Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008-05-06 - 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 May 6, 2008 CONVENE MEETING: Chairman Steve Schoen called the meeting to order at 8:15pm The following members of the Council were present: Advisory Council Members: Chairman Steve Schoen, Cliff Shaw, Richard Gutner, Ken Frankel, Debra Tempesta and Jeffrey Kornblum and Sari Jablon Absent Council Members: Steve Epstein Recreation Department Members Present: Robert Bertolacci, Parks and Recreation Superintendent Carmella Swick, Sr. Office Assistant Paul Rosenberg, Village Trustee & Liaison to Parks & Recreation Department Rye Brook Residents: Kevin O'Neil 1. Minutes: Chairman Schoen asked for a motion to approve the Minutes for March 4, 2008. Committee Member Richard Gutner made a motion to approve the March 4, 2008 Minutes and Committee Member Debra Tempesta seconded the motion and all approved. Committee Member Gutner made a motion to approve the April 1, 2008 Minutes and Committee Member Tempesta seconded the motion and all approved. Chairman Schoen recognized Mr. O'Neil and asked if there was anything in particular he would like to discuss at the meeting. Mr. O'Neil said he was there just as a listener. 11. Public View Points: Village Trustee Paul Rosenberg stated that the meeting Minutes don't need to be transcribed verbatim. The Minutes should be summarized in paragraphs. Chairman Schoen agreed that the Minutes should be summarized stating what is being said. Sometimes it is important to know what a person is saying specifically but more often then not the theme of what is being said could probably be easy enough to communicate in most cases. 1 III. Little League: a. Travel Baseball Club Chairman Schoen asked if the contract with the Travel Baseball Club has been signed. Superintendent Bertolacci stated that the language has to be worked out with our attorney and there is really nothing that is going to stop it from moving forward. Trustee Rosenberg said the board gave their comments to Ed Beane, the Village Attorney and Mr. Beane submitted a draft yesterday and Chris Bradbury, Village Administrator, sent a few more comments back to the attorney. The contract should be finalized by the end of the week. Committee Member Shaw said when he gets the contract; it would be submitted to their attorney. Chairman Schoen asked if the Travel Baseball Club still has 6 board members and if so are there any plans to add a member. Committee Member Shaw said at the end of the contract. b. Resignations Superintendent stated upon recommendation from the Ethics Board, there were some members who had to resign because of a potential conflict of interest. Three individuals from the Little League Committee have to resign. c. Committee Most of the duties of the Little League committee have to do with travel baseball. Maybe a sub- committee of this group can be formed to work on sponsorship or some minimal tasks. Chairman Schoen asked Superintendent if there is anything he needs assistance with. Superintendent said he reached out to Debra Jond and Committee Member Tempesta of the Little League committee to help find people to run the Little League concession stand. We had 29 sponsors this year with revenue of about $17,000. The monetary figure was less because we charged less for sponsoring a team. There were 36 sponsors last year which took care of all of our Little League teams and Rookie League teams. There was one sponsor for Rookie League, Morlino Contracting. Committee Member Jablon asked how we can prevent canceling the Opening Day parade the day before if bad weather is predicted. It turned out to be a beautiful day and there was no parade and the kids were disappointed. Superintendent said the parade was cancelled because the weather report was calling for thunderstorms at the same time of the parade. Superintendent said moving forward for next year, if need be the decision will be made the morning of the event. We made a decision that would keep everyone out of harms way. Committee Member Shaw stated that the Pitch, Hit and Run will not be rescheduled for this year because the first round deadline is May 15th. There was a rain date for the next day, Sunday but it rained. Committee Member Tempesta stated that the Little League committee member terms were staggered. Where are we now with those terms and also did we downsize the number of members on the committee? Superintendent stated that 3 members were reappointed in January and there are another 3 members whose terms are up in January 2009. 2 Superintendent asked if we need the same type of Little League committee going forward or do we want to take everything into this group. If we need other individual volunteers to help out with other things like the concession stand, sponsorship etc., then we could work with sub- committees. Chairman Schoen stated that he would like to take some time thinking about it before making any decision. We will reexamine what the function of that committee is and what it should be and what is required. We can discuss it further at our next meeting. Right now the pressing question is do we need anything from the Little League committee. Superintendent said since we are still running the girl's softball travel portion, I could use some help in getting together and discuss who makes the team and some other items. Superintendent stated that a date hasn't been picked for the softball travel tryouts as of yet. Janice is thinking about a Saturday morning for tryouts towards the end of May and the following Tuesday. The girls' will be playing in the WBA which is the same league the boys play in. The season starts the end of June and John Nest runs the league. Superintendent said that Mr. Nesi will wait until the end of June for a commitment from us. Everyone who is registered in Little League softball will get an e-mail when the tryout dates are set. Janice will also send the e-mail to the coaches. Committee Member Gutner