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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2015-12-01 - 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 December 1, 2015 Convene Meeting: Parks and Recreation Advisory Council Chairman Jamie Schutzer called the meeting to order at 8:05pm. The following Members of the Parks & Recreation Advisory Council were present: Advisory Council Members: Chairman Schutzer, Adam Zahl, Scott Tillison, Michael Keilman, Emma Saghir, Rick Buzin 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 November 3, 2015 Minutes: Chairman Schutzer asked for a motion to accept the November 3, 2015 minutes. Council Member Buzin made the motion to accept the November 3, 2015 Minutes and Council Member Keilman seconded the motion. The minutes were accepted and approved. II. Public View Points: There were no Public View Points to report. 111. Superintendent's Report: a. Winter Programs Update: Superintendent Bertolacci said we will be running some rec programs after school in the month of January to fill the void from the PTA's programs. Chairman Schutzer asked what does that mean by fill the void. Superintendent Bertolacci said when the PTA's fall programs end, they are not starting up until after the February break. We are going to take the opportunity to fill some gym space at the school. Superintendent Bertolacci said the PTA is not starting any programs in the winter. They will start them up after the winter break. Chairman Schutzer asked Superintendent Bertolacci if he had started promoting the programs already. Superintendent Bertolacci replied no and they are going to go in our winter brochure which is going to go out in 2 weeks. Superintendent Bertolacci said we have not finalized them yet but we are definitely going to run something after school in the schools. Chairman Schutzer asked what age groups. Superintendent Bertolacci said it is up in the air at this point we are still working on the details. Superintendent Bertolacci said he knows we are going to have kindergarten and 1" grade basketball for sure as we do that every year. Superintendent Bertolacci said they are going to look in to some other kinds of thing as opposed to sports. Council Member Buzin said so all 1168377.1 their programs end before Thanksgiving. Superintendent Bertolacci said he was not sure but they are definitely done by Christmas. Superintendent Bertolacci said it would run for 6 weeks. Superintendent Bertolacci said in their meetings with the PTA they are very supportive of the Rec Department doing this. Superintendent Bertolacci said as far as baseball clinics go we are going to be using Blind Brook high school gym on Wednesday evenings for the month of January. Superintendent Bertolacci said Bill Consiglio is going to run some clinics over there for us. Superintendent Bertolacci said it will be broken up in two sessions, one at 7 and one at 8. Chairman Schutzer asked what were the age groups. Superintendent Bertolacci said Little League. b. Winter Festival: Superintendent Bertolacci said the Winter Festival is happening this Friday night. Superintendent Bertolacci said there will be 3 ice sculptures that will be done in the park, the Blind Brook high school band (the 7th grade wood wind band he thought will be there), the middle school choir will be there, we are doing the Christmas Tree & Menorah Lighting, the Polar express movie, the Polar Express train ride around the park, snowball dodgeball games throughout the night in the park, and crafts while kids are waiting in the Santa line. Chairman Schutzer asked how much money is being spent on this event. Superintendent Bertolacci said about $8,000. Chairman Schutzer said everything is free. Superintendent Bertolacci said the concession stand we charge but everything else is free. Superintendent Bertolacci said ACME will have a tent there and they will be giving away hot chocolate and some other stuff. Chairman Schutzer said it sounds like a good community event and hopefully it is well attended. Superintendent Bertolacci said the school district did send out a couple of email blasts for us. Collectively the council members agreed there was great coverage for the event from the signs posted at the schools, the ad in the Westmore News and the mailer that went out. IV.Village-PTA Coordinating Subcommittee—Rick Buzin: Council Member Buzin said that he sent to a number of people on the subcommittee and Jamie and Bert the policy on advertising in school districts which there is nothing about them not being able to disseminate any of our information. Council Member Buzin said he had been in touch with the school board President, Jeff Diamond and Jonathan Ross and he let them know this is your policy and that is not what everyone has been led to believe so downstream should Rec want to do that it should not be a problem right. Council Member Buzin said he got rights from both of them. Council Member Buzin said he also spoke with Cheryl Artebane of the PTA and asked her if she wouldn't mind having a meeting with all the groups and she has no problem with it. Council Member Buzin said he also followed up with the school facilities. Council Member Buzin said the most important thing he got out of talking to all of them is that they all kind of get it and they all kind of actually agreed