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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2015-10-06 - Parks and Rec Advisory Council Meeting Minutes MINUTES OF THE VILLAGE OF RYE BROOK PARKS AND RECREATION ADVISORY COUNCIL 938 KING STREET RYE BROOK, New York 10573 October 6, 2015 Convene Meeting: Parks and Recreation Advisory Council Chairman Jamie Schutzer called the meeting to order at 7:55pm. The following Members of the Parks & Recreation Advisory Council were present: Advisory Council Members: Chairman Schutzer, Adam Zahl, Scott Tillison, Michael Keilman, Emma Saghir Absent Parks & Recreation Advisory Council Members: Susan Gardner, Jason Steinberg Recreation Department Members: Robert Bertolacci, Parks and Recreation Superintendent Jennifer Leichter, Office Assistant I. Minutes: a. Approve September 9, 2015 Minutes: Chairman Schutzer asked for a motion to accept the September 9, 2015 minutes. Council Member Tillison made the motion to accept the September 9, 2015 Minutes and Council Member Zahl seconded the motion. The minutes were accepted and approved. II. Welcome New Council Member: Chairman Schutzer announced the official welcome of new Council Member Emma Saghir and gave her a couple of minutes to introduce herself. Council Member Emma Saghir said she lives at 44 Bonwit Road in Rye Brook. She has two children, a 13 year old son and an 11 year old daughter. My hobbies are baking and she is a big soccer fan. She said she is happy to be here to help. Chairman Schutzer said we look forward to your input. III. Public View Points: There were no Public View Points to report. IV. Superintendent's Report: a. Letter To The Public: Chairman Schutzer said he guessed the letter was ready to go out. Superintendent Bertolacci said now that we are having a member change do we want to hold off until he is appointed and then we will send it out from there. Chairman Schutzer said he changed the next meeting date to November 3rd. Chairman Schutzer asked if everyone read the letter. Council Member Zahl asked who is coming off the committee. Chairman Schutzer responded Kathy Bilig. Chairman Schutzer said the point of sending this letter is that we have these public view points in this meeting although in the catalogues that go out it probably talks about the council and when we meet but we thought a little refresher email blast out to the community to talk about the council 1168377.1 and also to advise that there is a forum to come to and express any concerns, issues, whether good bad or anything in between. Chairman Schutzer said we should wait until the new Council Member is appointed. Superintendent Bertolacci said we can add his name to this and just send it out with his name on it. Chairman Schutzer asked if everyone read it and asked if anyone had any questions or comments to add. Council Member Keilman asked if there was any way to put it on the TV channel that we have like the public access not necessarily put the letter on but say the Park & Rec Advisory Council's next meeting is on November 3rd. Chairman Schutzer asked who controls the public access station. Superintendent Bertolacci said our IT person places it on there. He said he will speak to the IT person and have him do it. He asked when they want the letter to be sent out. Chairman Schutzer said he definitely wants to add the new Council Member's name on it. Council Member Tillison said he would add his name and send it out now. Chairman Schutzer said do you want to send it a week before meeting. Superintendent Bertolacci said he was fine sending it out the end of next week. Chairman Schutzer said the point of this is maybe it will be some instant gratification where if you send it a week before someone will see it but the idea is for people to read it and remember it and it be fresh in their mind whether it's a month 2 months 6 months a year down the road they have that email and they have an issue and they want to bring it out. Council Member Saghir asked is this the first time you are doing this. Chairman Schutzer said he thinks it is in the catalog. Superintendent Bertolacci said it has been in the book numerous times. Chairman Schutzer said nobody reads that. Council Member Saghir said she had never seen it. Chairman Schutzer said he did not think it has ever gone out in an email. Superintendent Bertolacci said it is a new letter. Council Member Zahl said this a letter he drafted a couple of weeks ago but there is always a little blurb in the recreation brochure. Council Member Tillison asked if there was a facility on the website to offer a suggestion like if they want to reach out and they don't know how to get a hold of you they just type in. Superintendent Bertolacci said no. Council Member Saghir asked if it could be sent as a mass email. Chairman Schutzer said it is going to go out through Community Pass. Council Member Saghir said she thought that was the most effective way. Chairman Schutzer asked if Community Pass was constant contact and do you track the number of people who open it. Superintendent Bertolacci said we track the number of people that it was delivered to and we can see how many people open it too. Chairman Schutzer asked how many names are on Community