Thank you. Give me one second. My video lags just a little bit. Okay. Thank you. If you'll prevent I'll do first names. Michael. Here. Phil. Paul. Here. Caddies out. I'm Kathy. Aaron. Jordan. Olivia. Adam. Ed. Shafiq. Chris Chair, Chris, Anthony, and Christie. Thank you. We have a corner this evening. Thank you and we have a new person. Live here. Welcome. Do you want to take a moment to tell us about yourself? Yeah. So I'm Olivia. A group right here in John's Creek lived here when it was still considered blue. So kind of group in the area was here with John Street with roots in section. Playing soccer in football, Northview High School went down to Georgia State to play soccer as well. And now I'm in law school looking to go into land use zoning and real estate law. So this is my way of giving back to the community. Well, welcome. And we look forward to your thoughts as we move along here. Thank you, Chairman. I'm so glad to remind everyone that we straighten these videos and because we can hear you in here, but we do need you to turn on the mics just so the audio is picked up for the video. And there's just green as on, red as all. So thank you. Bill, I for the video and there's just green is on red is off so thank you. Bill I think that was for your benefit. It's not even listening. I didn't say that. All right so we're going to go into public comments. Anybody here for public comments tonight? I saw a few new people so I got nervous. Do you want to say anything? Yeah? Okay. All right so let's move right into it. Reports and presentations starting with the division update. Thank you, good evening everyone. Kirk, France, Recreation Manager. I'll cover the recreation side of the monthly update that covers the month of March. In your packet, you kind of have a report. Not a whole lot to really report because back in March we're not quite doing a whole lot of activities but we did start our free outdoor fitness program. We kicked that off with an expo and actually I made a note. I want to, if you have not met I want to introduce a couple people that are here on our staff, Cara Pearl. So when I talk about free outdoor fitness, that's something that she's involved in. And then Maggie Barker, she's our Park Place Coordinator. So when I talk about Park Place, that's what Maggie does. So I'm glad that they're here tonight. So yeah, we kicked off our free outdoor fitness. We had to cancel some classes because sometimes in the mornings it's a little bit too chilly, but those programs up and running. And as the weather gets warmer, it'll continue to grow. Park places back open from some of the leak issues that we had over the winter and the frozen pipes. But we had 99 total programs and activities, 842 participants for the month of March. That's basically it. Our park associations, I don't have any reports for you on them. However, they did. You know, they came back from spring break and they'll wrap up their spring sports season here around mid-May. On the upcoming John's Creek event schedule, we have our international festival coming up on April 29th. We'll have our first summer concert that features a band called Saturday in the park. They're an Earth, Wind Fire and Chicago Tribute Band. That's on Friday, May 5th. I'm here at City Hall in the parking lot. The Johns Creek Rotary is going to have a car show on Saturday, May 6th. And we also have our special needs and special Olympic group that's going to be using the Amphitheater for a little party. And then on the 6th and then on May 19th and adaptive movie night. Touch the truck is going to be here at City Hall in the parking lot on Saturday, May 20th. And then we have another amphitheater private rental on the 27th. So things are starting to pick up and if there's any questions, I'm happy to answer them. If not, I'll pass it off to our parks team. Any questions, comments? Okay. Thank you, sir. Any questions, comments? Okay. Thank you, sir. All right. Thank you. Hello. I will be short and sweet myself. I'm going to give you an update on our project construction or some of it, at least. Roger's bridge is there wrapping things up over there. I will say since both sides of the bridge have actual projects underway, they won't be cutting the ribbon until really close to when we cut the ribbon for Rogers, excuse me, Callie Creek Park. So it is heading towards completion, but we'll be able to walk over it until the summertime. Callie Creek Park, that's really coming together. Keep praying for this nice dry weather and sunshine and warm weather. So it really helps us out with paving. But everything's taking shape out there if you've seen the pictures lately. The parking lots are shaping up. There's trees in the ground. The fields are greening up. So it's really exciting to see out there. So happy to go into detail on either those. And then of course our project under design, we have the Chattanoche Greenway, which we are working with National Park Service, had a great update today, but it is just a very slow process. So we just keep chugging along there towards a good end and quick side out back. Again, we're just like with all these other entities that are outside of the city's control. EPD, Army Corps, things like that permitting just takes a while. So we are still in design, but also in permitting early permitting coordination on that project. So I'll let Robbie share his good, his pretty pictures on the next side. It's all his good work. But if you have any questions on those projects? Yeah. It's been raining a ton. Are they far behind and are still on path for their opening date? We are, you know, we are not missing that opening date. That's awesome. That's awesome. That was a great, you know, we're just having to do things, you know, just work around the mud. And there's lots of mud. Erica, a question for you. And we got through a creek site. I know when we started the project, it was a two year so-called approval process and all that. So we are now maybe nine months into this. So are we like year and three months? So I think we're still hoping to have full permitting and construction documents towards the end of this year, which you know, but then construction takes a while. But that's TBD. A lot of the permitting stuff is out of our hands, but we do expect permitting to take at least six months. So you know, starting around about now, that's the permitting and of course all the design elements and councils got to find, you know, figure out how we. That's the permitting and of course all the design elements and Council's got to find, you know, figure out how we're going to fund this project. So that's going to be a big decision too. Okay. The other thing is I know the name creeks are there was some conversation about should we keep that name or should we update that name? Any thoughts, any comments on that or do we have any? I believe that is the name of the place. Okay. Yes, I've not heard any desire from the council to change that. Okay. Yeah, and that's probably my fault because I was just one stirring that up because I hate that name. So. There is a two ponds. Yes, the two ponds. The creek feeds the two ponds. Yes, the creek feeds the two ponds. They're in line of the creek and it goes out the bottom. You said you fish back there and that's what I think of when you mentioned Creekside Park. Is somebody with a fishing pole going out there and fishing? It's very small Creek. Okay, any other questions for Erica? Okay, thank you. Good afternoon everyone. I've heard the lower pond is much better fishing than the upper. Now you know, don't tell nobody. That's right. All right guys, pictures worth a thousand words as Mr. France tells you earlier, part place is open and Maggie tells me that everyone is happy to be there and engaging in what they have to offer. Page four, the Shake Rags bathroom renovation is complete. Now it looks, just like our other restaurants, looks very good. And we have a new pavilion at Octermill. And as you come in, the, the drive is the first pavilion on the left. There was a wooden structure there that's kind of aging and needed a new look. So we went back with a metal roof, better concrete pour, where it's not holding water and definitely a long-term solution. And at Otramil, we've had some new carpet installed in the main reception room. Ed's colleague, Mary Joe, was beneficial in helping pick this out and kind of drive that. And if you've been to Otramil lately, they've done some really good upgrades in the day core of that facility. That's my report tonight. Does anyone have any questions? So Robbie, I have a question. I know a few months ago we approved the alcohol permit for Otril, for receptions and things like that. Has that been put in action yet? That's an error question. So yes, we brought the alcohol and the wildlife rehab program an addendum to their facility agreement. We brought that to work session, the last work session. So it is on consent agenda for the ninth I believe Tuesday, Tuesday. So that should be all set from there. Fantastic. Thank you. Any other comments, questions? Bobby, thank you. All right. Thank you. I'm not going to give an update. I've got an interesting lunch in the morning, one next week as well. So I'll have something to share with you guys next meeting. Plus we kind of pack. So let's just going to move on. Kim, are you talking to us about the field goal updates? You don't mind? Thank you. All right. All right. Good evening, our pack. The chair was not getting your agenda's pack tonight. I'm glad to get to be a small part of it. I come to you tonight first to give you an update from something that came out of a council work session discussion that I wanted to make sure the committee was aware of as it relates directly to recreation and parks. And I think the impetus for the discussion actually came from board members here that were really interested in wanting to share their thoughts. So during a work session we had last month with council in March, they discussed the opening of Colleague Creek Park and what equipment and field marking should be available for use on the park's first day. So council reached consensus that we should proceed with the purchase of goals for the rectangular multipurpose fields. So right now, so we have that clear consensus in direction for council. They did talk about it, but they said, you know what, we know we need these things. We don't need to have our pack way in on options. It's just, let's go buy them. So staff is researching options and alternatives for goals. We intend to purchase two regulation-size soccer goals, two regulation-size lacrosse goals, two high school-size football goalposts. They're all going to be portable to make sure that these fields can continue to be multi-used and used in different configurations, whether it's youth or adults, that need slightly different sizes and placements of those goals. So that is set in motion. Just want to make sure you are aware. Secondly, there was some conversation about the field markings. Again, going back to that need to use these in multiple configurations on our synthetic turf fields. They have permanent tick marks on the signs for those full size field striping for football, soccer and lacrosse, but they're not lined so that you can use them any way you need to. If you happen to be wanting that full size orientation, you just have to line the field. You don't have to measure everything out. If you're using it for two different youth groups at the same time, you're going to have to measure it all out. But that is kind of how we have found that to be most productive and most flexible in our parks. So I would be happy to answer questions, but I just wanted to make sure you guys were aware, because I don't expect you to watch every single council work session, but that's an item issue that I think you care about. So I've got a question for you. One, where will the equipment be stored and to how do people access it? So let's say Adams Group wants it, does he call and someone from parks has to get it out? That is a good question and it very much plays into an item we're going to talk about in