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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008-08-05 - 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 August 5, 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, Debra Tempesta Ken Frankel, Sari Jablon, Steven Epstein and Glenn Brettschneider Absent Members: Jeff Kornblum 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 Chairman Schoen welcomed Glenn Brettschneider as a new Parks and Recreation Advisory Council Member. I. Minutes: Chairman Schoen asked for a motion to approve the Minutes for July 9, 2008. Committee Member Richard Gutner made a motion to approve the July 9, 2008 Minutes and Committee Member Steve Epstein seconded the motion and all approved. II. Public View Points: There were no Public View Points. Superintendent Bertolacci announced that John Swick is leaving Rye Brook Recreation and is going off to bigger things in Eastchester Recreation. We are looking to fill that position. Superintendent is waiting for the list from Westchester County for Recreation Leader, Sr. Recreation Leader and Recreation Supervisor. The list is a competitive Civil Service position where you have to pass an exam and you pick one of the top 3 candidates on the list. Committee Member Jablon asked if John's job has gotten so big that maybe it is not a job for just one person. The Recreation Department and the way it is staffed have not changed but yet our community over the past 10 years has changed so dramatically with its size and its programs. It seems to me that to hire one person to fill John's shoes is doing us all a disservice. Superintendent Bertolacci stated that he is hiring one person. Recreation Leader is an entry level position, Sr. Recreation Leader is one step above and Recreation Supervisor is one step above that. Superintendent Bertolacci said he would preferably like to hire a Recreation Supervisor. A Recreation 1 Supervisor is more experienced, would be able to take on more responsibilities, have more authority in the department. John was a Recreation Leader. Committee Member Jablon asked besides the budget, why can't we hire a Recreation Supervisor and Recreation Leader. It seems like John wears a lot of hats and if we want to keep someone happy, we can't overburden them. Trustee Rosenberg stated that this question is outside the committee's scope. Committee Member Gutner said his personal opinion is that the programs were not understaffed but John could have used more staff for the programs he was running. Trustee Rosenberg said if this committee thinks that the Recreation Department needs more staff then pass a resolution to the Board of Trustees stating that the Recreation Department needs more staff. Trustee Rosenberg stated that a parks attendant was added because we thought the fields were being neglected and another person was needed especially with the King Street field needing grooming. Every March or early April we have a budget workshop and all the department heads come to the budget workshops, which are open to the public, and say this is my budget for the year and you can potentially request staffing and ask the board if they would fund it. The board then makes a decision going forward. Chairman Schoen said looking at the projected enrollment in 2007, there was an increase of 3.6% in the school enrollment. It may be better from a management aspect to hire a Recreation Leader and a Sr. Recreation Leader or 2 Sr. Recreation Leaders. Superintendent Bertolacci stated that the Recreation Supervisor specialty is hiring qualified staff to run programs. Trustee Rosenberg stated that when you talk about a community center, you will have to talk about increasing the staff because you will be offering more programs and all of this would lead to the comprehensive planning. Committee Member Epstein stated that our job is to help you get what you want and our job is to support you and get you what you want. If you get what you want, will that provide sufficient staffing for the growth that we have in our community? Superintendent Bertolacci said in hiring a Recreation Supervisor, we will still have the program structure in their job title and if and when we do get a community center and the pool, that supervisor will be taking on a big leadership role in that facility. Committee Member Epstein suggested that a recommendation be made to the Village Board for a commendation to John for his years of service and his tremendous impact he has had on all of our children in the community. Chairman Schoen stated that the recommendation was approved and all were in favor. Chairman Schoen said John has done a terrific job and he will be missed. Trustee Rosenberg asked how long it would take before we get a replacement. Superintendent said when we decide what our title is; we will send out info to Westchester Recreation Parks Society and will canvas the list. Superintendent said he hopes to interview potential candidates at the end of August. Chairman Schoen asked Committee Member Gutner for an update on the Girls Fall Softball program. Committee Member Gutner said right now there are 7 girls for the 12U team. There are enough girls for a IOU team. We are looking for more girls to play and if anyone knows someone who would like to play,please have them contact Janice or myself. We reached out to some Port Chester parents and one parent said her daughter is interested and we are waiting to hear back from the other Port Chester parents. If we don't get some more girls together in the next couple of weeks, we won't have a team. The girls' softball starts the 2 week after Labor Day. Superintendent Bertolacci said he would meet with Janice and talk to John Nesi and ask if he has any names he could contact for the 12U team. Committee Member Jablon suggested putting an ad in the