I will call to order the March 13th, 2025 meeting of the Ashland Parks and Recreation Committee. Are there any proposed changes to the agenda as presented? Okay. Hearing none, we will now move forward with our item two citizen inputs. are there any citizens that would like to speak before the committee? Seeing none, we will now close citizen input and move on to item three, our discussion item. And first up, we have the fall line trailhead request for proposals from Mrs. Miller. Thank you for joining us. You bet. Good evening everyone. I believe I know all of you but for those hundreds of people watching us at home. I would like to introduce myself. I am Martha Miller, the Assistant Town Manager for External Operations. And under my portfolio is our growing and brand new public art program here at the town as well as I serve as the staff liaison for our public art commission. And so before we go into the RFP process that we're going to talk about a little bit later, I wanted to just give you all, I thought it might be helpful to give you all a brief overview of what the Public Art Commission is since it's a new commission and committee for the town of Ashland being newly formed and give you an idea of kind of what their goals and objectives are and so that you have that kind of in your back pocket as you go forward on this joint project between the two. And please feel free to just flag me down if you have any questions during the presentation or you can hold your question to the end. It doesn't matter to me. So first of all, I just want to go over the kind of mission and vision statement for our public art commission. So the public art commission is made up of five appointed members similar to the public, to the Parks and Wreck Committee and a staff liaison myself as well as a liaison from town council of which Fortunately for all of you councilmember Barnhart is the liaison so she's wears both those hats The commission what what it does is it's advisory similar again to the Parks and Rec Committee And it makes recommendations to town council about the placement of public art the support of public art and artists as as well as valuing public art as a means to beautify our town and to promote creative placemaking initiatives in public spaces. These are our members currently. So from left to right, you have Arthur Brill. Next to him is Miss Leslie Bax. In the middle there you have Michelle Hollander, Jane Ball, Christy Severin and then of course as I mentioned council member Barnhart. We are very fortunate in this community to have a vast array of artists that have a lot of different experiences. When we put out our initial call for commission members we receive an overwhelming response so it So it's kind of an embarrassment of riches. So we feel really fortunate. All of these members bring a variety of backgrounds. Some are practicing artists. Some are working in education. Some are in graphic design and sculpture fabrication. So it really is a nice eclectic group to bring a variety of experiences. So the mission of the Public Art Commission is to provide and encourage world-class public art and cultural experiences that contribute to the community's character, vibrancy, and livability. And the vision for the art commission is that public art will enrich the community with high quality and diverse art that enhances the natural and built environments, specifically enhancing our parks, gathering places, neighborhood focal points, new infrastructure opportunities, and community facilities. So this year our public art commission adopted and it was adopted by town council, the town of Ashlands first ever Public Art Master Plan. It's actually quite impressive that they were able to pull together a master plan given that they were a very newly formed commission, so they've been really, really hard at work. This master plan sets the stage for Public Art to be an important tool here in the town to help grow and nurture our existing arts and culture assets as well as attract new opportunities in the future. And the art plan really what it does is it envisions public art that enrichens Ashland for creating joy, wonder, civic pride through high quality artwork that is integrated into our community and our built environment. So what are when we're talking about public art, what types of things do we consider public art, functional art. Functional art is anything that has a function in addition to being a piece of artwork. So think about bike racks that are designed by artists and a little like out of recycled items or pieces of furniture that also service art installations of their own kind. That's what we're talking about. We're talking about a functional art. In other communities you may have seen things like wraps on utility boxes to turn them into artwork pieces. That's functional art. Interactive art. So interactive art is exactly what it sounds like. It's anything that you can kind of have an interaction with. So you see a lot of interactive art and functional art kind of come together in playground spaces. So you see a lot of kind of creative takes on playground equipment, and that would be considered interactive functional art. Me Mierals, obviously we're very fortunate in town to have several really beautiful murals here in town. Sculpture, I think most people are familiar with that. Arts programming, that means programming to enrich and reach out like some more of community engagement work. So working with kids at the farmer's market on an art activity, things of that nature. And then performance art is anything that is happening kind of live in front of you with an audience, either informal or formal, where tickets are sold. So live music performance, theater performance. So the Public Art Master Plan recommends focusing first on really high visibility areas. It wasn't just important to the commission to determine kind of what kinds of public art they were interested in, but where they should prioritize. Because being a new program, it can feel a little bit overwhelming. Like where do we even begin? And so really talking to the community, they did an extensive community engagement process with some focus groups, surveys, popping up at different town events, and asking the community, where would you like to see more art in Ashland? What are the priority places? And so the places that came up time and time again overwhelmingly were parks and trails in our downtown historic area, community front porches. What that means is places where kind of informal gathering happens. A lot of those are in our downtown Ashland area, but think about like plazas downtown or out in front of like the Hanover Arts and Activity Center. Those places where kind of natural informal community gathering happens, and then our gateways. So that means entrances to Ashland, but also going even more hyper-local kind of those gateway entrances to different neighborhoods within town. You've probably been in other localities where you've seen different neighborhoods designated in some way with some sort of piece of artwork kind of at those entry points. So similar to the process that you all are undertaking, after the master plan was adopted, we started to work on a work plan. And as MEMSHA said to you, the idea behind the work plan is to kind of take this big strategic document and, you know, cut it down into a very manageable bite-sized piece so that they can really focus on what are they supposed to be doing year after year but also to help them prioritize because again as a new program there is a tendency to kind of want to do everything but given what budgets possible what can we do in the near term so this was adopted by our commission in January it like yours is not in alignment with our town fiscal year, it's more of a calendar year, but it provides an architecture for meetings for the year so they know what they're supposed to be working on and the goals that they're working towards achieving, as well as taking into account budgetary limitations and tactics. So there's five goals on their work plan specifically. One of them has already been accomplished because it's to develop a work plan. So I just listed the four here and so the Gateway Public Art work which hopefully you've seen some stuff come out from town channels about that. That's the public art commission standing with the artist that was selected for that project, Harry McDaniel who's based out of Asheville. And the piece there in the middle is kind of one piece of the spiral that he is working on. So he just brought that as a up close sampling for the commission to look at. That gateway artwork has been commissioned. Site work is set to begin on that on England Street here in the next month or so and the commission is hopeful that he will have placed that artwork by fall and so that'll be their kind of first major project from from beginning to end. The second objective is to inventory what is already out there because we do know that there are kind of pieces of public art that is art already in existence our community, as well as a lot of art that exists on private property that is viewable by the public. It's not on public property, but you can be on public property and see it. And so they really wanna capitalize on having an inventory of that art, creating a tour of our public art in Ashland, as well as valuating our art and making sure that we are developing maintenance plans for the art that we own. Specifically, one of our biggest assets to date is the Secretariat Statues. So the town of Ashland contributed no funding to the purchasing of that statue. That was all a fundraising effort, but that has now been gifted to the town of Ashland. So it is under our ownership, and we are committed to kind of maintaining and taking care of it, and that falls under the Public Art Commission's purview. Community engagement is a huge piece of what they want to do because it is a new commission, just raising awareness for the fact that they exist, what their objectives are, and really educating the community about public art, why it's important, and just getting people excited about it. So they're talking through some ideas to do pop-ups at the farmers market, and different things just to get people excited about art. And then final, this is what I'm really excited about. This is their big program for the year. It's actually going to span over two years, is to launch an art-on-loan program. And what an art-on-loan program is, is those exist in a lot of localities, and they're wildly successful. The thing that's great about it is it allows localities with not a huge budget for public art to bring a lot of public art to them locally and have it in in every year. So under this model, locations are identified around town. And