just a few moments. So we get into Call of Creek Park, Park Athletic Operations. The city doesn't actually, this will be our first set of goals because the ones that are used at Newtown Park are owned by Newtown Recreation and brought out for the different athletic rentals that are athletic uses they have on those fields. So that's a logistical issue we need to work through but it is one that will be done in awareness of the decision we make on the issue of how we're going to run and manage that athletic program at Colleague Park. Obviously I have questions or concerns and I brought pictures if you don't mind and Allison has these in her email. You guys are going to pass these around. These are other parks around here that are marked for multi-use field sports and that's football across and soccer and you cannot find a multi-use park anywhere around Atlanta that aren't lined all for them. And so I think this one, I think it's important, just the tick marks aren't enough. If kids want to go out there and play football passively, the lines aren't there. They're all the way at the sideline. Turning over fields is a big, I'll pass these around. Is a big undertaking to mark those fields. We don't have one multi-use field, a real multi-use field, in John's Creek. This would be the, you know, we're building four. At least one of them should be lined four properly, you know, and, you know, and, you know, and again, all sports. It's just not football. Rugby can play on it, field hockey, soccer, you name it, but just to have tick marks, it's really just, it's just not there where we fully really need. And so I really push that we line these things correctly because it's permanent and everybody can use it, rather it's recreational or organized or just passive play. So that'd be my real big push on that. No, there's a lot of pictures to look at. You might just want to flip it on and move along. But we're the only ones. If you look at a new town park, doesn't strike. We have their own lacrosse fields there. You know, Shake Rack Park isn't striped for it either. So it's hard. This is the one chance we have to have a football field, you know, and it's not just a football field, it's for every sport. And we are the only city in the metropolitan. I've heard it say a thousand times council that they wanted as well so that makes a complete football field more than goals would so I really push that we mark that appropriately. Just the markings but not putting like the yardage. You know how to do the yardage? No, a lot of the yardage is kind of overkill but the lines that go across when kids are going out there passing with each other they need to know that the hitch is a five yards and out, you know, they need to know there's a 10 yard, you know, whatever they're running. It's hard to get that when you just have a big grass field. They, you know, hard to line up where you'd line up. If you know, just kids are playing recreationally or organized, you know, you need those linings and to ask a program to line those every two or three weeks, because even on synthetic it's gonna wear off. So they're gonna have to get out there and mark that all the time. So. Yeah, and I certainly echo this as well, because I think if we are trying to promote specially youth sports, multipurpose sports on one location, then I think we need to make it easier for the organizers and also for the youth to just come in and say, hey, fuel is ready. And it's not really impacting the other sports because the linings are there for other sports as well. But it's just that I think if we are truly trying to make this decent to multipurpose fields, then let's make it easier for the participants, meaning the youth and adults, and more importantly, also for the organizers to do this. What is the downside to not putting the markings on the field permanently? So for your synthetic turf field, the downside would be it is installed to add permanent striping, not an expert in this area. Maybe one of my friends could help, but I either have to remove it and add a new carpet on the top. Okay, I would have to remove the already installed synthetic turf and put new carpet on top or remove these sections where you stitch in the white field. Is it in there technology that you can paint on top. Oh, yeah, you can definitely paint on top That would remain permanent permanent as part of this synthetic turf if you were to do this at a At a football stadium for instance like they don't ever change the lines So they they actually have white Grass blades instead of green glass. It's not all paint. I'm sure I mean today's time there would be some technology that I'm talking about like from old. Well, fields, yeah, soccer is usually red. The cross will be like yellow. But what she saying is they have to rip the carpet. Erica, I think that is one option. But Erica is actually a professional in this. So for the turf, the way these turf search constructed, literally we figure out the striping, we figured it out like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, back, right? The decision was made to allow maximum flexibility of these fields. So literally the white stripes, are their white stripes sewn into the turf. So anything we add is literally a surface layer. It's just like painting your lines temporarily. I mean, it's always gonna rub off. So I will say that so I think you I think Football is one of the I think it may be the only sport that I'm aware of that plays like the youth plays on a full-size field most other youth sports play on like half-sides fields So yeah, you will find fields. I think my daughter played on one up in Buford or something where there's lots of different lines on the field. I will say, especially the youth, they do have trouble recognizing which line is which, you know, a six year old out there playing. It's hard for them to distinguish. Oh, I'm playing on just the white line, but there are the blue lines, but there's a white line and a red line. So it is tricky to that end. So I just want to, I think, with Christian's construction, I can answer this. Okay. Other comments? Adam, we suggested all four appeals would be marked the same way then, or we're using saying that one could be more dedicated. At least one that be used to strive for multi-use, I think is appropriate. Of course, I think the configuration of multi-purpose fields, as you can see, is you can play anything on them. I mean, you can't play youth, they just go parallel, be right to the thing of the lines are confusing for younger kids. But we do have other fields, those kids have that opportunity. No kid has an opportunity to do anything with football in John's Creek. And this was hopefully, you know, Kohli Creek was going to be the answer to that. So I would think of all the four, at least we can get one lined up. And again, I'm not saying just for football. Football soccer lacrosse. You know, three sports, one field. Problem solved. I'm gonna add to that one. I think in the interest of us spending so much money on this park and wanting to encourage youth athletics to happen in Johns Creek. If we don't provide at least one fully striped field, those students are going to continue to go back and trespass onto Chattahoojee's field, onto Northeos field, onto Johns Creek's field. And we don't really want kids doing that. The high schools don't like it. It's destructive. And so I think giving those kids a good outlet of where they can go and enjoy those sports would be a good solution. Thank you for your input. Any other comments, questions? Kirk, did you have something? Yeah, so I think the committee from the GIGO has decided that we're going to focus on K through five. If that's the change, then it's a different conversation. So if you're doing K through five and I'm a programmer and I'm going to have during the day, I'm going to have some kindergarten first grade games. I'll say for soccer, for example. They're not going to play on a full size regulation field. And so the only age groups that would play would be adult or maybe 15 and older, let's say. So 15 is whatever grade that is. But so if we're focused on K through five, if I'm a programmer, I'm gonna have the blank slate that doesn't have anything except the outer lines and the midline. And then it will require striping. And that's currently what our athletic associations at Newtown Park do. They go up on the main soccer field and they say, all right, we're gonna have these younger age groups, so they make these little small sided fields. And they actually put several fields on one big field. And so that was the rationale behind this. So if our focus is K through 5, we have them ticked, tick marks for regulation, soccer, football, lacrosse so that if high school kids want to go out or someone wants to have a high school game, that's all measured out, drop the string, paint the line, you're good to go. But we anticipate that these fields because of the K through 5 focus will be better used when they're for lack of a better word blank so that different dimensions can be drawn on them with temporary chalk paint. So I just wanted to kind of mention that. That was the rationale because of the focus of K through five. Yeah, these are good points, but it's like we also want a passive ability too, right? We do want people to be able to go up and play football. Yeah, pick up sports, sure. Yeah, high schoolers training, same thing as Olivia just said. So they just don't have a place to do that. and like the youth sports, I mean with the soccer they have Shakewag Park, they have three other fields at Koli Creek, they could do that, you know, there's four fields there, you know So just one to have it regulation football and the same thing, you know People do like playing soccer where they have the box on there and things like that and that's a good thing for passive people to play You know kids want to go up there and play soccer. They need the goalie box out there. They'd like everything else that comes with that lacrosse, where the lacrosse net goes, and where their goalie area is to. Yeah, so it's a, it's a, yeah, in K through 5 kids, they need a different box. And so it almost gets to the point where you're going to have a field that is just so with permanent lines, temporary lines, it gets to kind of become a Picasso picture, you're like, whoa. So I understand, it's maybe a bit of a tough call, but I just go back to the K through five focus. And I know if kids want to go out there passively, I just remember as a kid, if you didn't have bases, you threw down a hat, you threw down a glove, and that was first base. Now maybe that's, maybe I'm old school, but if I'm running a 12 year 12 yard hitch, okay measure out 12, put something down there, okay that's gonna be my mark. So I mean I know that's maybe not every other, you know every those board got what they need. And it's just like we don't, we have to play imaginary ball when everybody else has. But I understand what you say, didn't get what you need. If we don't have that, then again, we're just football players out there make up plans. It's same for soccer and lacrosse. It's not marked. It's not permanently lined. It's just, it's tick marks. So, but my argument is there's other places, John Creek, where it was. So, make a cross out of their own field. If I may. So, at this point, I think recommendations and advisement from our PAC back to council, if the committee as a whole has an opinion on the issue, I've certainly heard from three passionate members with issues and that is important, but three doesn't necessarily make a consensus. I'm not saying you don't all have an opinion on this, you may. Every single one of these members in front of me may have a very passionate issue or feedback to Sheriff's Council. But you may want to share that with your recommendation on our consideration of how the athletic should be operated to like I have shared you the update. Hey, Council made a decision to buy goals. And here's how they are currently marked on the fields. If this is troubling to the committee, you have an opportunity to share some feedback and recommendations