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HomeMy WebLinkAbout250102 - Minutes, Recreation & ParksPARKS & RECREATION BOARD January 2, 2025 MINUTES Present Absent With Reason Robin Papa Jeff Cline Eric Michael Julie Sanders Amy Sterner Thomas Moore Dwayne Freeman Chair, Robin Papa, called the meeting of the Washington County Parks & Recreation Advisory Board to order at 3:18 pm. Guests were Jaime Dick, Director of Parks & Recreation; Andrew Eshleman, Public Works Director; Travis Allen, Comprehensive Planner; Rob Holsinger, Recreation Supervisor; Pam Boyd, Parks Manager. Approval of Minutes Ms. Papa asked for any additions or corrections to the minutes of December 5, 2024, Recreation & Parks Advisory Board meeting. With no corrections or additions, the minutes were passed as presented unanimously, 5-0 by the Board. Tom Moore made the motion to approve the minutes, and Eric Michael seconded the motion. Citizen’s Comments No one appeared for comment. Department Reports Parks & Recreation Director’s Report Ag Center The BOCC has accepted a donation from Ad Fulton to build a new Show Barn at the Facility. Staff is working with the Ag Board on this project with an expectation to have completed before the Ag Expo in July. Staff will be working on completing the concreting of the Show arena this winter as well as install of the new bleachers. Black Rock Golf Course Staff is currently working on FY 2026 Operation budgets which are due this week. The County Highway Department is continuing to work with the Maintenance staff on the Bunker project. We hope to get most of it completed by the Spring. The maintenance staff is also working this winter on removing trees on the Course. Mr. Eshleman also added they are continuing to work on the design and plans for the Learning Center. Trying to improve the driving range and the area next to the pavilion. Looking at a covered facility with a roof structure and open air and a small storage building to store golf ball buckets, etc. It will be an open-air driving range and 2-way play chipping green which will be synthetic. Next to the pavilion will have a putting green in that area that would be synthetic as well. There will also be a cart path parking area where you can warm up and get right back out on the cart path. This will help clean up on how golfers are loading and unloading as well in the front. Trying to make improvements to the facility and this will help when there are golf clinics for the young kids and support the tournaments that are held at the golf course. JLG will be sponsoring the upcoming youth golf clinic in the Spring. The local high school teams have consolidated there so having better practice facilities and something more durable is a priority. The project is a quite an undertaking. There are funds from a Trust that has been accruing and the Golf Course Board is looking to do some fundraisers and things and is to be determined on what that is. This is in the idea stage right now. Parks & Recreation Staff will begin the hiring process this month for Pool staff & Park Attendants. Staff has been working on the Operations budgets which are due this Friday. Spring/Summer program planning will begin this month as well. Staff is planning on install of the new pavilion at Marty’s Mythical Woods. We hope to have it completed by the Spring. Winter programming will begin this Saturday and most of the programs will be up and running in a few weeks. The City of Hagerstown reached out to us with regards to the new Field House. Staff will be taking a tour of the facility this month. The St. Patrick’s Day Run Fest is scheduled for March 15th of this year. Staff has begun working on the operations of this event. The Event may be moved to a different location in Hagerstown this year. Staff is continuing to work with the Public Works Director and Architects on the review phase of the upgrade to MLK Community Center. Mr. Eshleman added that the final plans for the MLK upgrade are being worked on and may be the end of the month until they get to 90% of plans. This will be a phased project because of working around and accommodating Head Start’s schedule and some things have such a long lead time such as HVAC and electrical equipment. Also installing an elevator. It is a 1940’s building and does not currently have an elevator. We will get things in that we can, do some demo, but will have a long lead time on some of the items. Mr. Holsinger shared with the Board program numbers and participants for the calendar year 2024 that he prepared for State of the County. ADULT PROGRAMS 16 Adult Dance Programs – 87 Participants 58 Adult Fitness Programs – 748 Participants 23 Adult Sports Programs – 312 participants YOUTH PROGRAMS 176 Aquatic Program Participants 1143 Youth Camp Participants 42 Youth