I call to order the January 11th, 2024 meeting of the Ashland Parks and Rec Committee. Welcome everyone and beginning of an exciting new year. Are there any proposed changes to the agenda? Okay, so we are moving on to the first agenda item which is Election of officers and we'll go to this help Yes, so we are Starting some new terms and it's time to elect officers for our committee We're going to be electing our chair and vice chair and for each position I'm going to open our nominations once the nominations are made, we'll motion to close nominations and then we'll vote on those nominations. And then we will, somebody will motion to appoint a committee member to the role. We'll have a second for that and then we will close, and then we will vote. So with that being said, are there any nominations for the position of chair? I would like to nominate Chelsea Fricks to the position of chair. Second. Are there any further nominations? Does anybody move to close nominations? Can I move since I moved to close? Second. Okay. Sorry, I'm going to be a little slow because I'm taking notes of who says everything so that's a lot of writing for that. All right. And so now I'm going to ask for a vote. Mr. Malloy? Aye. Ms. Lugo? Aye. Ms. Sean's? Aye. Ms. Freaks? Aye. And Ms. Smith? Aye. Ms. Frakes and Ms. Smith. Aye. All right. So now that we have our nominations, is there a motion to a point Chelsea as chair of the Parks and Recreation Committee. Second. Okay. Mr. Molloy? Aye. Miss Lido. Aye. Ms. Lido. Aye. Ms. Chans. Aye. Ms. Freaks. Aye. Ms. Smith. Aye. Congratulations, Chelsea. Thank you. Yay. Did I hit everything I I needed to do it. Okay, good. Making sure with the boss over here. All right. Well, congratulations, Chelsea, we're very excited for you. Thank you. And I hope to follow in. And that's amazing footsteps. So thank you. I appreciate it. And looking forward to next steps. It'll be great. All right. So now we're going to move on to Vice Chair. So for the position of Vice Chair is there a nomination. I would like to nominate in that chance. Is there a second? Second. as their second second. Do we have any further nominations? Is there a movement to close nominations? I move to close. Second. Mr. Muloi? Aye. Ms. Molloy. Aye. Ms. Lugo. Aye. Ms. Shons. Aye. Ms. Freaks. Aye. Ms. Smith. Aye. All right. So now that we have our nominations, is there a motion to appoint to the position of Vice Chair? I make a motion to nominate a net as Vice Chair. You make a motion to appoint. A point. A point. Thank you. Just making sure we have the correct vervege on. Okay. Second. All right. Mr. Molloy. Aye. Miss Lugo. Aye. Miss Shons. Aye. Miss Freaks. Aye. Miss Frakes. I, and Miss Smith. I, Congratulations, Vice-Chairnett. Thank you. Our new members are getting to do a lot of voting on their first day. We've got fun. Sometimes we go a long time without votes, so get the crash course. So at this time, our new chair may take over. Or if you may ask Ms. Shons to finish out the night, if you feel more comfortable. You want to try it? Go ahead. Then jump right in. Yes. And following through with agenda. Correct? Yes, ma'am. There we are at the moment. OK. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you for the cable. I appreciate that. OK. Well, let's see. Moving on, we will go for citizen inputs. If there is any citizen input here tonight. Okay, and at this point, do I close it? Okay, we'll close citizen input section of the meeting and we will move on to the next item, which is discussion item A, introduction of new committee members. Is that okay? Yes. So I just wanted to make sure we took a moment which is discussion item A, Introduction of New Community Members. Ms. Hout. Yes. So I just wanted to make sure we took a moment to welcome our two new committee members. We have Mr. Drew Molloy and Ms. Joyce Smith. They're both very active in our community, and very passionate about aspects of the parks and recreation programs. They have tremendous energy, and I'm very excited for their contributions to our committee. They're coming in at a really pivotal time. We've got a lot of amazing projects on the horizon. And so I wanted to thank them for their interest in serving and for accepting the roles. I know it's a time and energy commitment and we appreciate you giving back and serving the town as a whole. I really, as I've said before, believe that parks are very much a quality of life. Parks and Recreations very much a quality of life and very, you know, very fun, but also very important and integral to help the community. And so recognizing that and being willing to promote that in the community and enhance that for our citizens. It's really grateful for your interest in serving and so at this time, not that you have to say anything but if you have any, I prepped you for this. If you any comments, Mr. Malloy, feel free to share. Well, just real quick, I haven't been cold. Mr. Malloy has many times. I'm trying to get used to that part. But my wife and I have lived in Nashville for three years now. And we immediately fell in love with the town and everything that goes on here. And while my wife is still working, I'm retired after 42 years in criminal justice work. But almost immediately got involved with activities, the Hannah of the Arts and Activity Center Board for two years and then went through the community leadership program here with the town. And also it's asked to be a national and community ambassador through Martha Mill has that endeavor going on and serve on the Coana sport. So I have a few things going on that keep me busy but parks and recreation I I walked the trails almost every day and use the parks with my grandchildren and it's just you know for a small town everything that they they have going on, it's amazing. So I look forward to being on this committee and hopefully contributing in a very positive way. Thank you. Miss Smith. I too am very happy to serve. I too am very happy to serve. I have been in the town of Ashland for 42 years. I'm real active in the town of Ashland. I am a board member of the Ashland Police Foundation. I'm also an Ashland Ambassador. I'm also a board member on the Hanover King William Habitat for Humanity. And I'm real happy to serve with Parks and Rec. And thank you all for the opportunity. And I look forward to contributing in any way, I can. Well, welcome both of you. And I'm very excited for this new year and this committee as a whole. We've made some great progress and some big picture items and we've got a lot of really exciting things on the horizon. So thank you to our two new members but also want to extend my thanks to our three members who applied for reappointment, went through the whole interview process and for the continued service. So thank you all of you. And just another little welcome to Drew and Joyce as well because it's, I mean, I get to see Drew almost daily on walks through town, which is always nice and then it's wonderful to be able to work with you as well too. And I just, Parks and Rec, has, is, to me, such a huge part of Ashland. And so for us to be able to contribute, and I think this is a really exciting time to be able to contribute right now too, because working on this report in particular, our item B that we were getting ready to work on, I just think that this is, we have real impacts with what we're doing here. It's not, you know, this isn't just a sitting committee, so it's