that it has not been really well done. Council Member Buzin said what he is hoping is that maybe after Winter break will actually have a sit down with all of the groups. Council Member Buzin said in the meantime for the older kids' tomorrow morning community coalition meets which is mostly for middle high school kids. Council Member Buzin said they are basically a group from the whole community and it is the idea of giving tweens and teens more healthy options. Council Member Buzin said he does not think that they generally understand that we have programs for those kids and he is going to go to the meeting tomorrow and ask to get a couple of minutes to get these people on board that the Rec Department has programs. Council Member Buzin said this a perfect outlet for what you are looking for as we could be a really good resource there. Council Member Buzin said he also spoke to the athletic director because he would like his input too. Council Member Buzin said from the standpoint of looking at us as a development and what he might like to see. 1168377.1 Superintendent Bertolacci said he thinks he is trying to feel his way through his first year there too. Council Member Buzin said apparently there was a meeting of the school district hierarchy, the President, the Superintendent, he believes the Mayor and Chris Bradbury a week ago Friday about common issues. Council Member Buzin said he is going to keep on pushing and can only be good for everybody and he will get his committee working on it too. Council Member Saghir asked what are the programs that are offered to the kids in middle school and high school for the rec other than basketball. Superintendent Bertolacci responded we have the teen nights which are either hit or miss. Superintendent Bertolacci said we used to do teen nights at Posillipo but no one wanted to drive across town so we did not get the numbers. Superintendent Bertolacci said we used to do karaoke one month and the next month we would do open space and let them have run of the place. Superintendent Bertolacci said sometimes they showed up and sometimes they did not and it all depended on the key people in the class. Chairman Schutzer said what about asking the kids for their ideas. Superintendent Bertolacci said we have done that too and they came up with some ideas and we tried doing them and they still did not come. Chairman Schutzer said it was a shame that the 3 on 3 basketball tournament was cancelled and he will stick to his theory on that because he got a hundred e-mails about it but his kid got nothing. Chairman Schutzer said if flyers were handed out at school kids would have been like who is on my team. Council Member Buzin said he has it on his list to work on this. Chairman Schutzer said everyone wants to play basketball in this town. Council Member Tillison said I still think we should put together a skills contest as kids would eat that up. Council Member Saghir said there has to be some more after school activities for middle school and high school kids like there are so many clubs that the kids participate in that belongs to the school and they stay after and the parents pick them up. Superintendent Bertolacci said a good majority of the high schools have all their stuff after school any way like all there clubs so you are not going to get those kids and the kids that are going to want to do gym stuff are all on the basketball team and all on school teams so you will not get them either. Superintendent Bertolacci said that unless the school starts dropping modified programs then we will have to pick up the slack but right now there is no gym space after school during the winter at all. Council Member Saghir said so from September to June there is not one slot open for the Rec. Superintendent Bertolacci said he thought the gyms were open in the fall maybe but one of them has to be open you are not going to have volleyball in every gym. Superintendent Bertolacci said fall is volleyball and winter in the gym is basketball everywhere and spring you have baseball on rainy days so there is nothing we can do to push the issue. Council Member Tillison said one of the things that was terrific two years ago was we organized a bunch of Dads to get all the kids together we could and we had a flag football tournament and the kids loved it. Council Member Saghir said that is a good idea to have like once a month. Council Member Tillison said make it a different sport one Sunday a month or one Saturday a month. V. Basketball Subcommittee Report—Mike Keilman: Council Member Keilman said basketball starts this week. Council Member Keilman gave a rundown of the teams in each grade group. Council Member Keilman said Janice told him the numbers were pretty much similar to last year just a little bit less. Superintendent Bertolacci said per Janice's programs but Kyle's programs he thinks the numbers are a little bit higher. Council Member Keilman said one rule change Kyle put in was there is some push back from the girls coaches on the second and third grade so the defense line cannot go past the blue line. Council Member Keilman said basically the rule is you cannot just shoot from behind that line. Council Member Keilman said the line is too short so Kyle is trying to make it fair for both the 2nd and 3rd grade boys and girls. Chairman