back with the City Council as you make your recommendations on the team is going to talk in just a few moments about three options for how we could consider and forward the athletic operations. And if the committee as a whole has a recommendation to the council, then I certainly want wanna make sure we share that back. But I don't know that- There are four fields, correct? Yes, sir. Two synthetic. And two artificial, two natural, yes. Is this recommendation contained in here for the tick marks on all four fields? No, sorry, the tick marks I was mentioning are on the two synthetic turf fields. Okay. What's on the natural field? The graph. It actually has no markings. No markings. It's got an outline box. Now are all the fields supposed to be available for all the sports or are the synthetic? Yes. Thought that that's going to be used for one sport and natural is going to be used for another sport. No, the only real extra consideration that was given was we don't presently have a full size cricket pitch. So cricket pitch needs to have a pitch in the center and more of an oval shape. So the thought was although you could rent the two synthetic fields and use them as a cricket pitch, there would probably be a more natural inclination to using the natural grass because it has that oval outside the pitch in between the two rectangular. But no. I can't really make it. Two natural, the grass. The grass. If you're quick and long-sale, would not be conducive to having permanent markings on it. It may interfere with some of the other issues. You'd have a hard time playing cricket probably. Well, or you could ignore the markings. I'll just sum it up in that. There's a lot of fields here. And I'm not sure they all have to be done the same for permanent or checks. So there must be some there of accommodating all the various uses of just those. Yeah, build the only thing on the grass thing is it's very difficult to do permanent because it's grass. So it watches off. So we can't really do any permanent marking on grass. It's really the turf fields. And again, I personally wasn't aware of the fact that we had to get that ordered as part of the so-called the turf itself, not the expert or naive person here. But the fact that it has already been done, it's going to be very costly to undo it, am I correct? That in the way you are mentioning it is permanent marking can only be done if it's already built into the turf and the fact that the turf is already there for us to do permanent marking, now we have to rip that turf and put a new turf. Is that the only way? So I'm going to go ahead and admit I am not an expert in this area. If you are- I hear more about if it is the unanimous passionate recommendation of our pact that we should reconsider this issue, then I want to communicate that back to Council. If it is not the will of the committee, I want to move on to the next topic. I- Ericka, you jumped in here real quick. Just a resource, but yes, the striping, if you want to prepare for the striping, if that is the will of the party for the will of the group, It's synthetic turf fields. It has to be sewn in. Or like there are like with any decision by an advisory committee that is then accepted by council like we look into options and alternatives. Is it okay? Every first of the month I go out there with a robot to paint the field. I don't know. Like there are options to make it semi permanent outside of ripping up the beautiful carpet and stitching in new fabric and to paint the field. I don't know. Like there are options to make it semi-permanent outside of ripping up the beautiful carpet and stitching in new fabric and new colored seams. But that the how isn't my concern. So the field is have been, I don't know, how many months ago, the right now it's kind of a... But if it is a passionate and recommendation coming from the committee, like a... So that we all understand what are you taking back to the council from this discussion? Right now, I am not. Because council made a decision and asked me to move forward, I was bringing it to you as a professional courtesy and update. And so your suggestion is if there is a passion to make changes or modifications that those individuals talk directly with the council? No. Okay. This is the Recreation and Parks Advisory Committee. Okay. Those passionate individuals can convince the majority of this committee. I got you. Then we should make a recommendation back to council. And I'm happy to be that mouthpiece or have Eric can make that recommendation back to council on behalf of the committee. That's how our process works. If it is not the majority of our pack that holds this belief, we need to move on. Yeah. Okay, so what is the will of the committee at this point? How many of you feel passionately that we should be lobbying the council to provide those permanent strikes? How much is it to redo? I think, you know, we have to look at interim solution, right? I mean, the ripping of the turf is not a solution. So I'm happy to look into what kind of costs we're looking at. I don't know. But there will be a cost. There would definitely be a cost. But if I may, so we will not be looking at pulling up the entire turf field. If you look back at our local high schools, they have ripped up just the lines and replaced them. So you can do that. And then I also urge you if you are thinking and cost benefit analysis type of way to consider how much it's going to cost over the next several years to pay employees to come in and paint these lines over and over again versus putting down the lines they last for 10, 15, maybe 20 years, and then we revisit it down the one. Okay. Did she want to say something? We typically budget a lifecycle replacement cost of our artificial turf fields every seven to 10 years, so I don't know that I could, we can find out more information if you need that in order to make a decision if that is the cost of The alternatives for how we would add permanent striping or if you have enough information to reach a consensus this evening But I sorry don't have that information on hand did not think this was work So again, I go back and ask what is the will of the committee at this point in time because I didn't see enough hands raised. It would provide a consensus or a majority to take it back. Am I correct or incorrect in that? I think we need the information. You know, what is going to cost, right? So if there is a solution that could be put forward, maybe it's 10,000, maybe it's 50,000, I don't know what that answer is going to be. But I think we need to know whether it's really worthwhile spending that money to do that, right? Because at the end of the day, work is already done. I mean, we're not proposing, I don't think anyone's proposing rip up that turf. The question is, the fact that we did not have this conversation a few months ago, we having it now, what is it going to cost if we had adjusted the field at this point? And I think I would be more comfortable knowing that information and then deciding whether it makes sense or not? Well, as far as the time frame goes, we are at the end of April. And now we're talking about having you bring this back to us in May, and then having discussions and then possibly taking it back to the City Council, which is June, and we're opening in July. So- Can this be done later on? I'm sure it can, but it won't be done on the opening of the park. And then again, if we're having a discussion about who is possibly managing the park, that would end up being their responsibility, would it not be? Or possibly? Possibly. Yeah. But sorry, that's where I started from this may play into the conversation you're about have, about how we should approach that athletic management. But I need at least for my chair, direction on. Would you like me to come back in May with more information about cost? I'm seeing heads nodding yes. Okay, great. So, and quite a few. It may not be me, but we will make sure you have. Are you quitting? No. No, just I cannot attend every advisory committee meeting. And I've got a couple on my docket for May already. So I'll make sure we do a little bit more research and understand what are some costs for if we were to add permanent striping or semi-permanent striping. So more thinking like a robot to paint side for one of the synthetic turf fields. Thank you. Okay, let's move on. I am looking for a motion to accept a minutes as presented from last month. You always do that, answer your second. All in favor say aye. Any opposed or discussion? Passes. Thank you. All right, moving on. Okay, update regarding reconsideration special events calendar for Colleague Creek week. Erica. I think you all will be pleased on this one. So after our meeting in, what are we in? After our meeting in March, Council heard you about the desire to make more of a celebration week out of Colleague Creek Park. And so they brought it back in the work session to discuss and said that they wanted to go ahead with adding at least two more sort of two evening celebrations. So we're proposing those for Tuesday the 18th and Thursday the 20th. And so those would be like courts night and fields night over at Colleague Creek Park. And really their desire was for us to work, staff to work with the committee here to plan those and make them really exciting for the community. So at this point, we're here. It will be great. And I'm looking for volunteers to help me with specifically from this committee to help us with those two nights. Probably like eight would be ideal, but that's just a remember. But who can it really, you know, we have folks here that are involved with soccer, football, cricket, all those things that we have those facilities. So maybe if you want to grab your favorite sport and volunteer for that night, that would be great. So, you know, I wrote these out and I appreciate everybody, you know, saying, hey, let's do this. I appreciate everybody's input here because a lot of people really gave great feedback and we obviously presented a three day plan. And while I didn't expect it to go exactly, you know, as planned, I'm glad presented a three day plan. And while I didn't expect it to go exactly as planned, I'm glad that you picked up on it and we're doing something that is going to be hopefully memorable to the community. My question is going to be, I don't know if we want to sit here and raise hands right now. Maybe people should respond back to me and email me and go, hey, I'm better off on cricket. I think Adam should run cricket. She'll figure you get football. But I just think that, you know, we obviously want to use people's talents and areas where they have the most knowledge in. I know we've talked about this so maybe if people can just email me and go, hey, I want to be on volunteer community that does this. And then I can give you a one shot versus you trying to write all this stuff down. That would be perfect. One of the questions, and if you could do that by Friday afternoon to me so we can streamline this because this is going to be a process, right? My question is, and I don't know what's planned for July 22nd outside of the ribbon cutting. What areas can our PAC members help with on July 22nd? Is there something that you can think of? So that is still working through that. I know we're gonna have just a bit, it's gonna be probably a big party that day. Okay. With, you know, we've been thinking about some sort of scavenger hunt ways to get people to search out different parts of the park. Great, great. That day, you know, maybe, you know, like I said, just really introduce people to the park as a whole. That's the celebration. That's the party, the grand opening day. The other two days are more focused on, like, come out and enjoy sort of a specific year. Beautiful. So, my other question is this. Once these committees are formed, what is the next step? Or if this committee is formed? Yes. So once we get the volunteers, we'll get together sets and meeting dates with Kirk and myself and just really figure out, you know, and the ideas come bring your ideas, you know, whether like the fields night, for example, if we have