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HomeMy WebLinkAbout08272013 OF PORT TOE � ys ti City of Port TownsendwA Meeting Minutes Parks, Recreation and Trees Advisory Board Tuesday, August 27, 2013, 4:30 pm - 6:00 pm City Hall Meeting Room 41 L Meeting called to order at 4:37 pm by Chair, Rosemary Sikes. Members in Attendance: Daniel Milholland, Ron Sikes, Rosemary Sikes, Lys Burden and Debbie Jahnke. Staff: Judy Surber Visitors: Jesse Dwyer IL Approval of Agenda —Agenda was approved by voice vote. III. Approval of Minutes —Minutes for June 25th were approved as amended. IV. Staff Report, Parks &Recreation 2013 Budget—Judy Surber gave updates on the Parks Functional Plan and Parkside plans (see details below). V. Kah Tai Lagoon Nature Park Transfer Completion - Titles were transferred on Wednesday, July 24, 2013, at the Jefferson County Courthouse with City Attorney John Watts, Port Analyst Eric Toews, a representative from First American Title Company and three informal witnesses (Rick Jahnke, Debbie Jahnke and George Yount). Issues remaining to be resolved include: protections on titles, a small property inholding on the N side, old right-of-ways from county and the city streets of Kuhn and Haines. The City offered to record 10 to 20 of the most important documents. VI. PRT 2013 Work Plan A. Tree City USA— 1. Report Progress of Parkside Park Planting: Judy indicated that we would proceed shortly with initial park development at Parkside, by bringing back one of the laid-off parks staff for a couple of months. A meeting will be scheduled to review planned improvements with neighborhood residents prior to beginning the work. City Council member Bob Gray has been encouraging work to begin improvements at the park by this fall with completion next spring. Improvements will include: fencing, berm landscaping and placing irrigation infrastructure. Debbie noted that the deadline for NAS (National Audubon Society) grants to local chapters for funding habitat improvement is October 31 st 2. Next Steps for Significant Trees brochure of PT: Debbie has forwarded the files to J Cecil but doesn't have any information on his plans to proceed. Rosemary will check with him on his schedule and possibility of identifying more significant trees in each area. 3. Update Tree City Information: Debbie has permission from staff to add J Cecil as Tree City contact and will assist in the preparation of our 2013 application for renewal of Tree City status, due by the end of October. We send an annual report to DNR at the same time. B. Volunteers for Our Parks - 1. Next work party at Kah Tai Park will be 6 October, 9 am to noon. 2. Update on Chetzemoka, Haller Fountain Steps and Bell Tower volunteer weeding: a. Chetzemoka—Rosemary emailed Barb Pastore on August 15, no update received. b. Haller Fountain Steps —Bonnie Corra organized a workparty July 30 l Oam-noon. c. Bell Tower—Steve Wright reported at our PRTAB meeting June 25 that the parks crew did some weed-whacking there. We may have some repeat visitors from Seattle who would be willing to assist with garden maintenance at the Bell Tower. d. Guidelines for Weed Removal in City Parks - Ron discussed the guidelines for working in city parks. Anyone who does weeding or other work in our parks must sign up in advance as a volunteer (forms are available on our City webpage) and follow the guidance and recommendations of park staff and PRTAB members as to what work should be done. An individual's idea of what constitutes a weed and how trees should be pruned cannot supersede the recommendations of staff Our parks are very diverse and practices appropriate for one park may fail in another. Wildlife habitat purposes have different needs and requirements than do flower beds and groomed gardens. We need a weed plan for each park and should stick with the Jefferson County Weed Board list of noxious weeds as our targets. C. Update on Bulbfest 2013 - Danny Milholland reported that we have 3000 bulbs to plant at Bobby McGarraugh Park on Sunday, Oct 20th from 11 am to 2pm. Bulbs were ordered early July. Any additional fundraising will go to refreshments but we are encouraging folks to bring picnics. Danny will handle some of the PR, assisted by Debbie. Rosemary and Lys will provide some refreshments. D. Update on Park Functional Plan Revision - Judy Surber provided a Parks Plan Update overview sheet with a Draft Timeline and Key Issues listed. She reported that Debbie volunteered to work on the first draft of melding the 1999 plan, 2011-12 draft and contributions from Friends of Kah Tai, along with new information, into a third document draft that would then go through the necessary public process: to the Parks Subcommittee, the joint (Parks and Plan Comm.) Subcommittee, the full Parks Board, the full Planning Commission, followed by the City Council. Rick Sepler will handle the public process and oversight; Judy would contribute editing and any SEPA review necessary. Key Issues for the PRTAB are to provide direction to the Subcommittee on: Park Categories, Level of Service, Decatur Street Trail, Pool, Golf Course and facilities by others. Review of Draft III and recommendation to the Planning Commission will also be necessary by late fall or early winter. Danny Milholland wanted to make sure we clarify the intentions of new draft with the community as a temporary document to enable RCO park and recreation grant applications next spring, which have a two-year cycle. E. Metropolitan Park District— 1. Report on MPD Steering Committee Park Tour and Program Visit held on August 9. Staff and only two members of the SC were present, one of which was an alternate. Most of the meeting provided the opportunity for several South County residents to discuss their concerns in detail, including a recent opinion from Mr. Alvarez that an MPD was not in fact prohibited from overlaying an established parks and rec district. 2. Rosemary's preliminary MPD recommendation as a Steering Committee member were discussed briefly. She considers the MPD to be in some ways problematic and believes a county-wide levy lid lift with apportionment would be a more viable alternative. VII. Future Meeting Agenda Items—Next regularly scheduled PRTAB meeting will be on Tuesday, September 24th, 4:30 to 6:30pm to review key issues for the Parks Functional Plan with City staff. VIII. Visitor and PRT Board Comment— 1. Jessie Dwyer inquired about weeding and pruning protocols at Kah Tai. 2. Lys reported that a larger steering committee is being recruited for Pedalpalooza 2014 IX. Adjournment—Meeting adjourned at 6:21pm. Action Steps Needed: 1. Monitor remaining issues that need to be resolved at Kah Tai. 2. NAS Habitat grant application for Parkside and Kah Tai 3. Rosemary to contact Cecil about progress on Significant Trees brochure 4. More detailed Bulbfest planning before October 201' 5. Review Key Issues for Functional Plan 6. Lys still has it on her list to check on software for logging in volunteer hours. 7. Annual Report on Volunteering in Our Parks need to be compiled and the Adopt-a-Park program needs to be promoted.