02-01-2021 Park Commission Packet

Home Browse Search

MINUTES OF THE ORONO PARK COMMISSION Thursday, November 5, 2020 6:00 o’clock p.m. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Page 2 of 6 Edwards noted Rathburn is a part-time employee hired earlier in the year and his position was created by eliminating the custodial contract for City Hall, Police Department, and other public buildings as there have been problems. Rathburn spends his mornings doing facilities maintenance and his afternoons out in the park system and that has been working very well. Rathburn is a retired employee from the city of Plymouth where he was an Engineering Technician, he is very energetic and loves going out to the parks in the afternoons. Edwards reported the Boy Scouts have a project replacing the fence at Summit Beach which should be finished soon. Regarding bigger projects, Edwards said almost everything is complete at Bederwood and they need to close out part of the project financials with the contractor; the grass is almost established and should be ready to go in the spring. Goehring and his crew fertilized the grass 4 times, applied various snow fungus treatments and have cut the grass 6 times. East Long Lake Road Trail is 99% complete with a few signs that still need to be installed. Hennepin County maintains a bare root nursery of trees and Orono received approximately 15 of those and planted them in and around the project to restore the area. He noted it was approximately a $1,500-$3,000 donation of trees. Regarding Big Island, they finally have construction underway with the trails. He also noted sign upgrades to a few parks that should be installed in the spring, of the same format as Bederwood. 3. STATE BONDING UPDATE FOR BIG ISLAND Edwards updated the Commissioners on Big Island and said as stated earlier, construction is underway about 6-8 months late after an extraordinary amount of archaeology and other permitting processes. Trail work will probably take approximately 3 weeks and if the weather holds they should be good. The bathroom will happen next spring due to the barge availability and pieces of the project arriving; he explained that a vault toilet comes in two large concrete sections. Edwards noted he was skeptical but the Mayor was successful and the State Capitol Funding authorized $300,000 for Big Island in the latest state bonding bill. That money will be available next year (2021) and the money is ministered by deed through the Department of Employment and Economic Development. Edwards said they do not know the exact restrictions and processes the City must go through for that pot of money. He showed a slide with project funding numbers and said if they add everything that has already been committed with the additional donations received thanks to the Legacy Group and the state bonding funding, they have approximately $717,000 of funding available for the site. Edwards showed a table onscreen outlining total project cost of about $513,900. He reported the state bonding money is in arrears, so the City will have to do the work, spend the money, and then send in for reimbursement proving they spent that amount of funds or more to receive the dollars back into the City budget. Edwards has an action going before the City Council to formally approve of adding the alternates back into the project which will bring them to the $513,000. The Council will need to decide what to do with the rest of the funding; he noted one possible option is to maximize the use of the bond funds to cover any City portions of the existing project funding – within the rules of the bonding money. Another option is in regards to the DNR grant which had a minimum City match of $80,000, so the City would still pay the $80,000 and he guesses the rules of the bonding funding will still require the City to do that. A third option is that the City uses the bonding funds to cover the remaining items in the existing projects, which is the picnic shelter and tables. A fourth option is not to use the bonding money for anything associated with the current project, instead they would use it on a future project. Carter said Mayor Walsh gets 99% of the credit for the state funding, although Carter nagged the Senator a few times, also. He noted there is a Big Island Legacy meeting coming up and they will talk about the plan Edwards suggested which will most likely be approved by that time. First of all, they will get the work done that should have been done in the first phase, and he will call it Phase 1B (noting it is mostly the green highlighted portion onscreen), the shelter and the slab underneath, two picnic tables and some