some just fun community activities like who can throw the farthest, I'm not a football player, I'm sorry, but you know, what are some great things that people could just join in and maybe just try out little little skills for those different sports? That's kind of what we had in mind. So just to put your brain, we've got the four fields. We've got the cricket bat and cages. Right. So that's that's one area. We've got foot saw, which is like soccer, indoor soccer on a court, volleyball, pickle ball, basketball. I think I got them all right. Yeah. So just put those in your brain and think of, you know, the best way we can and pull that together. I know one of our recommendations. And I would suggest it's if possible, those who are going to be volunteering. We need to be there before the park opens to get a lay of the land. Oh for sure, yeah. Okay. I think Peac is what I hear you saying. Yeah, pretty much. Okay, other comments, questions? Other than that, thank you again to the City staff, the City Council, the mayor for listening to us. And again, if you can, you don't have to, if you want to volunteer, please send me an email and let me know where you feel like your services can be best utilized and we'll get you going. Okay, thank you. Colleague Creek Park Athletic Operations. Okay, so as part of council's conversation on the March 28th work session, they talked about how are we going to open Callie Creek Park up and how are we going to use these fields and what does that look like from day one and then on to the future. In the background, currently the city contracts with nonprofit athletic associations to run all of our sports leagues. At Newtown Park, there's an athletic association there that runs youth soccer, lacrosse, flag football. I think that's most of what they do. OC Park mainly focuses on youth baseball. It's a good relationship because if the city had to program all these activities, I would, I would, your parking recreation would have to have certain staff members to, you know, do registration, recruit the coaches, order the uniforms, get the gang schedules all done, and that's what these athletic associations do on behalf of the city. So as we look to call a creek, we are presenting three options for you all to consider as a recommendation. We are presenting three options for you all to consider as a recommendation. The first option that's in your memo is to do an RFP now. And RFPs are request for proposals. And so the city would have a scope of work that says here's what we'd like for an association to do out at Collie Creek. And interested organizations would then respond to that RFP with their qualifications, how they would meet the scope that the city provides, and then the city would evaluate and engrave the RFP responses and then make a recommendation to council that would ultimately then result in a facility use agreement, which is the agreement we have with our athletic associations that allows them to have priority use of our fields to run programs on behalf of the city. So option one is to go out with an RFP now, basically starting in the early part of May, with a deadline towards the end of May. We would then likely come to our pack with a recommendation at the June 21st meeting, and then it would go to council in July. This would put an awarded park association kind of on track to be ready to operate probably around for the winter season. There are four sport seasons generally, it's spring, summer, fall, winter. Summer and winter are kind of the smaller seasons. School's not in session. People are traveling on vacation and the winter, it's cold, you really aren't doing a whole lot of outdoor sports. Spring and fall when school is in session are the main sports season that we have here in Georgia. So we've kind of listed some benefits and some challenges. If we were to go out with an RFP here in the next couple weeks, one of the benefits is we would open up with a partner association. Some of the challenges is that interested organizations would have less time to maybe organize their response. We also have plans to hire a full time coordinator out at Colleague Creek. I'm not sure if we went right away, if we're going to have that person on board yet, and that person would be the one that would be kind of directly overseeing the awarded athletic association at Colleague Creek. directly overseeing the awarded athletic association at Colley Creek. And so again, so if we were to go right now, the earliest we project would be an association would be ready to register for the winner, to have a winner season. Maybe I'll go through these three and if you guys have any questions then we can kind of come back to that. Option number two falls more in line with what the recommendation of the Parks and Recreation Master Plan recommended. And that was to roughly wait about six months after the park opens. Let the community, let the park open, let the groups come out and use the fields. We would rent them to start. And then once kind of everything kind of, kind of break it in, then we would go with an RFP for an association that would go out roughly six months after the park opens, probably begin some time around in July with proposals due around August, end of August. Again, we go through the scoring process. We would likely come back to our pack at the September 20th meeting. And then ultimately awarding a facility agreement to the association around October 17th at that council meeting. the association around October 17th at that council meeting. So some of the benefits to this would be that, it would give organizations that are interested in responding to the RFP to kind of get their ducks in a row and get organized. We anticipate that would the scope would include multiple sports. So if there's one association, they're gonna need time to kind of work with some of the local organizations. Like hey, we would like to partner, will you partner with us for football, partner with us for cricket? To give them time to kind of get those things organized. We would have our staff in line, in hired for colleague Creek, so that person could be part of the RFP process and ready to go with that. Some of the challenges is we would not open up with a park association. From day one, we would just rent the fields and we would try to make sure that we give priority use to groups that serve John's Creek residents, give them priority. We wouldn't want, for instance, somebody to come in from Alabama and rent the fields. That doesn't make any sense. But we would focus on making sure that whoever we rent the fields to are serving John's Creek residents. With that timeframe for option two, we anticipate that an organization that's awarded to be the association at Colle Creek would be ready in spring of 2024. So they could start registration in the winter time, which is typically when registration is for the spring. So the differences between the first two, if you go right now, they'd be ready for the winter. If we wait six months, we think they'd be ready for the spring of 2024. Option three is rather than pursuing an RFP for a partner association, we would simply just rent the fields. That's kind of the model that we have right now at Shake Ride Park. We have a turf field there, we have cricket facilities there, and we rent, we kind of do a call for rentals, we do it on a quarterly basis, we say, hey, we're asking for requests now for the next sport season. Let us know if you're interested in renting the fields. We take those all together and then we figure out how to split the babies in however many ways, for lack of a better term. So one of the benefits is that instead of just having one partner Park that I get, I get a ton of requests. And so it's hard to kind of juggle and manage all the requests that come in. Whereas when you do have an association, you know, you have an association who's charged to offer these certain sports. And they are the ones that kind of juggle and make sure that everything is offered. juggle and make sure that everything is offered. Staff's recommendation is to go with option number two, which is also the recommendation in the Parks and Recreation Master Plan that Council adopted. To wait six months, let the park kind of get open and get broken in. We would, during those six months, we would rent the fields. So it's kind of like you start out with a little bit of option three, but then you go into the RFP and award a park association. And again, when we rent the fields, you know, John's Creek residents paid for this. So we need to make sure that the John's Creek residents have access to it and that they're served through the use of the fields. Okay, so I'm going to do like I normally do. I'm actually, I wrote a lot of stuff down, but I'm not going to do that. I'm going to be truncated. I'm going to give my thoughts. We're not voting on anything. This is basically their options and you're looking for feedback to share, correct? Correct. Let's take back to Council. So you know from direction. I got a few comments and then I'm going to swing around this way. And then you'll have some feedback. I'm going to do my best, Chris Cofflin, and that is you can't do option one because you have no data to work off of from day one. You don't know where the usage is, you don't know who's using it, what programs are being used the most. It doesn't make sense to throw somebody out there and for failure. My challenge with two is if we're doing the RFP in July, asking for people to respond by August 25th, we're still not six months out, according to these notes. And you still don't have data at that point in time. Yeah, I think the six months were kind of from the, from opening the park to the award in October. Well, and so here's my thought. Let's say we select XYZ organization to do it and they come in and then all of a sudden we've got phase two going or we do the design work on phase two and they're not really good at whatever's going in phase two. We've set them up for failure in that area. So I almost think it makes sense to have six months' worth of legwork and then so that people can come in and realistically go, okay, this is what's going on here, this is what you're doing in the future, we can do this best and we can judge people the best. My thought was three initially, it's just my thought, because you've got people with expertise in the city already, and cricket, and football, and lacrosse, and soccer, who can come in, and if you hire a community coordinator at Colley, which you're going to do, that person works with those organizations to make sure they're getting the fair share of the rentals and everybody's getting their time and space out there. And then you'll have the data in six months to look at it and go, okay, this organization is best at providing this. Well, we're really not using a lot of that, so they're only going to get four points. And I think we can grade it better. I could be wrong, but it's just as I sat and read through all this and thought about it and went back to the strategic plan about waiting until six months to do this. I thought option three made sense just because of we already have people in place who can come in and boom, do this, as long as you have the coordinator in place who works with each of these organizations and make sure that they're playing fair. Just in my two cents. One of the things to you is not, I don't know if it's really specified in the memo, is when we have, when we, and this is just for information. So when we have park associations, they are required to follow certain guidelines that the city sets. They have to operate, they have to be legally set up a certain way as far as non-profit goes. They can, they have to, we require them to collect non-resident fees. We require them to do background checks on coaches. We require them to do all kinds of things that are appropriate for a youth sports organization. When we rent the fields, we just rent the fields so they could be for profit, they could be non-profit. They could do background checks, not background checks. It's just, it's kind of, they could be whoever. So, right. I