I'm going to go ahead and call this meeting to order.

My name is Dan Sanford.

I'm the chair of the Operations Parks and Rec Committee.

It is 632 on July 23rd, 2026.

And in attendance right now, I will try to do this, Sheila, but just make sure that I'm right.

I've got myself, Representative Politia, Representative Beckham, Representative Didalo, Representative Gardner, Representative Salais, and Representative Zachary representing the committee.

Yes, that's what I see.

Yeah, what you see.

Okay.

Ex officio members, I got Representative Budreau.

And I think someone else just joined.

Oh, Representative Bradford is now here for the committee as well.

Yes.

All right.

So the only person I believe we're missing is Representative Finkel.

Um and then from the administration, we have Director Murray from Parks and Rec.

And I saw some others.

Oh, Mr.

Nagashima from the uh golf course.

And then also our guest, uh Nettie Compton is the president CEO of Mill River Park.

So also uh Richard Johnson.

Hey, Richard, sorry about that.

All right.

Well, we've got a full schedule.

We'll go ahead and start uh going through this.

I know everyone's got a lot of stuff to do.

So the first item up for business is OPR 32.012, which is a resolution and public hearing establishing the fees for e-gainer Brendan Golf Course 2026.

At this time, I'd entertain a motion to take up item number one for discussion and public hearing.

So moved.

Is there a second?

And I have a uh motion and a second for resolution and public hearing.

So this is the public hearing for establishing fees for e-gain or Brennan golf course.

The time is 6 34 p.m.

I'll go ahead and open up the public hearing now.

Do we have anyone signed up, Sheila?

I did not see anyone.

No, we do not have anyone signed up.

There is anyone, please raise your hand or let us know.

Um seeing none.

I am going to go ahead and close the public hearing at also 6 34 p.m.

And at this time, I'll open up the floor for discussion from the committee.

Again, this has already been discussed in the last meeting, but if there's any more discussion from the committee members or ex official members, please let me know.

Is there anyone willing?

Uh anyone's got their hand raised.

If not, I will entertain a motion to approve item one OPR 32, which is the fees for e-Gain or Brennan Golf Course 2026.

So mobile.

Oh, sorry.

We do it.

So I have a motion for establishing fees for e-Gayner Brennan Golf Course 2026, and I have a second.

Is there any discussion from the floor?

Seeing none, I will go ahead and try this by voice vote.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Are there any opposed?

So that item passes, I believe eight zero zero.

At this time, I will go ahead and take a motion to take up item two, opr 32.01, which is the resolution in public hearing, approving fees scheduled for Terry Connor's Ice Rink.

So a move.

Is there a second?

Second at this time, I will go ahead and open up the public hearing, approving fees scheduled for Terry Connor's ice rink.

Is there anyone signed up for the public hearing for this one, Sheila?

I did not see anyone for that one either.

No, there's no one signed up.

Uh I will give it a second just in case somebody snuck in and we didn't see them.

But seeing none, I will go ahead and close the public hearing at 6.36 p.m.

And I will entertain a motion to take to approve item number two, OPR 32.013 from the floor.

So moved.

There's a motion to approve OPR 32.013, which is approving fee schedules for Terry Connor's ice rink.

Is there a second?

Second.

Is there any discussion from the floor uh committee or non-committee members for item number two?

Seeing none, I will go ahead and take this to a uh voice vote.

All those in favor uh say aye.

Any opposed that passes 800 for item number two.

I appreciate anybody that uh came in for items one and two.

At this time, I will entertain a motion to take up item number three, OPR 32.015.

It's an approval of a contract agreement and bid waiver with Blake Thermal Sales and Service uh Inc.

to update boiler controls and associated upgrades for two Cleaver Brooks natural gas boilers at the Stanford Government Center.

Excuse me.

This is Sheila.

I want to note that Representative Finkel is on.

Hey, Representative Finkel, thank you.

All right.

So I have a motion to approve uh item number three.

Is there a second?

Second.

All right.

I will now give the floor to I if I mess up your name, I apologize.

Um Mr.

Butch.

Yeah, sorry, Mr.

Larson.

