okay you should be good to go
all righty so welcome everyone and i'd
like to call the
meeting for the parks and recreation
advisory board uh
to order here at 601 um
let's do first introductions i'm cassie
mcluhan chair
for district one as well and then let's
do robert
robert harrison district two
megan
good evening megan schuler district six
stan
[Music]
uh stan ingle district four
and if staff could introduce themselves
hazel go ahead
hazel nevada's office manager senior
i'm recording secretary
kathy
kathy matthews landscape architect
bessie
cesti vasconcello's community engagement
office
phil phil cadnack recreation
administrator
robert robert nunez used services
administrator
tony
tony trevino uh interim deputy director
of public works
and i'm sonya delgado director parks and
recreation
all right thank you so next i have a
conflict of interest does anyone on the
board or staff have a conflict of
interest with anything on the agenda
wait i'm sorry board chair my my names
were scrolling through and i don't think
i got phil
oh no phil
phil well
uh phil cadnack recreation administrator
is that what you're asking yes yes cool
okay
i was honored all right great i think we
have everybody
thank you sorry about that no it's all
right i didn't catch it either
all right so does anyone have conflict
of interest with anything on the agenda
and shaking okay all right let's move to
the approval of the agenda
do you have anybody to motion to approve
there's only a couple y'all um
madam chairman um i move that we accept
the agenda
this is megan shuler thank you
you're muted you're muted robert you're
muted
um madame chair this is stan ingle i
second
the motion he got he got you he got
faster okay
we have a motion and a second a
discussion
i'll improve all in what what am i doing
yes all in favor sorry it's been a long
day
bye okay
it has been past oh we have eric coming
on board do you want to introduce
yourself real quick
we're already at comp approval but
hi eric montgomery district five board
member
thanks all right perfect perfect all
right so number four approval minutes
does anybody want to motion to approve
the minutes
so moved i moved anyone else second
please which minutes are you approving
because there was two sets of minutes oh
that's two
oh yeah because you have to do the
specialty do you want to do it in any
particular order which one is the first
one the
from so july 16th
specifically okay
move to accept the minutes from july
16th meeting
all in favor discussion
yes ma'am okay okay and
do i have a motion to approve the
minutes from the special meeting on
august 4th
i make a motion to approve the minutes
from
the special meeting on august 4th 2020
eric montgomery second okay
any discussion all in favor
[Music]
okay all right great
so now we're at number five public
participation
and i'm just going to apologize in
advance because
you're going to be hearing a lot of me
right now i'm going to read um
a quite a bit of email that we got
regarding pickleball
more than well i should should i give
away that it is 38 pages it is 38 pages
but i will attempt to make this as easy
as possible
some of these were came in a little late
but we'll let some of it stand because
just the i think it shows the breadth of
this and also a couple that
aren't pickleball related so good luck
to me
i have water this should be uh
interesting i will
endeavor to make this as painless as
possible
and hopefully for those who are
following along on youtube
i'm sorry if i um butcher names
i will attempt not to do that either
okay so we have
number the first one xanthe phillips
already
i apologize if i pronounce that wrong
dear parks and rec
i want to start by saying how much i
appreciate your hard work during this
trying time and always
i'm writing because i am extremely
confused regarding the newest
restrictions for tennis and pickleball
we're the only city in the entire state
with such hearts restrictions
the old restrictions had half the courts
at lions
close which had a huge problem because
there were more people in courts the
time limits were okay but the courts
opened at eight
so once the heat of the day arrived at
10 no one could play these new
restrictions are ridiculous 45 minutes
to play tennis there is no point do you
realize that tennis and pickleball are
the safest activities
courts are fully functioning in
albuquerque elm gordo silver city where
are these restrictions coming from
not the governor please this very this
is a very difficult time for everyone do
not take the safest sport away sincerely
is auntie phillips
robert mccorkle and i understand parks
and rec advisory board will hear from
you tomorrow evening about proposed
scheduling a pickleball court play at
apodaca park
it's one of the dozen designated
pickleball players in las cruces i want
to express my displeasure with this new
proposed policy that seems to tighten
the screws on pickleball community which
is currently
has only a very limited option of where
to play in the city
with the number of coronal virus cases
recently stabling stabilizing in some
cases
dropping seems an odd time for your
department to tighten scheduling
requirements i would like to know why
this is being done reading the proposal
is obvious whoever came up the proposal
will knows little to nothing about
pickleball
it would have been nice for your
department to solicit import for the
pickleball
community before taking up the
scheduling measure with the advisory
board
the sport is not like golf for one who
serves the tea time in advance for
foursome with pickleball players simply
show up during open court hours and
quote get in line unquote
to play the games as completed and those
players rotate off the court different
players team up at different times
there's a variety of players nobody
plans ahead of time who they play with
since they're a dozen or more players
show up at any given day
four people playing against double
rarely play against one another for both
more than a few games before different
players pair up to play against various
opponents
recording myself and others plays to
schedule specific playing partners at a
specific time seems more punishment than
a protective measure
it is onerous and ridiculous and how do
you tend to quote
clean unquote the courts for during the
15-minute breaks between games it's not
like a restaurant where one sterilizes
tables and chairs
until memories shut open courts open up
please allow pickleballers to pursue
their support without increasing
restrictions on scheduling so we can
continue to get fresh air and exercise
we need to stay healthy
and active for members of our community
thank you rob mccorkle
larry mastic
while many of us appreciate the
opportunity to continue to play
pickleball during this pandemic some of
us
some of the recently proposed changes of
those use guidelines are pretty
unreasonable and unworkable
we all understand the need to wear masks
from social distance pick a ball can be
played
following those guidelines one it would
have been much better if city
parks and rec staff could communicate
what the purpose of proposing the
changes were first and then ask the
pickleball players for input before
opposing those guidelines two making
reservations ahead of time seems like a
significant hassle and waste of citizens
and staff time
coordination players would be required
to do nearly every day to set up groups
of forward starvation is unreasonable
different players play different days
there are dozens of players in town how
would this all
coordination happen three typically we
mix up teams and partners after every
game to keep
play fair and interesting how would that
work with the reservation system four
45-minute sessions are too short for
most of us who typically pay two hours
or so
five what cleaning needs to be done
players have been maintaining sweeping
courts since reopening city has done
nothing
to in this regarding this regard to date
six suggest that parks and rec staff use
the same procedures as
or use it merch site set up a player
limit for example 20 for each lesson
takes names so they enter courts and cut
it off until the next
session for example 7 to 9 am the 9 15
to 11
15 a.m thanks very much
tom and maggie winter thank you for a
chance to comment and ask questions can
you slow down just a little bit
do you want me to i can yeah i guess
they're just going
i don't want to hear what they're saying
thank you sorry thank you for the chance
to comment and ask questions
park improvements i've not seen a
request for public comments on the park
improvement portion of the go bond as
there has been
for the east mesa design why is that
how can we see specifics on the apodaca
rehab design is it finalized
will there be any shade structures
seeding inside and outside in the courts
has construction started on any park
improvements how much of the go bond
16.9 million for parking through
movements has been spent in these past
two years
court scheduling wish you could have
gotten some input from players
before instituting the new scheduling
procedures why did scheduling procedures
change were there problems
if there were player issues they could
have been addressed individually instead
of a complete overhaul
we are the most restrictive of all new
mexico cities already why is that
tennis and picklebar are the safest
sports no need to change for
facts in fact all the courts should be
open plenty of space between courts why