asked if it was possible to give the organization that is in charge of the umpires and give the rules to the umps before the game. Superintendent stated that the organization has the rules and it's the problem of filtering the rules down to the umpires. Committee Member Gutner said there were rules in the equipment box dated 2008 but were different from what the other coach had. Superintendent will check into it tomorrow. The committee reported that there are bees at the fields and the basketball courts and it needs to be taken care of. Superintendent stated that he will have his park staff check all the areas and spray as needed. d. Travel—Baseball/Softball Committee member Gutner stated that there is a lot of interest from the parents for travel softball. Chairman Schoen asked if there will be more than one team. Superintendent Bertolacci stated that it is according to who shows up for the tryouts. On the application last year for travel we indicated that the players could go away on vacation for 1 week. We won't put that in the application this year. Committee Member Gutner asked Cliff how the travel baseball club will handle their application and if they will allow the kids to go away on vacation. Committee Member Shaw said we will ask the parents what their plans are for summer. The practices will be the discretion of the coaches, scheduling and field availability. Chairman Schoen stated that last year the players were allowed to take one week vacation, but that there were issues. The season goes from the end of June to the first week of August depending on how far you go in the playoffs. Committee Member Shaw stated that there are kids home all summer who don't go away and if you allow a kid to go away for a week, it takes away from the kid that may have been the last cut and he is sitting home while the kid who was picked is on vacation and comes home and gets to play more baseball and that is not fair. 3 The fall Season starts the Saturday after Labor Day. Chairman Schoen asked that Superintendent to e-mail a list of who is on the Little League committee and what their terms are. Trustee Rosenberg said that at the last meeting there were a lot of parents he didn't know who attended April's meeting. Perhaps Superintendent Bertolacci can reach out to some of those people and see if they want to be on the Little League sub-committee. Obviously, they showed an interest by attending the meeting. Superintendent Bertolacci said that the Travel Baseball Club is working on their spring program. Their season will open on May 18th. Their games will be played on Sundays so it won't affect our Little League program other than it may affect some of the pitchers. Superintendent Bertolacci said he would send out a letter to the coaches asking their input on the team. This process is similar to the County Center basketball program where the coach gets to vote for 10 players. There will be a IOU and 12U team. Committee Member Jablon asked how many games the players would have played before the coaches evaluate the players. Superintendent stated that they would have played 5 or 6 games before the evaluations which mean that the coaches' would not have seen all the players. The teams have to be picked by Sunday. Chairman Schoen asked how many coaches are there per team in each of those divisions. Superintendent said they get two ballots per team which is the same as the County Center program. Superintendent said in order for them to get a credible schedule which would be 8 games, they would have to start on May 18th Committee Member Shaw said this is an opportunity for some of the kids on the rec program to experience playing travel ball. The coaches have a pretty good sense of the players. If this program presents that much of a problem we won't do it again and just have a fall program. Superintendent stated that the whole point of the program is to get these kids some extra games and give them more of an incentive to play rec ball. If they don't play rec ball they can't qualify for the spring program. Superintendent stated that the ballots will go out to the coaches tomorrow and the ballots have to be sent back to him by Sunday night. There is a potential for the coaches to watch the games this weekend and see the players that they haven't seen play in a game. Superintendent said that the travel club has a pulse on the 12U players but it may be a stretch for them with the IOU players. Chairman Schoen suggested that in the letter you basically tell the parents that not all of the coaches would have seen all the teams and it's not going to be a perfect process. The object is to get some group of kids more games. This may head off a lot of phone calls. Chairman Schoen suggested that the travel club think about what the criteria is going to be for evaluating whether the program is successful or not, what changes should be made going forward. Superintendent stated that he will be an observer through the whole process. 4 Committee Member Frankel had some comments about the Rookie League. Frozen Ropes came down and their intention was great but the timing was off. Do you foresee continuing with Frozen Ropes to come down during game time or maybe doing the clinic separately? Superintendent said it would probably work out better to do a separate skills clinic with them on a separate day. Before the game Frozen Ropes was going to do a clinic with them to work on their skills as a way to fine tune some of their fielding and hitting skills. Committee Member Frankel said it lasted a bit long and the kids only got in one inning. Committee Member Jablon asked if it was possible to take the first 30 minutes and have the coaches do drills with their team and then play the game. Superintendent said perhaps moving forward that is the way we will do it. Committee Member Frankel said they practice for 2 hours on Sunday morning. We break them down into stations and we do fielding and hitting. Committee Member Komblum said there are