Are you speaking on this item?

Uh this is Scott, but it's on the director facilities.

I'm I'm here to speak.

All right, I appreciate it.

I'm still learning everybody, so I apologize if I uh if I don't know everyone.

But if you don't mind giving us uh a little bit of a breakdown, we do have some of the materials, but if you can just kind of give us the overview of of what we're approving, I would appreciate it.

Yeah, absolutely.

So there are two natural gas fired bars at the Stanford Government Center that provide heat to the building.

Uh these are original to the building from 1986.

Uh the control, the boilers themselves are fine, uh, but the controls are completely outdated.

You can imagine the technological upgrades since 1986.

So uh we're just essentially upgrading the actual local controls on the boilers.

The boilers themselves, you know, should last another 25 to 40 years with these updated controls.

Uh the reason we have to do a bid waiver is because there's only one authorized representative to work on Cleaver Brooks boilers in the state of Connecticut.

So even if we had tried to bid this, we would have had to subcontract it out to uh to Blake Therm.

So uh that's where the bid waiver comes from.

And then we're just looking for the agreed the uh approval of the agreement uh for this work.

Are there any questions from the floor uh for our guests on this contract?

I'll go ahead and open it up now.

Uh I don't see any hands raised.

My only question is is a lot of times with boilers and stuff, you get proprietary equipment.

Is is that kind of what the deal is here that if you were to bid it out, you would end up probably in a bigger mess.

And it's not necessarily proprietary equipment.

It's just that these are these are serious pieces of industrial equipment, and there's really there's only one authorized company to work on them in the state.

Uh we're gonna tack on our VMS system to it, but this is for the actual local controls.

We are upgrading the gas train.

Uh you know, we're up, we're upgrading, we're putting a VFD on it.

So we're gonna get some energy efficiencies on it where we can.

Um, but really this is you know, we did talk to other companies and they said we would have to subcontract this out to this company, so it's kind of made it simple for us to actually get it done.

I appreciate it.

That's all I have.

Is there any other question from the floor?

Any of the committee members?

If not, I will go ahead and entertain a motion to approve item number three OPR 32.015.

Moved.

So moved.

So there's a motion to approve of a contract agreement and bid waiver with Blake Thermal Sales and Service.

Inc.

to update boiler controls and associated upgrades for two Cleaver Brooks natural gas boilers at the Stanford Government Center.

And I have a second.

Is there any other discussion?

Seeing none.

I will go ahead and take this by voice vote.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye, aye.

Aye.

And I believe Sheila, that would pass now nine zero zero because we have everyone.

Is that correct?

Is my is my math correct?

Yes, that's correct.

I appreciate it.

I just want to thank you for all of our guests that came through for the first uh for the first three items.

Uh I'll now entertain a motion to take up item number four, which is OPR 32.016, which is a review.

Uh it's a review item.

It's an overview of policy and procedures and utilization of city resources at Mill River Park.

Is there a second?

Second.

Second.

All right.

I I will go ahead and start this off real quick.

Our guest tonight is is Miss Nettie Compton, who is the president CEO of Mill River Park.

Um, I don't think there's any real surprise of the what kind of sparked this review item.

Obviously, I think everybody got a handful of emails from uh a concert that happened a few weeks ago.

Uh uh in back in June, almost a month ago.

Um I want to kind of at least put some expectations here.

I think why uh why I invited Ms.

Compton to come speak to us is I I think there we to get a general overview of uh how Mill River Park operates.

Um, and then maybe some lessons learned and what kind of policies and procedures might be uh changed or taking place going forward.

I will say, you know, we've we've had music in the parks before the concert, and we've had it since.

I think there's a concert last week.

I think there's one tonight.

Uh I I think it's it's a quality of life issue uh for both.

I I think we uh we we had some complaints that right rightfully probably uh uh understood, but also we understand that people like to go to concerts.

So I think the two can coexist.

So the idea here is to really kind of get an overview of Mill River Park, um, and then we'll open it up for uh a discussion and hopefully have a fairly um productive conversation.

So at this time, without further ado, Miss Compton, if you're available, I uh I will give the floor to you.