can't they be left open all day what is
the purpose of closing courts
45 minutes for tennis or pickleball sets
session is not feasible
many of us drive 20 minutes to the park
and back why bother
no need for 15 minutes between sessions
it's unreasonable to require players to
set up groups of four for reservations
every day
just the staff time to coordinate all
this could be used to keep bathrooms
open
why are bathrooms closed not really a
place to congregate
tennis and pickleball both draw from a
pool of players to show up
we can keep six feet apart drawing
waiting circles on the chords or outside
chords
or perhaps what has been done at short
finger sharp limit the number of players
first come first served take names if
need be and have two morning sessions
and two evening sessions
thank you i hope we can rethink court
usage maggie winter
carol shurik sorry
questions for meeting one would you
please give an explanation for why
albuquerque allows a full 18 courts of
four people each to play pickleball
all day long as well as give as used to
restroom facilities yet
las cruces residents are not allowed to
play all day long nor use the restroom
facilities
same is true in ruidoso please do not
respond as you did before to this
question
and that you can explain what other
cities do either your mandate has a
medical explanation or it doesn't
two please definitively state the
criteria by which all pickleball and
tennis courts will be open
we are very frustrated with the moving
criteria three
why do you institute the new policy that
you must collect names of all players
four what tax refunds can taxpayers
expect for these six months that we have
not been permitted to place
to freely use park facilities five how
many p
parks and rec employees have been
furloughed during these past six
months carol sheriff
lynn austin parks and rec advisory board
we understand that the parks and
recreation department is planning to
severely restrict pickleball play at
apotheca park
our circa 50 players have enjoyed eight
weeks of play
over 65 hours with no reported coveted
19 cases
what is bold reasoning behind this
decision
lynn awesome oh gosh i'm not sure if i
know this name
oh jill rogers to whom it may concern
i am writing concerning the proposed
changes to the play at apodaca park as a
member of the pickleball community i can
assure you that the proposed changes
will seriously harm the pickleball
community
question have we been doing something
wrong with up
padalka told that we are not following
guidelines we may have not been giving
something
we may have been given some inaccurate
direction from individuals
unlocking the gate concerning using all
four of the permanent nets
but again we thought we were following
all the directives including planning
masks
i am absolutely in support of social
distancing and the importance of masks
these are challenging times and changes
slash altering alternative
alternations need to be addressed
suggestion one do away with reservations
if you need to restrict people at
apodaca then work on a first common
first place system
similar to the previous system at
merchant with four courts
16 players limit each session one hour
to 18 players
this would allow encourage social
distancing requirement and allow
pickleball game to be enjoyed as
intended
suggestion two do not put a limit on the
number of players
number of sessions a player can
participate in daily
again similar to the system previously
used at mersite after one
session one courts are cleared new
players come in and existing players are
allowed to participate if capacity
elapse
ideally i would like things to continue
as current however we need to make
changes please allow input from the
pickleball community that are trying to
remain active and healthy during these
difficult times
again what are we doing wrong and how
can we help you remain
active and safe km thank you for
consideration
joe rogers cindy carrill
i believe yes
my comments concern the new guidelines
for the pickleball reports that will be
in effect august 24th
2020. i hope the public input wouldn't
be thrown aside like it was for the go
bond projects when comments were
solicited for the public
why are you fixing something that wasn't
broke the gatherings occurred when you
had two of the four
courts open since you opened the two
other courts there are one
three people waiting to play in fact the
players don't have much of a breathers
with the four courts being open
continuous play you have no idea how
pickleball is played we don't play for
45 minutes with the same people
one game will normally last 15 minutes
after that players move on and play with
other players
this game gives all players the
opportunity to meet new people
enhance their skills and look forward to
new challenges where is the money coming
from to hire somebody to babysit us at
papadaka park
where is the money coming from some for
someone to demand the phones for
reservations
the money could be spent better used for
all the weeds around the play areas of
apadaca park
the money would be better it would be
better it would better be spent
paying someone to get off their butts up
there right around cutting grass and
clean all the clippings on the sidewalks
have you ever come to expect to work i
think not why are las cruces rules
different than from albuquerque i was
there a few weekends ago and the courts
are open every day from 6 a.m to 10 p.m
i have to assume that the state rules
applied to all cities right
sorry scrolling do you really think that
pickleball players believe new
guidelines or suggestions from player
community
who did you poll when did this poll take
place how many how many did you pull
i'd like an answer to these questions
and who suggested this ridiculous
schedule
why is the completion date for an
upgrade for apodaca a year away
this has been talked about for two years
how much money has been spent on talking
you have citizens or citizens who enjoy
the game of pickleball and aren't
homesitting and watching tv this
schedule confines us to 45 minutes and
limits us to one session per day
we respect the rules that you place on
us we wear our masks and have social
distance
can you show me a case of pickleball
player that has a virus or had
the virus your concerns for our safety
is heartwarming but you're dealing with
senior citizens who actually know better
don't punish us final comment i
understand the restrooms need to be
closed but porta potties are a necessity
dean peterson the new rules are bs there
was no reason to change
i played every day 8 a.m never had a
problem what really needs to happen is
open the court from 7 a.m to 9 00 p.m
monday through and this is a public
court not a private one
the prop people playing now are at 8 0 m
are pretty much retired and done by 9 30
a.m
we abide by all the rules and with no
problems keeping the water off and rest
no restrooms is okay i play with the
same bunch and do not even know their
names and have been for years
linda moya unfortunately these new rules
hinder those of us wanting to enjoy
outdoor activity while being safe
wearing our masks please reconsider
these very confining rules
very wily right now i play tennis at
lions as much as possible
however the new rules issued that became
effective august 24th by
city of las cruces parks and recreation
will cause me and many other great
difficulty
i was informed by city personnel that
the new rules were issued because there
were complaints the courts were not
available for play
because there were too many players the
simple solution to that is to open
courts now
closed there is no sound clinical
reasoning regarding open 19 to close
half the courts
repeat underlying bolded and italicized
there is no sound clinical reason
because kobit
19 to close half the chords at lions
tunnels has been continues to be one of
the safest activities
possible under cover 19 restrictions i
would urge you to consider the
appropriate
activity within city of las cruces to
open the courts at lyons 24 7 with
reasonable guidelines for cobin 19
production
such as now earning place thanks for
listening harry reilly
laura smart
all right let me just give me 30 seconds
hold on
i have a lot of questions but my first
question is who in the world dreamed
about these rules for pickleball
reservations
nowhere else in the state is there such
an absurd set of regulations to play
pickleball at a public park
in albuquerque 18 courts and monsanto
mesa and multiple other public locations
there are no reservations required it's
first come first serve same for rio dos
lo except all the players have
their own key to access the net and ball
box
plus facilities have restrooms available
some las cruces players are already
going to el paso
to play at their public ports because
they are public and open with restrooms
obviously who whoever made up these
quote rules end quote has never played
pickleball received pickleball played
a player shows up and plays with three
other players who get there first we
warm up
five minutes and play a game of uh 211
which usually takes 10 15 to 20 minutes
with your new rule of only the 45
minutes to play this would mean that we
get two games of pickleball
players usually play between two and
four hours rotating in and out of play
at least seven games
coming in the park to be limited to play
only two games is ridiculous
when mirsha was open the play time was
two and a half hours
did you hire an employee to monitor and
