CITIZEN COMMENTS: None

A. Approval of the May 12, 2011 minutes
A motion was made and seconded to approve the Minutes as written.

Voice Vote Unanimous

1. Staff Reports-Parks Director Mr. Jason Mangum
   Mayor Landry will be issuing a proclamation on Monday, June 20th at the City Council meeting proclaiming July 2011as Parks and Recreation month. Traditionally July has been designated as Parks and Recreation month through the National Recreation and Parks Association. The City of Novi has participated in this over the years and the State of Michigan will be issuing a proclamation Tuesday at the capitol building. I would encourage anyone who can to attend the City Council meeting, to come by and show your support for the proclamation and for the City proclaiming July as Parks and Recreation month.
    
2. As many of you know Nancy Cowan is currently on a leave of absence, she had a healthy baby girl last week, so she will be off for the next 12 weeks taking care of and adjusting to the new duties of motherhood and we wish her all the best, so any recreation questions can be fielded through me at this time.
    
3. We are gearing up for summer programs, we had our first Sizzling Summer Art Series this past Tuesday, which was at 10:30am at Fuerst Park Amphitheater and was very well attended with approximately 2-300 people.
    
4. Camp Lakeshore starts next week. Our new Recreation Supervisor Emily Stevens, who we introduced last month, has been busy this week training staff and has really invested a lot of time making sure staff at Camp Lakeshore and camp counselors are top notch and ready to go.
    
5. Lakeshore Park Beach is now open and the park is becoming very busy. There have been several small projects taking place at Lakeshore Park; refurbishing some of the areas on the beach, the boathouse there, which is an area for the guards while they are on break has undergone some small improvements to make things more comfortable for the guards.
    
6. We are also installing a couple of new sand volleyball courts at Lakeshore Park; Matt Ostermeyer will be hosting sand volleyball leagues starting in July. Matt has a strong passion for volleyball and good background in it, so, we are really excited about that.
    
7. Thank you to everyone who came out for Memorial Day. The Memorial Day parade and program were well attended and nice. Again, very busy with our sports programs, youth soccer ends this week, so it feels like they have been playing for a long time with all the rainouts and what-not’s, so, it will be a very busy week at ITC Sports Park this week.
    
8. I do have for everyone here, a copy of the City of Novi non-motorized master plan, a digital copy has been finalized and this will be available for everyone to take home. The printed out copy is quite thick, so this is a nice resource for everybody. Of course we thank everyone who worked on the committee.
    
9. Regarding Park Maintenance Standards, Evie has been busy organizing the park inspections that have been turned in. There have been a few standards for a few parks that she is waiting for. It’s really nice, we have been doing this for a year so now she can do comparisons to last year and so if you have not turned in your standards for this month, we would appreciate it and if you have questions you can speak to me after the meeting.

   Commissioner Staab noted regarding the park surveys, he had the pleasure of handling Power Park as his survey piece. He noted how well the grass and turf looked in the park there, how well it’s maintained and how green it was. He also noted how clean it was from the restroom standpoint. It’s much better than the way it used to be when it was the old structure. It’s another gem of our park system. Thank you to the department for taking just good care of it.

   Director Mangum thanked Charlie for his comments, it is a beautiful facility, and the irrigation does make a big difference. Having the irrigation and making sure the grass is taken care of and the grounds are maintained is very appropriate and is something the parks maintenance standards have really attributed to because it allows citizens to go in and rate the department and see how we’re doing across the board. We appreciate you getting these done.

10. Last night we had a great meeting here at the Novi Civic Center regarding Village Wood Lake Park, which is a small pocket park consisting of two pieces of property on each side of Meadowbrook Road by 9 Mile. We had a community meeting with the residents in the area to discuss some concerns and suggestions they may have regarding that park. As you may know, at this time it is considerably open space and there will be some minor improvements to those parks to make them more accessible and we encourage you to participate in those meetings when you have the chance. It was very typical of a new project where you have a lot of people with concerns over a park being built in their neighborhood, a lot of people are under the impression that it will increase crime and different things; mostly we were there to listen to their concerns so that we could take those issues or questions they have into consideration as we go to the engineering and design phase of those pieces of property. But, for the most part, we had a couple of people who had suggestions and then we had a couple of people who were adamant about not wanting any improvements made to those pieces of property; it was a very typical response. We are hoping by late summer to be in the middle of the design phase, which will be designed in-house through our engineering department, Department of Public Services and then we will hopefully have those improvements finished by the end of the construction season, by November, that’s our goal. Background on this property is the area around the lake on the East side of Meadowbrook Road was slated to have condos built in there and the public came to the City; they wanted to preserve that land. So, the City applied for a grant to purchase that land. One of the stipulations of the grant was the City had to have a match, so the property on the West side of Meadowbrook Road was donated to the City as the match, so then both pieces of property become one park. The stipulation in the grant was that we had to make these pieces of property accessible to the public as parkland; this is why we are making these minor improvements to these pieces of property.
     