just, not right or wrong, just, I just want to make sure that that's understood. And the last thing anybody wants is a city sitting there taking reservations all day. So if this coordinate is in place, they can meet with the community organizers, the leads of Prick and football and go, hey, day one, this is how this works. This is what you have to do and set the tone. And at least it runs smoothly from day one because all these organizations have expertise and have done this before. Again, you know, two can work as well, but I don't know who can do all of this well that I know of. And especially without knowing what's going to be in phase two at this point in time, to know whether or not they're going to be good at programming those areas too. So I have similar thoughts, right? Because if you, we just did our strategic plan and one thing that was made very clear is that Collie Creek is going to be a big jewel for Johns Creek, with all the activities that are going to be coming up. And obviously, Collie Creek is built in stages. We have an idea of what's coming in stage two, but we haven't built stage two. We haven't raised the funds for stage two, yes, potentially going out and looking at organization that oversees the park. But at the same time, the strategic plan also mentioned the fact that, hey, existing organizations, like the Football Association, the Johns Creek Cricket Association, we need to figure out how to work with them. So, I just, whenever we are ready to do the RFP, because I do agree that we need some time. We need some actual time to see how this park is operating so that anyone that is saying, hey, we want to be the organization that's going to submit a proposal, then not only have an idea as to how this park is running, but at the same time, what the future activities are going to be. Because I think by early next year we should know what's going to happen. So in my personal view, the two things that become important is, we have not hired any athletic association since the foundation of this city. Because the two existing athletic associations were there as part of Fulton County. So this is going to be our first opportunity. And then secondly, in a park that is going to be the biggest park in John's Creek and second biggest in Metro Atlanta. So I just think that we, I hate to just run to the opportunity and give up the thinking and the knowledge that we would need to do this right because we have not done this before. So that's my input. Thank you. A question. Are we looking to partner with somebody here to run the sports activities at the park or the entire park? Because we're talking about phase two, phase three, which I believe are non-sports, there are event centers and things like that. So the conversation can go one way. If we're just talking about partnering with somebody to run the sports activities, it can go a whole different way and require a much bigger organization if you wanna run it with the event center and all that. So I would suggest we focus on the sports activities only. And that's the intent of the recommendation and the memo. Mainly the four sports fields and that association could program maybe some pick up all some volleyball basketball. But the main activity would be the use of the four fields. Jordan. Kirk, options one and two most resemble options one and two, most resemble how it's set up at Newtown and OC and an option three, most resemble Shakerag. Correct. I'm just going to ask you, up you don't mind. Do you like the way one works better than the other? You're the most parks experienced person in the room. So, there's good and bad to both. The nice thing about ShakeRag is that when we are in season, spring and fall season, at Newtown and O.C., those fields are booked because the programs are robust. If there's a rain out on one night, they got a rescheduled to maybe where there wasn't supposed to be something. So when the community calls me and asks for a field to rent, New Town at OC are rarely available. So except maybe like for Sunday mornings. So ShakeRag allows me to have some space with a multiuse field out there. There's one turf field and then there's one natural grass baseball field and then there's one natural grass baseball field and then there's cricket facilities. And so those are then rented constantly by groups that come from John's Creek, outside John's Creek. So, so there's good and bad. What's the downside to either, either one? We're both of them. If you just did the ShakeRag rental model, it takes a lot of work and then a lot of, like how do you determine who gets a, you know, you're gonna, we already are getting tons of requests. So how do you start to decipher? And I already have an idea in my head, okay, you got to fill out applications, let us know who you are, tell us how many you're in your organization, because everybody's going to ask for every night, four hours a night. And then because they're going to, you know, but they're only going to be able to get one night, you know, or whatever. So it's hard. So it's a lot of, as I kind of say, splitting the babies a ton of ways. And then there's less oversight and less accountability to the city when they just rent. So I'd say when the city has a contracted park association, they are operating on behalf of the city. And so they are representing the city, we hold them the standards that they have to meet. I'm not micromanaging them, but they know how they're supposed to operate on behalf of the city. Do you see any of the associations at OC and Newtown also being interested in Colleague? Would that be a whole- Yeah, I mean I think they would be maybe not OC because they're mainly baseball and right now we're not going to open up with baseball field so- Okay, so we're not voting on anything right? Okay, that's all I've got. Thanks, good. Connits, Ed? I'll be brief, I'm very comfortable with the option too. Thank you, Bill. Bill, come. I was just going to ask something about the, I guess I'll focus on the new town group who runs new town park. My interesting, it's a not a profit organization. Great. Are there professional people running that group, and that's their job, or are they volunteers? Sure. So, it's different at both Newtown and OCE. OCE is run by parents that volunteer their time. At Newtown Park, it's not parents, it's professionals that have been in parks and recreation or at least in athletic programming for several years. So they don't really leave when their kid graduates off as much as we see like at OC. And so yeah, they do have like full time staff. So when the community calls their phone number, someone's answering, they get response to emails. Nothing against OC Park, but those parents have full time jobs most likely. And so this is their after work type. In your knowledge are there other organizations such as staff in the area that might be interested in this? Yeah, there's there's soccer organizations soccer organizations that have full time staff. There's other football organizations or any organized sports group that maybe focuses on sports. And they might be some that focus on other sports. I knew town recreation is the first one that comes to mind. Take the YMCA for example, the YMCA could come in and say, hey, we'd be your association and they do different sports. Thank you Bill, Michael. Yeah, this might be going too far back in the history, but whenever OC Park and Newtown were created with their athletic associations, do you know how long it took to put out an RFP before it went in? I mean, that's a long time ago, but- Yeah, so both associations existed prior to the city being founded. They were with Fulton County. I was involved that my history prior to coming work with City of John's Creek was I actually ran the sports groups at Newtown Park. So I'm familiar with that. So I was not the main guy there at the time. There was an agreement with Fulton County from Mount Piscat Church, which is where the sports group, I mean if you want to go way back to the 90s. So that's kind of how that happened. I don't know how Fulton County really did an RFP. I'm not right. That's what you were mentioning. They were in place before there's Parks or Bill. Okay. Yeah. I just, I was wondering how we could utilize what we've done in the past to do this one, but it sounds like I'm leaning towards option two. Just because I still think that gives us enough time to see what's going to happen and what the demand is. And if the other parks are as busy as we all see them, I think it's better to get ahead of this versus waiting. And option three people will be coming overwhelmed and then we're like, oh man, we should have done this. Yeah. And the conversation that we're having tonight, this public conversation is going to get out. And so if we do wait six months, there's going to be more and more, maybe interest and more and more groups that would maybe respond to the RFP as opposed to if we just went it right away, then everybody's like scrambling. That's the thought. Thank you. Olivia? Two questions for you. Do we have any interest groups already lined up in the pipeline that are interested in this? I've had many emails or phone calls from more individual sports groups. Maybe not necessarily someone who says, hey, I want to come in and run everything. So certainly a lot of the local soccer clubs, football, again, not baseball. But anytime there's new fields coming on, people start chomping at the, you know, and it's not just here in John's Creek, it's coming from all over. So. And then second question, slash comment, to speak to the lack of data that we would have and why you're hesitant for number two Is it plausible to use the data that we've already collected from our other parks and surrounding parks and surrounding Cities or is this going to be a unique data set that we need to look at? so set that we need to look at. So, I think what the data or the decision that would probably need to be made is what is the scope of the RFP. So what are we going to ask a group to come in to do? What sport specifically do we want them to program on behalf of the city? So certainly we're hearing football, we're hearing soccer. I mean, if you think about what our community is most involved in, football, soccer, lacrosse, cricket. Those four are probably the bigger ones. Now, feel hockey. I mean, if it's not really happening now, not that it couldn't be offered as included as part of the scope, or maybe it could be, maybe it could be a, we want to make sure that the RFP includes these four sports, but if you have other sports that you think you might want to bring to the park, if you think that there's going to be enough field space, You know, that might be something that the city would consider. But I think, you know, the data is not going to necessarily be who is it that we want to be running the show or running being the association. It's what do we want the association to provide? So is it only recreation? Is it travel only? I mean, you gotta be kind of specific. Because if you just say, oh, hey, I want you to offer soccer. Well, there's an introductory recreational soccer, which is kind of the mission of a traditional parks and rec. But certainly, you graduate up to the club. And then there's, even within a club soccer, there's different levels, I'm sure as you know. So you got to kind of then charge the association that is with the scope of what the city wants. Thank you for comments. Chris? Yeah, I think some of the stuff I'd mirror, um, Christmas feet a little bit by talk about the growing pains of beginning and seeing, again, with what you, what you would see as, um, is group doing primarily, um, in the future. And I also like what you said about talking about. We have the town here to do that, at least for beginning. So it would not be part of number one. Um, number two, I don't have a specific problem with the laying it to see what goes on and putting, having a little more time, a little more data to putting out the RFP for a little further amount to get more interest possibly. I'm perfectly fan of number three, but that's I think a different story just