be the quote mass police end quote
as well as the quote cleaning of the
court and quote maintenance person
exactly how are they
quote going to clean unquote the courts
between 45-minute games
will they take lysol and disinfect the
courts we already provide our own
paddles
balls and water it's august 19th and
you're changing the rules after the
governor shut down the state since march
17th
all you're accomplishing at this point
is frustration for players with the city
mayor castle the mayor and city council
why the court's not open on sunday
a lot of players work during the week
and saturday and sundays are the only
days that they can play
i'm guessing because you would have to
pay an employee double time to work on
sunday
what happens when an out-of-town player
shows up and they have no reservation
but there's a court available with
three other players who need a fourth in
order to play a doubles match
we have your quote monitor and quote
call the police when a player isn't
wearing a mask during play
when will the rehab for apodaca
pickleball courts begin
how long will the courts be closed down
where are we supposed to play when the
construction begins
did we have the contractors sign a quote
time limit and quote
agreement could you please provide some
quote transparency end quote with the
highland enterprise and the pickleball
players
when will the construction of the east
mexico sports complex begin
will the pickleball players have any say
quote say
end quote in the particulars of the
chosen design of the quote
quartz if my demeanor in this email
seems to be out of character for me it's
because all the pickleball players are
upset and frustrated
with how you have handled our beloved
sport regulation since march 17th
please don't recite any quote cliches
and quote with me about how quote
all you care about is public safety end
quote we are adults and we will take
responsibility for our own
playing pickleball is not only healthy
but joyful you however have taken the
quote joy
and quote and removed it from our
healthy regime
okay
this is from linda mccamely
i've been playing at lions court for
almost 30 years dropping tennis in the
morning we play with whoever shows up
and when we need to leave we do some
stay for a couple hours some of the
older people
older people only an hour when the city
parks and rec
initiated the new covered regulations
and closed half the courts it became a
problem
12 quarts to six but we made it work
everyone shared courts and it
became it's become doable by the way
albuquerque and alamogordo have not
closed their courts
we have come under the same state
regulations so i'm not sure how this is
happening
why are we being so unfairly restricted
i'm the one who takes this disease
extremely seriously and have thought
the governor has done an excellent job
in trying to keep the safe what this
seems to be excessive
last night we get an email stating the
entire policy is changing we'll need
reservations to play exact people and
ids will be checked
first of all we won't even know first of
all we don't even know last name so
we've come and played this is a very
informal network networks
has worked for many years then the
course will be restricted to 45 minutes
really that's not even worth
driving to the courts what is this
policy going to do
to have seniors not play tennis it's not
worth it we have 80
70 80 year olds who come in faithfully
to play with friends for the amount of
time
they can handle and quit during coveted
one would think that for health reasons
you would want to have seniors out and
playing to stay healthy
and it's one of the safest sports to
play during this pandemic if parks and
rec is clear
to it is trying to clear the courts
alliances surely will do it
i find it hard to believe that anyone
responsible for these new policies even
plays tennis or has talked to any of the
players involved
these new changes are worse than leaving
it as is
that's cool candy
gmo sorry i truly appreciate the city
active role in trying to keep us safe
from covet but these new guidelines are
doing more harm than good
first and foremost 45 minutes play
tennis is an unacceptable time frame
there are three sets in a tennis match
set takes a half hour more or less
plus there's the need to warm up prior
to play their changeover after
each odd game counts 90 seconds
collecting balls after each point etc
so for people who come across town to
play 45 minutes is ridiculous
the real solution here is to open all
courts monday through saturday from
7 30 a.m to 12 p.m 5 2
p.m to 9 00 pm this will be plenty of
time for all the
for all to play with continued mass the
ball usage and distancing
i've played online since 1997 i know
most of the players and the uses of the
chords
my suggestions will cover everyone who
wants to play at lions
and covet safe
okay carol shannon
i'm writing because of my concerns that
shape just taking place
playing tennis knocking some balls at
lions courts since the courts have
reopened
i have played every tuesday and thursday
morning and wednesday evening weather
permitted
here's what i have observed one it is a
first come first place of everyone who
wants to play starts arriving at 7 30am
to get in line for when the courts are
unlocked yes it is hard to maintain
social distance when everyone is trying
to go through one door
either in order to get a court we have
helped to resolve that by determining
who
the first six groups are and what cults
they want to take then we can take our
time getting to our quote assign
and quote court it has worked well those
folks arriving late did not get a court
and usually a court did not free up for
at least an hour and a half
uh 42 45 minute time 45 minute limit
at the beginning las cruces folks were
coming to the courts every hour and i
wondered how they were going to enforce
the 45 minute rule
or were they going to kick off if there
was something waiting to hit slash
that got answered pretty quickly nothing
happened no one has to leave you can hit
a ball and around in 45 minutes you
cannot play tennis games
like sets in 45 minutes three i was
under the impression that only four
people max were allowed on a court which
would
which would rule server out
tennis that has been played every
morning for years by many of our senior
players since there would be two or
three extra folks on the court
i personally think the that's that that
style increases
the risk of spread of code 19 which is
why i only play doubles four pillars on
a court
when the las cruces folks came to the
courts every hour to check and never
made the extra players
on server outports leave the new rules
some of which are good implies that you
will be having an employee at the courts
the entire time
they're open to check in and enforce the
rules
that doesn't seem realistic for city
courts here are the things that i think
are problematic
for enforcing rules cannot be enforced
unless someone is there the entire
enforcing entire we're seeing the rules
not just watching
two preserving courts i played in
montana for 20 plus years we had to call
in and reserve
indoor quotes it was a nightmare trying
to get a call
in and to get through the person taking
reservations
three limiting time on court to 45
minutes by the time you get to the court
you get your racket
and your balls and warm up for five
minutes minimum recommended time to
avoid injuries
you have lost close to 10 minutes at
least 35 minutes all sets take 35 to 45
minutes to play
not much tenants four in all of the new
quote
new unquote rules you've never
even mentioned the mask mandate when
you're out in public even when you're
exercising
it seems very odd that you tried to
micromanage the other details in an
state mandate do i think everyone should
have to wear a mask while playing tennis
no tennis has always been considered one
of the safe activities
but i choose my small circle of friends
to play tennis with
and i always wear masks to play my group
only touches their own balls in warm up
and during serving
we put our bags in separate corners on
the court to minimize socially
socializing adventuring switch sides we
take the situation very seriously but we
still want to play tennis
five timing the public health order is
in place through august 28th i think it
is silly to be making all these changes
for august 24th
prior to seeing what happens in what is
in place after august 28th
all right next one is frank for real
watching public input being destroyed
last month by city employees
misreceptive mysteries
they're misrepresenting the facts that
were
presented to the board mayor city
manager then nothing done to correct the
situation
like it's okay sends a clear message
public no longer
can look to city for a fair shake making
public input just a joke that you must
go through but means nothing
council meeting 17 2020 awarded this
the same design contractor quote no big
contract end quote
two value of 5.2 million dollars by
quote consent and quote of quote
accepting the agenda end quote without
one city council member asking one
question nor the bid
process for voters may be a better deal
giving other contractors a chance having
a statement of detail work
sow really written with deliberations
and time schedules for the citizens of
las cruces
it's now been two years since the bond
issue not one spate of dirt has been
turned
turned for people city should be ashamed
council should be ashamed
yet we can make our new city manager the