in some places, maybe some fixed pedestals are put into place. And then a call goes out for artists. Let's say we have 10 locations around town. And those artists lease their artwork to us for the period of 12 months. We take care of installation and it lives in the town of Ashland for 12 months. During that time you can do all kinds of cool community engagement events. You can do juried judging. You can have response events. You can do scavenger hunts. So it ticks that community engagement box as well. The other benefit for the artist is they get exposure. So it allows us to bring an art from all across the country and those pieces are actually for sale. So if someone sees a piece of artwork that they really like, they can at the end of that least term purchase it if they would like. And then at the end of the least term, anything that isn't purchased returns back to the artist and we bring in 10 more pieces for the next year. So it also hopefully will dovetail nicely with some of our tourism objectives as well, because every year we have new installations come in. Yes. So would those be all exterior artworks? Or is it, okay. Yeah, they're all sculptures, because they would go on public property. So we are, you know, I'm in conversations with Miss Richards, we're talking about, are there park locations where we might want to put a little pedestal, though we could put sculptures on. And we're obviously looking at... So we are you know, I'm in conversations with Miss Richards. We're talking about are there park locations where we might want to put a little pedestal Though we could put sculptures on and we're obviously looking at places out on the pavilion here and We the town actually owns quite a bit of like right-of-ways and things like at like think about the end of sidewalk intersections where we might be able to place little pieces so That's a two-year project to launch we are at the process right now of identifying those locations and we have budget to pay for kind of installation of mounting devices. And then in the next fiscal year, we'll put out a call for submissions and get those installed. So we're really excited about that program. And then I just wanted to highlight some of our recent acquisitions. We've had a really eventful first kind of full year. We've a lot of it has been opportunistic. It's like we started the commission at just the right time. From left to right, obviously everyone's familiar with Secretariat and I've already kind of gone over that. In the center here, you see a piece which is actually right out here in our lobby. And this is a piece that was donated to us along with five other pieces by a local artist here in town by the name of Charles Threshly. He's a very accomplished artist. He's had a lot of jury shows. He spent a lot of time working at the Corcoran in DC. He now lives here in DC and as he's gotten on and age he's looking to kind of donate some of his pieces. I think he said to me, my wife would also like more room in our house. And so he approached us with kind of his catalog. We got to go do a home visit and see all of his pieces. And we were able to select ones that we thought might fit well with the town. And so we have several of them here at Town Hall. There's two down at our visitor center. And then there's even a couple at the Ashland Theater back in their green room, because there's one of them is like a bench. And since the town of Ashland owns the theater building, we were able to place some pieces there as well. And then on the far right here, you see the one side of the Future Gateway project. And that project is a really remarkable kind of accomplishment. It was a major commission, kind of the first outing for the commission, and we did receive a really strong response to that as well of really great artists. The thing that I love the most probably about this piece is, when the artist came, it did not have the brick pedestal on it. And so through working with the commission, we really like the kind of forward future thinking look of the sculpture, but adding the brick kind of marries the history of Ashland with kind of like our very progressive and forward thinking future. In addition, what you can't see in this image is he is embedding lights, very, very tiny lights inside the strands. And so at night it almost will look like a constellation to kind of that nod to the center of the universe. So we're really excited about that kind of being this beacon as you kind of come off the interstate to see, to go through the gateway there to come into our downtown. And that's all I have on public art commission. If anybody has any questions? Comment. Thank you so much. This is, I feel like Ashland is so fortunate to be able to have such a gem of a committee, a commission, to work on and focus on public art. It's hugely important to thank you all for spearheading this. Yes, and I also always say thank you to our town council for prioritizing funding for public art. You know, there aren't a lot of localities that would maybe make that decision, so we're really lucky that they understand the value and how important it is to this community. That's amazing. Thank you. And considering there are so many artists with N-Town, it seems to blend so nicely with Ashlyn's. Yeah. All right, do you want, I have the RFP, sure the packet, would you like me to bring that up? Yeah, do you want me to walk through? I'll tee it up with the staff report and then, yes, if you will walk it through, that would be great. Since you have done this whole process before. I'm still learning. All right. So as many of you guys know, all of you guys know, we are the Northern Trail Head for the Fallign Trail, which is currently under construction with the trail from Carter Park to Woodland Road in Virginia Center Commons set to open no later than September 18th of this year, which will be almost five miles So because of that we have this link or we want to link people to Carter from Carter Park into downtown and so we have worked with our planning department and APD and Community engagement to figure out the best route into downtown. So the Fallign Trail extension route will go from Carter Park north on Maple Street, make a left and head west on Robinson and end at the library. In order to denote that this is the Ashland Trail head for the Fallign trail and why I had Mrs. Miller come and talk about the public art commission is because we are going to be designing a piece of functional art as the trail head. I believe we talked about this at our last meeting and we had a few of you volunteer to be on the subcommittee. And so in order to kind of move forward with that subcommittee, we need to have some proposals for you to review. So it's our turn to submit this request for proposals for this functional piece of artwork and working with staff in our purchasing department. We've put together the proper, it's called an RFP, to put out to the public to get feedback. So with that being said, I'll invite Mrs. Miller back up to kind of talk through the RFP process, just because this is something that she did with the Public Art Commission for the Gateway Project. Yeah, so this was kind of our first stab at it with the Gateway Project. It felt like it was a really successful format. And most importantly for us, we did an evaluation after the proposal and asked all the artists who applied how they found the process. If they found it to be intuitive, not overly cumbersome, and we received kind of overwhelming positive feedback. So we were kind of sticking with this model. Of course there is still quite some hoops to jump through because we are government. We have purchasing requirements and those kinds of things. So we were hoping to kind of be as efficient as possible. But this RFP starts out pretty standard. It's modeled after kind of best practice RFPs in the public art world. Right up top you have the project goals. And what we're asking for is a piece that can serve as both seating and signage. And by signage that doesn't necessarily mean there's a gigantic sign on the back of it, but think of maybe like a really artistic or interesting sculptural bench that has full line trail in it somewhere, something like that. And we're asking that it serve as seating and that it reflects Ashland's cycling culture, outdoor recreation and our small town character. Because of its location, we're looking to tie together kind of the themes around outdoor recreation and Ashland's already downtown area because it is placed in the heart of our downtown. Of course, because it's going to be outside, it must be constructed of durable weather resistant materials. It needs to require minimal maintenance out of respect for kind of taxpayer dollars in the town's budget. And we want it to also enhance aesthetics and functionality of the trailhead. The proposal deadline that we are putting forward is April 14th. The RFP is going live later tonight, so that gives artists about a month to turn something around. Of course, it doesn't need to be a completely final proposal. And we'll talk about that a little bit in the process, but it is a little bit of a tighter turnaround, but it's also one piece. It's not very large. So we feel like this is a pretty reasonable ask. For the budget, we have asked that it not exceed $30,000. The commission must be inclusive of everything listed there. And that's just to make sure that the artist is aware that this isn't just for the piece. So if travel is required back and forth, all of that, then all of that needs to be included as well. The next thing we do is we always provide this kind of boiler plate background on the town of Ashland just to give potential applicants an idea of kind of the flavor of Ashland. Scroll down if you want, thank you. And obviously there's some information there about the Parks and Rec Committee as well, and you're all's purpose. I also, similar to our last proposal, have pulled together a drop box folder, which is linked there at that last sentence of images of Ashland to kind of give them an idea because a lot of these artists are not ever going to have been here before or not familiar. It also has images of the proposed location for the artwork so they can have a visual on that. Mrs. Miller, I'm going to jump in real quick. This is not the finalized RFP I'm just realizing. I didn't switch it out with the most recent one from today but I will do that online and then not much has changed from this and then make sure that you guys have the most updated copy. We were updating it as of like 3 p.m. today. So. And most of the updates are probably not going to be of concern to you because it's like purchasing mubo jumbo. It's legal, like the language that we have to include. Yeah, so the substantive stuff