Westmore News to reach the residents of Port Chester. Superintendent Bertolacci said it is a very costly to put an ad in the paper. Committee member Gutner said that Port Chester caters to the boys and there aren't any softball leagues for the girls. Janice sent out an e-mail to everyone in Rye Brook and Port Chester that played in the Little League Softball program to see if there is an interest in girls' softball. Committee Member Gutner said there were more girls from Port Chester than from Rye Brook when we held the initial softball tryouts. The league starts the first week after Labor Day. Superintendent said that it would be too late to send a flyer through the schools because the league would have already started when school starts on September 3rd. Superintendent said he would reach out to John Nesi and see if he can give me some names of girls who would be interested in playing for the girls' fall softball team. III. Lacrosse A survey was sent out from our data base to the residents to see if there was an interest in a lacrosse program. There were 74 responses to the survey. Steve Forzaglai, high school coach, will run the program on Friday afternoons for 3rd to 6th graders. Coach Forzaglia will have some of the high school students help out with the program. The survey showed about 34 interested kids were in grades 3' to 6th. There were about 31 kids under the 3rd grade level that were interested in the lacrosse program. Committee Member Tempesta suggested a skills lacrosse program be held for the younger children. The kids that are going into 7th grade have never played lacrosse before. Superintendent said most of the 7th graders are doing some other interscholastic programs. All the athletes in 7th grade are eligible to play high school sports on a modified program. IV. Community Center Chairman Schoen said that several meetings ago the council had prioritized what they thought the community needs were, and if we were to take on a large project, what would it be? Ultimately, the community center was the project of choice. A sub-committee was made up with Committee Members Gutner, Jablon, Chairman Schoen, Superintendent Bertolacci and Trustee Rosenberg. The committee researched different community centers in different communities to see how they use their centers, how often they are open, how they manage the center..... Scarsdale is in the process of trying to build a community center since 2001. They have a website at www.scarsdalecommunity center.or& They have all the documents there, the studies they have done, the consultants groups that were hired, budgets, and architectural drafts. If we want to give residents information about the community center and what we envision - what it could be - ultimately what we will try to seek from the Board of Trustees is an approval to get a consultant to scope out the project. Chairman Schoen took the Scarsdale outline and modified it to fit the needs of the Rye Brook community. The thought process is to try and scope something out, present it to the council, have the council provide input into it, and change whatever needs to be changed. We then make a power point presentation that we can present to the board for 3 a public meeting sometime in October. That would be where the board would consent to hire a consultant to start the process. Chairman Schoen said the council should all be in agreement of what kind of facility that we want. Committee Member Epstein said that if we could possibly afford it we should have an indoor pool because if we are spending that much money we want to be able to use it year round where as an outdoor pool we can only use 3 months out of the year. Committee Member Gutner suggested putting an outdoor and indoor pool and if one pool gets cut out of the project it would be the outdoor pool. Superintendent said space wouldn't be an issue if the pool is on the ground floor and we work up. There was a proposal for a pool on King Street about 7 years ago with Cerebral Palsy but it never went through. Superintendent Bertolacci said the reason it didn't go through was that Rye Brook wouldn't get any quality swim time during the peak hours. Also, the property we were giving up didn't equal the benefit we were getting. Chairman Schoen said a lot of growth in Rye Brook comes from Belle Fair and Red Roof in the last 10 years. Belle Fair has its own gym and pool and their incentive to sign onto something like this as a member isn't as strong. They would probably use it for program purposes, participating in recreation programs and other sports that would be operated at that facility. Committee Member Gunner asked Superintendent about the rough drawings that showed everything on one side and parking in the front, and asked if there is a way that the facility can be laid out so the parking can be behind the facility. Superintendent said there was another drawing that showed that. Superintendent Bertolacci said we need to build support for a concept of actually building a center and a pool and not focus too much time on a site. The actual location needs to come later. We need to get the people into the aspect of supporting an idea and find out what the sites are later. Chairman Schoen suggested discussing what programs can be done with that kind of facility and what can be offered there, and what is not being offered currently. Committee Member Tempesta said the older kids in the community may not benefit from this type of facility but the younger kids will grow up with this type of facility in their town and it becomes part of their life style. Even parents are looking for a safe haven for the kids and it brings the community together. Chairman Schoen stated that with our basketball program that is so big, we would be able to consolidate some of our programs and we wouldn't have to worry about Port Chester, or BelleFair saying we would rather not have you use our facility. We can fulfill a lot of demand that right now we cannot meet. There are a lot of programs that people go other places to fulfill like exercise classes or birthday parties etc. Committee member Epstein stated that the question that we have to get to is, "is there a community desire to do this project in a way that is financially sustainable?" If that is the case, what is the scope of the project that is financially sustainable and what does the Board of Trustees need from the community to give them to know whether it would be a logical progression toward a plan? My question is, how do we develop a logical progression so we don't waste a lot of time? The first step would be, "is there a community desire for this project?" 