And thank you for joining us.

I appreciate it.

Oh, absolutely.

And I I also want to just introduce um our board chair, um, Arnold Carp joined us as well.

Oh, thank you.

Um so I just want to start out um saying, you know, good evening.

Thank you for for having us here to discuss this issue.

Um I'm Nettie Compton, I'm the president CEO of Mill River Park Collaborative.

Um I I do want to start by just acknowledging what happened on June 21st.

Uh the noise from this event, um, which was called Resurrection on the Green, uh, it was excessive and the community's frustration was entirely justified.

And we heard that feedback um and we took it very seriously.

Um I do, you know, the agenda item kind of talks about this more broadly.

So I do want to provide some important context.

You know, over a typical year, we have approximately 10 evenings of amplified events in the park.

You know, we've hosted concerts such as the Hay Stanford Food Festival, Live at Five, going back almost a decade without significant noise complaints.

Um we do get some occasionally, but um it it's often not that significant.

Uh June 21st was a first-time promoter, um, a group that we had not worked with in the past in the park, um, operating at an unprecedented scale, unprecedented scale, but it really I do want to emphasize that we see that as an outlier, not a pattern.

We moved quickly um after that event.

Um, the Monday after the event, we met with the organizers, we reviewed the issues with the city's with city staff, we consulted with sound engineers.

Um the following week we had a full debrief and coordinated with the city to incorporate decibel monitoring at the soundboard and property line level for all upcoming events um in coordination with the health department, who is now formally including a noise waiver in the approval process uh with levels calibrated to what's on par with what you would see in other city parks.

Um and I do think that, you know, I I know there were some folks who were concerned that this board of reps meeting was going to be happening after some concerts had already um occurred as part of our summer in the park series, but in a way I think it's kind of better to have that meeting now.

Um there's a concert happening like right next to me right now, right?

And um we had two events this past week.

Um Thursday's concert generated zero noise complaints.

Um Sunday's event, I got a single email.

Um, and even the person that I talked back and forth with at that from that email did acknowledge that it was you know significantly different um and lives right by the park.

So you know, I think Mill River Park, we really strive to have something for everyone.

Uh, you know, we have summer concerts, we have yoga, we have story hour, you know, kind of quiet walks along the river.

You know, our goal is to find the right balance between a vibrant downtown space and being a good neighbor.

And we believe that those two things are not in conflict, and we're committed to earning that trust every day.

Thank you.

Hey, I really really appreciate it.

At this time, I will open it up if there are any questions uh from committee members or or or ex officio members, you know, please raise your hand and um and hopefully we can get get your questions answered.

I think Miss Compton did a pretty good job of kind of explaining some of the controls and stuff that have been implemented.

Uh Representative Finkel, floor is yours.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh I I think the way I want to phrase it is as a board of representative, we received lots of complaints as well, as you know.

And what I need is a method to answer those people.

And I think we need something from you and Arnold McConnell's work.

And give us something so that we can go back to our constituents and let them know what measures have been taken, the fact that it was an outlier, the fact that you're gonna keep the noise within the park, et cetera, et cetera.

But I think we need something to be able to go back to our constituents.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Um as you can imagine, I've yeah, as you can imagine, I've responded to many similar emails.

So it would be very easy for us to prepare something along those lines.

Great.

Thank you.

And I yield.

Thank you.

Representative Didalow.

Thank you, uh, Chair Stanford.

My general question is because I know how City of Stanford works with health department is in charge of sound monitoring.

In the future, will the health department be on site at these events or at all events?

So if this happens again, they can handle that.

They'll be able to access those uh decibel meters and be able to take action with the individual sponsoring or organization sponsoring the event.

Um that was kind of what I was seeing was there's a bit of a disconnect between enforcing a sound limit because the decibel wasn't there, and the health department actually in the city being the one that is in charge of enforcing those decibel limits.

So if I could get some clarification on that, I would really appreciate that.

Um so I mean, I can speak to specifically what we've been doing in terms of the city.

So the health department asked um our partner who's running somewhere in the park to monitor decibel levels, and so they've been providing the equipment and the data, um, both at the soundboard and then also kind of using a remote monitor at the perimeter of the park.