exciting to move forward with it. Okay, thank you. So moving on to discussion, sorry, do I need to close that? Oh, okay. So moving on to discussion item B, a bike and pedestrian plan review, that's how? Yes, so for our new members and just kind of recap, we've been working on this plan for about a year and I am very excited to say that I have a finished draft. So draft, let me just make sure we know that word and we hear that draft. Okay, but we've been working on it along and along in making revisions, but finally we've got all of the pieces kind of plugged in. So for today, my goal is to go over a couple of the components that were added since our last meeting and just make sure that you are familiar with those. But I know I heard back from a few of you individually with some feedback. So I know that you have taken a look at it before tonight. And then just ask you for your feedback, any revisions that you have. And then we'll see if we have consensus on whether we're ready to take this for public comment. So starting off, some of the sections that are going to be new to you will be A, a lot of the maps. I have inserted now into the document since I was finished it and was able to work on formatting. That's the other thing too. Don't get too caught up in the format. It's still a word document. What we'll do is we'll actually take this and we'll pretty it up or we'll work with another entity to help us make this a very nice formalized document. So, you know, some of those spacings and picture and stuff, that's all going to be done after I know that we're good on the content. Some of the section or the biggest section that we, that I worked on and we worked on as a staff was the implementation. So the first thing that you'll notice is that we have infrastructure guidelines. Those guidelines are, we're determined by the Virginia Department of Transportation, best practices and our engineering. So that is on page 25, kind of that middle section line number 477-489. So that is shared youth's path. They're going to be 10 feet wide. You know, sidewalk should be 5 feet wide with a 4 wide grass strip strip curbing gutter? And so that is a new section. We finalized what our town standards are going to be based on our state standards and best practices. You'll also see we now have a form for community input that is included in your appendix. This was a direct request of the committee. That is appendix D. Director request of the committee to have a formalized method for people to request. You know, I want to sidewalk on this street or I want to trail so that way we have that documentation. Backtracking just a tiny bit in the project prioritization and that is going to be your appendix C. We have a new prioritization tool. We agreed upon either the last meeting or the one before, the criteria for that tool being based on the goals and objectives or initiatives that we set for the plan. And the scoring I worked with our engineering team to, because if you were on the project prioritization before there was some confusion around funding and some of the wording. And so we really cleaned it up and tried to make it more user friendly. And so that is an addition that you'll see here. But that is the main, those are the main changes. And then those sidewalk and trail recommendations and appendix B and those are from the 2040 transportation plan. So those are the tables from the plan. I also cross referenced this with all of the trails and sidewalks that the committee requested when we had all of our work sections sessions. So I pulled out that all of those documents and cross-referenced with all of these projects. So I've got them all in this table now. There were a few additional ones on the sidewalk side that I had to add to the table as well as some projects that had already been completed that I got to remove from the table, which was the which was really nice. So that being said, I will you know kind of let you guys provide but ever you know feedback That you have Oh, I will say one more thing sorry. I just looked at my notes and realized I missed one more thing I wanted to talk about the measurement tool so that is on page 26 at line 504 It's just a paragraph where we're talking about how we're going to track progress. So I had to sit down meeting with our engineering and public works team and as well as our community engagement manager. And good news. We were already kind of in the works of planning some type of tracking measurement tool that could be public to talk about, so that we could make sure that we're following up on the projects that have been prioritized and making progress on the plan. When talking, there are so many variables to implementing our project, so we can prioritize them, but cost change, there's differences in our changes in staff capacity, sometimes other projects are going on at the same time and so contractors may have to change timelines. And so we moved away from getting very specific and setting hard deadlines on when things could be completed because they even opened my eyes to a lot of their challenges getting very specific and setting hard deadlines on when things could be completed because in any, they even opened my eyes to a lot of their challenges for having, you know, we're going to do this by FY this year, FY. But what we have kind of come to an agreement on was a tracking document that categorized everything by color. So as you'll see in the paragraph, the table will categorize projects by their status towards completion. And that will, so green will be completed projects, yellows for projects in process, oranges for projects in the queue, and blue is for future projects, but we need to get a little farther down the road before we can kind of, we know when and how we're going to be able to accomplish that. And so, you know, for example, we've had a project in place for a while on the engineering side, and we had funding for it, and then that funding source went away. And so that was prioritized, but then we, the pricing changed and we didn't have the, we didn't have the funding source and so that's been pushed back. So keeping it kind of in a more flexible space, but also a way to a make sure we are tracking, but be able to put this on the website and share this with the public. so that we're very transparent about what projects and stuff we're working on. Everybody in engineering and our community engagement manager myself felt like that was the best way to move forward with some type of measurement tool. So just know that that's a little bit of the background on that piece. And with that, I'll open it up to feedback revisions, kind of your overall thought. And then after we've kind of gone through that, I'll ask you how you're feeling about taking it to community input. So let's just focus on feedback for now. So let's just focus on feedback for now. I have a question. Yes. During the whole process, there were elements that we identified that we thought needed to be emphasized in the near future, like two to five years out, as opposed to like there were overarching designs and ideas of what we thought the town should be doing or the plan, but then there were specifics and ideas of what we thought the town should be doing or the plan, but then there were specifics that we wanted to identify or we did identify, and we talked about maybe putting it into the appendix so that you have the overarching document