two dads per six kids and we do grounders, high pops, and play a 1 or 2 inning game. We have about 20 kids each Sunday. Superintendent says we need to provide a way for the kids to improve their skills. It's not going to happen with 2 at bats in a given game. We need to do something and I am willing to get out there on a Saturday morning to work with them. Committee Member Jablon stated she has a lot of literature that her husband Jeff uses to plan his Sunday baseball. I can drop off some of the literature that Jeff has for the coaches to use. If you could put out an e-mail to the dads that are less knowledgeable stating the skill of the week and some easy tips on how to incorporate that with the kids. The parents can go home and work on that skill with their kids. Superintendent said he will try and implement something for this weekend and see how it goes. Committee Member Shaw stated that a couple of years ago we talked about batting cages along the side of the tennis court at Pine Ridge Park, whatever happened to that. Superintendent said that he heard from some of the resident when he put it out there and they would probably fight it because they don't want to see anymore fencing in that area. Chairman Schoen asked about outside the new fence of the old field on the first baseline in the outfield. Superintendent said he would have to take a look but he said it is not level. Committee Member Gutner said that the first baseline fence at the old field is very low. All the parents sit there during the game and some kid is going to slice the ball and somebody is going to get hurt. Chairman Schoen suggested working on some clinics for the parents for coaching. Superintendent said the general comments were to have a couple of coaching clinics, one for skills and one for rec philosophy. Superintendent recommended having Joe Archin to do that clinic for the coaches and the varsity coaches do a skills and drills clinic. Chairman Schoen stated that the Basketball Committee talked about adding to the ratings for rec basketball for all grades. Committee Member Jablon stated that the teams are never balanced. It hasn't been working for all the years we have been doing it. We need to look at changing things. 5 Committee Member Frankel asked if the rec department looked at not putting coaches together where their kids are and just randomly taking the coaches. Superintendent said it is a long season and if you stick a coach with someone he doesn't get along with it's a tough situation. Chairman Schoen said the reason they like coaching and volunteering is because they are coaching with a buddy. For baseball and basketball there are only two coaches allowed per team. Chairman Schoen said in addition to what we already do for the ratings, which is brief, is to break them into groups and have a 3 on 3 game where they play for 3 minutes then switch. You could have 4 games going and it would be important for the parents doing the rating to be there for both nights. As the teams rotate the parents will see them dribbling and doing the lay-ups. It may take a little longer but you will be able to tell who your better players are. Also it would be helpful if the coaches could tell us who the tall players are on their team at the end of each season, which we asked for as part of our season ending player evaluation that was sent to the coaches. It would be helpful for the next year's process. IV. Superintendent's Report a. Interest in Flag Football 3'd/4th Graders Superintendent Bertolacci stated that there has been some interest from residents in a flag football program for 3rd and 4th graders. He has spoken to the Sound Shore Youth Foundation who runs a flag football program. Chris Durtra who is involved with the program came to one of our meetings and spoke about the program. Superintendent said we would need volunteers to coach the teams. He would send an e-mail out to see how much of an interest there is and also e- mail the coaches. b. Lacrosse through Recreation Superintendent Bertolacci had a meeting with Jim Spano about their high school Lacrosse program. There is a modified team and a Junior Varsity team. Superintendent stated that once the school provides a program then recreation would offer it. We probably would offer the program in the fall. Superintendent would send an e-mail out through our Capturepoint program to see how much of an interest there is. All the information on Lacrosse would be organized by August and we would offer a full program if there is an interest. The high school plays Lacrosse in the spring. Superintendent Bertolacci will work with Jim Spano over the next couple of months to get the program organized. Committee Member Tempesta suggested that we get some of the high school kids to help out with the program. V. Basketball Superintendent stated that he received a lot of responses back for basketball. The basketball committee members are Brian Grodin, Chairman Schoen, Council Member Kornblum, Bill Golden and I. Superintendent stated that we would have a skills clinic for the coaches and have Joe Archino, Irvington Recreation Superintendent, do a presentation on rec philosophy. VI. Community Center/Basketball Facility - Pool 6 Superintendent stated that he got some prices from the Thomas Group on how much it would cost to build a facility. Some of the estimates were 3 to 4 million dollars to build a pool and a gym facility. We also talked about a potential land swap with the Town of Rye on either side of the entrance of Crawford Park. Mrs. Crawford specified in her will that the land is dedicated for recreational purposes in which this would fit. We talked also about a potential land swap with the Elm Hill Park piece where the dumpsters are in Crawford Park. Superintendent Bertolacci stated that we should start by talking with Trustee Rosenberg to get a general idea of what the Village is thinking. We need to develop a need analysis and if we need the facility then it makes sense to pursue