4 Trustee Rosenberg said that question would fall into the comprehensive plan. Over the course of time, we would hire a planning consultant that would come in and do a master plan for the Village in terms of zoning changes, where do the residents want Rye Brook to go in the next 25 years and part of the master plan process should be to discuss a community center. It would solicit all types of resident feed back through surveys and public meetings. Committee member Epstein asked if there are any funds we could apply for the community center. Trustee Rosenberg said we are working with the County. The County would help to fund the research and the Village would be paying the majority of the costs. Superintendent Bertolacci stated that he has researched and called many places for funding and there is really nothing out there unless you want to go private. Trustee Rosenberg said we would go to George Latimer in the Assembly and Suzi Oppenheimer in the Senate and ask if we can get some state funding for this. The problem is that in the past whenever George Latimer goes for a grant for Rye Brook, Rye Brook is perceived as a very wealthy village and it is very hard sometimes to get funding for us approved through the State Assembly. Chairman Schoen said we won't have a plan until we hire a consultant to develop that plan, and that it is key for the Board of Trustees to spend some money. Committee Member Epstein asked what we could be doing before we get to the comprehensive plan. Chairman Schoen said we are taking the position that the burden is on this group to provide as much information and input to the Board of Trustees that we can in terms of supporting it as an idea. We won't know what the costs are until we spend money to figure it out. If we can promote it in a way that is attractive to the Board of Trustees, they may be willing to authorize some dollars for researching the project. Superintendent said the reason we are here tonight is to get the feel where everyone stands on this project to see if we want to bring this to a joint meeting with the Village Board to see where they are with this process. Committee Member Brettschneider asked what happens if the Village Board hates the idea. Superintendent said then we wait for the comprehensive plan to come through. Chairman Schoen said what was envisioned for the turf field was larger in scope than what was built. Things were scaled back through dialogue, budget and what we could afford, what the Village was willing to pay for verses the funding that could be obtained from the County. There were things that had to be scaled back to make it more cost effective. Superintendent said this project should be pushed before the comprehensive plan. The Village is going to spend x amount of dollars on a comprehensive plan and this is going to be part of that plan and once the comprehensive plan comes out all the information will be in that report. Chairman Schoen said this will be a long process and, if we could leverage so much of the good work that Scarsdale has done and the time they have spent, it will help us take a few short cuts in terms of the things we need to think about and the kind of information that we need to put in front of the Board of Trustees. That is why we spent the time at the last session talking about the different things we could do if we have an indoor pool, if you have a gym, and a multi purpose room. What are the things that those facilities can fulfill for the community that is either not being done in the community or is being done somewhere else. 5 Committee member Tempesta asked if the camp will be able to use the pool. Chairman Schoen said the camp would utilize the facility daily whether it is indoor or outdoor or both. Right now the day camp kids get bused 4 days out of the week to SUNY Purchase. The attractiveness and enrollment of the camp may increase based upon the fact that you have this facility and can offer these programs. Committee Member Tempesta asked if there would be an overlap with having the Posillipo Center. Superintendent stated that Posillipo Center would be a separate facility in itself utilized mainly for the seniors. We could bus the seniors over to the new facility so they can swim and utilize the new facility. Superintendent Bertolacci said you're not duplicating but adding services to the community. Superintendent said one of the questions that will come up is why don't we use Posillipo Center more as an alternate than to building another facility and why don't we use all the gyms in the schools instead of building a facility. Committee Member Jablon said she has tried to use the Posillipo Center during the school year and was met with a ton of resistance. Any time we bring children in there we were told we couldn't walk in some of the corridors, we couldn't hang up certain things and they have made it very difficult for us to use the center. Superintendent stated that people don't want to go to that extreme end of the village from the other side of