Pass. Superintendent Bertolacci said a lot. Chairman Schutzer said he thought the letter could be fired off now he didn't think they needed to wait until closer to the meeting. He also said that if something could be written up for Public Access and have the messages continually scrolling. Chairman Schutzer said so we are going to send out the letter and put an advertisement on the Public Access station and try to create awareness about the public view points of these meetings. b. FaIUWinter Updates: Superintendent Bertolacci said we did not get the registration for Monday floor hockey. He said we had to cancel that program. He thought it was the kindergarten floor hockey for whatever reason. Chairman Schutzer said isn't that new though. Superintendent Bertolacci said it was a different day. He said we used to do Wednesdays and Thursdays. He said this year PTA gave us Monday and Thursdays. He said we have never done Mondays before. He said he thought we had 4 kids registered and they transferred a couple of them to Thursday and then we offered a 2nd and 3rd grade floor hockey to try and take that slot. He said we did not get anybody there either. Chairman Schutzer said do you think Monday is just a bad day or do you think it is the interest level. Superintendent Bertolacci said Monday is probably a bad day which is why they were happy to give it up. Council Member Saghir said Monday is pre-travel soccer day. Superintendent Bertolacci said there is a lot of stuff that goes on on Mondays. Superintendent 1168377.1 Bertolacci said we also had to cancel an adult exercise class which was supposed to start tonight. He said no one registered for that one. He said we will try and do it again in the winter. Council Member Saghir asked why is the class not during the day instead of at night. Superintendent Bertolacci said he offered it during the day also and got nothing. He said there used to be am and pm classes and he did not get any registration for any of them. He said the problem is you have health clubs all over the place and they are cheaper because once you are a member there the classes are cheap. Council Member Saghir said classes are for free. Chairman Schutzer asked about basketball. He said he knows registration is ongoing. Superintendent Bertolacci said he has been doing ratings, some nights he gets slammed with a lot of kids some nights he gets 5 or 6. Council Member Keilman said last night it was busy. He said he was there last night with the 2nd or 3rd graders. He said there had to be at least 40 and he showed up a half hour after it started. He said there were a bunch of kids there last night. Council Member Tillison asked if it was just Kyle rating. Council Member Keilman said he did not know but he thought there were a few other parents he said they do not let parents go in but it was definitely more than just Kyle. Council Member Saghir asked if we were still doing tennis. Superintendent Bertolacci said there are 4 sessions/dates in the Fall for tennis. Council Member Saghir asked if it was still popular. Superintendent Bertolacci said yes but it is not like it used to be but they still get the numbers. Chairman Schutzer asked who teaches that. Superintendent Bertolacci said Future Stars. Council Member Saghir asked if we get enough permits during the summer. Superintendent Bertolacci replied not really the Board changed the whole policy that they are only going to have tennis attendants there on Saturdays and Sundays so they decreased the fees because we lost a lot of money with people just sitting there with no players. Council Member Tillison said he did not know why it could not be self-policing. Superintendent Bertolacci said you also want to have some eyes in the park as well. Council Member Saghir said maybe we could install a machine where you can scan/swipe your membership card instead of having to pay all these people. Superintendent Bertolacci said who is going to tell you when your court time is up. Council Member Saghir asked who was telling before. Superintendent Bertolacci said the attendants. Council Member Saghir said we used to just walk in and show our membership and if the court is open it's open and if not it's not. Superintendent Bertolacci said but if there are people waiting who is telling you when your time is up with a card. Council Member Keilman said he has been to those parks thousands of times and he has never seen more than 2 courts used at any given time. Council Member Tillison said a sign up board solves all that you have a slot for each hour you write something on the board. Council Member Keilman said if people are not there how do you get them off. Council Member Tillison said your slot is over excuse me are you done using the court. Council Member Saghir said it is a shame because in the summer like Mike said you drive by and there is no one on the courts. She said may be the hours would be like instead of doing Saturdays or Sundays you do hours like in the afternoon 6pm to 9pm you put someone and then you put early morning lam to l Oam and then during the in between you don't have it and maybe people will go as that is prime time during the summer. Chairman Schutzer asked if those courts were resurfaced. Superintendent