Schutzer asked when does 6`h, 7`h, 8`h, 9`h start. It was confirmed by all that 6`h & 7th start Sunday and the 81h & 9`h start Saturday. Council Member 1168377.1 Tillison said he had a couple of comments about basketball. Council Member Tillison asked if they could put the nets on the rims in the new gym. Superintendent Bertolacci said he will make a call about it. Council Member Tillison said this year like you said we have 7 teams and he thinks just about every team has 9 kids. Council Member Tillison asked if there was some way that we could get the kids to sign up early so that we could have had 8 teams. The council members discussed whether or not having 8 kids on a team would be a problem. Council Member Tillison said he has had teams with 8 kids on the team and it was not a problem. Council Member Keilman said for your team it may be fine but for all the other teams he thinks they would be short. Council Member Keilman said he did not think you could even it out for all the teams so that it would necessarily be fair. Superintendent Bertolacci said he did not think there was any good way to do it. Chairman Schutzer said he thought if you had 7 or 8 teams of 10 then going to 9 would be okay but going from 9 to 8. Council Member Tillison said we have played seasons with 8 kids before. Superintendent Bertolacci said you cannot go any less than 8. Council Member Tillison said he is fine with that but we are probably one kid shy of having 8 teams of 8. Council Member Keilman asked if the decision is made by the total number of players or the number of coaches that volunteer. Council Member Tillison said it is the number of players. Superintendent Bertolacci said and if we do not have enough coaches will find coaches as it is always the number of players. Council Member Tillison said the last thing is have we ever considered starting the basketball season a couple of weeks earlier. Superintendent Bertolacci said travel soccer is still going on. Council Member Saghir asked how long is the basketball season. Council Member Tillison said through February. The council members discussed the options of extending the season and what days would possibly work. VI.Grievance Subcommittee Report - Adam Zahl: a. Code of Conduct: Council Member Zahl said there were no grievances to report. Council Member Zahl said he knows the kid friendly code of conduct has been going out. Council Member Zahl asked if people have been emailing these forms. Superintendent Bertolacci said some people have been emailing them but most of them have been coming in by fax and people have also been dropping them off in person too. Council Member Zahl said his suggestion is can Kyle have extras copies at the game. Superintendent Bertolacci said he will. Council Member Zahl said this may not come under a grievance issue but he has heard and it is on the streets so to speak a little speculation from people who are a little concerned about some coaches, not mentioning any names, focusing on coaching their own kids. Council Member Zahl said it is not a new issue he understands that to the exclusion of the other coaches on the team but he is just wondering if this is a grievable offense if this can be verified. Council Member Tillison said what ever happened to the time when you just went up to someone and said hey what about this why do you have to hide behind a grievance. Chairman Schutzer said he agrees but the problem is you are always going to have it as he has seen it from 1st grade in to 8`h grade. Chairman Schutzer said in his opinion it is not grievable. Council Member Zahl said his point was does that fall under this subcommittee. Chairman Schutzer said no but if there are enough complaints that could be something that calls for a conversation with Kyle, Janice or whom ever to say back off. VII. Baseball Subcommittee - Scott Tillison: Council Member Tillison said he was glad to hear that Superintendent Bertolacci got the winter clinics started for January and wanted to know if it was just going to go for January and wanted to know if he was going to try and do anything in February as well. Superintendent Bertolacci said we will start with January and see how it goes. Council Member Tillison asked if it was going to be two groups. Superintendent Bertolacci said yes it is, minor and major. Chairman 1168377.1 Schutzer asked if there will be a cost to it. Superintendent Bertolacci said no as long as you registered for Little League last year. Council Member Buzin asked what if a kid wants to come that did not register. Superintendent Bertolacci said then he will have to figure out a fee. Council Member Tillison said he did get a chance to check out the mound on the new field and he thinks as it firms up it is going to be nice. Council Member Tillison said the artificial mound on the old field was put there 2 years ago and the turf on that mound is gone. Council Member Tillison said it is probably time to do something with that mound so if we are only going to get 2 years out of a $2,000 piece of equipment is that worth it. Superintendent Bertolacci said no we are going to end up building a mound. Council Member Tillison said that was the point he was getting to because if we were getting 5 to 7 years out of it maybe but at 2 years a shot it is not worth a $2,000 investment. VIII. Old