and then anything that was like more of a short term we were gonna have in the appendix, are we still doing that? I guess is my question. And the ones that I wrote down from going back from the very beginning, the things that we identified was looking at Gandhi or with a new school name, whatever the new school name is up there. Safe routes to get to there was we thought needed to be emphasized in the near future. And preparation for the fall-on trail was another thing we identified since that's going to be coming in strong within the next two years, you know, as they open up, you know, Hanover completes theirs, then Henrico's completing their section, that's going to be something that's imminent. Two years is not a lot of time in order to get our ducks in our row. And then the other thing that we had talked about was making sure that we have sidewalks to all park entrances to identify that the parks were the entrances. Because, you know, we live here and we know where it is, but when you look at it from a fresh set of eyes, there are parks that we don't have that. So that's, so I'm not sure, we talked about those, we identified those as being important, but, and I know that we talked about putting it in appendix. So. Yeah, my interpretation of putting things in the appendix was the, were the tables that we put in. So my apologies if I misinterpreted because that is very likely. We do have all of those as initiatives under, I believe we have all of those as initiatives under our goals. So the improved safety of active transportation, so we talk about regional cycling routes there. And then we address, right, I mean, I know that they're all addressed but what we're talking about was having a word dynamic area where they could be replaced more frequently than the document. The original document was like 25 years older whatever. But we had talked about an area where we would have more immediate things that needed to be drawn to the attention of everyone that are more imminent. Like, you know, these, like- Right. So, you know, I know that we, that they are covered in the document generally. But so I appreciate that. And along with those ones that I was looking for as I read through, was also looking for this go to the safe routes to school, but also kind of those keywords like bike lanes or and then as well as the connected loop and so and they all of those items are in here Right, which by the way side note you've been really busy the couple months like this is awesome. It is so great. Thank you so much for bringing us all together. It's amazing And so they're in here, but I almost wonder if there is some reorganization that might help in- To emphasize. Right, to emphasize. Yeah. So, one thing that I've been thinking about is, because right now it kind of goes from, So we have vision goals initiatives and then recommendations. So I almost, and maybe this is more of, maybe this is reorganizing how we do the recommendations, because I think the recommendations could be more clear the way that they are currently. So I, one method that in a previous life doing policy work we used to always do was we either, we number them and we title them. And so that makes it really clear as in recommendation number one, and there's always an actor, and there's always an action. And so looking over, and because also the recommendation is then kind of blend into the implementation. And as it's written right now, it feels like it's more of the initiatives than it is the recommendations, whereas the initiatives are usually the projects. And I'm wondering if there's a way we could rearrange so that recommendations are clear, there's an actor, there's an action, and then here's, here's how we're achieving those, and that's through the initiatives. So I almost feel like the organization gets confusing because the initiatives are coming before the recommendations. Okay. So that then it kind of gets muddled down. And so I fit, so in reading this, because then there's implementation. So between initiatives and implementation and then recommendations, you know, I read this as a so for example, like page 25 lined 478 infrastructure guidelines. The town should construct sidewalks and shared use pass-based on Virginia Department of Transportation Guidelines. That's a recommendation right there, right? So that to me is the part that should, you know, that's the recommendation that we're making should be more clear. And if the recommendations are coming from each of these, italicized pieces and then follow through with the initiatives, it feels a little bit backwards to me on that part. That's my take. And going on with that, like what I was, some of the things I read fall into what you just read. But I think, you know, looking in the next, you know, two to four, five years, these things are like right in our face. So somehow to be able to emphasize, re-looking at the new school, safe routes, because I don't know when that was done. Yeah. And now the shift is, it's going to be, you know, it's really important. And the same with the fall line, just kind of emphasizing that these things are here. Yes, they fall into all these categories, but they need to be in the forefront of what's being prioritized. I don't know how to do that. I'm just saying that I know that we identified these things through the process as something that we thought needed to be looked at. Right. So, and feel free to jump in if I'm off base, but because this is my first time doing this too. But what I see, this is the 2045 plan. So this plan has to have longevity. It's kind of bigger picture. So it doesn't mean we can't focus on those internally as staff and project prioritization. So when we go and do that sidewalk prioritization, we can take into account those factors when selecting what projects go on the list or when we are prioritizing Fall Line Trail internally as a staff and connecting routes. So it's not that we're not, I'm not sure that it, in my opinion, maybe needs to live in this document because we're already, we're already pulling those elements from the document based on the timeliness of those as a staff and, you know, and as a committee, you'll be working on towards that too. It doesn't V.Dot do that where they have the, they have the 2040 plan and then the appendix is where they had specifics. I don't know if that's how it would be. Yeah, but I mean the transportation plan that we look at for the town. I think that's where the town. That's where we came up with the idea of having appendix like they did. I think that's where the idea of taking specifics and throwing it as an appendix item kind of like what they did with their plan. Their plan says these are the directives and then they had, in the appendix, they had input from everyone and that was, and also then these different goals of getting certain things accomplished and they had it in appendix And so, you know, the document itself, stands at the test of time, but then the appendix is the place where you can, you know, juggle the things as they get accomplished or added and subtracted. I understand you're trying to get the emphasis for those things that are important. Right. The thing I'm struggling to connect and maybe it's more of a logistical part is, you have a prioritization tool, right? And so you go through that, use that to set your priorities, how do you want what your emphasis is to kind of alter or influence that? And