshen up the landscape, some signage, doing some work at the tennis center.

We just uh renovated sort of the ice room drinking fountain area and bathroom, so just keeping that place freshened up too.

So and other things as they come up.

Wait, well, this may be one of the simpler ones because um, as you all asked know, the last time we met in June, uh I think it was still raining.

Um it feels like it just stopped, but uh we finally think about last week we really got caught up to where we think our um mowing schedule should be.

We're we're mowing about seven to ten day period for every park or every not just parks, but other sites around the city.

Um, to the point now we have started um going back and maybe making some repairs.

I know some of our trail walkers here maybe noticed we're starting to make repairs to areas of Sutton and Saxon and some Ruby Grant and some other areas where we had some extreme washouts from the heavy rains that we had this spring.

Um so we focused on that.

Uh Sandbro Control is a big one that over the past five or six years that has really been a big push for us to the point where I think the first year or two I was here we had um some really uh consistent complaints to where now we're not really getting anything.

Um if you've been down to been down to Adkins Crossing, which it's not a there's not a there's not a ton of traffic down there, but um University of Oklahoma stripped the sod and soil off of their football field, and um because of our partnership with uh a former part board member Jeff Salman and his group United Turf and Track, he was looking for a place to take it and asked if we wanted some of it, so they hauled it to Adkins Crossing in a big open spot where we there were some soil issues and some establishment issues, so we hauled it down there and streets came and helped us with a bulldozer to level it out and grade it.

So we expect to see um we did the same thing at Reeves Park out in front of the robot across the pond, and it did a great job of establishing, so we've tried that again.

Um, and then obviously with the since since June, we've had our big Juneteenth and July 4th events, and those are big days that really take up a lot of our my guys' time kind of getting getting ready, and then the day of the event, and then getting everything put back to place, getting all the inflatables back, getting the ice machine back, getting all the trash cleaned up, the firework debris and stuff like that.

So other than that, we're kind of glad it's hot, but keeps you busy.

Are the robo mowers still doing well?

They are they are.

We've uh you know, like anything just like our mowers with our guys on them.

I mean, when it gets hot and they're um we've had a few little things, but for the first year, we think that it's that they're doing really well.

I mean, have you named them?

Well, I saw the OU piece, um, and there's moments where I've wanted to name them like after the seven dwarfs, like this one's hungry, this one's happy, this one's sleepy.

The dog is obsessed with those things.

She will sit there for hours.

I'm like, come on, come on.

She just wants to go get them.

Yeah, she loves those things.

Now there was, like I kind of said, you know, when we try to catch up mowing, when we try to get to that seven to day seven to ten day period, if it's thick and mowing, like or thick when the grass is thick and growing fast, like it had in the month of June and early July, uh, you know, it may take us three weeks to get caught up.

Well, when we start back at the the one we started at three weeks ago, you know, it's had three weeks of growth, so it it slows our whole operation down.

Same thing with the mowers.

So there was a time there where I was concerned that you know on a yearly basis that they wouldn't be able to keep up, but I think we've I think we've solved that issue as well.

Wait, do you have to rotate those things?

I mean, what's the maintenance?

Uh because they're running pretty much non-stop.

Yep.

So the only real thing that we have to do consistently is uh change blades.

They've got five blades, they're about the size of your razor that you shave your face or whatever.

And uh that's what I can at some point.

Uh they've got five on each unit, and then so periodically those get dull, and we have to change those.

Other than that, there's an annual maintenance kit that we do at the end that we're gonna be planning on doing at the end of the season that'll replace brushes.

It's got so as the tires go through the unit, it's got brushes that keep them clean so that they don't get uh grass and mud and stuff caked up on there to change that depth height and stuff.

So there's brush kits, there's uh you know uh battery connections that we'll probably change out in the winter, which our plan right now, or my plan right now in the winter is to pull all those units in, unplug the power to them so that the control systems and stuff are out of the weather for the entire winter.

What's the lifespan of those things?

Uh five to seven years maybe.

But based on our calculations and the quality of product that we were getting, that they essentially pay for themselves in a year if we were to pay a contractor to mow you know three times a week, which is what we're getting out of them right now.

Um so we're getting a higher quality of field and stuff for uh our groups, but we're also saving what we would have been getting for the lower quality of from a contractor instead of the one month one time a week uh frequency, we're getting a 3x frequency weekly for half the price.

They do, they look good.

Yeah, they look really good.

I know Steve Gillis was real instrumental at I mean in soccer.

Are they still mowing their own fields or okay?

They are um the units that we have at Reeves mow about two and a half acres per uh in a 24-hour period, and that's if they run non-stop, which means they run as long as they can to the battery runs out, they go charge, they as soon as they charge fully, they go back out.

Um so we've done some demos for Griffin, um, but it would have to be a bigger unit.

Okay, um, when you consider the amount of time for any irrigation, any play usage.

Um so we demoed a couple other options for them that are a little larger.

But they're the ones that are they maintain their pay for the maintenance of their own fields.

I assume you guys mow some of the bigger areas, but they just do the they do inside the fence, inside the fence, and we do outside the fence, yeah.

So the fence, okay.

And we help them kind of oh, yeah.

Sideways with uh their pre fall and spring pre-emergence and fertilizer and stuff.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Any other questions or wait?

Anybody else?

Okay, miscellaneous, anybody have any miscellaneous?

Okay, public comment.

I don't see anybody here for public comments.

Okay, we are adjourned.