highest paid in the state right in this
contract we must take two weeks
executively without being charged for
leaving i guess that's for stress how
about all the stress of taxpayers of the
bonds who have nothing
we have nothing at peace makes our parks
or the new dog park and we have paid
over 700 000
to contractors already one bill says
brief city council 7 000
there's a stress for people just keep on
giving to the people you think you're
not
you're not watching like the council but
we are
from frank curiel now i have to make
reservations play pickleball 15 minutes
for 45 minutes make about as much sense
as everything i
said above you're doing you really don't
want public input for comment
you're out of control below the 7 000
build to brief the city council by you
go
bond contractor you can't wordsmith it
but gives
us stress
okay diana i'm going to say vienna
the bulletin states we must have the
names of all players for the courts when
making a reservation
i'm just one person can one person make
a reservation for his or herself
where does that have to be a total of
four names when making reservation
mark and sarah mcdowell i have many
concerns about the upcoming rule changes
for pickleball
i only ask that you come out and see how
we have do
how we have doing and how things have
been working
yes there are people waiting to play but
we quote distance and quote ourselves
we rotate in and out with everyone
getting a chance to play and play
multiple people throughout
the time we are there it's been working
fairly decent
i have no i see no reason to change
things like i said there are multiple
issues i have with these proposed
changes and i only ask that you come out
and see how we've been quote policing
and quote ourselves
thanks
jay mark khan i wish to say that nearly
half of the folks using the court simply
show up to see who is well enough to
play
or doesn't have a professional
appointment to make as many
to make as many are either seniors or
professionals trying to fit in time
between meetings
it would be extremely difficult to
implement a system similar to the one at
friendship pool
which i participate when you have four
individuals who must coordinate 45
minute time slot
it's a lot harder than single
participants of friendship i'm used to
the frontrunner system now and it's
working but if you
try to do it alliance that's a different
ballgame so to speak well why try to
make a major change now when the coveted
state
states coded numbers are so good and
we're probably weeks away from the next
phase let's keep the traditional walk-up
system and play as it's been for 15
years
it was a major facet of what drove my
decision to move here 15 years ago
let's make this make it easy for those
desiring a complete education including
pe which was
excluded by educational institutes
decades ago we really can
do our part to combat obesity and type 2
diabetes
for those excluded from physical
exercise in our educational institutions
decades ago jay marxie a free thinker
from the land of enchantment taking the
load less traveled
and carol sharok sorry carol
please note that of today new mexico
officially meets the governor's own
gaining criteria to open
she links to a ko koat article
um and this again
i'm not going to read the article but it
is included find that one
i would suggest we open all 12 courts
then there would be no need for
reservations and time restrictions on
courts
laurie martin to whom i may concern i
was informed earlier today that hours
and times you can now play
tennis are limited to the phone copy
paste down an email
we were told that people have been
called in
to the city making complaint suggestions
all of these suggestions complaints must
be
from people that do not play tennis this
does not begin to make sense
whatsoever these are city courts and it
is an outdoor activity one of the few
capitalized one of the few very few safe
things to do during the virus
riddell bunker pharaoh apologies
thank you for opening the courts on
monday to saturday thank you for opening
the courts earlier starting at 7am
i believe it is very unrealistic to
think that tennis can be played in 45
minute increments
most people i know play for a couple
hours we have to make reservations
please allow for two consecutive
sessions a day to be played in the same
group
please add a session four in the morning
10 to 10 45 a.m
sometimes we form a group of four and
something comes up for example
kid grandkids need a sitter plumbing
issues etc we have to find a substitute
in order to play doubles can the
original three players plus a substitute
still use the preservation that was
made originally or will no one be able
to play exercise is one of the ways we
can keep a positive attitude during this
time
relieve stress and increase our immune
system please don't make it hard for us
to
exercise pat martinez
but the next one is peppermint sorry
okay parks and rec uh advisory board
members the changes to the policy make
reservations include the names of
players 24 hours before only 1
to 3 p.m is extremely restrictive
suggestions to address complaints also
make
covid guidelines open all courts at
lions park this will reduce the number
of players per court
and still allow for the social distance
of six feet
open the courts at young and young park
and friendship
increase the playing time to at least an
hour and a half hours one and a half
hours
most players would be more receptive to
getting off the courts good idea to
start at 7pm
if you have to make reservations there
needs to be a way to allow for
substitutions since that is a
possibility that does occur free
use of mask while playing how healthy is
that do you have someone from the las
cruces players association on this board
thank you for your attention
and this is not a this one you guys can
perk up to this is not a um
pickleball one this is another one so
just giving that as a heads up
this is from ryan harmon darius sorry
ryan
hello all i would like to first like to
thank the board and all the staff of the
parks and recreation department for the
city of las cruces
the board's guidance and the diligent
work by staff has brought the city
beautiful and functional parks and
programs
without all that being said i believe we
can still improve our service to the
community
safety and customer service are at the
core of what parks and recreation does
so why not create a volunteer position
that provides these two things precisely
a park
service aid could be a position that
fills many roles such as safety liaison
security officer community educator and
at the core of the position a customer
service provider
if this is something that the board
would consider i would love to expand
more on the idea
another topic i would like the board to
consider is extending park hours to
before down and after dusk
sorry many people on our city work
shipwork
may not be able to enjoy our beautiful
parks during the current opening hours
i believe this would also give more
opportunities to those who may not be
able to withstand the heat of our
summers
this would mean adding more lighting to
existing parks over time but new parks
such as the two new dog parks could have
this cost incorporated into the initial
design
thank you all once again for the
wonderful work you do i look forward to
the board's response
clayton henry this goes back to
the pickleball and it says i agree with
everything frank and laura have written
i think there will be very few players
that will be able to justify playing
with the new rules i am already driving
to el paso about three times a week
occasionally to rio so where you can
play as long as you want anyone wishing
to carpool
uh to five set net tomorrow meet at
mcdonald's at university at 8 30 can
play
eight and one o'clock
dean peterson they are no way trying to
help
albuquerque alamo and nmc all have
rights that are helping tennis players
call in every day to play
public court is bs open all the courts
first come first serve
call the governor and get the rights
changed not hard to do
and cece hunter well written laura but
unfortunately the mayor is not listening
to his citizens
and is determined to keep these
ridiculous rules my question to the
mayor is why are we blocking our players
from being out in the beautiful outdoors
enjoying and participating in a physical
activity that boosts our immune system
as well
contributes to overall mental please
reconsider and listen to your solutions
wait hold on i believe that was it right
[Music]
yes i believe that was the last of it
alrighty so number six
action items right
just a quick comment just that if any of
the board members want to make
uh put any of the comments or
anything that's gonna that was just said
on a future agenda
they can put that on a future agenda and
then i think on tonight's agenda
i believe miss delgado also has some
cobit updates that she might be able to
um comment on some of those as well and
same with other staff members
as we move forward through this all
right yeah does anybody want to
leave it up to the board cassie did you
get that very last one that i sent
in a separate email i don't i don't
think so
do you want me to read it yes sure
it was from mark and sarah mcdowell
i have many concerns about the upcoming
rules changes for pickleball
i only ask that you come out and see how
we have been
we have doing and how things have been
working
yes there are people waiting to play but
we distance
ourselves we rotate in and out