it. The Belle Fair gym and the Port Chester High School gym all helped us out last year but we are at the whim of the school and Belle Fair and we could lose that space at any time. Superintendent said there was a joint venture with the Village, Greenwich Hospital and UCP in which they would build a pool facility on UCP's site. UCP would use our property on the corder of Lincoln and King to put housing for their people and Greenwich Hospital would use the pool facility as well. What were offered to the Village were non-prime time hours. There was a pool study done in 1989 and it would make sense now to send out a survey to find out what the community needs are. Superintendent Bei-tolacci suggested that we get some volunteers to be on a committee and go forward. The volunteers for this committee are Committee Members Gutner, Jablon, Superintendent Bertolacci and Chairman Schoen. It was suggested that Trustee Rosenberg be asked also to serve on the committee. VII. Guest Speakers Chairman Schoen stated that he went to the Greenwich Library last month and heard Jeff Marks speak. He is a journalist and author and went through the school system here. He has written several books and one in particular that he wrote a few years back. He was a ball boy for the Baltimore Colts and he decided to try and locate all the players that came through the Baltimore Colts while he was the ball boy to see what happened to their life. He came across one guy who was a defensive lineman in the 70's and became a pastor in the Baltimore community and a high school football coach. Mr. Marks was very intrigued with it and spent a season there. Then he wrote a book about his experiences and now goes around the country talking about his experience and what it has taught him. It has a nice approach about parents coaching youth sports and different ways to approach the kids. He spoke at night to the adults and during the day spoke to the high school kids. Brian Grodin and I thought it would be a good idea to combine forces between the soccer club and the Rec Dept in a way that will satisfy the sportsmanship requirement for the coaches and have Jeff come to us and speak about good sportsman ship and being good teammates. It would be a 35 to 40 minute presentation. Committee Member Tempesta said that Project Prevention is always looking for speakers. It's geared toward 91h through 12 graders and it helps them to make right choices and decisions. Project Prevention is run through our community. Andrea Forbes is the chair person of Project Prevention and if we want someone to do a presentation she would be the one to speak with. Chairman Schoen said he spoke with Jeff Marks that night and asked if he would speak to the Rye Brook community and he was non-committal, but Jim Spano is good friends with him and has kept up with him over the years. Whether it's Jeff or someone else, it would be great to have 7 someone in to address all the parent volunteers and maybe we could do something with school also. Committee Member Tempesta suggested that if we speak with one of the trustees and tell him what we want, then they can present it to the board and maybe sponsor it. Chairman Schoen stated that maybe if the soccer club agrees we could split the cost or maybe rec has the funds in the budget. Speakers get about $3,000 to $4,500. Brian Grodin said he would check with the soccer club and if the rec department agrees we could move forward with it and coordinate it with the school. Superintendent stated that Ken Finder tendered his resignation from the committee. He sent his resignation into the board recently. Someone will replace him probably at our next meeting. Chairman Schoen said that Committee member Epstein had surgery and is having physical therapy. Hopefully, he will be back next month. Committee Member Frankel commented on the new on-line registration that people were up past midnight to register for programs. Superintendent said he knows it was a sensitive situation and Capturepoint is working on it to make it time sensitive. If Capturepoint can't do it then we can make the site available on our website at a certain time. Superintendent stated that it's great to get an e-mail out to everyone just pushing one button. We are working on a generic e-mail which would go out to everyone in just certain grades. Capturepoint has listened to our comments and has tailored it to our needs. Committee Member Tempesta asked if we can get defibrillators at our fields because they need to be there while the games are going on. There is a defibrillator at the high school outside the auditorium in an alarmed box. It's self explanatory and any lay person can use it. It tells you exactly how to use it. You have that intervention step while help is on the way as opposed to not having anything. Superintendent Bertolacci was waiting on the police to do a class with his staff as well as getting more information from them. Superintendent said he will now go to the ambulance corp. and get the information and then see where we can purchase them and see what it costs. Committee Member Tempesta said she has a website and will give the information to Superintendent. Committee Member Frankel asked at what point is the defibrillator used. Committee Member Tempesta said you use it when the person has a pulse but their heartbeat is erratic, so you want to shock the heart back. Superintendent Bertolacci said he would reach out to other communities and survey if they have a defibrillator in their parks and if their coaches were trained to use it and if the coaches had CPR training. Superintendent Bertolacci stated that the school has a defibrillator at their games and also takes the defibrillator with them to away games. 8 VIII. Adjournment A motion was made by Committee Member Tempesta to adjourn the meeting and was seconded by Committee Member Gutner. The next Parks and Recreation Advisory Council meeting in on June 3rd, 2008 at 8:30pm. Minutes prepared by Carmella Swick 9