stayed the same. Yes, yeah. So in terms of eligibility, We're looking for professional artists or artists teams. Obviously, we would like them to have experience in public art projects, as well as proficiency in creating outdoor public art. That's really important because if it's kind of their first foray into public art and functional art, we really want to make sure they understand the circumstances that this piece is going to be exposed to, really humid weather, lots of rain, potentially snow. We get it all in Virginia, so they need to have an understanding of what materials can tolerate that. This ownership section is just about copyright and everything and assurances to the artist to make sure they feel protected and what that ownership agreement looks like if their piece is commissioned. Under budget this is just an itemized list, again kind of reiterating what was already stated above. For the location we are describing the location along Robinson Street in downtown Ashland, adjacent to the Ashland Library. Again, I've included pictures in the RFP for the artist. They have an idea of what that location actually is. Under site preparation, this is a lesson that we learned during the commissioning of the Gateway Project. Initially in our proposal for that, we asked the artist to do site prep to kind of manage our funds But what happened in the course of that and talking to him is we learned again this is something we learned Artists don't have a lot of experience doing site prep. That's engineering work and artists are not engineers And further he's based out of state and so for him to find a local contractor or local engineer to do that site work, it would have been incredibly time intensive for him as well as likelihood maybe that person would get it right because the artist isn't, you know, doesn't know our town code the way our locals do. And so this is a change we've made to our process going forward is that the town of Ashland is going to coordinate and pay for all site preparation work. We have an on-call engineering firm that knows everything that needs to happen in town. So it just streams lines the process as well as makes it less of a headache for the artist. And then under design specifications, these are items that Ms. Richardson and I came up with, keeping it trying to give them a little bit of direction but not being so narrow. You have to strike a balance when you're asking for a public RPs. You want them to know what you're looking for but not tell them what to do because you want to leave room for that creative process to bring you something that probably you wouldn't have ever thought of in the first place. And then there's just some information in there about adverse site conditions, again, reminding them we get all the weather. It's going to be exposed to cars driving right by it. So it's kind of a different animal. And then I will just go back up one section to accessibility. We also wanted to make sure that the seeding to some degree, not 100% of it, depending on the shape and dimensions, is ADA compliant. We really want this to be a piece that is kind of all age-appropriate, mobility-appropriate, especially given its location right outside the library, which is a location that is frequented by everyone in Ashland regardless of age and ability. And so we wanted this to be a piece that in some way kind of serves a wide community. This is just a list of everything that we kind of standardized as for in the proposals. We asked for a brief statement. We want a design concept in the form of a conceptual drawing or a rendering. They really have to give us a budget breakdown. They can't just say, yeah, I can do all this for $30,000. We want to see where the money is going because we want to know they've thought it through. Their timeline for production, we want to see a portfolio of examples of past work, some references, and then they need to make sure they have proof of liability insurance, obviously, for under-town regulations. So for selection criteria, these are buckets that our Public art commission has kind of standardized on most of their proposals going forward. They'll change a little bit but we've tried to keep them general enough that no matter what is being commissioned, we can kind of use this grading scale. And so we just moved this over to EURAL's RFP. So artistic merit and originality, alignment with the theme, functionality, durability, their experience, and feasibility within the budget and the timeline. Now I realize when you look at these, some of these may be like, how do you grade something on that? How do you assign a number score? That's kind of the beauty of a public art commission. There is a lot of subjectivity in there. Art is inherently subjective. So everyone's going to have a different reactions to different designs. But you kind of working together, I'm confident you can come to us some sort of an agreement. And then this just kind of goes into the process for awarding. So what we're talking about the process is if you like, jump down to the timeline, the RFP is issued on the 14th. The proposals are due by the 14th of April at 2 p.m. We're envisioning that finalist selection and interviews, we always write interviews, it's not necessarily gonna happen, it's only kind of if you feel like you need it, would be in late April, and then the Parks and Rec Committee would make a decision in early May with a completion and installation in fall. So to kind of get into more detail what that process looks like is there will be a, after all proposals are received, the subcommittee, which is composed of three Parks and Rec members and three public art commission members are going to review all the proposals. And we thought this was a great opportunity because it is a public art project but it's coming out of the parks and rec budget to have three members from the public art commission sit in and just kind of provide their insight as artists into what they think of the piece as well as keeping in mind the public art master plan and the goals that they have. But ultimately this is a parks and rec decision because it is your budget. So they will be a part of your subcommittee. Then that subcommittee will make a recommendation for five semi-finalists from that pot, who will then be asked to continue in the process by presenting to this committee. We can make available if they're in person or we can bring them in virtually for presentations. We had one artist present virtually for the Gateway Project and it went really well. So if they're out of town they don't necessarily have to pay to travel. And then this is a big priority of the Public Art Commission that each semi-finalist receives a stipend of $500 for complete concept proposals. And that's because in talking to our artists on the commission, it's a lot of work. I mean, it's work to put together a concept proposal. That is time they are spending not working on other commissioned pieces. And so to be fair to the artists and show respect for their talents, we wanted to make sure we were compensating them for their time, even if we don't end up ultimately picking their piece. And so the Public Art Commission will be paying for those commissions out of their budget. And then finalists, like we said, would ideally be available to present in person, but virtual accommodations can be made certainly. And then this is just kind of how you submit. And then you'll see these are the images. I also attached the images of the location here at the bottom. The picnic tables obviously will be removed. The landscaping bed will be filled in. And so they do have that entire kind of circular space to work with. And so what we are really hoping, as you can see in the caption up there above, is that someone can design something that will be accessible from kind of 360 degrees. And something kind of really visually interesting that will entice people to gather, either before they get on the trail, after they get off the trail, a meeting spot for cycling groups before they head out, as well as a space for families and children that are at the library to come out and have a picnic or do other things. So I think it's a great piece of real estate to add some interesting to all that concrete. So. I believe that's it. That's it. Any questions for Mrs. Miller? Thoughts? I do. Shocking. Sorry. Okay. So completed installation at show is Fall 2025. I'm assuming is that the hope is that it is before September 18th. That is the hope. We, what we always say in the proposal process with our finalists is if you have like Extenduating circumstances like if you if you've got a full commission like that's up for negotiation Ideally it would be by then, but it's if you can't meet that deadline and we really like your piece That's not a deal breaker. Okay, great and Are there any when speaking about, you know, this is going to be exposed, all sorts of weather, it's right by the road, you know, what this looks like. Is there a projected longevity of what the art installation would be? That depends on the piece and what they did, like so if it's painted or something. I mean they have recommendations. I know I'm working with our gateway artist in our contract negotiations and final design negotiations with him. He was saying, well I could use this metal, but it does this in the heat. I could use this metal. Or this is a little bit more expensive, but it's going to be more durable. So you can have those conversations with them, but also stipulated in our RFP proposals for all of these projects is within 30 days of project completion and installation the artist needs to submit a maintenance Recommendation plan so that we know like every two years it needs to be power washed every you know so that we can add that into our budget and our our maintenance cycle, great, okay, and then what channels are you guys anticipating pushing this through? So right now it has gone out on the state of Virginia purchasing website, which is kind of the clearing house for all government purchasing. And there is actually quite a significant amount of public art on there. We did not post the Gateway project on there. So this is our first time posting it there and we actually are required by law now in 2025 to post it on that website. I'm also submitting it to the Americans for the Arts Message Board which is a huge public art following and I'm going to send it out on the Americans for the Arts List serve. The other thing we will do once it goes live, and you all are also encouraged and welcome to do as well, is our public art commission, of course, is very well connected within the arts communities, so I will be sending them an email and saying, it's live, share this with your colleagues, and that word of mouth is