08-10-1998 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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July 30,1998 couMCit To: Orono Park Commission a.,/^ io. A AUG 1 0 From: Greg Gappa )jj Qf Subject: Ice Rink Maintenance Study Introt iiction There has been concern about the ice quality and low usage of the City's ice skating rinks. The City ’ cuiT^gntly maintains two outdoor skating rinks at Casco Point Road and at Hackberry Park. Both rinks are unsupervised with no warming house or lights. They are small rinks with no hockey rink boards. Both rinks are too small for hockey, and there is concern about the safety of encouraging hockey play on unsupervised rinks. Historically, Orono’s maintenance of City parks has been low key arid not a high priority. We have received very few citizen complaints or requests for incre^ed park maintenance or facilities. In the past two years, I have only received a couple of citizen complaints about ice rinks. Orono public works does not have a specific Park Maintenance Department. Park maintenance is handled by available personnel, together with other responsibilities such as strtet and utility system maintenance. Ice rink maintenance is done as time permits. Snow removal from streets is the first priority and ice rink snow removal is completed after street plowing is completed. Rink flooding is completed every several days dependent on weather conditions. Flooding is completed using hoses connected to either a fire hydrant or park well. The City does not have equipment available for scraping the rinks to remove rough spots before flooding. Years ago, the City h-'id an ice rink scraper, but it finally rusted out. Orono Public works staff spends an average of two man-hours cMy on ice rink maintenance. From our discussions with several area rink operators this amount of time is minimal. High quality ice rinks require more maintenance time than we are currently spending. The City previously had two other rinks, one at Antoine Park and another rink at Bederwood Park. The Rink at Antoine Park was discontinued several years ago because of ice quality problems ca^d by gas bubbles from decomposition of the organic fill materials in the park. This rink received limited use because of the poor ice quality. The neighborhood residents were contacted before the rink was closed, and there was minimal neighborhood interest in keeping the rink open. The rink at Bederwood Park was closed in 1997 because of ice quality problems from an inadequate water supply for rink flooding. Access to the rink was difficult because of the long distance it was located from the parking lot There were also safety concerns because of the remote location of Ae rink and proximity to the Luce Line Trail. Snowmobiles are allowed on this portion of the Luce Line Trail and there was concern about having children close to the tail with high sp d snowmobile traffic. This rink received very limited use. We have not received any complaints about the closing .* this rink. There are only several homes close to Bederwood Park.