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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008-06-03 - 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 June 3, 2008 CONVENE MEETING: Chairman Steve Schoen called the meeting to order at 8:40pm The following members of the Council were present: Advisory Council Members: Chairman Steve Schoen, Richard Gutner, Steve Epstein, Debra Tempesta Ken Frankel, Jeffrey Kornblum, Sari Jablon and Marc Zimmerman 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: George Weltman Chairman Schoen welcomed Marc Zimmerman as the new member of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Council. Marc stated that he is an attorney and has lived in Rye Brook for nine years and is looking to get active in the community. He has three children ages 7, 5 and 2. Chairman Schoen stated that the contracts have been signed for the Travel Baseball Club and Cliff Shaw has officially resigned from the Parks and Recreation Advisory Council. For the record, Chairman Schoen thanked Cliff for his many years of service and that he has added a tremendous amount to the council. 1. Minutes: Chairman Schoen asked for a motion to approve the revised Minutes for May 6, 2008. Committee Member Richard Gutner made a motion to approve the May 6, 2008 Minutes and Committee Member Steve Epstein seconded the motion and all approved. 11. Public View Points: Chairman Schoen said that one item not on the Agenda that we should discuss is girls' travel softball. There were 2 tryouts a couple of weeks ago. Superintendent said for the summer there were 3 major league girls trying out and 4 or 5 girls for the minor league division. Most of the girls there tried out for the fall travel softball. Mr. Weltman, a Rye Brook resident, stated that there was a good turn out for the younger girls and it was predominately for the fall travel season. For the 12U tryout there were 6 or 7 girls' and I was told that we would need 12 or 13 to make a team. Mr. Weltman stated that the main concern from the community was the tryout fee particularly that Frozen Ropes wasn't involved. The cost last year was $100 and the cost doubled for this year. Some of the concerns were the economy and the expense particularly for the Port Chester people. Superintendent Bertolacci stated that last year's fee was $125. It is a specialized group and when you do cuts it is a concern that you are using tax payer dollars to subsidize such a program. In order for that program to break even we had to raise the fee to cover the expenses for umpires, league fee, uniforms etc. Mr. Weltman stated that in last year's league we were sort of picking up games. Committee Member Gutner stated that it was a District 20 League the girls' played in. The Village was paying x amount of dollars for each child to bring it up to cost. The Village and the Rec Department felt that it shouldn't be subsidized by the Village. It should be 100%paid by the parents to give the children the privilege to play in an all-star league for the summer. Chairman Schoen stated that with the higher fee, they would get better uniforms and the boys and girls were kept equal even though the softball program is being run by the Rec Department and the baseball is being run by the private baseball club. The tryout fee was also something that was instituted with the boys with the private club and was kept similar for the girls. Superintendent stated that if there is no girls' team, whoever paid the fee at the tryouts would get a refund. Chairman Schoen said what concerns him is not being able to have a girl's softball team because only 7 girls tried out even reaching out to Port Chester. Chairman Schoen asked if we could do something for the girls that are home this summer and want to play softball. Can we call Rye, Mamaroneck and some of the other communities around to see if we can place them on a team for the summer? Superintendent Bertolacci said if we choose to go that route, he will call other recreation communities. Chairman Schoen asked if these girls who tried out would have an interest to play softball in another community. Superintendent Bertolacci said he would send an e-mail to the girls that tried out and see if there is an interest. Mr. Weltman stated that he heard they didn't want outsiders because of the liability issue. Committee Member Gutner said Port Chester plays with Rye Brook and it is not a problem. Committee Member Epstein said you sign a release and you are covered. Mr. Weltman asked if the girls were private like the boys would that bring more girls into the game. Chairman Schoen said that if there was a shortfall with the boys, which there wasn't, they would be able to reach out to other communities with the condition that a Rye Brook child wouldn't be cut as a result. The same rule would apply to the girl's league if they were private. Superintendent stated that the only difference would be no Rye Brook or Port Chester girl would be cut at the expense of allowing someone from another community to play. Superintendent Bertolacci stated that there are enough girls for a IOU and 12U team in the fait. Mr. Weltman thanked the Council for hearing the issues that were brought to his attention. Superintendent Bertolacci said there may be issues with some girls that are not playing in Little League now. Traditionally, you had to play Little League in order to play travel. Superintendent asked what route do we want to go for the fall. Committee