11. Commissioner Jewell asked Director Mangum how the first month on the job is going. Jason noted his first month has been excellent. The learning curve has been great, but, I’ve really enjoyed working with management, with the citizens, and I’ve met a lot of great people. I feel the staff is very talented but more importantly very passionate about what we do, and, I think that is really the key. I’ve always preached that you can teach skills but, you can’t teach passion. I feel that what we have in the Parks and Recreation Department are people who are passionate about serving the citizens of Novi and really passionate about what we do. I think the biggest key and asset that the City of Novi has is the people. And, that’s not just the paid employees; it’s the Commissioners, the City Council, the City Management, and I’m looking forward to learning the systems better and getting things down a bit smoother so I can really be operating on all cylinders. Student Commission Representatives Kerbrat and Suhas welcomed Director Mangum. Jason thanked them and noted that Evie has contacted or reached out to them to set up appointments with him sometime in the near future in his office; to talk about what we do and the types of things that you can do to make this experience the best opportunity you can build on later as you further your education. Thank you for your interest in Parks and Recreation and we’ll be talking soon.

    Director Mangum noticed on the May minutes there was the potential to have Superintendent Matt Wiktorowski scheduled for an upcoming meeting on fields. The assessment has been the fields have done very well with all the rains we have had in May, but it would probably be good for him to do that update.

12. Director Mangum stated upon review of our agenda, you will note an update on the department’s Strategic Plan. It’s something that we are really gearing up right now. If you do not have a copy of the department Strategic Plan, please let me know and I will obtain a copy for you. I would like to involve the Commission in some of the projects that are listed on this Strategic Plan. The Strategic Plan goes through 2013 and there are some incredible opportunities for us as we move forward; especially when we talk about things like our CAPRA Accreditation and different goals and objectives. The Commission can be very involved with feedback on policy creation and operational procedures that we create. My goal is when Nancy returns from her leave of absence, we will be ready to roll on CAPRA Accreditation with a time line set.

MATTERS FOR COMMISSION DISCUSSION AND/OR ACTION:

Student Commission Representative Kerbrat noted for all the young adults to be careful driving. There have been 7 or 8 accidents in front of Novi High School in the last two weeks. So, with everyone on the road with school out, please be careful and watch where you are going and get off your cell phones please.

CITIZEN COMMENTS: None

COMMISSIONER COMMENTS:

Commissioner Tecklenberg stated on the opportunity to visit Power Park, ITC and Fuerst recently; especially Power and ITC it is nice to see the level of activity that’s going on; it seems organized and things seem to be under control. At Fuerst Park there was so much activity, construction and so forth.

Commissioner Jewell wished Nancy all the best with her new baby, hopefully everything is going well with mom, baby and the new steps of motherhood.

Student Representative Kerbrat wanted to tell the students and all the citizens to take advantage of all the amazing parks that Novi has; go to the beach, a hike; go chill outside instead of watching TV and playing games.

Student Representative Suhas said we have a lot of parks in Novi for all people to use.

Commissioner Dooley noted that on May 21^st, ITC was full of families and activity. The Novi Athletic Boosters did their semi-annual free hotdog cookout; it was good to see synergy and partnership at play with Mayor Landry and City Council Member Fisher cooking the hotdogs. We cooked 1,000 hotdogs in 2.5 hours it was pretty incredible. Folks were coming up, the boosters were well represented and I would be remorse not to acknowledge Theresa McClure and her staff for again organizing the event as far as the set-up, all the work that was entailed as far as making this event another successful venue and the clean-up afterwards. That Saturday was a beautiful day for youth soccer, opening weekend for youth baseball and it’s nice to see the City come together like that. I also wanted to echo comments on the Memorial Day parade; again it’s a tribute to our fine citizens in our City to remember and recognize the reasons why those veterans give what they give. To all you veterans out there that supported the Memorial Day parade….two thumbs up! Well done!

A motion was made to adjourn by Commissioner Jewell and seconded by Commissioner (corrected to Tecklenberg).

The meeting was adjourned by Commissioner Dooley at 7:32 pm

DATE APPROVED: ___________________________________________________________