because, in a moment in the past, I think was in the one's proposals we talked about, how some other areas around here get a lot more tax money per person towards the parks and rec committee and we were vastly underfunded, I think, compared to Roswell, who has much more people. I know it's a topic for an discussion having more staff and everything, which is obviously not our purpose here, but if a park like this does have bringing that much more, being like I said, the second largest around here and whatnot, that would be something to think of in the future, but leaving that aside I would hit number two right now for. Just for the sake of information, let me kind of address maybe the money part. So if you anytime we rent a field, we don't rent fields to associations. We give them priority use and they get to use the fields pretty much kind of for free, but it's not really for free. So if you rent a field, Council has hourly field rental rates that they've approved. The money is collected as part of a rental fee. That money just goes into the general fund. With associations, the associations are required to charge non-resident fees. They collect them, they pay them directly to the city, goes into the general fund. There's no fee for each hour that they use of the fields. However, currently our facility use agreements with Newtown Park and OC Park, those associations on an annual basis have to put back park improvements into the park that is equal to 5% of their park related revenue, but no less than $25,000. Every year it's $25,000 that I've been here. And so what that looks like is we notify them, hey, based on your last year's revenue for this upcoming year, you have to make $25,000 worth of park improvements, send us your list of requests. We might have some ourselves. They basically pay the bill for those park improvements, so that's their skin in the game. That ensures that the money that they collect, not only goes back into into their program but also goes back into the park to upgrade things. Thank you. Alison? Paul? No questions but I think based on what I've heard here option two seems to be the one I would support. Thank you, sir. Aaron? Yeah, I mean I feel the same. I think option two is probably the best. I don't know what Chris was saying, like, just to collect more data, because you would you consider pushing it out even further? Would that be an option to, I mean, even another maybe season or two of data collection? Yeah, you could. So the park opens in July. So call that mid-summer. Field rentals then would be for groups that want to probably program or use the fields for their fall sports season. Probably not going to be a whole lot of winter activity. There could be some, but our rentals go way down in the winter, just because of the cold weather and, you know, there might be some use. Maybe winter flag football, something like that. And then the next season would be spring. So if you, if you wanted to, so that I think the six months, the wait six months, then we're kind of, you're probably collecting, you probably collecting data that might be a little bit for fall, but then you're already, you're kind of getting registration ready for spring. So if you pushed it out, that might allow you to collect more data. I think what I anticipate is going to happen is, if you do the option too and you wait and we rent the fields know, we're gonna get user groups out there and I think they're gonna just, they're gonna get to know each other a little bit and they're gonna, and if the idea of the city is to, hey, we're gonna do an RFP, it's coming, they're gonna start talking and they're gonna realize that they're gonna probably have to work together and so, you know, they're gonna, that might give them more time to kind of just at least. And as a city, I can say, hey, you know, I got a ton of soccer requests, okay, well, what does that mean? And I get a bunch of football, a bunch of cricket, a bunch of lacrosse or whatever. So, but in the end, really with the park association, their role is going to be the orchestrator of all the sports. And typically what that looks like is that you do a registration. And if you get a bunch of football, but not soccer, well football then is going to need more field time because you have more participants, more teams that need to be on the field. If it's more lacrosse, then okay, you registration will dictate the amount of space of sports gets. Thank you, Aaron. I was close on, so yeah, I would be indefinitely going for option two then. Yeah, I agree. I think the option two is most feasible, but the problem I would have will be the same. If we don't have enough data to support putting out to RFP, if we could just extend the time to give us enough time to collect for data. Okay. Thank you, sir. Adam? Well, they've done a lot of the other parts. Does they have a master park association? This is volunteer run. I'd like hopefully to set an export option for that, right? Where we'd have one mat of Coley Creek park association, different boards would sit for your sport. Do you have cricket people, football people, basketball people, whatever you offer there. But those vacancies are there for those people, because as Bill said, it's best run, I think by the community, not profit. I think you're focusing on your per sport. You have a better experience, I would think. Rather than one guy doing it all, no offense to the guys that are doing it, but generally they're not focusing, I think, per sport. On really that, they're looking for numbers and kids to sign up. But when you have people are passionate about their sports, I think you end up having a better experience. So I'd like to see a citizen run master park association with sub sports on there. Thank you, Ram. Christian? I'm not used to going last. I have one quick question and it's an obvious question. If we hire an association, it's contract-based, right? They- Yeah, typically, anytime we have renewed, or even when we started, it's like a five year. It's a year one with four renewable years. There's terms that if the city wants to give so many days notice, if they wanted to terminate the agreement. Okay, so I mean if we got somebody in there without enough data, without something they didn't do a good job, we're not married to them. Well, yeah, so like I said, it's a one year contract with four automated automatic renewals, but if something got so out of hand that It's really agree just you got to go we need to break this agreement. There's there's there's Terms in each of the facilities agreements that give you have to give certain amount of notice and all that so okay I was Completely on board with number two to till Adam just spoke, and I liked his idea. But based on the options that we have sitting here, I would agree with too. I think we don't wanna hit six months from now and the city. I mean, you guys, you've got other things you have to do. You can't be answering the phone 24 hours a day, and I think we would need something in place for when it did, because this park's gonna explode. I mean, everybody's going to go and I think we need to be ready for that. I did love Adam's idea. Thank you for your comments and you asked for feedback and you got it. I think you have some other option. I have some other option too. Yeah, that's what I'm hearing. So thank you for the presentation. Thank you for all your work. All right, we're moving on to Park Special Event Scheduling Discussion. Thank you. All right. So the second item I wanted to bring you back is also a request to meet the needs of an issue raised by member of our board. So we on the staff side received a request for more information regarding the current approval process for the new special events that are being added to the calendar. So this is certainly something that I want to make sure everybody is on the same page with. So I went ahead and wrote out a memo to give you the basics on how is it that we have been adding special events for a very long time over a decade. The city special event schedule was pretty set. A lot of things changed in 2022. The Mayor and City Council leaned into having more events. They added volunteer coordinator. They added a arts culture and entertainment committee by consolidating two existing boards. And that committee made recommendations for new events to be added to the calendar. With that came some growing pains. So I understand the issue that was raised of absolutely. We underestimated the community's interest in our first two events. We did better with the third one. Daffodil days, we were not swamped. We did not have a disaster on our hands. It was a great event. A lot of fun people came. But still some growing pains and areas that we can do better next year. So I'm not gonna belabor the memo I wrote because I'm sure you guys read it on what we did for approval process and the characteristics considered on that. I do want to acknowledge that we are learning every event we have these brand new events are tough and that it is hard to anticipate the crowd. We work with event planning committees so citizens that are intimately familiar with the event we're trying to celebrate or really passionate about trying to get the word out in the committee or a community as a whole so for lunar New Year and volleyball events that we had really big crowds for that didn't work so well in the parks we tried them in. We have decided to hold those in different locations both are going to go to Heisman field so that big athletic field across from Atlanta athletic going to go to Heisman Field, so that big athletic field across from Atlanta Athletic Club has allowed us to rent their field. We do pay their same rental rate that other groups do for that for 2023, but that should help. However, I wanted to make sure that I gave that opportunity for any direct questions or follow it from the board. Connist questions? Yeah, Kimberly, thank you for putting that together. So, you know, I think we all understand that things unexpected happens. So, I mean, when you have a crowd like that, the question that I have is, was the question asked, particularly of the committees who were bringing these new events to you, was the question asked by the city, what is your anticipated attendance? How many parking spaces? So if that's it and somebody miscalculated, that's fine. I just wanted to make sure the question was asked. So it wasn't like somebody said, hey, let's do this event and then let's pick new challenges for the heck of it. No, the committee anticipated a crowd of 500 to maybe 1500 and that was their like wildest and then let's pick new challenges for the heck of it. The committee anticipated a crowd of 500 to maybe 1500 and that was their like wild is dream of success for a what we expected to be a chilly January Saturday afternoon. It was 50 degrees plus. It was amazingly beautiful and sunny and holy cow. The marketing took off like wildfire. I had no idea so many people would be interested to come to this inaugural event that we had ever even tried before. So no, the crowd we got exceeded our wildest imaginations and the event planning committees, wildest dreams. We were gonna be thrilled if we got 500 people. Okay, now that answered the question. I just wanna make sure the question was asked. Yes, that's great. Absolutely. That is a driving factor in how we try to figure out the sighting of any new event. So we are, yes. Thank you for explaining. Any other comments, questions? So, Kimberly, we know we use the Atlantic field and we'll be using it for these two events. What does it cost to rent the facility? The current rental rate is $7,500 per rental. So is there- That rental rate will go up in 2024. Okay, so that could be $10,000 then I guess. The club has advertised it $10,000 per rental in 2020. So is there a possibility with our colleague Creek Park that some of these events can actually move to colleague Creek and we can use that opportunity to help people understand what colleague Creek has to offer and then we're importantly save some money? That's a great question. That is something that the City Council has mused