Member Gutner asked if you only took girls who played Little League, would you have enough to make a team. Superintendent Bertolacci said there were 12 or 13 girls that tried out for the 12U team. Chairman Schoen said he didn't see why in the fall we would have that barrier of entry. Even in the summer you can ask why it exists if we are doing something in the spring. The way the boys' program is going, it is evolving in that direction where it is not a requirement. Superintendent said it is not a requirement with the boy's league for the summer. Committee Member Gutner said that it would be that last year for kids in 7th grade to play rec baseball. If you have 13U, 14U and 15U team for girls, they are not playing Little League anyway. Superintendent stated that there is a 14U girl's team for the summer but there weren't enough girls for a IOU or 12U. The crux of the try out fee was to have these people committed for the season and if they pay, they are committed. Committee Member Gutner suggested for this year only, you are going to put a team together and reach out to other towns, and you won't be charging a fee. We could say we are applying the tryout fee to the cost of $250.00 for the program for this year only. Superintendent said he would work on it and give the council an update on Friday. Superintendent stated that he would be unable to work on softball next week because he would be busy working on the birthday celebration which is on Saturday, June 14th Superintendent said he would call John Nesi to see what teams he has committed. III. Superintendent's Report a. Travel Baseball Club Tryouts Superintendent Bertolacci stated that the Travel Baseball Club had their tryouts this weekend. Superintendent Bertolacci said he was very impressed with the organization of their tryouts. They did a very good job. There are still the same issues, i.e. Frozen Ropes not knowing the kids, also, some of their staff is real enthuastic and some aren't. Committee Member Jablon asked how they plan on balancing that out. Superintendent Bertolacci said they would balance it out by speaking with the coaches of the travel teams and some of the Little League coaches. Chairman Schoen stated that he saw both tryouts from start to finish and they were super well organized and they did a great job. There were different board members at different stations. You can have some people that evaluate more strictly and others are lax. If one person is a difficult judge and grades kids as 1,2, and 3's but is grading all the kids 1,2, and 3s then someone else is more lenient and grades the kids fours and fives across the board, it balances itself out. The problem would be if one person looks at the kid half the time and somebody else looks the other half of the time and one person is lax and the other person isn't. The travel baseball club had the same people at all the stations. Again it was very well run and what they did with the clinic the week before was super, 1. They saw how many kids would come out for the tryouts and 2. They got a sense of what they would be required to do when they had the tryouts. The hard part is forming the team which they are going through now. Committee Member Kornblum said that a lot of the kids wore last year's travel uniform to the tryouts. Chairman Schoen said that shouldn't have happened and it wasn't an ideal situation. The soccer club tells you not to wear anything that says Rye Brook Travel Soccer and that's the right way to go. Next time they should put it out there to make sure it doesn't happen again. Committee Member Gutner said that in the past, the kids wore the current year Little League uniform and you knew they played in Little League. Chairman Schoen said there will be a forum later in the year to talk about how the season went. Committee Member Jablon said another thing that should be brought to the attention of the Travel Baseball Club is for the fall travel, they are not going to release the names till the 3rd week in August. That would eliminate other options for the kids who don't make the fall travel team to try out for Frozen Ropes or Big Apple etc. Committee Member Jablon said the 3rd week in August is way too late to release those names. Superintendent Bertolacci said that they want the summer season to end before they announce the names. Chairman Schoen said maybe there is a way to announce the names the beginning of August. Committee Member Jablon said to try out for other teams, you have to pay the non-refundable registration fee. For hockey the registration fee to tryout is $150.00. Chairman Schoen suggested that Superintendent speak to the Travel Baseball Club to see if the team can be announced the beginning of the month. Committee Member Kornblum said in their defense, the travel baseball club is looking to field the absolute best team they can for the fall and some kids who didn't make the fall team but made the summer team may have had an outstanding summer season. Committee Member Jablon said Big Apple is forming their team now. Chairman Schoen asked about Frozen Ropes. Committee Member Gutner said their program is probably similar to Big Apple. Superintendent Bertolacci said he would follow up with a phone call to Big Apple and Frozen Ropes. Superintendent Bertolacci stated that he saw the spring travel baseball teams playing this past weekend and said the kids were pretty impressive and looked good. Chairman Schoen stated that we all acknowledged at