Bertolacci said two of them. Chairman Schutzer asked are you doing the other two. Superintendent Bertolacci said the other two were done last year. Chairman Schutzer asked what about the basketball court. Superintendent Bertolacci said yes the numbers we keep getting back are way out of our budget whether it is the cost of the blacktop or whatever but the numbers we've been getting are like $30,000 over our budget and that is not happening. He said we are rebidding that again now. Council Member Saghir said the basketball court you just show up and play a game nobody is needed so why is the tennis? We are making money on the tennis we are not renting the basketball. Superintendent Bertolacci said the basketball you have more people on the court tennis you have a maximum of 4 on a court. Council Member Tillison said people have figured 1168377.1 out how to self-police basketball. He said you show up you have 5 players you call next you are next. Council Member Saghir said you play. Superintendent Bertolacci said a tennis game takes longer than a basketball game that is if you are playing sets. c. Summer Camp Survey: Superintendent Bertolacci said he did not have any information on the camp surveys. Chairman Schutzer said this should really be like an area to focus on for next year. He said he knows that you are going to have a new director. Council Member Saghir said shake up the entire program. Chairman Schutzer said think outside the box if we are going to have a new director use it as an opportunity to try and make it more attractive. Chairman Schutzer asked if we are going to search for a new director. Superintendent Bertolacci said the director is probably going to be Kyle or Kyle is going to hire someone. Chairman Schutzer said maybe we can have Kyle come to one of these meetings and obviously we do not want to wait until May or April but some time over the winter and sit in and have a discussion and brainstorm. d. Other Updates: Superintendent Bertolacci said the pitching mound was raised at Pine Ridge new field and subsequently the rain that we got over this past weekend people walked on it and damaged it so it will be repaired before this weekend's games. The pitching area at the turf field will be replaced very soon. He said there is a tear in front of the 46 foot rubber. Chairman Schutzer said that is what I was telling you last meeting. Superintendent Bertolacci said yes. Chairman Schutzer asked about all the black stuff and asked if Superintendent Bertolacci noticed the big patches. Superintendent Bertolacci said there are big patches of black stuff that was just because they just recently groomed it they will all sink back down. Chairman Schutzer asked if the life span on those fields is 8 to 10 years how old are those fields. Superintendent Bertolacci said 8 years and will probably get another 2 years or so before it gets replaced. Chairman Schutzer asked if that was already in the budget. Superintendent Bertolacci replied yes. Council Member Saghir asked which fields are we talking about. Chairman Schutzer said the King Street field. Superintendent Bertolacci said since we built the field we have been placing $30,000 a year in a replacement account to finance the replacement of the field. Chairman Schutzer asked if that would be the entire field. Superintendent Bertolacci said it will replace both fields just the turf and the pellets all the sub surface underneath the field is still in good shape so we do not need to touch that. He said it cost $3.6 million dollars to build the field it will probably cost less than a million to replace the turf. Chairman Schutzer asked if the high school fields are doing it roughly at the same time. Superintendent Bertolacci said that is up to the schools. Chairman Schutzer asked if they were built at the same time. Superintendent Bertolacci replied they were. Chairman Schutzer said you would think that theirs would go sooner. Council Member Tillison said he was trying to do the math that you are putting away 30 grand a year. If that is going to cost a million, that is a lot of years. Superintendent Bertolacci said no but the rest will be financed through a bond. He said it is just to help offset the big numbers that we would be talking to replace the fields. Superintendent Bertolacci said he did meet with the PTA, President, Cheryl Artabane. He said he met with her and they are going to continue to meet on a bi-monthly basis. We are going to simultaneously put our information out for next year so no one is at an advantage over the other. Chairman Schutzer asked if we could find ways to collaborate. Superintendent Bertolacci said they are also talking about that. Council Member Keilman asked where do the conflicts come in with the PTA. Superintendent Bertolacci said school usage, the overlapping of programs. Council Member Keilman asked what programs do they run that are outside of the Rec. Superintendent Bertolacci said a basketball program and they had a floor hockey program. Council Member Keilman said pardon his ignorance but why does the PTA do 1168377.1 separate sports programs. Superintendent Bertolacci said that is what we are going to be talking about. He said that is part of our agenda is