as well. So I mean get into it in just a minute when we talk about implementation of the Reckham Park strategic priority, but one of the projects that they've set out for 2023 is a discussion of phase two development of Colle Creek. There's at least one council member that's already raised that I want to consider could we make improvements so have enough parking area to allow for larger scale events to occur at Colle Creek Park. Staff team and I have done some thinking on this. There are some implementation issues related to that, to have enough space for parking in comparison to what is available at Heisman Field. So there's some cost-benefit analysis on what would it cost to build out areas where improve areas you could park. For those of you that have sat through too many Kimberley presentations on floodplain and wetlands and mwerper restrictions within 2000 F either river, I won't bore you with all those details again, but let's just say you can't just go build extra parking at Colley Creek and you can't park your car in an area it's going to sink. So it's not as easy as yes there are two and three acres we can fit as many cars as we want on paper. So here's a question I know because if we are trying to build parking just for special events accommodation that may be 10 events a year right. I know even if you look at the battery and you know the parking for the braves is at different locations and there are shuttle buses, right? So with all the surrounding office space that we have, because most of our events necessary to build parking on premises, but have a better system of transporting people so that it can be cost effective. And it's user-friendly. Yes, we experimented with some shuttle locations and bus transport for the Diwali Festival. Diwali was, I think, an exception, because I don't think anyone expected. No, but sorry, I raised that example as a yes. That is part of the creative approach to how would I make that happen. But there are some policy-level decisions that Council needs to make on phase two before I can answer that. Like, it's a good thought. It's one that Council needs to wrestle with and give me some direction. And then I anticipate some follow-up conversation with our PAC on a, like, okay, they made this decision. That means there are options. What do you guys think? And let's bring it back to that. Yeah, because my main concern is it's a park. Let's build park-related kind of facility and not build a parking lot. Right? Great point. There's one other issue there. I think Paul brought it up last time with the Devali Festival is overwhelming traffic. And Colly Creek is on a road, which is one lane in each direction. And if you're going to try and run a huge festival like that, a quality create, you're just going to block that whole place up. My way of thinking $10,000 to rent a field that can do this properly, it's on a main road that can handle a traffic is quite a deal. So for me, it goes into the cost benefit analysis and the kind of strategic weighing of options that council will need to think through. But that, yes, absolutely. One of the things the team brought to me was, Kimberly, even if we were to build all of this out, so ignore the infrastructure cost, you'd need to do a traffic study to confirm that we could handle that because the park wasn't built with the concept of having thousands and thousands of people at the exact same time. We actually went away from that for those of you that have been around since the beginning of the Colleague Creek musings. Like, there are some other ideas at the beginning of the world when we first got to work. So. Curious to question. You use 7,500 per event. What if the event is two days? Is it 7,500 for the two days or 7,500 for just a day. I believe it is the same cost for the two day event as the one day, but I need to pull the rental agreement. Okay. So you never just curiously question. Question about, I know that the DeWalley Festival was sponsored by various people. I know because I had right one of the checks. Thank you. Does that money go back to the city or is it go's it go back to the Group that sponsors that put it on So the group that puts it on is the city okay, so the Ford Diwali Festival in particular the city council did a budget amendment to transfer those Sponsorship dollars received directly into the recreation and parks operating supplies budget Which is where all of our special event money or the bulk of it is housed Tovali is the first time we really really got into sponsorship, but it was also The first time we had such a large event and we could have such a large event because The event planning committee was so successful in reaching out to those community partners and describing the vision for what we wanted to do and how those added sponsorship revenues would really allow us to have all these wonderful elements in inaugural event. So yes, the President sent by Council to this point. I cannot bind them in future decisions, but has been when we received sponsorship dollars for our large new events, they have considered a, at least for the last big one, they did a budget amendment to put those dollars into recreation park operations. So it wouldn't be hard to offset the rental price of Highestland Field. If we are successful in raising sponsorships. Now the current sitting council and five of them basically started in their current roles January of last year. So relatively new has been, let's lean and think about sponsorships and partnering with community and letting our business partners be part of that. Up until that point, we very rarely, if ever, even sought about asking businesses to be involved in that way. So we are breaking new ground, but not inventing a new wheel and that we've learned some of other communities and we are looking into that more, but we don't have a ton of precedent on having been doing this for 20 years as John's Creek. We have for many, many years had a great sponsorship through Northside Hospital of our summer movie series. If you rewind the clack about 10 years, we did get a number of sponsors for our Founders Day Parade, which has morphed into the holiday parade, which morphed into Holly Jolly Block Party. But did that answer your question? I'm busy. Thank you. Any other comments? If not, thank you. And let's plow through the last one. OK, so my last one is probably biggest and most complicated. So of all the strategic priorities that came out of the Council retreat this year. The recreation and park priority is the biggest and it is the most complicated. So in the memo, I gave you the paragraph from the adopted retreat report that talks about kind of the high level, what's all included into this priority? And I wanted to meet with you tonight to share this discussion item because there have been a number of discussions to forward the recreation and parks priority that have started with our pack. But not every single one related to recreation and parks has started here. Some of them have started with council because they're more policy level decisions that need to be made first. So I want to both give you a heads up on some of the ongoing conversations and where they are because they either tangentially or directly relate to parks and it's something that council wants to set the policy issue and then it will come to you for the more guidance and advice and then give you a heads up on some of the ones that are coming but are not yet public or have not yet been publicly discussed but they relate to rec and parks so I want you to be in the know because you are our advisory committee. So we have a council work session discussion and council meeting on Tuesday night and there are going to be two really big recreation and park items. The agenda packet will get pushed out to the world on Friday. The first you've been part of. The council is planning for the out parcel at Colley Creek. So we call it. It is the, we'll call it roughly 10 acres at the confluence of Colley Creek, the creek and the Chattaguchu River. It was land retained by the original owner, Ron Green, the city purchased 18 months ago or so so that we could incorporate that in the park and we could fill in that gray spot at the bottom of the concept plan. Last November, council reviewed a conceptual master plan so hey let's reuse that big storage barn as a special events facility and maybe we'll have a restaurant on the river. After they had some preliminary conversation they said, oh, get some feedback from our pack and take this to the Convention of Visitors Bureau and get their feedback. So rewind the clock for those of you that were on the board in November. We shared that conceptual master plan with you. You gave us a general, this is your head in the right direction, but make sure there's a canoe and kayak launch point. And like, make sure there's some river activations. So that was incorporated that then made it into your recreation of Park's Masterplan that was adopted in March. So I'm finally getting around to reporting back your feedback to Council as well as from the consultant some thoughts on the operational model. So wow, we're, hmm, we can only do so many things at one time. Should we consider a different operational model for part or all of the out parcel? Should we bring on a private sector partner? And I don't just mean a someone to help me run it. But like should I think about subdividing and selling or using a portion to exclusively say, all right, private sector, come in and work your magic. I know I want a special events facility, but that's all I'm going to say. You figure out the rest. Or should I have a public private partnership where I say I want a special event facility, but I'm going to build the parking lot for you. Or I'm going to let you figure it out, but here's my contribution to that. Or do I want it to be purely the city? So where I own and control every design document, an architectural plan, and then I go forth and I build it, and then I run and manage and maintain it. Those are operational decisions that council needs to make. I'm not sure what path they're gonna choose, but I want you to be aware of that conversation is going on. I anticipate at some point it will come back in some form to our pack for more feedback, but that's project one In your awareness Do you want to do questions as I go or just keep? Okay, so the second one is the maker space So add cally Creek Park, council Wow at the retreat not January but the previous January so 22 said that we really want treat not January, but the previous January. So 22 said that we really want to set the direction for how we're going to use or consider reusing the water reclamation plant so that big building that used to do the gray water processing, what should it be when it grows up? So we went through all kinds of uses and they landed on maker space with robotics and if space allows stem playground and business incubation. So they said, I want to get this all kinds of uses and they landed on maker space with robotics and if space allows stem playground and business incubation. So they said I want to get this done ASAP. Kimberly, go forth. Meet with anybody and everybody related to those fields and try to figure out what we would need in this space and hire an architect and get them to figure out how to fit together and do all the wants fit in there and what would that look like and how's the layout. So Tuesday is my opportunity to report back to Council with okay, I talked to a whole lot of people that are in the makerspace vibe and went to see a whole bunch of them and I got all the wish list and I worked with architects and oh my gosh Erica and Chris and the team helped me figure out be like, how could this all fit together? Now what do you think? And of course, it's everything that we want, so it's really expensive. So here are some phasing options. Or dear council, do you want to change the scope? Because the two ways you really impact your budget is you dial back your scope or you add money. Either one works, but I don't have the power to do either. two ways you really impact your budget is you dial back your