Business: a.)Turf Field Chairman Schutzer said he cannot even walk on that field any more as it is so annoying. Superintendent Bertolacci said he had the field gmax tested and they claim that both soccer goal areas there is some compaction that we need to address. Chairman Schutzer asked what is the meaning of compaction. Superintendent Bertolacci responded to press it down. Superintendent Bertolacci said home plate area needs to be replaced on the baseball field and the pitcher's mound needs to be replaced on the baseball field along with a couple of other spots. Superintendent Bertolacci said he is going to have a professional groomer come in and groom the entire field this winter. Chairman Schutzer asked why is the synthetic stuff ripping up. Superintendent Bertolacci said it is towards the end of its useful life and the field will be replaced in the summer of 2017. Superintendent Bertolacci said this winter we are going to do a temporary fix in front of the soccer goals as we are going to cut a patch from the less used areas and swap them. Chairman Schutzer asked if it has been approved by the Board of Trustees. Superintendent Bertolacci said no it is going in this year's budget so he can put it out to bid and that is when it is going to be replaced in the summer of 2017. Superintendent Bertolacci confirmed that is $750,000 just for the lower field. Council Member Tillison said he is assuming that they are going to do the high school baseball field at the same time because it was put in about the same time. Superintendent Bertolacci said he did not know what their plans are as he has not spoken to them. There was discussion amongst the Council as to which fields got the most use. Council Member Tillison said it might be worth bringing up a conversation with the Athletic Director maybe when they redo that consider trying to redo it so we can play more baseball on it. Council Member Buzin said he has that in his notes. Council Member Tillison asked if we could bring in the lights when we do some inner league games with Port Chester for one weekend at the new or old field like the high school brings in the lights for homecoming. Superintendent Bertolacci said it is a difficult situation. Council Member Tillison said there is something fun about playing under the lights. Superintendent Bertolacci said I do not disagree with you. Chairman Schutzer said you could also play at Port Chester middle school. Superintendent Bertolacci said but those lights are shut. Council Member Tillison said Port Chester has portable lights for their soccer practices you would think we would be able to do it for one game. Council Member Buzin said let me play the devil's advocate who is going to play as it is one night and there is going to be a whole bunch of kids who are going to want to do it and why are you doing it and my team is not getting to play. Chairman Schutzer said everyone would have to play. Chairman Schutzer said on an unrelated subject are you going to try and do men's softball or are you done. Superintendent Bertolacci said I do not have money in the budget right now to pay for the lights so if I am doing the league it is going to be early games only. 1168377.1 b.)Summer Camp Superintendent Bertolacci said he had nothing to report on summer camp at this time. IX. New Business: Council Member Keilman said Rye Town has started a rugby team for the high school and the youth program approximately 3 years ago and they are reaching out to other towns to try and invite kids to play with them if they are interested. Council Member Keilman said he has joined their board and his first board meeting is tomorrow night. Council Member Keilman said he was wondering if there is any way to get something in the Rye Brook brochures that they play in the spring to let people know almost like Rye Youth Soccer. Superintendent Bertolacci said he used to do a section it used to be other activities and he could do something like that. Council Member Keilman said he would get Superintendent Bertolacci the information. Council Member Keilman said they have a K-8 split in to 3 age groups which starts in April and they are trying for Sunday mornings. Council Member Keilman said they are trying to start a middle school team that will tackle. Other council members asked how do you play rugby without tackling. Council Member Keilman responded touch football. Council Member Keilman said there will not be any contact as rugby is a sport where they teach you to tackle the proper way. Council Member Keilman said to Superintendent Bertolacci as long as you do not mind putting something in the brochure. Superintendent Bertolacci said as long as it does not conflict with my stuff that is fine. Council Member Keilman said he did not think it should and the only conflict is going to be travel soccer and probably travel baseball but he just wants to give kids an option if they want to try it. X. Adjournment: Chairman Schutzer asked for a motion to adjourn the meeting. Council Member Saghir made the motion to adjourn the meeting and Council Member Zahl seconded the motion. All approved and the meeting was adjourned at 9:25pm. The next meeting of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Council will be held on Tuesday, January 5, 2016 at 8:OOpm. Minutes prepared by: Jennifer Leichter 1168377.1