our last meeting that the process for picking the teams was very impaired. There were only a couple of games seen by the coaches who were doing the ratings and some coaches haven't even submitted a ballot. Superintendent Bertolacci said out of the 16 teams he didn't receive ballots from about 5 coaches. Some of the coaches, who didn't submit a ballot and approached Chairman Schoen without any solicitation from him, said they didn't submit a ballot because they didn't feel like they could. Whatever arrangement we have for next year, maybe the coaches just focus on their own team and submit 3 team members. The downside of this is the coaches would submit their own kids. Superintendent Bertolacci suggested that the coaches don't vote for their own child. b. Birthday Celebration Rye Brook's Birthday celebration is coming up next Saturday, June 14th. We are still looking for volunteers and if you know of anyone, they can call and forward their name to Carmella. Committee Member Jablon asked if the information was given to the Y.E.S. program at the high school. It was given to Lisa Benoit who is the Y.E.S. coordinator. Volunteers are needed for games, cotton candy, popcorn and snow cone machines. The hours are 12:OOpm to 4:OOpm. Trustee Rosenberg asked Superintendent Bertolacci if the sponsorships for the Birthday are still declining. Superintendent said that the numbers of sponsorships are declining, but not to the rate I thought it would. We are getting less of a donation from certain companies but they are still giving. Arrowwood use to give us 3000 hamburgers and buns in the past, now this year they gave 500 burgers and buns. What we don't get in donations, we have to purchase. Trustee Rosenberg asked what we are spending on the celebration. Superintendent Bertolacei said the total cost for the celebration is about $20,000. Superintendent Bertolacci said years ago Food Emporium gave soup to nuts for the celebration, now they give a $15 gift card. D'Agostino's is donating all the hot dogs for the first time this year. Strauss is giving us 50% discount on everything we purchase from them. Committee Member Epstein said we should talk to some of the businesses and say we patronize your business and you should give something back. They probably have budgetary money for community events. Committee Member Epstein would like to see a list of the patrons who use to give more and now give less. We could approach them and tell them its high profile and they will get good PR out of it. Committee Member Zimmerman asked if there are any recognition signs at the celebration. Superintendent Bertolacci said there is a sign that goes on the mansion listing all the sponsors of the Birthday Celebration. WinRidge gave a donation but it was less than last year. The Rye Town Hilton gives the sheet cakes, all the paper goods, ice and raffle prizes. Committee Member Tempesta suggested instead of sending a letter in the mail maybe we could talk to them face to face and get a better response. Committee Member Zimmerman said what people like to see when soliciting is a packet perhaps saying for x amount of dollars the DJ says your name every 45 minutes. They are seeing that they get something. Superintendent Bertolacci stated that he sends out the letters and follows up with a phone call. The letters go out around sometime in March and April. The merchants in Rye Ridge give a gift or a certificate every year for our raffle. c. Defibrillators Superintendent Bertolacci stated that he would purchase one defibrillator to start. The cost is about $2400 which is discounted $1200 for us. Superintendent passed around a picture what the defibrillator looks like. This is the exact one that the ambulance has. The first one will be located at the King Street Field and it will have an alarm on it. After that all the parks will have a defibrillator. It will be encased in a weather proof box and it will be stored in the bathroom where everyone will have access to it. What has to be worked out is when the alarm goes off the signal has to go to the police. The defibrillator will be purchased through our Little League sponsorship. IV. Old Business a. Lacrosse Through Recreation Superintendent has spoken with the gym teacher at Ridge Street School, Steven Forzaglia, and he is going to do a lacrosse clinic in the fall. Before the end of the month we will meet and discuss the details. Chairman Schoen suggested a 3 line survey through Capturepoint to see where the interest is. Superintendent Bertolacci stated that he could get 3000 e-mails back for a response and it would be very time consuming to sort through all the e-mails. Chairman Schoen said one of the basic questions would be to send an e- mail back only if interested. Chairman Schoen and Superintendent will work on the survey questions. b. Community Center/Basketball Facility (Pool) Chairman Schoen stated that at the last meeting we were to form a separate committee to start brain storming for a Community Center. The Committee Members are Sari Jablon, Richard Gutner, Superintendent Bertolacci, Trustee Rosenberg and Chairman Schoen. Committee Member Epstein stated that he would also help out on the committee. V. New Business Chairman Schoen said about two weeks ago we discussed about the trustees being able to consider a big project like a community center. Superintendent Bertolacci said we have to show reason for the Village to pursue such a venture. We would need to show why we need more