with everyone getting a chance to play
and play with multiple people
throughout the time we are there it's
been working fairly decent and i see no
reason to change things
like i said there are multiple issues i
have with these proposed changes
and i only ask that you come out and see
how we have been policing ourselves
thanks mark mcdowell
eric stan megan
any comments questions
given in a second um no cassie i just
want to reiterate um great job on
reading through those
um i know that was a lengthy process and
so i really appreciate
you going through that and um kind of to
reiterate robert my question was just to
make sure that we followed the correct
protocol as
the comments that were made seem to have
a short timeline
before being placed on our agenda for
next month
eric stan anything if not and i will
head into action items
um yeah madam chair so
um unless miss delgado can um
cover a lot of the um answers to
a general theme from the public
input it does i do agree with
um with ms schuler that
that waiting another month
might be too long to address to address
all of it
adam chair sonia delgado parks and
recreation director
and other board members what i could do
is
i don't want to accidentally not answer
one of those questions that were in
all of those emails so what i will do is
i can take all those emails
go through each and every single one
answer each question
and send them back to the board and then
i can also send a reply
and copy the board when i send it back
to the
individual that sent that email
i will need a couple of days to get that
done but i will get that done
uh i should be able to get it done
within 48 hours after this meeting
if that's acceptable to the board
would we be able to i mean i feel like
there are a couple questions
asked over again is there a way to just
do a
faq for you that kind of hits all of
those
would that make it easier madam chair
members of the board sony delgado
i can answer some of those questions
here
when we go over our co-bed and i i just
want to
um make something clear
i know that it was said that you were
going to be taking action on some rules
that is not the case the update that's
on your agenda for cobed
was just to give you an update of where
we are staff wise
um what kinds of things we have done
innovatively to change some programming
what have we been able to do
where we were with regards to the orders
how we got there
so i can we can answer some of those
questions not a problem but i don't
i want to make sure that i don't miss
any of those questions because i don't
want someone to think that
you know we purposely alluded that
question and didn't want to give an
answer
so we can certainly answer a lot of them
probably tonight
but i will go through and make sure that
we
answer every single one and i will make
sure uh the board
is aware and that each and every person
receives a reply from me
that sound good to everybody yeah that
sounds good and i'll hold my
questions or comments until after the
update
because some of the state orders and
that i could see
it would be violating but um
in the aspect of playing yeah
play healthy out um
all these orders are aggravating
and yes we abide by them and
yes we're trying to get through this and
it's all a new thing but i'll hold my
questions and comments until we hear the
updates okay
all righty without any further ado
which i like to do it's okay let's do
number six action items
and we don't have any action items this
time right as i understand it
yes correct so we're going straight to
discussion number seven
and let's go 7.1 go bond project updates
with tony
madam chair this is tony trufino
the interim deputy director of public
works i'm going to share a screenshot
okay can you all see that
i'm going to take that as a yes yes yes
i see it
okay so what i wanted to go through
today is just kind of give you
an updated program schedule this is our
latest one from
august 12th this has all of our geo bond
projects all 35.6 million
dollars of projects which is the dog
parks the
trails sports courts rehabilitation the
hadley complex you need that
east mesa red complex fire station
animal service center
i'm going to skip the first two projects
a and b has also the animal service
center and jump into the east mesa
public rec complex as you can see here
as you go to the right
the light blue is kind of was our
anticipated planning and scoping
and the purples are designed what's
below it is what it actually took and
we're actually at
in the lighter shades of purple and blue
of purple
um we're in the third quarter of 2020
we had we're we're a little we did take
about an
extra two three months to do some master
planning for the entire project
of that east mesa sports complex um
what we wanted to do is we do you want
to go out there and just build
half a complex without planning the
entire future build out
with um additional soccer fields the
baseball complex
uh additional pickleball courts and so
forth so we took the time to
make sure we plan it out accordingly to
allow for future expansion
um right now we're currently in the
design phase
as you can see here we plan on having
this the design out and bidding by the
first quarter of 2021
which is about february of 2021 be out
to bid
this allowing a few weeks for our
procurement process
and into construction
um taking us into the third quarter of
2022. this has a little bit of fluff
built into it for some unforeseen
circumstances once we get a contractor
on board
this uh schedule will be defined
more as this is just our preliminary
schedule and our hard deadlines
for the consultants and the contractors
that we have to meet
uh of course when we get into contracts
we'll try to negotiate and shorten this
up uh below
project d is the you need that park
you can see here the planning and
scoping um
and the actual we're right on target for
there we're in the design process
however right now we're probably about
75 to 80 done with design
we were going with a flow through system
however we're going to go back and check
for some water conservation issues um
of installing a recirculating pump
into the splash pad and what this is
going to require is
additional showers and bathrooms to be
built
near the facility so we are going to
reconvene with the architect
the consultant and uh
get this handled and taken care of and
figure out the budget for this splash
pad
the park structure the playground
structure you saw in a previous meeting
it's all designed laid out and the only
kind of
thing we're working on now is the splash
pad as you can see here the bidding
we're planning for the the end of this
year hopefully
by no by november it might get pushed
out about a month so you can
take care of the um the outstanding
research situation however the
construction
of the united park we're looking about
the third quarter of 2021 so the end of
next summer
the east mesa halley avenue
red complex we just went to council last
week
or was it no it was monday sorry
apologize um
we this is a design-build contract as
well as the park and sports courts
rehabilitation project f
with the design bill the first part of
the contract is up to 60
design where we plan scope and value
engineer
the project to see where we're at and
then we
negotiate a guaranteed maximum price but
this is kind of for all the projects for
all the
11 parks within the parks and sports
courts
all the complexes and the hadley the
uh paws mag hardy and ron gaia
we had to go back and not go back but we
hadn't
taken all the designs we took in the
public comment
and we agreed on a price with the
with the contractor yes this you can see
the planning and scoping of this was
took about a year um and now we're
actually designed however there is a lot
of
input we had to get for this a lot of
different intricacies we had to get
involved with this
however we on this we're on the page and
you can see we're actually ahead of
schedule
our anticipated timeline to go into
construction was going to be
the third quarter of 2020
and we're going to be a few weeks ahead
of that as well as the parks and sports
course
right now we're in the process of
getting that
contract executed for that amended for
the
final design and construction portion of
both of those projects
the recreational trails we did have an
ebid meeting
a couple weeks ago we did get the permit
for the messiah drain trail
which goes from the outfall channel
south to burn lake um it's going to stop
it's going to go past burn lake under
the underpass and stop at lakeside drive
at this point we are working with evid
for other permits
along the other drains however um
with the complexities of the 11 or 13
miles of trails
we wanted to be able to get construction
started ahead of time
so we're just doing a travel at a time
for the permitting so we can get the
contractor out there building the trail
as soon as possible
um again those plans are 60
and hopefully will be under construction
with the first part of those trials
um by november or so
um in the dog parks you can see here in
the bottom
um that is a dog park
for behind the animal service center and
the dog park
at burn lake we are working hard to try
and include both of those dog parks
within
the animal service center project
as they're kind of aligned together
um those plan for the animal citizen are
90 and so are those
uh projects also and as you can see here
the
anticipated construction for those is
beginning of 2021
and ending the summer of 2021.