Sports Programs – 737 Participants 5 Sports Leagues – 69 Partcipating Teams Mr. Dick said he appreciated Mr. Holsinger’s and his staff’s hard work. Mr. Moore also congratulated the department on the successful year. Board Appointments There are currently two Board positions that need to be filled. The Board narrowed their list of applicants to four. Those four candidates were asked additional questions regarding their passion, interests, strengths and perspectives they will bring to the Board. Those answers from the prospective candidates were provided to the Board prior to today’s meeting. In the meeting today the Board members ranked the four candidates on a scale of 1-4. The lowest score would be the top candidate and so on. The candidates were ranked as follows: #1 Mike Tesla, 7 #2 Lori Sines, 11 #3 Jim Nipps, 13 #4 Jeff Weller, 19 The rankings for all four candidates as well as their question and answers that were collected will be submitted to the County Clerk to go before the County Commissioners for their approval. POS Applications Mr. Eshleman gave the Board a refresher on the POS process. Project Open Space is the main Parks and Recreation funding source that we get from the State that comes before the Board to evaluate project requests. We will not find out the allocation amount from the State until May. The project requests will be heard over the next several months and will work on trying to balance the financial requests on what we think we will receive. The Board will then make a recommendation for a schedule of projects to be funded that will go to the County Commissioners for approval. The projects on that list will be eligible to submit their requests to the State July 1 or later. In the Fall, Mr. Eshleman sent out notices to all the eligible participants for projects requests and the requests are sent back to him by the end of the year. Last year was about a third of the funding level that we received the previous year which was historic. Last year was a little under $700,000 and the previous year close to $2 million. Because of our acquisition goals, 25% must be spent toward acquisition. If we do not have a project for acquisition, we can hold onto it and go into our reserve. If there is something that comes up, we try to fund it on the acquisition side. The remaining 75% is for development. For this year a number of the smaller towns did not submit a request because they have existing projects that they are trying to complete or some of them have turnovers in the town manager positions or they just do not have a project. Also last year trying to adjust expectations for what we can fund. FY 2026 POS Program requests so far are as follows: Funkstown • Jerusalem Park, adding funds to the existing project. From a planning perspective, trying to complete the County’s project at Antietam Drive. The City has one at Mt. Aetna and Funkstown has one at Poplar Street which would be part of the Water Trail would like to have those completed by 2026 for some of the 250th anniversary celebrations. Hagerstown • Hamilton Run Golf Course – Hole 5 reconstruction • Fairground Park – Pickleball Court • City Park – Train Museum County • Woodland Way – Playground Replacement • Pleasant Valley – Playground Replacement • Marty Snook Park – Playground #2 • Pen Mar Interpretive Museum and Vending Machine Kiosk WCPS • Clear Spring Elementary – Playground Improvements Williamsport • Byron Memorial Park – Pavilion #4 construction Total requests not including Marty Snook Park Playground #2 is $1.1 million. There may be late additions added to the project request list as well. Smithsburg submitted a project through the State through Community, Parks & Playground. The State will release what is in the budget at the end of January and will have a list of projects that will be proposed to be funded for Community, Parks & Playground. The allocation amount will not be finalized until May when we receive our letter from the State, but will receive a heads up when the State releases their budget at the end of January regarding how much they are going to fund for Program Open Space in general. Next Scheduled Meeting Next scheduled Board Meeting will be held on February, 6, 2025 at 3:20 pm in the ARCC on the campus of HCC, Room 220. Unfinished Business No unfinished business was discussed. New Business No new business was discussed. Commissioner Cline wanted to thank those responsible for arranging the location of the meeting today. It’s much appreciated and a change of venue is nice. Adjournment With no further discussion, the meeting was adjourned at 3:44 pm. _________________________ _________________________ Robin Papa, Chair Jeannine Miller McVicker Washington County Recording Secretary – Washington Co. Parks & Recreation Board Parks & Recreation