to kind of have them do everything but sports and leave the sports to Rec. Chairman Schutzer said yes because they want to make money. Superintendent Bertolacci said the PTA has been asked to do a lot more because of the budget constraints. They were asked to fundraise a lot more to help offset some of the costs for school stuff now. Council Member Keilman said he did not realize the PTA had a separate agenda for sports programs. Chairman Schutzer asked why can't the Rec Department do the sports. Superintendent Bertolacci said that is what we are pushing for. Council Member Tillison said that is the purpose of getting together with the PTA. Superintendent Bertolacci said the biggest thing is finding days that work for everyone and if we are going to be running the sports program there is no reason why we can't be in those gyms 4 days a week. He said that is all he has. V. Basketball Sub-Committee Report—Mike Keilman: Chairman Schutzer said he spoke to Superintendent Bertolacci before he came to the meeting as it is only fair to give Council Member Keilman some guidance on where to pick this thing up. Chairman Schutzer said that Superintendent Bertolacci said a good starting point would be to contact Kyle and Janice and see if they have any feedback based on last year, things that happened, maybe a review of the rules. Council Member Keilman said he read the rules on line. Council Member Keilman said Susan Gardner and Adam Zahl are on the sub-committee. Council Member Keilman asked who decides upon the rules. Superintendent Bertolacci said the committee makes a recommendation to the superintendent. Council Member Keilman said he does not see why there should be any changes. Superintendent Bertolacci said he should have a conversation with Kyle and Janice for the 81h 91h 10`i'and I I"' see if they have any thoughts on any rule changes. Council Member Keilman asked if they handle scheduling referees and all that type of stuff. Superintendent Bertolacci replied yes they do. Chairman Schutzer said the one thing he heard last year about the 9`i' graders was it was out of control because they do not have parent coaches they have the high school kids and they are just goofing around. Council Member Tillison said he sort of gets the goofing around thing as they are having fun but there is also a referee there and he needs to kind of keep it under control as well. He said unless maybe we talk to the Juniors and Seniors coaching and say your job is to get everybody involved and try to encourage the kids to be more team oriented and try to play the game like it is supposed to be played. Superintendent Bertolacci said he did not know if you just had a bad group. Council Member Tillison said it happens every week and he has stopped going. Superintendent Bertolacci said he did not know if it was just last year's group of kids that were working because he has never gotten any complaints about that program. Council Member Tillison said he was involved with a game where they had to call the game before the final buzzer because kids were just goofing around and it was not a basketball game anymore. Council Member Keilman said he will talk to Kyle and Janice and see what they think. Council Member Tillison said about the basketball thing he was talking to Kyle earlier today and they have an oversupply of coaches for 6`i' and 7`i'grade. Superintendent Bertolacci said same thing with the 4`i' and 5`i'graders last year. Council Member Tillison said now is the time to make it known that these things are not going to be tolerated. Superintendent Bertolacci said what we are doing is asking for voluntarily coaches to step down and after that will take a look. Council Member Tillison said as he has heard you have had one that stepped down. He said it is going to come down to some sort of effort on your part to weed out to pair it down to the final list. He asked how do we do that. He asked is that something you would like to share with us. Superintendent Bertolacci said Kyle and him will take a look and see what is left after people step down and we will have to make decisions. Council Member Saghir asked how do you pick the coaches. Superintendent Bertolacci said usually they volunteer. Chairman Schutzer said typically you are begging people to coach just to 1168377.1 get the numbers so the fact that you have too many is a good problem and the guys who have a reputation in the past of misbehaving now you can tell them remember that, you're out. Council Member Keilman asked if this was 6th and 7th grade because he did 6`i' and 7`i'grade last year and he was asked to coach because they did not have enough. Chairman Schutzer said he thought it was the 6th grade Dads who were all there. Council Member Keilman said but there were not that many last year though. Superintendent Bertolacci said it is the same group of people they are just moving up. He said we have a couple of weeks before the first draft so we will have to weed them down and Kyle and I will have to have a conversation before. Council Member Keilman asked if he could have a conversation with Kyle and Superintendent Bertolacci after they have a conversation. Superintendent Bertolacci said traditionally we do not reach out