uh at this point i will stand for any
questions regarding
any of the park gioban projects
does anyone have any questions from the
board
should i take that as no i think we're
good
then right thank you tony i appreciate
it i think that gives uh
some of the questions that were asked
and public input seemed like
this might give them some idea of what
the process is behind us a little bit
more too
okay and then we are also scheduled for
a work session in september to go over
all the jung
the gioban projects with the city
council for kind of a more
in in-depth presentation of what we gave
you today
robert i see you yeah thank you tony
that was good i was just kind of
thinking back to
some of the the questions and kind of
also my own
wondering on kind of where the money's
been through the go bond
something in this aspect is there
anything
that's available for public and the
aspect to say here's
what's being spent on which projects or
where we are
kind of how this lays out on planning
scoping design and construction
is there anything now that has
now that some of the bidding's been done
on where we are on
construction costs that's available for
general public
um yes for that and i'm going to take
this
sports cards the scope is what we had
provided to you all in the um parks and
rec
advisory board meeting a few weeks ago
the scope has not changed
um pricing yes that'll
that can be be available when requested
um the with that is
those are more of a maintenance project
kind of more of a scope regarding the
resurfacing there's not really much of a
design drawing you can do for a lot of
these uh
grinding similar to the cracks not much
of a design
more of a written scope of all the
efforts are going to happen on all these
courts
um we have all that written down and
that's part of the the contract that
went to city council
the entire scope is written down by
particle of every item that's going to
be uh
done at each one of those courts as well
as
all that is another thank you
yes sir
anyone else for this specifically
okay
i don't see that where is that
hi there this is hi madam chair i'm
bored
um this is cece vasconcello's with
the community engagement office i just
wanted to mention that there is a
go bomb project web page that the public
can access
and get the latest up-to-date
information there as well
and that is that they can just go to the
cruises.org site and look for go bond
projects and it'll take them right to it
thank you
thank you is there a way that you could
copy and paste that into the youtube
like chat or at least the link to it
awesome i don't know i can try okay okay
all right has anybody else got their
hand up now i'm going to scroll through
can i see if i see that
i don't lastly going once
going twice all right
next i'm going to go to 7.2 parks and
rec recoved update
with sonia
yes uh good evening uh madam chair
members of the board sonia delgado parks
and recreation director
uh before i i'm gonna give you a little
bit of background first and then i'm
gonna have
each one of our team members that are
here with us
talk about their areas and kind of some
of the things that they've done
um to be able to get some programs out
there some things they've done virtually
and what we're looking for in the future
hopefully so just to get started um our
budget has stayed
whole we don't have anyone who's been on
furlough
um in the beginning of this pandemic
when it started
march 20th for us is when we got sent
home
we were not considered essential we were
told we were not essential
so and about uh less than two weeks
later we were
told to come back in because they needed
our assistance to take care of some
things because people are
out and about on the trails in the parks
and calling in about different things
here and there
and so we started coming back online the
first group to start to come back online
was our parks team
um currently and then we slowly started
bringing everybody else back online
we're we will be at approximately 32
hours
per person by the end of the month this
month and we're trying to get to full
time
uh by middle of next month and that we
also have to take into consideration
all the spacing requirements are going
to need at the offices in our buildings
and trying to we're going to have some
staggered schedules
we're going to have um we're going to be
doing things a little bit differently
when it comes to the office
each office has already been equipped
with spacers on the floor to tell you
where your distance is
we do check in with the thermometer we
do go over
all the questions ask about our health
before we walk into the facility
we wear masks at all times the only time
we'll take it off is if you're in your
office alone
and there's nobody around you but as
soon as someone starts coming close we
put our masks on immediately
we do not have meetings in person we're
doing them all virtually even with our
teams
if we do get together in groups it's
less than five so that we are not in
violation
of the public health order um
like i said we don't have anyone who's
on furlough thank goodness and we don't
have
and our budget has stayed at hole and
actually uh the city
of las cruces has not furloughed anyone
we do have some individuals
um that may not they're not quite at 40
hours yet if they're full time but we're
slowly starting to get them back there
and if we don't if they can't do their
specific program
we are making sure we have other things
to do which we do we have lots going on
in parks and rec
we're just trying to do things a little
bit differently i'd also like to touch
on
before i start handing this over is
our park and program situation so i get
a lot of questions and you received a
lot of questions about
what about albuquerque why does
alamogordo rio doso el paso
and the list goes on and on i cannot
speak for them
all i can tell you is what i was asked
to do by
council and the mayor and when this
first started
we went forward uh when the governor we
closed
everything got shut down we started put
together a plan to see if we could get
some things opened
and she was willing to listen to those i
was asked
by our council on the mayor to send a
plan to the state epidemiologist
so that they could review it and see if
it fell within those orders and then
it they were good with that we did get
that plan approved
that is the plan that we are utilizing
right now
so i don't know what albuquerque did
i don't know what alamogordo did and i
don't know what ruidoso did and i don't
know if they asked them to do
the same thing i i cannot answer that
question
i do not work for them and i know that
in some agencies they've asked um
they were asking us how did we put our
plan together and that's exactly what
i've told them i've shared it with
others
cities we've talked about it uh they've
utilized some of the things that we've
implemented so that's been a good thing
and i know it's frustrating uh we feel
that
we feel that every single day and we're
trying to we want to get back to our
normal also and i know it's going to be
a new normal
but we're trying to bring back the
programs as much as we can and
you're going to hear that from all the
different supervisors administrators
that i have here tonight
to talk about that and talk about their
areas
so i do commend each and every one of
them because this has not been easy
not at all we have individuals that are
pulling us from
every single direction you can possibly
think of and
it has been trying uh but everybody's
been hanging in there and so we just
asked the community to hang in there
with us
and we will continue to do our best one
of the biggest
issues uh that has been happening is
and i think it's because people are
getting comfortable people are getting
um they're not staying on top of
everything anymore
and it's we're starting to get groups
together
and so that's been one of the issues
we've been having um
and we we have to make sure that that
doesn't happen
and in the beginning when we start
opening our courts i'll back up a little
bit when we start opening up the courts
for example
we didn't have staff there every single
day and every single hour
all the entire time because all our
staff weren't back
they didn't have all the hours yet so we
had to spread people around to help us
with other areas
because part of that plan opened up a
few specialty courts that we had to go
through to
um open and close and when that started
to happen
um it that became an issue and so we
didn't have enough people
so we're hoping that
with this plan and moving forward it'll
make things a little bit easier
so i hope that we we can always revisit
it
i'll be more than happy to do that and
once the governor
uh relaxes some of those orders we can
certainly start looking at you know what
else can we add and what else can we
open
because i know that's extremely
important so i'm hoping that
the next press conference will be a
little bit better than what it has been
these last few times
so i just wanted to say that before i
pass that along
um and i again i just want to say thank
you to the team who they've done an
outstanding job of trying to navigate
through this
so i'll start with phil um i know he's
been having some issues with his um
internet but i think he's good now so if
he drops off or something we'll get him
back on as quickly as possible
but i'll turn it over to phil and he can
talk to you about what the recreation
section's been up to
go ahead phil good evening can you guys
hear me
yes yes okay good evening
the recreation section programs and
facilities closed up at the end of
business on march
13th and uh with the exception of the
regional aquatic center which closed at