incredibly powerful. Great. How exciting. Thank you. Anyone else have any other question? Looking forward to it. Thank you. Yeah. How exciting. All right. Thank you, Mrs. Miller. Wonderful. Okay. Thank you, Mrs. Miller, for that. And we will move on to item B, the 25 Parks and Rec Committee work plan. Mr. Richards. All right. So at our last meeting, we came up with the kind of basic goals and projects for our 2025 work plan with anticipation that we would complete the tables with the additional information. And then we would look at adoption for this. So I didn't write any type of adoption language because I didn't think it needed a staff report since we'd already teed this up last week but I can provide that to you verbally at the end because I would like to vote on whether we adopt this or we can adopt it as amended or we can deny it tonight so I'd like to make some type of vote on it. So just as we move through this be thinking about if there are any major changes that you want to see or if you're content with what it is or if you want to throw it out the window and start again. So the first project and goal that we and we prioritize to the first couple as like these are big items we really want to work towards was just to secure funding for phase two of the South Taylor Street Park revitalization and plan for park construction. I was able to get a quote from oh you'll see every every goal and project has a corresponding or has corresponding objectives for the parks and recreation master plan so really tying it back into our foundational plans. So I received a quote from our on-call contractor, Talian Armstrong, who is doing the phase one of the project and the phase two of the project will cost roughly $300,000. That does include a contingency in case additional cost arise or the cost of materials goes up. And their timeline in order to be able to complete this is this spring and summer. With that being said on Tuesday, I spoke with town council on a budget presentation asking for fiscal year FY 26, which does start in July, asking for the $300,000 for this project. I do not know at this time if we will be awarded that funding. But it's kind of, it's in their hands, but that's the first step in order to getting the funding. If for some reason we're not awarded the funding, we can revisit the work plan. And if we wouldn't take that away, we would just then say, okay, what are creative ways that we're gonna find the funding for this? And we would start looking for that in other places. So that is currently underway for that first project and goal. Any questions about this project? Cool. Pretty straightforward on that one. Just asking for money. All right. Our next one was to implement an accessibility assessment to identify gaps in accessibility in Ashland's parks. I once again found the guiding objectives for those in the Parks and Recreation Master Plan. Our collaborators would be engineering and then I put Tally and Armstrong on there just because if there are any items that we find through that or any things that we find through that accessibility assessment, we could work with them in order to improve access to the parks. I've also connected with some certified therapeutic recreation specialist who I am friends with and colleagues with through your Virginia Recreation Parks Society on reputable individuals who have the correct credentials to come in and do assessments. So I've budgeted $10,000 for that just because there will be a time spent by that individual on a report created and then we can move forward with accessibility improvements. The timeline for that is April 2025 to, I would say June 2025, I currently have some funding that I could start for that but I did request additional funding from town council on Tuesday in order to make sure that we have plenty of money to complete that accessibility assessment. I don't know until we have that completed report if $10,000 will cover the report and the cost of any improvements to be made, but at least then we'll have a baseline and we can project how much additional funding that we need in order to make all of the parks accessible. And when I say accessible, I don't just mean for individuals with either developmental or physical disabilities. I mean for all ages and equity and age groups. It'll be more comprehensive than just, you know, is there a ramp leading to this space? So we'll look at it kind of on a broader scale. So if this funding is approved and part of that timeline, the next step is for me to connect with experts in the field and then we'll create an assessment plan. Any questions about that? No? Awesome. All right. Following we have developed a park design for the North Ashland Park property, and I did not do a good job with capitalization. It's all over the place on this one. I'm a stickler for things looking for formatting. So lots of guiding objectives for this project. As you guys will remember, North Ashland Park is a six and a half acres of undeveloped property that is adjacent to Railside Trail at the north side of town. It is sandwiched between kind of that south end of Railside Trail and Vaughan Road. The town shop is directly across from this property. There's a large bamboo forest, so kind of think it's directly across the tracks from Berkeley Town. Yes. There's the real-side park and then there's houses and then it will start, right? And then it will start. Yep. So collaborators for this would be our engineering department, our planning department and the timings group. We would most likely work with them again. They are the ones that did the South Taylor Street Park design. I have requested $100,000 in our upcoming budget, but currently in the budget, we have around $250,000 towards North Ashland Park. That would tentatively, the resources needed for the park design is around $100,000. But that does not include the community engagement process that we would need to go in and then any additional cost such that we would accrue such as like actual plans. So like actual like building plans. So the $100,000 will get us to that initial design, like the one that you voted on for South Taylor Street Park. And then the additional money that we have in the budget will help us do all of like the site surveying that we need to do and start building up a balance to cover the cost of plans, the actual physical construction plans. So timeline, we could go ahead and start on that community engagement piece as soon as we want to. I know that we have a few big things coming up, which I'll talk about, and my update with the parks in the next couple months. So I'm thinking that March, I mean, that may, may, may, may, may be a good time to talk about a community engagement process and launch that. Conduct that over the summer, and then in the fall, kind of that, like September October, to talk about a community engagement process and launch that, conduct that over the summer, and then in the fall, kind of that September, October, November timeframe, work on our park design. I anticipate this taking a lot longer than the South Taylor Street Park, just because of the size of the property, and the breadth of opportunities that opens up. opportunities that opens up. We can do a lot more with the bigger space. And I do believe that there will be a lot more interest in this project because of the size of it. And so probably a lot more community feedback. So, you know, looking at, you know, kind of that November-ish or later, we don't have, you know, this is just an anticipated timeline. It can always change for a park plan. And then the measure of success would be Council approves our design for the park. Any questions here? No? And then last but not least, we have focusing on one of our initiatives from the 2045 BISECOM pedestrian plan, safety, equity connectivity and more users. We were very conscious about when we did our bike and pedestrian plan that we didn't want it to be just a document that lived on a shelf. And we wanted to make sure that it was actionable and that we were taking steps to implement the different goals and initiatives that we identified. I, obviously it meets a lot of our guiding objectives from our Parks and Recreation Master Plan. This is a very broad collaboration across the community, not just here within town hall, but we really need to engage the Ashland community at large as well as our Ashland Police Department. Resources and budget needed, I kind of ballparked a $2000 range, kind of misled the supplies. Like if we did a bike safety education day and we wanted to purchase helmets or if we wanted to, you know, table and have information about, you know, doing something for driver awareness. So it just kind of gives us a range of funding to cover, you know, those mislani expenses associated with, you know, those educational opportunities Opportunities This is ongoing project. I just kind of see it as you know There's no timeline safety doesn't have a timeline. It's always important and then our measure of success You know kind of depending on what objectives we select Safety a reduction in bicycle and pedestrian really crashes injuries and fatalities, equity increased access to biking and walking infrastructure and underserved communities, measuring that by the amount of new or improved infrastructure connectivity, expansion of continuous accessible bike and pedestrian routes, measured by miles, or new or upgraded infrastructure, and more users just seeing a growth in the bicycle and pedestrian activity. So in our last meeting we talked about maybe focusing on one or two objectives. Is that, instead of trying to do all four at the same time thinking about, okay, let's really put all of our eggs in one basket and kind of go through phases, we'll do safety for this six months and then we'll do users for this six. But I want to kind of your thoughts on this one in how, what kind of strategy do you feel like you want to take to accomplish this goal? Do you want to break it up? How would you propose breaking that up? Just taking it one measure? I don't like why I'm not saying that while we're working on safety, we're not also building more sidewalks and kind of improving that equity and connectivity piece. But what I really wanna do is I really wanna concentrate our effort because it is just me and the five of you guys. And I have a lot of support from other outside sources, but I want to make sure that I'm doing one thing really well and not four things kind of okay. So say we want to focus on safety. Then I think that that's where we plan educational seminars. We do a social media campaign. We look at improving, you know, we do an assessment or an audit of crosswalks and signage and I can come to you with those things and I can start implementing that on a