the village and the parking is limited. Chairman Schoen said the Posillipo Center can't satisfy even the senior population what this facility can alone satisfy for the rest of the community and there isn't such a space elsewhere in the community. Chairman Schoen asked the committee if there was anything that was omitted in the outline he presented, or is there an item that should be highlighted differently? Are there questions that may come up that you haven't seen addressed in the outline? We are doing basketball in the way that is best for what we can do right now. You wouldn't have to go to the Rye YMCA to go work out and have a family membership there if you can join our community center and have the same things the YMCA offers. Committee Member Epstein asked if the intended meeting with the Village Board would be a formal presentation or should it be an idea session. Trustee Rosenberg said it would be an informal public work session where your committee would come up and present your ideas. You would tell the Board what your committee is thinking and also that you recognize there is a comprehensive plan project and you want it to be part of that process. Then you would ask the board for feedback and does the Board feel comfortable with us moving forward with this project in the long term. Trustee Rosenberg said you want to present the project but look for feedback at the same time. There is a presentation that we got from the Scarsdale web site that takes a lot of ideas from the FAQ, (frequently asked questions) and really lays it out nicely. It says these are the programs that we are looking to have, these are the age ranges that we would reach out to, and these are the types of things we can offer. It shows a big need where there is no opportunity to have some of these programs right now. Trustee Rosenberg suggested that the committee get some of the specifics in the FAQ in a more cut and dry format. Trustee Rosenberg has kept Mayor Joan Feinstein and Village Administrator, Chris Bradbury up to date as to the fact that we are discussing this project and the feedback that I got back was we definitely need to include this project in the comprehensive plan. Chairman Schoen stated that he would send the committee the power point presentation. 6 Trustee Rosenberg stated that Chris Bradbury sent him some detailed comments today which consisted of: 1. Overall a nice idea and a good item to discuss with the residents of the community. 2. In my opinion, any movement into the project should be part of the comprehensive plan. I think the Village Board should seek to generate support or not support for such a service and facility before anyone seeks negotiations for locations. 3. We are skipping the most important step. The important step which took several years for a reason. The attached document addresses why the Recreation Council feels we may need a new center. The next step should be to generate community support for the concept and then seek the location to fit the needs. Otherwise you will get people out and be opposed to it due to the location only before they ask themselves if they really one a center. 4. If nearby residents accept the fact that a center is desired some may be ok with the location that be opposed. To do otherwise is not in any ones best interest. 5. Mr. Bradbury's question is whether or not Rye brook would accept an increase in taxes to justify the project. Based on the Scarsdale model, the increase would be an additional 5% increase, which is above the current tax rate based on their $670,000 interest amortization payment per year which was identified in their report for this type of service plus the cost of the full and part-time employees that would be needed to run such a facility. That is on top of the normal tax increases. In the Scarsdale plan, without the cost of the building itself, they say the membership that the people would buy into would make the facility self- sustaining. 6. If we determine that we did not break even, the tax rate would even be greater. Similarly, the Scarsdale break even model incorporates a much greater population usage of programs that we may not have with a smaller population base which may result in less program and membership revenue. 7. We would need a much higher participation rate in membership and programs to break even given our community size. Superintendent said if we get involved doing a survey you are taking a risk because the wrong people may reply to the survey and the project would die right there. Superintendent suggested that we put this together and have a public forum before we do anything else. Trustee Rosenberg is very supportive of this project and thinks it will be great for this community. Chairman Schoen asked the committee members to reply in terms of the FAQ, through e- mail reply in terms of thoughts, suggestions, other questions to ask, and things to emphasize or deemphasize. Trustee Rosenberg said there maybe space at the Altria facility on Westchester Avenue across from the Hilton Hotel. There are a lot of wooded areas in there. Superintendent said there is also a piece of land behind us at 900 King Street where we may be able to do something. There is another piece of property on the corner of Hawthorne and Ridge Street which is a big piece of property with a house on it. 7 Chairman Schoen asked the committee to e-mail their feedback on the fact document and our power point will be mostly taking on what is on the programming items and putting it into a format. The September meeting of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Council will meet on September 9th, at 8:00pm. V. Adjournment Committee Member Richard Gutner made a motion to adjourn meeting at 10:45pm and Committee Member Sari Jablon seconded the motion. Minutes prepared by Carmella Swick. 8