I think Emmy's answer is how we've done things in the town for other types of projects, like we do a total capital project planning. And I often have to have this very conversation with our council members is not everything can live in there, not everything we could ever think of, but there is an element of trust and I think we built it with council and I hope you're building it with him, where just because it's not said doesn't mean it's not getting done, right? Council oftentimes has a concern that you know you can prioritize 10 things Well, but everything's really important. I want to make sure that you're following that and so we reassure them that things like stormwater Right, even if you don't vote for stormwater, we're gonna be doing store stormwater And so I guess to kind of get to where you're going. I'm trying to figure out how does that alter the priority? Right, but there's a tool that you guys are theoretically about to says this is how we choose is what's important and what we're going to do. And so how does that influence that? What are you trying to accomplish with that? Okay, I guess I wasn't looking at changing the, altering the priority, I mean we have the tools. It's more a matter of reminding ourselves this is where we were looking at as being important in the future. During our discussions we identified these items. Well, and you know that can be that's part of my role is you know when we get to the prioritization going you know saying like okay in previous committee meetings and and reminding saying okay we talked about you know, pulling from the plan, the initiative of Safe Routes to Schools. So when we talk about what we're going to prioritize, we're, you know, I'll bring projects that fit those, you know, fit Safe Routes to School or Fall Line or so that's a way too that we can kind of work within, you know, work within what is in more of an immediate or short term need. And I think one thing you were saying that may have kind of triggered for me the where you're trying to go with this is I do remember now the transportation plan. It's not necessarily the recommendations or the upances. It's kind of a summary of all the things that people thought we were talking about. Yeah. And I think you could do an appendix pretty easy with that. It's not going to be a narrative of, and that said all these things, but a bullet of, the committee was also considering these things important, even though they didn't make it into the plan. Connecting schools, the fall line trial, so we can give a, whatever it is, 10, 15 bullet lists, we can put that in and appendix pretty easily. Right. Yeah, and we, that's what, yes, exactly that. Yeah. That we talked about it and it said we thought these items were important. Yeah. Yeah. And in that too, we can include the public comment because that's what part, that's what that was. It was all the public comment. Exactly. So we can add that it came up so many times and it was unclear, we kept agreeing on it and kept agreeing on it. It just seemed important enough to capture somewhere. Sorry, I didn't know where, but I just, like I said, it just was, we just kept coming back to those. So, thank you. I think you're right. And that's gonna be made very apparent when we do the public input. Exactly. We're going to talk about the same stuff you did. Exactly. Exactly. Okay. Thank you for bearing with me and trying to explain. Or maybe a question. One thing in the nonprofit world, what we do is strategic plan and then an operational plan. So we do have an overarching plan. In our case, it's three to five years, but then every year we do priorities within those strategic areas so that everyone on the staff knows this is what we're focusing on in this area this year. So that's like a working document. We all have access to it. I think it would be useful even though it didn't live in your head or in your computer. I think I, as a committee member, would appreciate having an operational plan. It doesn't have to be like the six-month process that my organization goes through to craft, strategic plan or operational plan. It can be just one sheet of paper, but I think that gets at that where it's like they are, you know, it is a day-to-day document, a yearly document that walks, you know, it's year-by-year through this 20-year plan, and it puts those immediate areas in focus. Yes, and I think you need. I do, I'm just, you know, I'm not like trying to shoot things down at all. So I don't take that way. I'm just from what I, like, so the prioritization, when we prioritize sidewalks, that's a three to five year plan. Sometimes could be a four to six, depending on funding or other projects that come up. So a yearly one, I'd have to play with that format and it won't work. Yeah, somebody just won't work at that. Or maybe it's a document once we do the prioritization that we have, and we have those 10 things and we connect it to the 10, the 10, or not, sidewalk prioritization works, it's broader project prioritization and then we can connect those two initiatives and track. So yeah, but I can, I can craft something. I had one other thing on the recommendations. Just question or like I, I wonder whether we need a recommendation, recommendation section. There's only two things on there, and the wording is very similar to what we have in the initiatives area. So can I don't know if Chelsea, that gets it what you're saying. I feel like it's almost like here, like hanging on, whereas it could be in the initiatives themselves, the emphasis on the crosswalks and the bike lanes, why aren't those in the initiatives? Those could be in the initiatives. The wording isn't specific enough in the recommendations that I feel like it merits its own section. Agreed. I mean, I think either lump it all into the, you know, take the initiatives and rework over arching pieces into recommendations within the, you know, the safety equity connectivity more users. Either work that in and then have the initiatives below, or the recommendation section is just so weak at the moment that it doesn't feel like it is a recommendation section. Where or you, I mean, yeah, yes. I mean, the implementation section is actually getting more into what recommendations are, but they're also not then totally mapped back to the goals. So there's a little bit of a disconnect. So then where would you like, so if we remove the recommendation section, the recommendation section really ties to Appendix B in the specific projects that the two tables would you prefer then and those two maps which are maps of the tables like of all of the proposed sidewalk and trails in town. So if we remove the recommendation section, where would you want those maps and the project lists to live? And would you want that to live with the implementation? It feels into implementation. Yes. And include language there that's more of like the infrastructure guidelines that towns should bubble-blah. Like should that, you know, would that make it feel better for you? That makes more sense to me. My question to you though is in a document like this, are we supposed to be making recommendations though? So if we are supposed to be making recommendations of the tail and should do x, y, and z, then maybe we need to look at the goals and have matching recommendations to the goals. Okay. I'm not sure I'm 100% following. So under each. So if everybody as this document stands, if we are supposed