the end of business of march
14th our pool maintenance workers
continued to work from that point
to the present because the pool still
needed to be serviced
when all staff have been put on eol the
managers continue to come in
and work on hiring purchasing receiving
and every all the duties needed
daily uh office activity has increased
monthly as we've been going forward
right now the recreation staff is
working 32 hours a week
and at the beginning of september sonia
said we should be up to 40 hours
on the individual programming the city
wellness program remained active from
closing
and continues now by providing fitness
challenges through movespring
which is a which is an app that can be
done and tracked through the computer
and on portable portable devices like
fitbit
etc during this time staff has
distributed food for senior programs in
beginning april 2nd through may the 22nd
four sites daily for mass distributions
and then on fridays
they were getting the big boxes from the
state
and as of today it continues and right
now we are also helping
three different senior sites with the
drive uh
up mild mill pickups so we're over at
frank o'brien papen uh east side
and ben avitas daily helping senior
programs
deliver meals to the seniors uh may 26
as soon as stated that the specialty
courts opened up
and our staff has been monitoring and
tracking and
opening the facilities for pickleball
tennis
uh we were doing the rc airport the rc
uh
track for for rc cars the shooting range
and staff has continuously been doing
that and we're getting ready to
to step up uh the program that you heard
a lot about at the start of the meeting
on the 24th on june 11th we began
virtual music in the park we had to do
something different when the when the
kova 19 hit
uh musical acts and and uh
were one of the first to to get hit and
all their gigs canceled
we made it a priority to find a way to
keep our music going
there is one of our biggest programs for
the summer
we do uh usually 17 concerts in the
summer
this year we were able beginning june
11th to record
band only concerts and we recorded 14
concerts
and we've posted them on the city's uh
youtube page vimeo and our webpage
and you can get the link from facebook i
hope you guys have had a chance to check
it out
it's had a great reception so far uh
june 15th the regional aquatic center
and fringer pool opened up for lap swim
only as did the original aquatic center
upstairs at a 25
capacity level and in june
at continuing today rec staff has
recorded and posted uh
virtual videos for hiking biking sports
skills
art galleries and and those are posted
on the city vimeo page as well as well
as our facebook
one of the big things we took on this
year was the virtual fourth of july
uh parade and the fireworks show
the fireworks show is a little tricky as
we try to keep social distance
for our community but still have a great
display for the community
and we were able to shoot off a firework
display
from the dam over there by q time
at the messiah dam it was a great
success and i think the community really
liked
that we still move forward with the
fourth of july even during
these pandemic times a couple of other
things that we're doing is we're
following all at our facilities
in programs we're following all the
state and cdc guidelines in several
areas staff has worked to put plexiglas
guards
we've procured the the necessary ppe
we're working through the
proper distancing requirements shower
protocols cleaning and sanitation
schedules
and we have rules posted for patrons and
staff for their needed safety
so every time that someone goes into
that pool and they take a shower we have
to go in there and sanitize the
the showers so our guys have been
constantly
busy and working on stop very proud of
them but that's what we are doing for
covid
to take care of business thank you
thank you phil uh robert nunez
good evening board uh robert nunes uh so
for
in youth services we had a wonderful
summer program for 18
days that ended on august 7th we were
able to
have 65 kids in our program following
all guidelines
we utilized all city facilities
just did a tremendous job this this
summer um as we're moving forward
uh we were we're in discussions with um
early childhood and care development um
through the state's office because as we
transition into a school year
what happens is we're exempt during the
summer time
for our summer programs but when we want
to do things during the day we're
classified as child care
during the school year so we're actually
have a meeting with them tomorrow
to discuss how we can uh receive some
temporary approvals
um and and what we need to put in place
so that we can continue programming
and really in programming we're talking
about mentoring
tutoring and offering some of our youth
and their and their families
an opportunity to us get assistance with
with technology um some of our
facilities
have wi-fi so that they could utilize
the wi-fi
uh so we'll be looking into that and we
hope to start that by labor day
um right after labor day and and be able
to
offer that within some of our facilities
overall staff has has been very positive
uh we had some great trainings they
continue to do trainings
as we get prepared um they're thinking
outside the box
they're really looking forward to they
are
they want to have that face to face
um of course following all guidelines
with mask and distancing
but you see these kids and you see the
families and and i can share some
letters with you in regards to
uh the kids and the the parents so
thankful
for for staff providing these programs
keeping everybody safe
and and doing what we needed to do for
our community
in our juvenile citation program we
recently were approved
for fy21 uh 308
799 so we'll continue of course the
program this year
currently we're doing 100 virtual
intakes assessments uh classes
follow-ups uh and it's going well
we're working very closely with jpo we
have a meeting
on monday with las cruces public schools
and next week with gatson independent
school districts
on how we can help them when they
identify
some youth that are or maybe um
not being as focused within uh this
this uh remote learning and and seeing
if we can do anything to a system um
keep las cruces beautiful we are
currently providing
supplies uh we're we're recruiting
groups of five if they can go out we can
provide the bags
the gloves um
[Music]
and and the the the litter
uh grabbers um and we have had groups
come forward
um that program is also grant funded
and we were just notified that we've
been approved um
i know it's 41 000 mr woods was here uh
last month a month before
uh and that'll be going to council in
september so
as we're we don't have youth with us
right now
but we're really preparing our staff
collecting their schedules as well
because we're looking to do things in
the morning in the afternoons
and so we need staff to be very flexible
so we're looking at their college
schedules
as of course they just recently went
back to school
but we are going to make things work and
and we
will provide some type of service to our
community and the youth and the families
here
thank you very much
thank you robert um kathy
good afternoon um or good evening member
support
i wanted to uh report on
for franco granio regarding the parks
covid um status and processes
um franco notes the
parks staff came back on a limited basis
two weeks after the initial
shutdown uh only maintenance staff for
four hours on mondays and fridays for
literary and general
cleanliness issues um as sonia mentioned
parks was originally considered
non-essential and so
staff was brought back gradually
starting
with those four hours on mondays and
fridays initially
also one construction worker was
tasked with checking the playgrounds to
make sure that um
they remained closed at that time um
and that check occurred two times per
week to make sure that those playgrounds
were
um cordoned off
um these conditions lasted until about
mid
april when staff then was increased to
16 hours per week and then
24 hours per week in may um
also parks brought on operators or
modified mowing schedule as the bermuda
grass started growing
as spring temperatures warmed up and
also irrigators
um to make sure that the
turf was maintained properly median
staff
also came back with their normal duties
and um at that time
in april and may we were allowed to
bring back
10 of the 23 temporary
employees um then in early august of
course
um the hours were increased to 32 hours
per week
and that's where we stand right now with
staff working 32 hours per week
um all staff that is
everybody comes in on 10-minute
staggered shifts
to make sure that we can maintain
distancing proper distancing
uh in the mornings rather than everybody
crowding into the warehouse as they get
ready to start their day
and i just want to know for parks we
anticipate by mid-september
that we'll be back to 40 hours per week
of course that is dependent on the
governor's orders and
and how that works for it i also wanted
to mention then
with regard to the design and
construction staff
so there's myself the landscape
architect
and two project specialists um
working on designing construction
projects
in march of course we transitioned to
working remotely
we were not classified as essential but
we were
able to um cobble together
the technology resources to work
remotely and so
all three of us continued to work
full-time
uh just remotely from home also we
continue to observe and inspect
construction projects meet with
contractors on site
um of course wearing masks and observing
uh social distancing out on site but
that allowed us to keep all our