gym space, what our needs are now, what our programs are now, where we want to go in the future, how we want to expand our programming, and how we don't control any of the gyms that we play in. Trustee Rosenberg suggested updating the characteristic of the community, talk about the demographics and density of the village, zoning, and things the village has to offer. Committee Member Epstein stated that last year a list was put together showing the hours of gym space needed and the number of hours we had. We could put together a number of statistical examples of how the programs have grown over the last few years, the number of people in the community, how the class size has increased. All of those things are an indication of our needs. Trustee Rosenberg said there would be a series of many meetings where agenda would be published stating that tonight we would be talking about the recreational needs of the village. You would broadcast and advertise that and you would get the community's input. Trustee Rosenberg stated that there are several board members against spending x amount of dollars for a swimming pool that would only be used 3 months out of the year. Committee Member Epstein asked what are the services people are utilizing in other communities. What are people doing at the Rye YMCA that they could be doing here? How would that factor into the needs of our community? Trustee Rosenberg stated that the school has projections of where they see the population going. In terms of the children they have a lot of it mapped out. One of the school presentations I attended, Dr. Valenti showed an on screen graph of the next 15 years of growth. Chairman Schoen stated that he belongs to the Rye Y. During the school vacation the Y runs regular programs and after school programs and throughout the year they run special programs and you can't use the facility. Superintendent Bertolacci said many of the residents use the Purchase pool. Committee Member Gutner said they do that mainly because there is nothing here for them. Committee Member Epstein stated that opens the issue of what you can do with the day camp and how much potential there would be if you had a pool and a gym. Committee Member Zimmerman asked if the high school has a swim team. Chairman Schoen said it was a shared team and they practice with Rye High School. One of the first things we have to do is get some demographic information and calling the Superintendent of Blind Brook School and getting a copy of the presentation as a start. Superintendent Bertolacci asked Trustee Rosenberg if the Village has spoken to the Town of Rye about doing a land swap. Trustee Rosenberg said that we haven't had anything concrete to talk about. A while back we talked about swapping Elm Hill Park and Rye Town giving us the land left of the driveway at the entrance of Crawford Park but that didn't go anywhere. Chairman Schoen said we first get the demographic information and think about other uses and the kind of things that we could be doing if we had such a facility that The Posillipo Center doesn't allow us to do. Superintendent Bertolacci suggested that the sub-committee meet and brain storm before the next Parks and Recreation Advisory Council meeting. Chairman Schoen stated that Rec pays about $6,000 to bus the camp kids to SUNY to swim twice a week. Committee Member Epstein said to look at what the King Street field has done for the community and now give yourself a gym and a pool and you will have what a lot of the other communities have and you increase the value of the everyone's property. Superintendent Bertolacci suggested that the sub-committee meet to brainstorm what the needs and uses of a community center/gym/pool... The sub-committee will meet on July 1 Stat 8:OOpm. The next Parks and Recreation Advisory Council meeting will be on Wednesday, July 9th at 8:OOpm. Committee Member Tempesta suggested that we take a look at other towns that have a community club house and see what type of facility they have inside. The Arbors club house has a community room, a pool table room, and a small kitchen. The sub- committee will make phone calls to other recreation departments to see what type of facility they have to offer for their community. Committee Member Jablon stated that we talked about this committee having 9 members and right now we are 8. Committee Member Jablon said there has been a lot of talk recently that this is a pretty closed group of people. I came in because of the interest in travel baseball, got a taste for it, and I don't know how you guys found yourself here. If there is a spot open we need to put it out there to the community. Superintendent Bertolacci stated that the members are appointed by the Mayor and the Board of Trustees. Trustee Rosenberg stated that people have asked us because we have mentioned it at our board meetings. Committee Member Jablon said if people don't go to board meetings and they are not in the inner circle, they won't know there is an open spot. I have always asked and never knew who to ask until I asked Mayor Rand. Maybe we can find a way of letting the public at large know that there is a spot open. Trustee Rosenberg stated that all the spots are available every April because people get reappointed. We always list the spots on our website and anywhere we can. Committee Member Jablon said the website is not up to date. Trustee Rosenberg said that the website is now up to date. Committee Member Jablon asked if