staff level. But that also doesn't mean that like the connectivity piece is not or the equity piece is not also going on in the background. It just helps me focus my energy in a way that like there's actual like tangible meaningful outcomes instead of spreading myself to you then. Does that help? Yes. Okay. I think when we had discussions about it, I think we all thought that safety came first. Not that the others are excluded, but if we're focusing our efforts, I think that's what we had said before. I feel that way still, personally. I don't know what the other members feel, but. I'm looking at it, equity and connectivity, they're going to be the costly ones because you're adding things. And so it's definitely needed for both of them, I think. You know, somebody who goes out every morning and walks the trails and the streets and all. But I think what happens with those, that's where you'd have to look at, how much money will it take to do these things, to make the connections there and to develop the infrastructure needed for the equity. And I think then what happens is the safety comes into play with that, because you have to have safety issues addressed when you start adding more to the infrastructure. You know, it's a little bit difficult for me to wrap around it, not knowing how much You'd really have in the budget for adding pieces. And I can speak to that. So, right now we have a lot of large kind of capital projects going on. Berkeley Town Heritage Park. We just finished or were finishing a municipal parking lot behind the building. Street Scape, the Swail and Trail that's going on Maple Street. So a lot of those projects, South Taylor Street Park renovation and revitalization are ARPA funded, American Rescue Plan Act, and so a lot, not all of them, but there's some funding and kind of timelines tied up in there. We do have a sidewalks and trails budget every year and is a substantial budget. But there's also kind of balancing that sidewalk and trail construction with like staff capacity and bandwidth for managing those projects, but also contractor availability. So, you know So we're still actively working on that sidewalk prioritization that the committee did two to three years ago. Two years ago and I think we have completed two or three out of ten projects and it doesn't mean that the next ones are in the queue. It's just each one takes a substantial amount of time, and there are lots of variables that influence whether the timeline of it. So what I will say is like you're completely right, but most of that stuff is going on in the background. You know, continually being funded and planned for. It's just takes time. Yeah. Well, and hearing that, then I'm thinking the same thing as a needa, which is the safety piece of it. How's it play into it then? And concentrating on that, working with whether it's the police department or the sheriff's department or whoever, fire, EMTs, how's it all play out? I can tell you walking in the morning, if it wasn't for the legal crossing guard, you feel like you take your life in your hands. Oh yeah. It doesn't matter that it says state law. That's null and void. Yeah, what would we do without them? Yeah, and I completely agree. And I think looking at these and having this conversation and talking more, it's like what we can do is kind of that, like we're not gonna go out and physically build the sidewalk and we can't speed up the contractors and we can't, we can, there are pots of money out there but go find millions of dollars to build more. We can't manifest more staff to manage the projects, but what we can do is we can go out and do safety education. We can run social media campaigns. We can do assessments of our sidewalks and our crosswalks, and we can work with APD to do crosswalk enforcement. And so we can look at those new projects when we're building out and make sure that we're incorporating all the necessary safety features if you know and all the ADA accessibility that encourages you know more users. We can look at connections from the fall line trail into town and how do you, because that's some more users there you know right there., you know, even if we're focusing on safety, we're still supporting all of those other initiatives, but we're actually, you know, it's stuff that we and our positions are able to accomplish. And we're also laying a foundation for the future for expansion to look at safety and figuring out what we have and what needs to be improved. And then you get a pattern for what, when you add in the future. So I kind of see how similar with what Drew is saying with the equity and connectivity, interplay. I see the safety and more users also has a bridge there because the educational element of bringing safety to the forefront, the goal would be that through that education with more understanding comes an appreciation, a curiosity of getting out and being outdoors bicycling being a pedestrian going for your walks. So I could see that those could tie in together. We could perhaps blend those in the process while we're focusing on our objectives. Yeah and as I said just because we focus on one doesn't mean that we're not focused and encouraging all of the others, it just gives my limited time and resources when I'm trying to balance all the plates. It gives me the opportunity to put all of my effort into, you know, into something that, so I really do a good job of it. And I don't try not to use bad words, but I don't like halfway do it. I have one question just on this last, the more users, how would you measure growth and bicycle and pedestrian activity? Yeah, so I think a lot of that is anecdotal and what are we seeing outside? And just working with APD, like it's observational because that is hard to track. It's not like we can put a road counter, you know, like with APD, like it's observational, because that is kind of hard to track. It's not like we can put a road counter, you know, like a car counter thing across the road and be like, oh, we had, you know, 15 people cross this or, you know, we had 30 bikes. So I think it would be more of that like, you know, objective, like what are we experiencing in the community? What are we noticing? What are community members talking about? So, yeah. I'm not really sure if there's any good way to measure that otherwise. Or that might, I was thinking, I don't see that as a goal to start off with because I think it is still undefined. I think probably, there probably are ways to measure that even if you just took point in time Surveys and then you could you know extrapolate what your average You said should be but that probably is what our first step would be in and really trying to achieve that goal But yeah, that I just was like how do we how do we how do we achieve that and that we've achieved that? And we're not the only community looking to measures, stuff like that. And so that's where too I can tap into my networks and say, hey, we're trying to track bicycle and pedestrian movement in town. Like what do you use? And I know there's lots of AI AI type things out there and different companies that track like cell phones coming in and out of areas and movement like that and so maybe as scary as that pot can be, like maybe there are opportunities to use that. I know that tracking usage of the fall line trail is going to be a really big regional effort and I think more users will come kind of naturally through that because, you know, we're going to have people traveling, you know, I can start riding my bike to work if I really want to. It's probably safer and faster than hitting Route 1 all the way, you know, all the stoplights up here anyway, right? Annegative workout, you know, two birds, one stone. So yeah, I think that that's also an area that I can research and I can come back with, hey, these are, you know, best practices in the industry. I want to say during all of our many meetings, there was some sort of AI component that whether it was plan RVA or somebody was saying that there is some sort of technology in which we can tap into. Remember being really excited about it and forgive me, I do not remember what it is. But I would be like, that's the answer. Yeah, So the town already uses a few methods for tracking like visitors and tourism and that type of thing and conjunction with downtown Ashland Association and some other community outlets. And so I mean, I do see an opportunity there. I haven't dug super deep into the data. The other thing is like, you know, if it's mainly using like cell phones and like GPS. So if you have somebody like, you know, you're four-year-old child, you know, they don't necessarily have cell phone, although these days they might. And, you know, so you're maybe not picking up on all of the data, but it's, you know, rough enough estimates. So, there are tools out there that I can explore for when we, you know, we really want to like put our efforts behind promote, I see the more users as like promotion and awareness and community engagement around opportunities and encouraging, to use our trails and walk and cycle. So there are, I'm sure, tools out there we can use to measure success there, but also work towards that goal. Like a bike to work or walk to work. Yeah. Or bike to the pool. Or incentives for like biking and walking, you know, like fun programs that encourage it. There's all sorts of cool stuff. Okay, so do you want us to choose one right now? I would say just what is, you know, where do you want me to kind of focus my energy? And it doesn't mean we're not doing the others, but like what? Yes. What should I be working towards? I'm hearing in this conversation that perhaps we're leaning towards safety. Are we, I'm seeing heads now, yes. I feel very comfortable and confident about that as well and I think that's always kind of been our North Star throughout these conversations. So if we're all in agreeance. Yeah. That sounds great. Awesome. Well then what I will do for our next meeting and it doesn't mean I can't do stuff before then but I will come to you with some like, you know, and because I'll probably need your help, especially if any of them are like recreational programming wise about, and I'll work with community partners like APD, Miss Miller and Community Engagement, and say, okay, so these are ideas that I have towards, you know, improving safety, like let's get some programming, let's get some marketing strategies, let's get some APD crosswalk enforcement, let's get some stuff on the calendar. The physical education teachers, they're two national elementary and the one in particular, I'm not familiar with the other one, so I'm just speaking on behalf of one, she's very enthusiastic about it. Mrs. Powell, Austin Powell is very enthusiastic about it and would love to be