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MINUTES OF THE <br />ORONO PARK COMMISSION <br /> February 6, 2023 <br />6:00 o’clock p.m. <br />_____________________________________________________________________________________ <br /> <br />Page 3 of 14 <br /> <br />the oldest in the country. It happens to be one of the oldest in the State that has grass greens, as a public <br />course. But we acknowledge history. He also said the golf course has changed over the years. Porter <br />showed some of the comments from the open houses but agreed they were difficult to read on the screen. <br />This is what the committee has to balance as far as can we build pickleball courts in our community? Can <br />we build pickleball courts at the golf course? What does our community want and desire? There's a lot of <br />thoughts that this is a done deal signed, sealed and delivered. I'm up here telling you it's not. We're just <br />engaging our community at this point. We are excited about building pickleball courts; we had a number <br />of people ask us to. We're excited about the golf course and the health of the golf course making sure <br />people are aware that it's there. But this is just all part of the process. <br /> <br />Park and Golf Course Superintendent Lemons said he had put together several options to consider. Option <br />one would be to move into a preliminary design phase to help figure out exact costs on the project itself. <br />The second option would be a recommendation to table the project and option three would be a <br />recommendation to remove the project from the CIP goals. In November the CIP was approved. Based on <br />that, he proposed a recommendation to start the preliminary design phase, option one. He said the <br />feasibility study so far had looked at the possibilities of the site and conservative numbers and found that <br />adding pickleball courts and a hockey rink would be feasible. <br /> <br />Roach said he’d talked to several of the commissioners and what he’s heard is that the best next step is <br />not to move forward with the preliminary design, and instead, to have a workshop in March, to fully <br />discuss it as a commission. He said some commission members have been extensively involved in this <br />project and others less so. He opened the discussion up to the commission. <br /> <br />Carter agreed, saying he would pick option two which aligns with waiting. I wouldn't be comfortable <br />recommending to go ahead with preliminary design, certainly not before we hear from everybody here. <br /> <br />Duval said she also agreed. After attending one of the public meetings, and as one of the commissioners <br />who has been less involved in this project, she said she would have questions to bring to the workshop <br />Among them would be some of the observations from neighbors and golfers and looking at parking, noise <br />and aesthetics. I look forward to the workshop, and I appreciate the opportunity for a little more time. <br /> <br />Berg said she agreed. <br /> <br />Stephenson agreed as well, saying he hadn't been presented with the comments from the open house until <br />that evening. I think we have enough information to discuss before we spend more time and money on <br />design because we have a conceptual design that allows us to have that discussion. <br /> <br />Stofer acknowledged he was wearing a number of different hats in this process as a neighbor, a Parks <br />Commission member, a passionate golfer, and as a board member of the Orono Youth Hockey <br />Association. We haven't spent a lot of time talking about the hockey component of this, but it's as <br />proposed a quarter of the price and so I think that needs to be further involved in this process to really