there are the names on each page where you go, and asked if we can post something there if there is a spot. Trustee Rosenberg said typically we do that in March when we have reappointments. Every year every committee has several people that turn over. Committee Member Jablon said people don't know that. I have gotten a lot of phone calls asking about how long are peoples' terms, and when are they leaving. Trustee Rosenberg stated that we post it on the web site every March and people send us e-mails or call us if interested. Committee Member Jablon said the public in general doesn't know about it. Chairman Schoen said all the terms for all the committees are up in March and you could put the notice in the Westmore News and you have it on the website and it also is mentioned at the board meetings. Committee Member Epstein said people don't know because they don't show up at meetings where it is discussed and a lot of people in the community don't have subscriptions to the Westmore News. Committee Member Jablon asked when her 2 year term is up and someone is interested in serving that spot but I am still interested in being on the committee, would that person have the option of taking my place. Trustee Rosenberg stated that when that person's term is up we ask if they are interested in continuing their position on that committee. Committee Member Jablon said there doesn't seem to be a lot of turnover. Committee Member Epstein said he takes issue with that. As somebody who has been on the committee for .........Committee Member Jablon said she didn't mean it in a bad way. Committee Member Epstein said the two comments that you made I take issue with, you said it was a closed group... Committee Member Jablon said that is what it has been. I think people don't know that there is another seat opened. My concern is how to get it out there to the people in general. Trustee Rosenberg said it is on the website every year and we could put it in the Westmore News and also tell people if they have any questions they can phone the board or e-mail them. The e-mail addresses are on the website. Chairman Schoen said that I hear all this and I take the approach that if somebody is truly interested and not just giving lip service, the information is out there and people can get it and find it. Committee Member Jablon said what about the issue if you have two terms and somebody else wants it..... Committee Member Gutner said you reach out to that member after their term is up as the first choice and ask if they want to stay on and if they do the board will decide whether to keep that member on the board. Trustee Rosenberg said it is not a fair thing to say that there is not a lot of turnover. If you look around this room you will see mostly all new members. Chairman Schoen said you had an expansion from a 7 to 9 member committee. Going back a few years the number on the committee was 7 because the council felt it was easier to reach decisions. Then the Board of Trustees and the Mayor expanded the members back to 9 because of the interest in the community and also because of the staggering terms. Trustee Rosenberg said at the Zoning Board of Appeals meeting tonight there were 2 out of 5 members here tonight. Committee Member Jablon said that Trustee Rosenberg was totally misreading me. All I am saying is if there is a spot out there; put it out there so people that are interested have the opportunity to respond. Trustee Rosenberg said it was a good idea to put the opening in the Westmore News and we will absolutely do it this March when we have some spots open. We have one spot open on the Rec Council and we have many people who have already requested to be on this committee. I would rather not publicize it because then it would bring in more people who are interested. Committee Member Jablon said she imagined that you get a lot of people and it becomes more difficult. Committee Member Epstein said that there is some benefit to continuity as well. What I like about this committee is that there is a tremendous range of constituents that are represented. The board has done a great job of understanding that not everybody here speaks for the same group. Committee Member Jablon said all the information should be out there. Committee Member Jablon stated that when she spoke to Mayor Rand, I felt he gave me a bit of a run around. It wasn't till I dealt with the present Mayor that it was easier for me. You have to get to the right person. Chairman Schoen stated that typically once a year we go through all the programs whether it is in conjunction with the budget or at the beginning of the calendar year, we try to go through all the programs, participating boys and girls, what other programs we may want to offer. We brainstorm and come up with ideas for new programs. We added lacrosse and keeping basketball standings for the older kids. We made a priority list and voted on the most important items. With the new members on our board you will have different ideas on programs we should offer and how we should offer them. We will do this toward the end of the year. In the past we also discussed what the community needs in terms of facilities, ball fields, community center, pool, tennis courts etc. Those are the issues we will be discussing at future meetings. V1. Adjournment Committee Member Epstein made a motion to adjourn meeting at 10:20pm and Committee Member Tempesta seconded the meeting. Minutes prepared by Carmella Swick.