to be saying the town should do X, Y and Z, as we are recommending as a committee to do, do we need that? And if we do, then I think we could very easily create recommendations based off of what the goals and initiatives already are. If we don't, then that's okay too. Yeah, and need assistance on that. No, no. You have just, you've done this before, so it's a good thing you're here. I think a little bit stuck in linguistics of recommendation, or not, you know, right now it's a list of sidewalk priorities or a list of inventory of sidewalk projects. I really, I mean I don't know that recommendations is something that needs to come out of it. Because I really like the initiatives and that kind of structure because that mirrors our strategic plan really well. And then in my mind, you have that to kind of set priorities and the things Emmy's looking at. And then you have the tool that will create the recommendations on your behalf basically. And again, that is good because if you were to say, you know, go to that list, the top three, do those this year, that those that year. I'm just here to tell you not from a negative perspective. It's probably not going to happen that way, right? Because we have funding considerations. Council may want to do a stormwater project instead of a sidewalk project. And so I think if you create the system that allows recommendations to come out, you've really accomplished your objective because you've given her a great tool, you've given council a great tool, or actually moved these projects forward in a way that you're comfortable with. I don't feel like you need to say those list of projects do them in this order or tie them into anything. I think they can live in there as a nice appendix of project inventory instead of recommendations or something. Okay. Okay. Yes, I'm comfortable removing the recommendation section and folding it into implementation. That makes a lot more sense. And then how would you feel then I like the term like project inventory or something that allows us some flexibility with the list based on the initiatives that we feel are most important to focus on at that prioritization time. Yeah, okay. I make sense. And, you know, I mean, the measurement tool that has yet to be named, you know, on line 507, it's the town of Ashland Project Management documents that will be, I mean, I think that will end up, you know, having that delineated list that's color coded, I think that will provide structure and a collection of projects that we can see and be reminded of. And one thing too, I will mention about that tool is we're gonna do that for, it will house our sidewalk and trail projects, but it will also house all of our other town projects. So it'll be a really great overview and maybe an educational piece too. It's like we would love to build, we would love to do everything on our inventory now, but if we're doing a stormwater project or B&P or something, all of these other things that it'll kind of show the overview of what we're working on and then we can extract just the bike-ped stuff when we want, but then we can also see the big picture of you know, of work being done in the town as a whole. So just a side note it will also encompass all of the other great projects that we're doing. And it might be helpful. I wasn't here for the sidewalk prioritization, and especially for our new members, would you mind walking through what this might look like for the prioritization matrix? Yes, absolutely. So let's go to the matrix. So it's on page 30. It's appendix C. It's our prioritization tool. So essentially, I will work with staff. And this is where we can be having conversations about what initiatives were interested in focusing on. So if I say, OK, we've got a project prioritization cycle coming up. You know, what are some things that are important to us right now based on the timeliness of things? So the following trail, the, you know, safe routes to school, if there's a major infrastructure that comes in, you know, or if there are, there's an increase in vehicle pedestrian crashes, you know, in accidents in an area. And then I will go to engineering and say, okay, out of our list, what do we have the budget for and what is feasible on a contractor scope of work slash staff capacity side, and then we'll use all of that information to go to that project inventory, pull usually about 8 to 10 projects because that's what we estimate we can complete in a 3 to 5 year period. And then we'll put those under the street in location. So I'll fill out this matrix without under street in location. Because if I ask you to prioritize all like, you know, 60 projects that may get a little, a little time swimming right, so we'll narrow it down to you, down for you. And then this last section we had are, this last cycle, our town engineer came and explained each project. We had pictures of the locations, the scope of work for each, the funding that it took for each, the timeline of how long it may take to get done. I'll kind of help you answer some of like how many people would it impact on a walkability scale. And then you would go through as a committee member and do some individual research on and grade it based on the criteria here on your prior organization. So you would look and say, okay, does this project meet our safety initiatives and go back and look and if it meets none of them, you know say it's a sidewalk out in the middle of nowhere right and it doesn't you know it doesn't or there's already you know a sidewalk on that street or whatever and so you would go through each and then you would give it a score. One thing that we ask the committee members to do is while they're scoring is to talk with your neighbors, talk with other people in the community, get their feedback. Because that kind of comes into the community input section, and then that's when I can also pull that community input tool that I've gotten and say, okay, we had eight people request a sidewalk on this street, but no people requested it on this other project that you have for prioritization. So once you score it, then the sheets come to me and then I take an average score. And so I go in and I say, okay, you know, project number three scored the highest and then I rank them. And so then I bring you the ranking and say, based on your scores, this is how the committee is a whole ranked these projects. And then it's open for your conversation and discussion. So say you ranked something as number one, but after discussion, maybe somebody else had ranked number one really low and they bring up a perspective and you're like, oh, you know what, you're right. I think we should bump that down and move this other one up you're able to talk and rearrange that ranking based on you know the discussion that you have and then you will vote on a finalized priority, prioritization list and then I will present that list to town council and then town council will have a discussion and they are also have the ability to rearrange the order based on, you know, their thoughts and then they will vote on and approve a final list. So that's kind of how we go from the ideation to the actual implementation. And then from there, engineering takes the list and based on funding and staff capacity, they will start to kind of tick off those projects. Is that answer your question? Awesome. Yeah. And we will go. And so, you know, we just did the prioritization, the