Um, so the department of health had requested that they um provide that data to them.

Um, I know the Department of Health is typically on site for other issues like food truck and and those thick types of things.

Um, I can't speak to how the city would enforce their requirements moving forward.

Um, but internally at Mill River, you know, we work closely with with Department of Health and with the city, um, and with our promoters to monitor that.

So in the future I really I don't know, maybe I'm misunderstanding.

I'm not trying, I'm just trying to get more information.

Yeah.

Um was this concert on the 21st?

Was the health department at that concert or not?

They were not.

Okay.

The the event was uh, so any third party event that comes into Mill River, we say you have to comply with all city regulations.

Um, and so they, you know, worked with the fire marshal on food trucks, they worked with Department of Health on food, um, PD on traffic, all of those things.

So they, you know, typically would do um pre-meetings, um, and then different city folks will be on staff um for events.

That's the determination of the city.

Sometimes PD is assigned, um, it etc.

Um, my understanding is Department of Health was on site earlier in the day, but was more focused on food uh regulations as opposed to noise ordinance.

Um and so it's it's it's at the city's discretion whether they would assign a health department person on site or have that monitoring be managed by the the third party that that's kind of up to them and how they want to pursue the noise, um, the noise waiver.

But but Matt, it's uh it's Arnold Carp, I'm the chairman.

Uh the event that uh took place uh on the 21st was unusual in that we had very few noise complaints until about nine o'clock.

At nine o'clock, they actually put a DJ on and his voice and his uh music seemed to travel.

So in that hour between nine and ten when they had actually hired somebody to help them get permits, it was sort of the perfect storm.

They had left.

Uh we didn't know anything about it when we called, you know, the the switchboards all over town started to light up by the time we were notified it was 9 45 and they had like four minutes left.

They closed down at about 10 of 10, give or take a few minutes.

Um so part of it is, you know, we've put in some other procedures, which is whoever goes and gets the permits for you, um, you know, has to sort of stay at the event, um, monitor it.

Uh, but this was sort of the the classic storm because I was there at about 8 40, everything was fine.

Uh went home, and then you know, the next morning we got all of our comments.

Um, so you know, we've put in again, we have you know, park rules that you know we follow, and anybody who rents from us has to follow.

Like uh my contract that started off as one page 40 years ago and now is 40 pages.

We have subsequently added another paragraph to if you're using or renting our space, um, you know, this is this is what you must do.

Um so you know, uh again uh we've spoken to you know, sort of all the city uh departments, including health, and said, okay, uh let's see how the other concerts go.

And we've been very fortunate in that, you know, uh dad, who is a promoter who we've used a lot and works with us a lot.

We've literally had zero to one complaint.

Um, but some of it was just that that one hour was totally out of control.

Promise my oh, my last point.

Just if in the future, I you know, because that was I was kind of going through and looking at the emergency communication center where they were getting their phone calls from, is just having health department there because they're the ones in charge of enforcing that in the city.

That was my understanding, even outside of the food truck end, so that if there is a complaint, they have the ability to enforce that.

So rather than trying to be reactive, being proactive.

Oh, hey, emergency ECC gets five complaints at 910.

Oh, okay, health departments there.

Because it's a fun day.

The health department is more of a Monday through Friday as opposed to a Saturday, Sunday, as opposed to PD and the fire marshal who will come in for overtime, etc.

etc.

Health department's probably going to be a little bit different.

So that's just my thought.

Thank you.

Yeah.

And uh a thing I'll I'll add to in terms of learning it.

I mentioned you we'd spoken to some sound engineers afterwards.

I think another a couple of things too, in terms of internal controls at the park is understanding how sound travels and how different types of sound travel, right?

And so I think one of the things that we have now learned, the way that the audio system was set up for this event, the speakers were up high.

It was designed more to sort of spread sound all around the event as opposed to a concert with a stage and the speakers on the ground.

Um so that made a big difference.

Um the um the type of music, um, music that's more reliant on a lower base, um, travels farther, right?