incorporated in any sort of safety or bike to school events. So I think that's amazing. And now everybody's under one roof. So that's a win for having one. I'm just going to go in the same thing. Yeah, I know. Is there a way for us to see local transportation safety data? Is that on the website? Or is that a report like that? Yeah, so bike pedestrian crashes injuries, that type of stuff. That's in our bicycle and pedestrian plan. The 20, the one that we just finished. For the greater though, if you're looking at, and that's just Ashland proper, if you wanna look at the region, plan RVA has a lot of that data, and then our 2040 transportation plan can also touch on like vehicular accidents and so that can kind of talk about like the greater safety, you know, component. So. Do you have you dealt with a Blake Walk handover? Do you have a contact there? I do not. They have done some projects in the past with different elementary schools. So they have, they could be an asset to, you know. Yeah, this is very much a side note, but have you seen the bike bus on social media? Yeah, so it's called the bike bus and they go through a neighborhood and it's like teachers and people who kind of lead the way and they're in like safety gear and it's hundreds of children that all bike together to school and they call it a bike bus and then you know if you got staff in the front leading the way you've got staff managing they close the roads like they have you know people who come up and they stop traffic so they could go through but how cool with that being amazing I can give you a contact yeah somebody Yeah. Somebody full. Like well, yeah. Like well, can over. Yeah. Which because that raises I've been thinking about how at least there is so much development happening not just in Ashland but in Hanover and it seems like there is a lot more traffic that's coming through the town and I was actually just speaking when we were walking in here. I mean this morning trying to cross cross over England Street to get to school. I mean, it was a solid row. And so it's not just the safety and awareness within Ashland residents, but how do we also the Hanover residents that are coming through? And that's a great answer for you for that. But I don't want to steal my thunder from my parts and wreck report. So No, I will I will share now that I have a really good partnership with the Hanover Parks and Recreation Department We have started collaborating on recreational programs and activities in town So this summer we are going to have eight different programs recreational recreational programs in town and two events. So this is definitely something that I can work with them through. And I'll touch more on the partnership when I give you my report and I have included all the dates of all the programming that we have through the summer on that report in the last page. But I actually go on Monday to talk to them about our fall programming. And so, you know, doing some bike-ped safety programming with them and information sharing, they're very willing to, you know, share things on their social media through their, you know, through their other community engagement outlets because of this wonderful relationship that we've developed. So there are lots of ways to communicate to the broader handover population. Yeah, I'm very excited about it. Good. Any other questions about the work plan? I do about the North Ashland Park to go back to that. So you were saying open comment would be May? You would start doing the community engagement in May? Yes, so I think that we, and just looking at everything that we have on our plates between now and May with Berkeley Town Heritage Park coming online, South Taylor Street Park revitalization starting, team up the pool season. I think I don't want to oversaturate the community with like projects and feedback and, you know, I want to be very intentional about when we start that feedback process. So I see the beginning of, I see our main meeting kind of talking about what that community engagement process looks like and launching it kind of as summer hits. And we do have all of these programs and we do have all of these events. We have opportunities to really like remember how we did kind of like pop up stuff for the bike pad plan and so we have avenues in order to go out and collect community input. So we would be as I said kind of talking about that process, talking about strategies and then agreeing on that at our May meeting, and then moving forward with, you know, really tapping into the community through the summer. Okay. And I think one thing to think about on that time frame is the proximity of that park is so close to the school. And within, if there is some sort of overlap during the school year with that community engagement with us, you might end up losing some valuable feedback during the summer months when people are checked out a little bit. Yeah, that is a great idea. And it doesn't mean like, you know, we say community engagement is from, you know, May through August 1st. Like if somebody, you know, if we're still coming up with ideas and somebody comes to us September 1st and they're like, hey, I have this really great idea, you know. So it can kind of be, and that's it, like these timelines, you know, after the bike pet plan, timelines can be fluid. I want to give us some type of structure, but yeah, you're completely right. Like I don't want to limit really good pockets of feedback that we could be receiving. Thanks. So do we need to vote on this? Yes. That way I can just hit the ground running with it. So I don't think that we have amended or changed anything other than just kind of the abstract that I'm going to focus on the safety component from the majority of my efforts on that last one. So I would say it would be eye motion to accept the 2025 Parts and Recreation Committee work plan as amended to focus on the safety goal from the 2045 bicycle and pedestrian plan. So I'm motion to go to the committee to go to the committee to go to the committee to go to the committee to go to the committee to go to the committee to go to the committee to go to the committee to go to the committee to go to the committee to go to the committee to go to the committee. Okay. Any further discussion? About this. So is there a motion from the committee to accept the 2025 Parks and Recreation Committee work plan as amended to focus on safety within the bike and pedestrian plan. I make a motion to accept it. That's second. Thank you, Mr. Molloy and Mr. Joyce. Motion. Sorry, now shall we vote? Yes. Okay. Mrs. Lugo? Yes. Mr. Molloy? Yes. Mrs. Franks? Yes. Mrs. Sean's? Yes. And Mrs. Smith? Yes. Awesome. Thank you guys so much. Thank you. Thank you for putting that all together based on our previous conversations. That was wonderful. Yeah. For me, I just, I love a plan. I love a plan. And my, my poor brain right now with all this awesome park stuff that we have going on, it was like, I need something to come back to and you know, so. Has the person ever had an annual work plan? I don't think so. I don't think so. Not that I know of so no congratulations okay so moving on to item C public service forest this for sure it's yes so I gave this presentation at town council last week and I'd or two weeks ago and I just wanted to make sure that you guys were aware of the public safety forest. I think I've talked about it, or public service forest. I think I've talked about it before, but now that it has been installed, I wanted to bring it to your attention because it is something that, you know, kind of impacts you guys and our committees and commissions at large. So this was kind of born out of an idea a couple of years ago to honor anybody who retires or steps down from a committee commission or council with the town of Ashland. So usually there is a ceremony, you get a plaque, but we wanted a way to kind of continue to honor the legacy in the service that those members dedicated to the town of Ashland. And so in recognition of that, we've created what's called the public service forest. It is at Railside Park and I just like to to read the quote on the main plaque, would you see here in this picture? The true meaning of life is to plant trees. Under whose shade you do not expect to sit. So it's really about leaving a legacy for the future generations and improving the quality of life in the community as a whole for all of those to come. So the public service, as I said, forest is located at Real Side Park and Trail. Now in this photo, it is not much to look at because it is winter, but right now there are currently four trees planted. You'll see the picture here, the main one that I took is of Rob Dulles tree and memory of Rob served on the committee for quite a while. There are still two trees to be planted in the spring and two more plaques to be installed for Stephanie here who worked with our Planning Commission and Miss Kathy Abbott who was on our town council. But we are waiting on better weather so that those trees take. So the idea behind the public service forest is that we will continue to add to it and grow our forest and it will become a place of reflection in a place just to, you know, kind of inspire people to become future public servants and to think and remember all of those who dedicated their time, energy and experience to our Ashland community. Your eligibility, we would have a very, very big forest if I went back before 2022. So we were focusing on 2022 and after. And there are some contingency plans like should we outgrow this space? There are other green spaces in town that we could, but it is a pretty large green space and it will continue to be able to accommodate many more trees for years to come. And that's it, short but sweet. What kind of trees did they? So we've been planting red maples. Right, red maples. Yeah. And it doesn't mean that all trees have to be, they have to be, we'll kind of evaluate it by season. That is a beautiful thing. Talk about at the heart of parks and rack, like the. Yeah. You have a beautiful thing. Who's there? Yeah. That's amazing. Awesome. Thank you. Wow. Okay, again, Ashland. Make it a wave over here. Okay, so thank you for that. And moving on to reports. We'll start with committee member reports and Ms. Lidl. Just nothing really new, but I have been hitting Stony Run trail a lot that's near where I live. I don't think I had ever seen the connectors from the neighborhood to the trail and then all the way to Dejarna. It's just been a while since I've had that whole thing. And it was lovely. We just spent like all morning a couple of weeks ago. And then when I got home, my husband was like, you need to tell me like the bridges and we went and around that little or as far as you can go, the little private