most recent one that we're in about a year and a half ago. So it will be a little while probably before we get to another prioritization round. So I don't expect you to remember this in a couple years. So we'll go over it in depth. And then the really beneficial piece is having our town engineer come and do a presentation and give some in-depth information about the project and the scope of work. And so that way you're very informed going out and filling out the matrix. And walking it helps too. Yeah, I mean, getting out, physically seeing it, all like this. Walking it, driving it, going it different times of the day, talking with other people who live in that area, that all assists. That's great. Thank you. I know I think it's helpful to know how intricate everything is connected. Yeah. Happy to do that, Max. One other thing I had a question about, and I don't know if this came up for anybody else. So again, the concept between trails versus the shared youth path, and it is defined along the way that trails encompasses both the S.U.P.s shared use paths and nature trails. And then sometimes when I was reading through this though, I wondered could this also be, you know, if this is a shared use path, could this also be for nature trails? And so I just curious if anybody else had that idea when they're reading through or if there's, I mean, I can go back and read through it one more time too to see if there's confusion along the way too about where sometimes maybe it should be actually trails and not just one or the other. Does that make sense? where sometimes maybe it should be actually trails and not just one or the other. Does that make sense? Is that, are you saying it combines? It's not a sidewalk, but it's the shared use path. Right. And so that maybe is connecting to sidewalks. And so there's discussion about the shared use path being a more encompassing element, term, then just the sidewalk. And then it's also described in the document where it's the shared use path, which is more encompassing, but then also there's the nature trails. And so sometimes I think there might be spots and I don't have this. Or like the terminology maybe was blended. Blended? Right. So we had a conversation internally about what we want to, how we want to kind of call, like what, what we as a town want to call, like a trail. So we talked about calling Nestling shared use paths under trails. So trails and then shared use path and nature trails were to type of trails. So that's kind of where, because we had that whole conversation, I was like, what do we call it this, when you call it that? And so, and that's kind of like consistent with like the Virginia Department of Transportation language. So I can also go through and it what really helps. So I was like, I think I've read this 30 times. So like, and of course, like we're in it, right? So like we, yeah. So, well, And we read a term. You read it, and you're like, yeah, I know what this is. I know what this is because this is what we have been working on, and this is what we do. So I'll try to go through with the new lens and just make sure I'm very clear. Or even adding that as a statement, as saying, like, the town of Ashland categorizes trails in two ways, shared youths, paths, and nature trails. And maybe adding that explanation earlier on in the document where we're talking about those types of infrastructure could help. Yes, and now I'll go through I can do a little seek and find that too, because I know and it is it's delineated at one point. I can't remember where it is, but in that that was helpful, but you're right. I think that's further into the document Yeah, so I'm happy. Yeah, so I'm happy to do that kind of try to put on some fresh Fresh glasses and look at it in that way It's like the it's like when you look at something and you fill letters in that are missing. You know when your brain fills in things. But that's certainly something that nationwide is confusing. When you read the definition of what people call trails and paths. That looks like industry wide. It's all over. Was there any other feedback or discussion? I had one more thing. I have one. Andrew has one too. So I'm a little bit. I know I just want to re-take another look at our equity statements. Because my understanding of equity is that we do need to define like if there is an underserved population then that population needs to be given priority and I don't see that anywhere in either the statements or I can't pronounce the prioritization tool. So, the prioritization tool says, does this project meet the equity initiatives and the equity initiatives I'll say, all, all, all, all, all, all, all, all quadrants of, and that's not what equity is. Or, I mean, it is, but in order to make sure that all quadrants, all areas, all neighborhoods, all people have access, you have to give underserved areas priority. That has to be stated very explicitly, or else it won't get done. So, earlier in the document, we do, so plan our VA and those of you that remember working with them, their regional bike and pedestrian plan define special populations as equity emphasis areas. And so those equity emphasis area groups as defined in that plan include minority and low income, individuals' disabilities, households with no access to a car, elderly, limited English proficiency. So would you and then we, and for the purposes of the plan we also put children. So would you like maybe something in the initiatives that say that ties back into that and maybe mentions the equity emphasis areas within an initiative so that when you are grading, that can be part, when you are using the prioritization tool, that can be one of the initiatives you're measuring against. Yes, I would love that. Is there specific, I mean I can craft something and put it in there and then send it to you guys for review or is there specific language that you want to use or I can just work to do that? I mean based on what you just said I think that would work for me or something in that vein. I think it's, you know, we should look at what, and this might, there might not be a variance, but maybe there is just in terms of, does Ashland have specific groups that need more consideration than others? I know we have an aging, a growing aging population, a growing population living in poverty. So you know I do think that it's it's something that could be defined a little bit more specifically to Ashland. But it could be that those same groups are the ones that you know are vulnerable populations here. So it just does that with target groups is yes yeah yeah I should have told you where that was in the document under target groups. Page is that? Yes. Yeah, put page for that. I will say the other component to that is in the prioritization tool we have the walkability. Criteria. And if you guys remember, Plan RVA has prepared, and I'm working on getting from them, a tool that when we put in the project into the map, and it's called a GIS map. When you put the project in, it would actually display how many new users would now be within a 10-minute safe walk of a destination. So maybe some of those target groups are in areas that, you know, don't have as much infrastructure. And so when we put those connection pieces into that tool, we may find that that also helps with that equity component because we'll be able to see, you know, the number of people or the areas in town that people