scope or you add money. Either one works, but I don't have the power to do either. Okay, and then secondly, to build this thing, we have some options, because when I started the project, it was get it done as soon as possible. So I need to think about different alternatives for construction. You have the classic design bid build, which is where I take an idea all the way through construction documents to 100%. I'm the classic design bid build, which is where I take an idea all the way through construction documents to 100%. I'm controlling every element along the way, telling my architect what I want. And then I put it out to bid, and then I build it. That is the traditional design bid build method. We do it on most of our projects because it's the most conservative, least amount of risk to the city. Well, you could also do a construction management at risk contract, where you bring in the construction contractor earlier on and They work with the architect so that they can pre-order the really long lead time items and they can help you make design decisions Okay, so that's an option or you can do a design build So third construction method where I'm looking at Okay, if I hire the construction manager and they hire their own architect and again they pre-order early lead items, each of those alternatives to the classic one I use is slightly shorter. If you look at the full construction window because you can have things that overlap, but which is more important to council. The speed or the quality control over the design and the oh and by the way I don't have enough money to build the whole thing anyway so maybe it's okay if it takes a little longer because it gives me time to figure out or to budget for or to look at other financing options. So I share because that is a recreational amenity in Colleague Park. The council is very passionate about. But they're still at the making some policy level decisions. So if that is of interest to you, I want you to make sure you download that agenda packet, watch the work session on Tuesday night or watch the video later if that doesn't work with your schedule. But if you have interest in that, if you have questions, I'm happy to take them. I just want to make sure that it's on your radar. Okay, the third one has come up a little earlier tonight and it's phase two of Colle Creek Park. When the mayor and council reviewed your recommendations for the implementation of the first million dollars of parks bond, one of the projects that they concurred with you on was, yes, we should put some of this money towards phase two at Cully Creek and figuring out what comes next. Now the question that needs to be settled at the council level and it's not coming up Tuesday night because there's only so many you can put on each work session but it will come up in the next 90 days is a okay council. There are some decisions you have to make on a policy level. I have a master plan for all of Colleague Creek There are a couple areas that are grayed out now policy decision Am I just deciding which of the grayed out things the baseball diamonds the extra playground the loop the disc golf and the trees Which of those elements I want to move forward with construction documents or the great out areas to be considered as blank spaces and you want to reevaluate what is appropriate for Phase 2 based on where we are today's city based on your new recreation parks plan. I don't know. I need to ask them first and get that feedback so we can inform like, all like, where do we go from here? So I share as a, they heard you, I heard you, but council has to make some policy level like big picture decisions first so that we can have an informed committee decision. I've saved the biggest one for last. So I have four, sorry. And I'll sorry. I'm also kind of stuck. All of what I've told you so far, if you were really interested in council meetings and work sessions, do you know all of that because it's come up in different parts? The last one is not necessarily a shock, but it's a timing issue that I want you to know that this is coming. The Recreation of Parks Master Plan as adopted suggests that over the implementation period to some time over the next 10 years, as the city looks to grow the Recreation of Parks area and further invest in this area that we should make a transition. To this point, our recreation and parks team has served as a division of the public works department. The plan suggests at some point the city should move that and have a standalone recreation and parks department. The council has made the decision that that transition needs to happen this year. They have determined that the cleanest way to do that and the most logical considering several factors would be to make the transition effective essentially October 1st because that's the start of our new fiscal year. Now to do that means several things. Well, to have a recreation and parks department, I need a recreation and parks director. If I have an existing and amazing recreation and parks division, the people that have joined you as the staff team tonight are worth their weight and gold and are the success story of why we have done what we've done to this point and how we are so successful with such a small team. Each member of my team is valued and very important. So we are not starting from scratch. We are building on a division that we have today to transform to the next chapter, to make sure it is appropriately supported and resource moving forward. But to determine what organizational structure really makes sense to take it from here to the next chapter needs to be done with a recreation and parks director. Now that said, several of my existing staff members are well qualified to step into that role should they so choose should they want to apply if they want that challenge. There are others in the region in the nation that would also be qualified to step into that role. So I do not know who our next recreation of parks director is, but I am certain that we will have a really well-qualified one. But I mention it now because if I'm trying to hit an October 1 deadline for a transition, I need to get that job posting on the street in the next 10 days. Like, I've done all the math and figured out all of that part. And I really need that person on board like ASAP like yesterday because there is so many things that we are trying to do right now that I need the extra resources for. So I'm not asking you to make a decision on that item or any of the other ones I mentioned but I want you to know so you're not surprised when you see oh there's a recreation department director posting does something someone got fired? No it means I'm adding to the team. It also means, or it is also of note, that although in a perfect world, it hired the director and work with him or her to help set the organizational structure in all of the pieces and figure out the transitions and the roles for the right people and how we play to the strengths of people we think might be interested to transition onto the team and be part of that. But I can't wait to hire the Colleague Creek Coordinator either. My organization's structure right now, I have an amazing Park Place Coordinator Maggie who helps run all the programming that happens at our active adult center. I have a fantastic recreation coordinator, Kara, who helps park managing all the recreational programs. But they both have full-time jobs and they are maxed out. So I need to add a Colleague Creek Coordinator, someone that would serve as a peer to them, but this is all their attention in helping us with the cally creek stuff. We brought that position up several times tonight, so I can't wait to hire the director to wait to hire a cally creek coordinator. So in the next 10 days, I'll be posting two positions, a recreation and parks structure and a colleague-create coordinator. Exact title of colleague-create coordinator. It might be recreation coordinator, dashed colleague-create, working with HR on that. They're smart people on the team that help. So, but the important part is I, these are recreation and parks things that you either may know someone that is qualified to fill or is interested in or maybe you yourself as a passionate individual or like you know what it's my life's dreams to come work for the city. Count me in. Now I don't know but I want you to know because you're the Recreation and Park Advisory Committee. This is the first time that we are publicly talking about posting those positions. So it is a sensitive thing and it is particularly sensitive for my team. That is with me here tonight and has to weather the storm of the million people that will call them and be like, did you fire it? I saw that they posted a recreation and park director job. Let's just say I've got some experience and empathy in that world. But the important thing is for me, I'm at every word of what I said. The city's recreation and parks division has been successful to this point because of the people I have on the team. The next chapter of our recreation and parks department will be successful both because they're getting great advice from advisory committee. But the everyday operations are because of the team members that we have working for the city that you cut them they bleed John's Creek and they love this stuff so that was a whole lot. Thank you. I'm going to open up any comments or questions. Did I, another curiously question? I know the farmers markets have been talked about a lot. Has there been a thought to do a test run of the farmers market around Creekside? Yeah, okay. So good question. Didn't touch that initiative. There are probably half a dozen more we could go into. Farmers market. We did a test run at Daffodil Days market. So we had a farmers market component that was successful. The vendors had a great time. Weather wasn't so fantastic that weekend. So the event wasn't wildly attended, but for those that came and for the vendors that were there got really good reviews. The people that came came to shop, both at the farmers market part and the artesian wares and everything else that was there. So it, yes, we did a test run. We actually took it a step further. So the Vitality Committee and the ACE Committee are two other advisory committees that work with the city and our staff team. Formed a subcommittee between the two to have exploratory ideas and conversations about the farmers market. That committee made some recommendations to city management that we need to talk through, think about and share with council on the appropriate means. So, yes, to surprise the ending right now, the recommendation is we need some more data and research and understand and secret shopper at some of the surrounding markets and really think about how one for John's Creek would fit and into the regional market of farmers markets as well as where would you put it? And there are pros and cons on a lot of options but the strong recommendation is Town Center probably makes a lot of sense. Eventually but not today. Because so. Okay, thank you. You dropped a lot on us. Does anybody have any comments, questions? Sorry. Oh. I am happy to take follow up questions later. The chairman is correct. Okay. I shared a lot with you verbally. I think you can appreciate why I probably didn't want to put all of that into a memo. I'm glad you didn't want to put all of that into a memo. I'm glad you didn't. But next time. But if you have all questions later, if you don't have it, Chairman or any of the staff team can get you in direct contact with me or I'm happy to give you a card afterwards. But thank you for your service. Thank you for what you're doing to make our recreation and parks team successful. Oh, thank you. Before we adjourn, I want to remind everybody, please email me by Friday. If you are interested in volunteering in what areas and then we'll start getting things in place to for a colleague week. Okay, anything else? Any other comments? Can I add a motion to adjourn? and I had a motion to adjourn. Go figure. Is there a second? All those in favor? Anyone opposed? Meeting ends at 13. Thank you everybody.