pond. Oh my goodness. We were just completely like nature nerds that morning. And it was just a gift. Like, oh, this is something new this year. So I was certainly enjoying it. That's wonderful. Yeah. Great, Mr. Roling. I wanted to give a shout out to the guys who cleaned the parks, seeing them out there every morning, especially when I'm on my morning walks and they're at Carter Park and then they are moving, and I see them at the other parks too. And I had the opportunity to walk through Berkeley town the other day and I really liked the way it's laid out now when the defencing around what will be the cemetery and I'm really looking forward to the signage there because that's another park that when you walk through it it's just so tranquil and just really nice. I think the defencing was a really nice addition and once the signage is up there. And then again I reached out to you and you would tell me about the stonework, the brickwork that the scout was doing for her Eagle project and over at the pool. And I had the opportunity to walk through there and that's really nice of you to get a chance to get over there. That's a nice piece of work that she did. Yeah, that was Eagle Scout Violet Lambert. She is an Ashland Barracuda swimmer and hopefully future Cardiapark pool employee. And she is a very ambitious and just go get her young lady. I was just so impressed by her. And she came up with the idea for that project. She solicited funds for it, got donations, sold bricks, did, I mean, days of hard work with her troop and putting in that brick walk. not only did she do that, but she improved the gravel access road to the emergency access double gates that brick walk. And not only did she do that, but she improved the gravel access road to the emergency access double gates that we have at the pool from the picnic shelter parking lot in order to kind of, you know, improve ease of movement should we need to bring emergency vehicles to the pool. And so yes, it is, I was out there today looking at it again and it is wonderfully done and so I want to make sure on the record that we acknowledge Violet so thank you for mentioning that. Thank you Violet. It's awesome. I'll have to go see it. Yes I would just like to do another shout out for D. Jarnat Park because I'll tell you what and the snow storms of 2025 and the I I think it was total 12 days off school. My four and seven year old, and then all of the other first grade neighbors that are around, there's a whole crew of them. And it was just wonderful just getting everybody bundled up and just taking them for walks and just heading over there. And the parents could take turns with who's taking the kids and who's doing what, but for, you know, it's such a community effort. And the park just served as such a beautiful way to just watch kids play and then also families support each other during nutty times and just a really good reminder of how important parks are. Since I moved here and eight years ago, I've noticed, when we first moved here, I loved walking through all the parks, but it has been phenomenal the changes that have occurred just in my short time being here. I mean, you can't list everything that's happened in that amount of time. And how much is still just this year going to be put in? You walk through and it's like, wow. Such a race, the resources we have here in Ashland. And what I wanted was to get people to realize what we had here, because a lot of people don't realize all these wonderful parks that we have. There's such a valuable part of the community. And I'm proud to have been on the committee to see these things take fruition, since I will be done at the end of this year, and I'm gonna step aside and let someone else have the fun and the joy of being on this committee. But I'm looking forward to this spring coming up, get out there and move through all these parks again, because I didn't do much during the winter. I don't have the young children, so I didn't have to do that. I don't have to do that. But I'm looking forward with the warm weather to get out there again. Thank you for your service all these years. So, Mr. Joyce, I don't have to. Okay and thank you so moving on to Parks and Recreation Report and the Spichards. Yep, I will wrap us up with our report. Did it make it to your packet? Is it in there? Yes. It is not in mine. That's fun. No, yes it is. I just looked at the wrong page. Okay. Berkeley Town Heritage Park. Mark your calendar. April 19th from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. is our ribbon cutting. That is a Saturday. The physical park is done other than the park signage. Park signage for the entrances on Berkeley Street and Archie Cannon. It's currently being installed. The actual interpretive kiosks that will go in the park in that signage is under in fabrication and will be installed prior to that April 19th date. The celebration will include performances, ribbon cutting or food, music and tours of the park. And then remarks from all of our community partners who participated in this project. Ms. Miller and I were the park. And then remarks from all of our community partners who participated in this project. Miss Miller and I were having conversations today and three years ago when we initiated this project, we weren't sure it would ever come to fruition and just because of all of the moving pieces and looking at how much progress we've made in Juru. I completely agree. I ran through there yesterday. It's just such a lovely space. It's really just going to be transformative to the town, but also I just love that we're telling the story of the Berklee town community, and we're remembering this wonderful legacy that they've left and all of their contributions to the town. So we would love for you to be there at that celebration if possible on Saturday the 19th. I talked about it later our earlier but South Taylor Street Park phase one of the park is set to begin in the next few weeks and funding for phase two was requested at the budget work section with town council on Tuesday. Okay. Once again, I already talked about it. Following trail, projected opening date from Ashland to Virginia Center Commons, September 18th. While the section from Ashland to Guapumi Road does look done, it is actually not. There have been some weather related delays. And so I think that there is just some safety risk management stuff that needs to be completed. I do know that people are using the trail, but there are barriers there. So we're asking the public to respect the fact that it is not 100% completed yet. While it does look complete, it is not. But obviously, we can't police it 24-7. But we We will do some type of most likely ribbon cutting at the time when we are able to open it up fully to the public. The Minutelianic Railroad Park, the Kiesks and Artifacts for the Minutelianic Railroad Park are being installed, and there is a ribbon cutting tentatively planned for mid-May. The Carter Park Pulse season is just around the corner. I highlight this year is that membership in passes can be purchased online. You no longer have to come to town hall or go to the pool to purchase your passes. We are working with technology now. And so I think that that's going to be really helpful for those who may be coming to town hall and purchasing passes are going to, you know, having to wait in line to the pool to purchase passes. It was, you know, a barrier. And it also takes some of the burden off of our front line staff and improves their efficiency and allows, you know, users to literally, you know, purchase at their convenience. So we're very excited about that. We've never sold memberships or passes online. So really, yeah. Yeah, so thank you. I'm more excited about that than anything else. I don't have to physically kid everybody's past this year, it's for hours and hours. No, what I'm the most excited right now is our Hanover County Parks and Recreation Partnership. So since the beginning of the year, I have been working with Handover County on partnering on recreational programming. They have a pretty robust recreational programming department and we sat down in some initial talks and really saw it as a win-win to work together on programming in town. So right now, all of the, so we sat down, we went through a whole program planning process. We have eight programs in town and two events this summer. And I'll go into a few of them. I won't talk in depth about all of them. But this is a really huge win for the town because of our limited resources, both financially but staff-wise. We're able to work with Hanover to kind of share the burden of staff and funding while they get to tap into the Ashland market because Ashlanders are also Hanover residents and pay Hanover taxes. And then we get to showcase some of our Ashland assets like Dejarnit Park in the pool and appeal to a broader Ashland population. So I'll highlight a couple of these events. So you'll see the second bullet point under looking ahead is preschool play cafe. This is something that Handover County's already been doing in their parks on a rotational basis, and they're adding Puffer Belly Park into that rotation. Basically, they bring additional play elements to the parks and set up a coffee cart for parents. And so it's a good time for children to play, but parents to socialize and enjoy a cup of coffee. And each one has a theme like there's a dyno dig day. And if you want more details on this, on the Parks and Recreation website page, our Parks and Rec page, there's a Parks and Recreation drop-down menu and under recreational activities, all the details of those themed dates are there. Paint by the pond is a jarnet park. So if you think about those paint and sip parties, this is basically paint and sip without the sipping. And so we're bringing in a contracted artist to teach people how to paint and they're going to be focusing on landscapes into jarnet park. That is a registration required activity because there are limited spots available, but there's information about that on the website. Happy hikers is actually not taking place in May. As of today was moved until September, but that is a therapeutic recreation program where we invite adults with disabilities to come and experience our park in a sensory friendly and inclusive fashion. And so I'm working with the therapeutic recreation specialist to do that at Carter Park this year as one of her locations. Of course, Carter Park pool, opening and pool party will talk about future details for that. I'll be reaching out to you guys. I need DJ Flip to come back. So, young Angler Day at the Jarnit Park is a youth and family fishing program. So I'm actually working with the Department of Wildlife Resources to improve the vitality of our pond. And