are, you know, affected by that addition. So that could help on that grading too. There was, and when we were deciding on the playground, I feel like we had some discussion. I don't know if it's operationalized, but like we had some discussion around tailors, you know, is due for a park because this playground is the oldest of all of the playgrounds. So I think the only concern that I have, and I think the target groups are listed beautifully, I just think in hour the initiatives, it's not, and I think the two populations that are that are, lost my page, that are specified in the initiatives are ADA, right? So like we're talking about ability, vulnerable groups within the ability category. And I think that we should be specific, and we should define at least a couple of specific groups, additional specific groups within those initiatives. I mean, I think the, yeah, that's probably a conversation for another day, but there's probably a couple of groups. And so to connect it back to the playground, the idea of are there areas of town that don't have trails or are there areas of town that have lots of trails and so that we should give more consideration to an area that doesn't already have one. How is that factored into the prioritization tool? I don't know that it is. Do we get to see? I mean, obviously we can look at a map and many of us already know because we're on these trails every day, but I would like to see some way to operationalize it in the process. I think mine is pretty simple. It was figure 10. I would suggest having a legend there to have the colors correspond with what locality it is. That just kind of jumped out at me. I know what the locality is all but other people may not. That would be helpful. I guess I can do that. Yeah so that's our fall line trail and that's the map provided by sports backers to show how much trail passes through all the different localities. So I would very easily pull and create a legend for that so that people reading the document can kind of follow along. Thank you. Along with the equity discussion, I was just wondering, this is another side note. For page four, under the purposes, excuse me, no benefits of active transportation. Were list as economy, health, safety, climate, equity. Seeing how we have equity as number two on our goals? Is it fair to bump it up a little bit higher along, among the list? Or is this not? I know we rearranged goals. Is that one that we want to move that up? Have it mirror what we write with the others. I can rearrange those. I could even move safety up just to be more consistent with. Yeah. Yeah. Let's later on the document. The economy, safety, equity, health, climate, community building. Maybe. Yeah. Just consistency. I really, the guiding plans on page 15 was really nicely laid out too. Thank you for having that there. And I do have some just small editorial ones that I can share with you later. Okay. Yeah, if you want to, and I may have already fixed them because Drew caught some typo type things, so it's that thing when you look at it so often, you don't see where you've duplicated words are. So, yeah, feel free if you want to. You can either shoot those to me in an email or you can show me real quick. Okay. great. All right. I think it looks great. And I think we're really close to being ready to have citizen input. I really do. I think it's a great document. Yes. I'm proud of it. Yeah, me too. It's awesome. So my recommendation would be that I go back and make these changes and then get it in front of you guys again before we invite community input. Just so, especially with just some of the bigger things in removing the recommendation section, I want to make sure that it's how you want it before we move forward. Is that okay with the group? Okay. Thank you. Excellent. Okay. So moving on, we will go to the next item on the agenda action item, which a committee bylaws revision is how. Yes. I'm going to try to go into try to scroll down to the staff report. There's a lot of a lot of stuff in this. Oh, almost there. Okay. Let me make that not so big for you. Okay, so this is our committee bylaws revision. So we talked about this at our last meeting in November. But just to recap, at the October 3rd town council meeting, they voted to eliminate term limits for commission and committee appointees. Our bylaws are not in a group or not in congruence with that. And so we need to make that change to our bylaws. There was a lot of conversation at our last meeting about making sure that it was communicated the reappointment process and that we made sure that people felt welcome and being able to apply and just, you know, making from an equity standpoint, making the, making this reflective of, you know, this is, you can't just sit on a committee for, you know, forever and ever, right? There's some type of like checks and balances for that. So I know that we talked about that. I talked about it internally with our staff. You all now have gone through the appointment process. And so as kind of a response to our concern or your concerns, I want to make sure it's clear that there is the reappointment process and that reappointment will be made by town council and that town council does have the discretion to either remove somebody from a committee that is not serving the committee and the capacity we need them to or to not reappoint somebody The and there was conversation about where that reappointment process lived in our policies That is it's not in our bylaws because it's in the over arching Appointments by laws from for councils. So that language is all there. It just isn't nestled in this because this is kind of, it's under that umbrella, it's a little more specific. So I will open it up to any questions, but we will need to make a vote to remove that terminology from our bylaws in order to bring it into compliance with the town council policy update. Well, discussion if needed. I mean, I'm happy if it's in the town council. Yeah, if it's in somewhere, it's there. That's great. Yep. That's fine. Awesome. Okay. So we'll need a motion. So motion to vote on, is there a motion to hold on? It's there for you. At the bottom. The recommended motion. Oh, right. Okay. Here the bottom. The recommended motion. Right. Okay. Here we go. Is there a motion to approve the revised Parks and Recreation Committee bylaws? COU-165 as presented. Make a motion. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Great is there a second second Sorry taking notes All right, mr. Mulroy I Miss Lugo I Miss Sean's I Miss Frank's I And miss Smith yeah, I Okay. Ms. Chans? Hi. Ms. Freaks? Hi. Ann Miss Smith. Yeah. Awesome. All right. Well, we will get those revised and posted. Thank you. Thank you for the clarification, too. Great. Okay. Moving on to reports. Can many member reports? So typically we go down the line, but as seeing how we have new members, I'll start and we can move down the line this way. This is kind of our time period to just share. There's any feedback or whatnot. I just wanted to say that we've made some visits to the Taylor Street Park and it's fabulous and really excited about the new playground that's there, so we've had lots of fun. Do you have any feedback? No. Miss Smith? OK. Do you like those? I also went and looked at the new equipment. I didn't play on it. Why? I watched some children play on it. So it looks great. And I'm looking forward to the skate park opening too. I mean, we've got exciting things coming up this year. This is going to be a fabulous year. Several years. We've got lots of projects coming up. So I'm happy to be back. That's all I have to say. And thanks to Emmy for all your hard work on the light plan. It looks great. I will say I did have assistance. I can't take all the credit because I've had a lot of helping guidance from other town staff. It's been a joint effort. But thank you. Thank you. I have no reports. I'm sorry. other town staff. So it's been a joint effort. But thank you. Great. Sleuko. I have no reports. No, I'm good. I just couldn't walk on stony trail the other day because I didn't have my waders on. You need your waders. Yeah. It was a kayaking trail. I backed out. You need them and they were back. I just glad I didn't have my grandson with me because we would have been stuck there for about three hours while he played in the plane. Yeah, excellent. Okay, moving on to the Parks and Recreation report. It was help. Yeah, so just kind of updating you on some of the projects we have. See if the report. updating you on some of the projects we have. So you have the report. The skate park renovation, the project is still in progress. I reached out to the company today just to get a status update but was with the holidays and everything. All of the new equipment is in fabrication. So they're working on getting me a timeline for installation. So, but as we talked about, I think at the last meeting I was able to share that all of the concrete work is already done. And I've had a lot of great questions from the community about, you know, what materials it'll be when it will be here. There's a lot of excitement, so we're looking forward to getting that. The Berkeley Town Heritage Park site is coming along. We went out with our one of our contractors in Bushhog to preliminary trail just to kind of see the scope of work that we're working with out there. We did come across a few things like wetlands, walked it today and it's still very wet in some areas. We're going to have to build a bridge and we are working with our contractor to come up with some plans for that but we are also waiting on the conditional use permit which will allow us to actually build and develop the piece of property to work through the proper process with our planning commission and town council. Looking at moving through that process, we are working with our Planning Commission and Town Council. So looking at moving through that process here in February with hopefully some type of march bringing the project in the conditional use permit to Town Council for approval. And then once that gets approved and as well as the, for those of you that you helped out a little bit with the, or you helped out a lot of it with the comprehensive plan and that and getting our chapter ready to go reviewed it for us. And Berkeley Town also had to go into the comprehensive plan and so the comprehensive plan will hopefully be approved in the near future as well kind of and then once that's approved the conditional use permit can be approved because the use permit is Based on whether the project is in the comprehensive plan. So it will be So once all those dominoes fall into place. I know it's a lot It's been a learning curve opportunity for me too So once all those dominoes fall into place, we'll be able to kind of hit the start button and hit the ground running on construction of the park. And tandem with the physical construction of the park, our community engagement manager and Randolph-Making College classes and students as well as members of the Berkeley town community. Miss Smith has been a great advocate and participant in this process. They're working on the narrative and the storytelling components. So those are kind of going on in tandem and then once we're able to, we'll go full steam ahead. But it's gonna be a really amazing park and very excited for that. So speaking of New Park property at our last meeting, I was able to share that we purchased that land at South Taylor Street Park adjacent to the park. We're working on integrating the New Park property into kind of the park amenities. A few things have stalled us slightly. There's an old well on the property that needs to be decommissioned and there is a very the community. We have a couple of minutes to go. There are a few things that have stalled us slightly. There is an old well on the property that needs to be decommissioned. There is a very specific process for that. Our amazing public works team is walking through that now. That takes a little bit of time. And so, removing, we've started trying to remove some of the fence that separates the two properties, and it became quickly became a very muddy and kind of disruptive process because it was causing us to make a lot of a mess and like grass and some of the developed areas. So, we've temporarily pushed pause on that until it dries up enough that we're able to remove that without like damaging the existing grass and some of the existing infrastructure. And then public work is also going to clear up a lot of the brush that from you know under that tree canopy and limb up some of the trees so that you're able to move within those park boundaries and that point probably in our next meeting or in our meeting after we'll talk about what we want to do physically with that property so that's kind of the next step for there but we are in the process of going ahead and creating some natural space in there so that people can start to use that additional land before we have formalized plans for it. Just a note for you, because this will be kind of a big thing this year. So we are in the process of getting ready for the pool season already, but we are transitioning the software that we use for memberships. And so I start training on that next week. It's a new, the software that we were currently using to control memberships access, point of sale, all of that was older, and it was decommissioned. And that company was purchased by another one, which is actually a benefit to us because it's all cloud-based. It's really cool. There's a lot of new components, everything's updated and streamlined, but it is a big transition. So I'm going through the training process and then we'll be training our pool manager and the rest of our staff. But with that, we'll bring some maybe new opportunities for just like you'll be able to use an app on your phone to scan in versus having a key tag, just some, you know, kind of bringing us up to, you know, to the year that we're in, to 2024. So just so you know we're kind of going through a transition out there. So we've got now all this lovely infrastructure and now we're moving into to this other transition. So, but other than that, we are, Bike and pedestrian plan has been at the forefront, but we're rocking and rolling. Are we still sticking with the same model that we have with concessions? Like, we've been working with groups to bring food in and that kind of things that what we're going to do for the upcoming season also. Yeah, we will continue to do that for the upcoming season. It's been the most effective way, I think, to minimize food waste and staffing issues and health department stuff, but also allow some of our local groups to do some fun raising. No, I agree. It seemed to be working well. Yeah, so. Careful. Okay. Okay, well without further ado, I adjourn the meeting. There we go.