And so understanding that you're just your decibel levels are not actually uh it's not a single measure, but actually your DBC levels are an important thing to monitor separately because that's what's going to travel farther away.

Um so one of the things that um was kind of uh an interesting thing to observe from this is that our staff who were on site on Sunday didn't sense that on site it was significantly louder than other events that we've done.

It was the way that the sound setup was was created and the the decibel range um that led to more significant sound travel.

So, you know, every time we do a different stage configuration or different sound configuration, we're sort of observing where are we hearing it, how is it going, and that's getting folded back into how all future events um are allowed to set up or allowed to kind of configure in the park.

Thank you so much for all you all the actions that you have taken.

I want to know that it's very much appreciated, and how much attention that you have paid to this matter is very appreciated.

Thank you.

I yield.

Thank you, Representative Didalow.

Uh, Representative Bedro.

Uh yeah, thank you.

Um quick question for the chair.

I had seen on the agenda that we were expecting to get directors Canonis and DeRubis on this as well.

Um with all due respect to the people from Mill River, I am kind of interested in hearing about this on a city procedure side of how going forward we're gonna evaluate permits and how going forward we're going to be enforcing permits.

Um I don't see them on the call.

Uh, do you know if they're planning to join later or are we gonna have to do that?

No, I had an update from from Director Canona's earlier today that they him and Director DeRuis weren't we're not gonna be able to make it tonight.

And I told them that we had one or two uh committee members yourself and possibly someone else that had some specific questions.

Um was related to the non-emergency line, um, and then your question, I said that you would most likely be reaching out to them uh individually to get your questions answered if if that helps.

Okay, yeah, I can I guess I'll reach out to the question.

Director, I I will say Director DeRubis and Director Canona's um have been very responsive in answering people's questions and setting up individual calls, going over specific uh specific things, whether or not the 911 uh not non-emergency line went down.

questions uh one was related to the non-emergency line um and then your question i said that you would most likely be reaching out to them uh individually to get your questions answered if if that helps okay yeah i can i guess i'll reach director i i will say director de Rubis and director canonas um have been very responsive in answering people's questions and setting up individual calls going over specific uh specific thing whether or not the 911 uh not non-emergency line went down and and there there's a lot of there's a lot of misinformation out on what happened i think people are picking it up on social media and i think he's kind of setting the record straight so if you if you want to reach out to him directly uh he would be more than happy to answer any questions that you might have okay i can do that but they could not make it to answer your question i'm sorry that was a long winded answer um just a quick point of inquiry on that dan uh for representative boudreau if he wants to send me a message i can get in touch with brian at the ecc really easily and we can discuss that because i talked to him about that um i appreciate it that wasn't actually where i was going with my questions for the i was going for more on the permitting process um and how they decide what permits will be approved and what won't and etc okay just wanted to offer thanks i appreciate it yeah thank you so much uh are there any other questions i'm flipping through my uh brady bunch screen over here um without further ado i think that's all we have i i really just want to thank miss compton and mr carp for joining us today i know um you know stuff happens you know and and you know i've been to the i've been to the events they've been fun i think it's it's a it's a true um you know kind of incentive type of thing that we have in the city i think you guys do a great job obviously stuff happens um and i think the goal here was to really just kind of hear from you and to see that we acknowledge something happened these are the these are the things that we put in place these are the controls that we're doing we learn and we adjust and that's just kind of part of everything so I I I appreciate the the attention to the matter and if you don't mind if there are any questions that we might have if we could send you an email or something like that um just so that we we don't keep having review items but uh I listen you guys have done a great job and I appreciate it and if there aren't any other questions I'm gonna go ahead and uh and close this item out so with that without any other questions I believe that concludes our agenda um the time is 659 p.m and without further ado is there a motion to adjourn so moved and there's a second second all right there's a motion to adjourn in a second I appreciate everybody joining us I think it was a productive conversation and I hope you guys enjoy this beautiful beautiful summer day good night everyone and there's a concert at the park if anybody'd like to attend yeah yeah what time it's it's starting right now it's it's already happening I got you out in time thank you thank you so much have a lovely evening you as well thank you