then they are bringing some trained volunteers and some of us as staff in Hanover and National Interbeing trained on how to teach kids how to fish. And then DWR is actually providing fishing poles and tackle. And so it'll be a good day of fishing at the Jarnit Park. The Water Safety Day at Carter Park Pool is going to involve a water safety educator coming in and talking about being a water watcher and how to do some like floating classes and some education around water safety. Play all day in our summer splash party at Carter Park Pool last year we did our free day for play all day VA that's our statewide initiative to play on the longest day of the year. This time we're partnering with Hanover to hold a summer splash party. This will include a DJ and flateables, float races in the pool, cardboard boat, regatta, other outdoor games, food trucks, and so we're anticipating this being a really big community party. So all of that to say this is just the start. I actually meet with Hanover on Monday to talk about all of our fall and winter programming. They kind of meet on a fall, winter, spring, early summer, summer basis And so I will continue to meet with them. And this is something that I see being, you know, a great asset to the town. And a really huge accomplishment for the Parks and Recreation Department. And offering more programming to our town residents. And, you know, and then in turn encouraging our residents to become familiar with handover parts and recreation programs and attend handover programs as well. So you guys are invited to all of them. You're not required to attend any of them obviously, but we would love to see you at any of these events. And I will provide more, kind of reach out of reach out before and say, hey, we're doing this like, and because, you know, it'd be helpful to have some volunteers at times too, especially for those big days like Younger, Angler Day and the Playout, DBA. And then last, but not least, I want to highlight on Monday, James City County, their Parks and Recreation Department, therapy recreation brought 15 adults with adults with intellectual disabilities to the town of Ashland for all about Ashland Day. So we started in here playing Ashland Bingo, such popular game. I didn't know when I created it for the community picnic that it would be a hit. But we played Ashland Bingo, we walked through downtown, we watched trains, we saw Secretary it, we went to Carter Park for lunch and explored the trails, then we came back into tour of the museum and then could be it booze and we finished up at DeJarnett Park. And for some turtle hunting, we saw some turtles. So overall it was a really enriching day for that community and I'm looking for more opportunities to reach out and show Ashland as a, you know, A inclusive and welcoming space, but B just, you know, a lot of even the staff that came, including one of my closest friends is the therapeutic recreation specialist there. She was like, wow, I've never been to Ashland. I didn't know you had a brewery and you had public art and you had these amazing parts. And so I'm like duh, I think I'm here. But I'm really excited to kind of open Ashland up to more of those opportunities and really show off Ashland through a parks and recreation lens to the greater Richmond region. With that being said, the only thing that I left off of our looking ahead is on April 24th, we have Arbor Day. That's part of our tree city, USA designation, and that will be from 12 to 1 p.m. at Carter Park. Usually we've tried to do it kind of more central to town, but during all of the weather events, and we lost multiple trees at Carter Park. And so we want to replace them. Yeah, I know. They were kind of some scragally guys but decent size near the picnic shelter and so our idea here is to to plant a tree to replace one of the ones that we lost. This is in partnership with brand-off making college so the mayor will be there. Our president of brand-offMacon will be there. And there it's an activity sponsored by their serve committee which is one of their service careers. And that is all I got. I'm sure there's more. Yes. Oh, two quick questions. Yes. Do you know when the paving will be done along Maple Street? No. Or just an estimate. I don't know. I'm sorry. I can ask again. So I'll follow up. I think that contractor was balancing a lot of different projects. And so I know it kind of is like pave gravel, paved dirt, gravel, weird, you know, so. But you'll see that I think pretty soon now that the weather is getting better, they're really mobilizing that project. It's a stormwater management project on the opposite side of Maple Street. And so I think that that'll probably happen pretty quickly. Yeah, quick question was, storeberry fair. We're going to paint rocks again. Oh, yeah. Probably. OK. Yeah, good. Yeah. So I'll be in touch. Mrs. Miller and I will work with you guys in the community engagement. It worked out really well. It was really fun. I hid rocks on like three different occasions in the parks. And I would go back two days later and they were all gone. So obviously there was a lot of excitement. I hid rocks on like three different occasions in the parks and I would go back like two days later and they were all gone. So obviously there was a lot of excitement. Okay, so I also have two questions. Yes. What time was it for Arbor Day? 12 to 1 p.m. That's the students like free period. So all students are free at that time? But there were a lot of them. I went to last year's and boy, I wrote a lot of the serve people. It's quite a crew of people. And what was my other, oh, so how are we going to get the information out for the partnership? That's huge with Hanover, that's been looked for for many, many years. Yeah, so Hanover County does a lot of marketing through. They have a brochure they have like a recreational program guide Like we already have six people registered for paint by the pond, you know So they've been pushing everything through their channels. I today got everything up on our website and then It actually went in It's on the visitor website if you read the talk of the newsletter today, there's a little section about spring in the parks. And if you click on the learn more, it takes you to the calendar, like the town calendar, and it has all of the events listed there. And then I've also sent it to Kirin, who is our digital media specialist. She's doing all of our social media, and she has it scheduled to kind of push through her channels. Because that is one thing that has been asked for forever. Yeah, yeah. It's activities in the park. Yeah, and I will say like on a broader term, the relationship with Hanover County Parks and Recreation is really, really good. And like for example, like Berkeley Town Heritage Park for our celebration, we don't own a sound system and so they're loaning us theirs. We just have a really great working relationship and they're very supportive of Ashland Parks and I'm just very grateful for them kind of bringing me into the fold and welcoming this partnership and being such good neighbors. But this is it's great to be able to tell people that have been asking all these years. I'm gonna email them as soon as they get home. Yeah, we've got the programming. Yes, and when I send you guys the minutes, I will send you the link to the website with the rec programming and every kind of event links to the Hanover County page which has like just a tiny bit more information But it is just if you go to our website ashlandva.gov and you go to the parks and recreation or the departments Underneath departments there says recreational activities if you click on that. It's listed with location date time age group, you know, targeted registration information, all of that. Because sometimes, Ashley and people don't look at Hannah first. So, yes. Wow, I'm, you've been busy. Yeah, busy, busy. It's a very important list and it's going to make for a very fun spring and summer. Yes. I'm going on vacation next week. Yes. I have two things for May. Yeah. First of all, any of you are interested on Sunday March 30th. It is Secretaries birthday. And we are going to be having another big bash at the statue. From 11 o'clock until 4 o'clock, we are going to have some activities for kids. I don't know if any of you are available. We're going to borrow the corn hole and the janka from town hall. And we're just going to table there with some coloring activities. I do have a couple of young horsey girls that are so interested in helping with some races that we're going to do. But if any of you are interested in just coming by and stopping by and helping with some of that, you would be much appreciated. And also just in case you might be interested, we are going to have two seats available on town council this fall. If any of you or anyone you know might be interested in running for town council, there are some things that you need to do ahead of time as far as collecting signatures and that type of thing. You can go on our website, the town website to get that information or call Doug and he would be happy to help you, Doug Goldman, give you any information that you may need. But we are going to have two spots available for anyone that might be interested in that as well. All right, so thank you, Amy. Thank you. All your work. You have really, I even wrote down the Secretary, I think I said, don't forget Secretary it. I did, so that was okay. Thank you for, how do we forget? March 30th, you said? Was that March 30th? March 30th. Yes. There is a big party the night before, there's a cocktail party and that before it's gonna be an oakdale, it's a $100 ticket for anyone might be interested. It is going to be a really nice party. And of course it's just a big fundraiser for the statute to make sure we can keep him clean and you know make sure landscapes I'll take care of or whatever but that's... $100 a ticket for anyone that might be interested. It is going to be a really nice party. And of course, it's just a big fundraiser for the statute to make sure we can keep him clean and make sure landscapes all take care of her whatever. But that's going to be a big fun party too. But there'll be cupcakes, other fun things on Sunday. So if you'd like to come and join us, just bring your children, your families, whatever. It's going to be a fun day. Is it going to be in the parking lot? Like the way they did it. I have a movie for people to see they do have this year. I don't know if there are any tickets left, but they're going to be doing trolley run at the meadow for people to go there just for something different this year. So it'll be a good day. Okay. Thank you. Are there any other comments or discussion points? Okay. So unless there are none, I now enjoy a journey the meeting.