08-10-1998 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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and vandalism concerns. Orono has historically only proved low key parks and recreation opportunities. The provision of supervised warming facilities for skating rinks would be a substantial change in City policy. TTie acceptance of lighted ice rinks by neighboring residents is also questionable. The other two Cities contacted are more densely populated than Orono. Our lower density development may not provide for enough use to justify the expense of lights and supervised warming houses. The ice quality on our rinks has been less than desirable in the past and could be improved. The City does have a sewer jet rodding truck with a 1,500-gallon tank that could be modified to use as a flooding truck for the rinks. This truck currently has a pump and spray bar on the front of the truck used for dust control during street sweeping. This bar could be relocated to the rear of the truck. According to other Cities, the use of a flooding truck does provide for better quality ice with less man power required. The City of Tonka Bay built their own ice scraper to pull behind a pickup truck. The Orono public works staff could build an ice scraper. This would allow for scraping of the rinks as time permits for better ice quality. My recoimnendation is that we continue to maintain the two rinks at Casco Point and Hackberry Park with improvements in our flooding and maintenance procedures. Without the installation of lights and warming house facilities, it is questionable if our rinks will ever be used heavily enough to justify the 8 to 10 man-hours required per day to maintain the high quality ice of ice found at Woodhill Country Club and Wayzata. With some fine tuning of our maintenance procedures, we could probably maintain average ice quality for outdoor rinks. With two neighborhood rinks in Orono, indoor ice arenas in both Mound and Orono, and a high quality outdoor rink in Wayzata; there should be enough facilities available for ice skating in the area.