to the Council for picking of coaches but he will talk to Kyle and they will see. VI.Grievance Sub-Committee Report - Adam Zahl: a. Code of Conduct: Council Member Zahl said he knows Chairman Schutzer sent around the Code of Conduct for young people. He said he changed the language we talked about at last meeting and he did not know if there were any other changes that we wanted to make. He said we want to get it out and he heard everyone's feedback in terms of keeping it short and simple. He said it is something a kid can read and will pay attention. Chairman Schutzer said it is to the point and a one pager. Superintendent Bertolacci said it will be emailed to all people in the program. VII. Baseball Sub-Committee - Scott Tillison: Council Member Tillison said there is not much new on the Baseball Sub-Committee. He said he is trying to get things in order to start off strong come early or late winter a little bit better than we had with some clinics but the one thing he thought of between now and last meeting is he would like for the kids to start participating in taking care of the fields. He thinks it is a good life lesson and it shows them that you take responsibility for equipment that you play on so he would like to get some small drag mats, a broom and maybe a rake and have them turn the water on so that after each game you take a handful of kid volunteers and say you are dragging the infield. You are responsible for smoothing out the pitcher's mound on the field where we have a dirt mound. At the end after you have smoothed it all out you hose down the infield lightly. Then the infield is ready to play the next day. He said the baseball fields will wear much better doing it that way instead of having to wait until Saturday for the crews to come around. It teaches the kids a little bit of responsibility. There was discussion of how after the games everyone leaves and much junk is left on the floor. Council Member Tillison said he gets people are busy and they want to get moving and that is fine but 15 minutes. Chairman Schutzer said at the very least pick up your junk and if it is not you the parents should come in and do it or tell the kids to do it as it should not be the coaches. Superintendent Bertolacci said his only issue with that is if they do not do it right they are causing his guys more work to undo what they did. Council Member Tillison said they do it with some parental supervision and a coach stays around to watch them. He said you teach them the right way and it is not difficult. He asked if we could get them to fix 2nd base on the old field as it is turned the wrong way. Superintendent Bertolacci said he will have them fix it by the weekend. 1168377.1 VIII. Old Business: a.)Canopy For Baseball Dugouts Chairman Schutzer said he is leaving this item on the agenda. He asked if it is going to happen at the end of this season. Superintendent Bertolacci said canopies should happen at the end of this month. He said he does not have the PO in his hand yet but as soon as he gets that they will order the stuff and start working on it. b.)Strategic Planning Session Chairman Schutzer said we will definitely have the strategic planning session next month. He said Jeff Rednick will be there. He is hoping everyone else will be there. He said at the next meeting we will go through regular business. He said this Council is getting stale so having Rick Buzin who started the Council twenty something years ago and has been on the Board of Trustees and has been on the school board and having some new members like Mike, Emma, Jason and Susan. I have been here 4 years and you guys have been here for a couple of years. Having Jeff and if Chris can make it that would be great. He said he is hoping that before this meeting we can have a job description and he thinks that is out there but when someone new comes on not that they need formal training but they should at least know what they are getting into. If there is a job description and we have it we can make suggestions then discuss the Council and their job descriptions and come up with new ways of how this council works going forward and we talked about that there is not really a lot of collaboration and interaction with the Board of Trustees. He said for the next meeting coming up with ideas and brainstorming how we can make this more effective how we could be more involved in the community and really whatever changes happen maybe at the end of the day we are doing a great job and we just move forward or maybe we identify things that we can do better and he thinks having the right mix of people brings a good dynamic to the table. He said between now and November 3rd think about what we do well what we do not well and what we can do better. IX. New Business: There was no New Business to report. X. Adjournment: Chairman Schutzer asked for a motion to adjourn the meeting. Council Member Zahl made the motion to adjourn the meeting and Council Member Keilman seconded the motion. All approved and the meeting was adjourned at 9:02pm. The next meeting of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Council will be held on Tuesday, November 3, 2015 at 7:30pm. Minutes prepared by: Jennifer Leichter 1168377.1