HomeMy WebLinkAbout2009-08-05 Park Board Minutes
RIVERSIDE PARK BOARD MEETING
MINUTES
August 5, 2009
6:00 p.m.
The Riverside Park Board held their regularly scheduled meeting at Riverside City Hall, 2950 NW Vivion Road,
Riverside Missouri 64150, on Wednesday, August 5, 2009. Those in attendance were: Julie Rule, Deborah Leader,
Norma Parrot, Jim Frakes, Terri Dwyer, Alderman Mike Fuller, Mayor Kathy Rose, Mike Duffy, Director of Community
Development, Sarah Wagner, Community Development, and Meredith Hauck, Director of Community Relations.
Approval of Julie Rule made a motion to approve the minutes of July 1, 2009.
minutes from
July 1, 2009 Deborah Leader seconded and the motion passes.
Public Works Mike Duffy updated the Park Board on the progress of Valerie McCaw, the consultant hired by
Consultant the City to conduct an analysis on the Public Works Department. He explained that the final
Update draft will be presented to the Board of Aldermen sometime in September and will also be
shared with the Park Board after that. Some of the difficulties that Public Works experiences
that were indicated in the study include being pulled off one job to go to another, lack of
training, and lack of proper tools for specific jobs.
Jim Frakes asked how many employees there are.
Mike Duffy replied that there are seven full-time employees and four seasonal that are hired to
help with the mowing. One problem with that is a lot of the seasonal employees’ lever to go
back to school and mowing season extends far beyond that so full-time staff has to work
harder. Also, lawn maintenance is a year round project that Public Works could do a better job
on if they had the proper training.
Duffy also explained that this study will give a recommendation on how to break out Public
Works duties and cost from that of the parks and trails and how to better determine costs. The
idea will be to have different cost centers for Public Works and the parks and have employees
cross trained in different areas, but use them where their talents can best be utilized.
Julie Rule asked if the Park Board budgets needed to allot for maintenance of the parks and
trails or if it would come out of another fund.
Mike Duffy replied that the study will probably not tell us what to do there, but we will have to
look at whether or not we allocate a specific amount of money each year to maintenance or do
we vary the amount year to year depending on the maintenance needs.
Mayor Kathy Rose said that the Board of Aldermen have budgeted $400,000 for the Park
Board this year to recommend park and trail improvements, and not necessarily maintenance
issues, however this could change next year.
Julie Rule commented that the park priority list would probably change if the Park Board was
responsible for maintenance.
Mike Duffy replied that the Capital Improvement Project (CIP) budget is for infrastructure
maintenance and would most likely be the appropriate place to fund maintenance projects.
Renner Mike Duffy gave the Park Board an update on Renner Brenner Park. He explained that the
Brenner Park architect was done with the work in the park. The next phase will consist with the evaluation
Update of the findings in the lab. Over 1,000 artifacts were collected from the area that was
excavated. The depth of the excavation ranged from 12 inches to 3 feet. The City plans to
catalogue the artifacts and is looking into other collections that contain artifacts from this area
that are not being displayed and would like to do some sort of display.
Mike Duffy said that he met with the company that will be installing the new playground
equipment and they said that it would be possible to pour a concrete slab and mount the
equipment to it and that would require less digging on the site.
Julie Rule commented that when we began planning for the playground and met with Gary
Brenner we had presented the two options and Gary Brenner said that the preferred method
would be to have the individual holes dug to mount the playground equipment.
Mike Duffy presented another option to the Board. He said that the playground equipment
could be installed on the concrete slab where the sake park is currently located. The shelter
house and bathrooms could be moved to the lower level of the park and the top area where the
excavation took place would remain open space. The skate park would then be moved to a
location off of West Platt Road.
Julie Rule commented that this location was discussed in the past for a possible location of the
skate park, but it did not have restroom facilities, water or parking and security was and issue.
Mayor Kath Rose said that because of the new road construction there would be parking.
Mike Duffy said that the Levee District is agreeable to locating the skate park there and that
Public Safety would like it to be moved, because it would help them with security. Duffy
suggested that we map out the proposed locations, so the Board can take and look and will
discuss this at a later meeting.
Park Priorities The Board discusses the 2009-2010 priority list.
Adjournment The meeting was adjourned by unanimous consent.