construction projects and all our
planning and
design moving forward um in april
we continued to work remotely and also
transitioned to um the three of us
coming
into the office twice a week on tuesday
and thursday mornings
to do accomplished tasks that could only
be accomplished in the office
costing scanning um
meeting together um to discuss our
project updates
um and the like and to upgrade our
technology as well
um of course we observed uh limited
numbers in those meetings
um proper distancing and wearing masks
as well then may through july we of
course continued that
as things changed our schedules did not
change because it was working for us
we managed to be i have to say my team
managed to be
extremely productive during this time um
but i did want to note also that um in
july
the youth conservation corps program
got started and so we brought on seven
uh
youth conservation corps crew members
and
um and gave them some training in how to
um work using the
social distancing requirements and the
masking requirements and the like and
they adapted very well
um to these strange times um
and uh made and observed those practices
during their training
and also while they're out there working
um
doing the audits of the irrigation
system and then of course now we're in
august and so we've added to all our
practices the
temperature checks every morning so
anybody who comes into the office
on our team does the temperature checks
um
notes the the questions to make sure
that um
we're following the proper copic
procedures
um so with that i just wanna read it
we are we are continuing to work and and
provide our services for our residents
um
because we need them more than ever we
need parks and open space and places to
recreate and
so that as we transition into better
times those spaces will be available to
us and all our rest thank you very much
thank you kathy um cece
am i on the air i don't see myself oh
there i am okay good
um so from day one um
we've been working with parks and rec to
provide information to the public
um as changes were coming about we were
using press releases we were posting
information on
social media and we were using direct
email
when appropriate through resources like
the e-track system and our own excusing
our own databases
so it was it's a constant effort to keep
the information
out there because it's changing so
quickly and we
we were trying really hard to provide
updates
as they happened um it seemed like
sometimes we'd be in the middle of
writing a
press release and already we had to
change the information so
it's just been that fluid um
we also created a web page where the
community can go and see the latest
updates
and get information about the open
facilities and
and read the guidelines and and how to
use them
um also the the currently closed
um facilities and programs and services
and
that website is lost cruises dot org
forward slash cobit 19 park schedule
and that should be on the youtube site
hopefully
um and then there's the other piece it
was
um an effort to keep the community
engaged
we knew they were staying at home they
they weren't able to go
out they weren't able to be as active as
they were used to being
and they couldn't use you know the gyms
or pools or
all the facilities that they were used
to using so um
we worked to get uh um activities on
social media that
or or do um like like
short videos and and we came up with
psas that
gave them suggestions on on games to
play activities to do
so that's been an ongoing effort we also
shared videos that were provided to us
by
organizations like the national fitness
campaign to encourage people to stay
active and that was done on social media
um we participated in other events such
as earth day
which happened in april um it was a
month-long event and we
we klcb i worked with keep las cruces
beautiful to
give them information that uh that
gave what's like how to do safe cleanups
during this time and how to get rid of
debris that might be contaminated tips
like that that we
came up with and
i also worked with our department worked
with
recreation staff to put together a
virtual electric
white parade that we asked the public to
submit photos of how they decorated
their yards for the 4th of july
and it was a contest and and we judged
them and
and gave prizes out to the public that
participated so
um it was just all an effort to keep
the engagement going and and provide
some sort of relief
to the community most recently
well let's see yeah most recently i
don't know if you've driven by
um down hadley or alonsolano near the
the soccer fields but you see the cup
signs that are on the fences
so we did a i spy campaign on social
media to
to bring awareness to those signs and
that was all
um created by staff to
encourage our community and and give
them
try to make them feel better about the
situation
um so it's an ongoing effort it just
never ends
thank you
thank you sassy i appreciate that um
madam chair members of the board
sonia delgado parks and recreation
director i also want to add
i didn't make that clear is all the
exempt staff stayed on at 40 hours
even when the rest of the team was
was taken down basically so we've had
the exempt staff on for 40 hours and
and then some uh since march 20th so now
we're bringing the whole team back
hopefully
uh by mid sept mid-september and
hopefully we can um make sure and ensure
that there's enough
space for everyone to operate in so
we're still working those little kinks
out but i think we're just about there
um we're here for any questions any
other additional comments any specific
items i know that pickleball um
and tennis were up at the forefront
earlier
and one of the biggest issues we had
there was
uh the public health order says you got
to have you know less than five people
in a group
and we weren't having that that we were
having large groups
on top of that i had community members
who were seeing this
and asking me why is that park why can't
i go to that park and why are the
groups allowed to form as groups when
you're not supposed to and
um so that was extremely difficult um at
one point in time i did have the state
police
that were called about apodaca park
regarding
a mass gathering and lots of people in
that area
even when it was closed and that would
not be a good thing
um i certainly don't want to get a fine
um for going against any of those orders
however i do understand very
frustrations and i do understand that
people want to be out and about and play
i get it we do
you know we're in parks and rec it's our
passion it's our passion to provide
these services for the community and
it's been extremely difficult
we will be working with the pickleball
community and the tennis
community as we roll these out and
actually the reservation is going to
help us
control some of that as far as having
groups gather we did the same thing with
lap swimming we did the same thing
with the fitness area upstairs at the
aquatic center and it has helped us a
lot
we know that the individuals coming in
are the ones that have a reservation
in the beginning we did have groups of
people that were trying to get to the
courts
early to make sure they were in line
that was causing an issue we were hoping
we could
figure out they would help each other
help us figure all that out and it
didn't quite work out and i understand
everybody wants to play and everybody's
willing to
hang out for a little bit i also
received calls from people that didn't
get an opportunity to play because they
couldn't stay there that long
and so i understand that as well i have
received a phone call saying thank you
for the reservation because now they
will have an opportunity to play
when before they had a difficult time
playing
and of course i've had those phone calls
that said now you're taking away
you know my time i like to play two
three hours or more
and and i understand that but um
pickleball and tennis were our pilot
programs for some programming
and i you know we're trying to offer
something
instead of nothing and i i also get the
phone calls from
all the other groups out there that want
to play and that that has been difficult
as well
so we're hoping that as we start getting
better
and our computing starts getting more
healthy that we'll be able to open up
things so believe me we'll be the first
ones to open up that gate and welcome
everybody
back so again we're here for any
questions if you have any if you need
any specific information
thank you
thank you everybody for sharing all of
your different departments um
the information i think some of the
questions were also
answered to a certain extent but i would
like to give it up to the board
for any more specific questions
stan megan robert
eric anyone
maybe no okay when i see the
picture come on then i i wonder okay
um just going over here
most of that was and it's right there
okay so um just out of curiosity does
that kind of overlap with the up
rubber no was just going to see if megan
had any questions
camera came on but no um
i don't know if they're if we want to
move on to staff member comments um
i guess as outside the covet update
um quickly stan are you um
yeah madam chair um so
uh so even though some of these
questions were answered i'd like to
see what the board feels about
ms delgado um still
answering them more directly if that's
um you know if we feel that she's she
does
still need to do that
i think that questions specifically
regarding the
the plans the new plan coming coming on
on the 24th and then regarding the 28th
from the governor
and we have a i think it would be nice
and courteous to respond
and the aspect of what exactly
uh health order are they violating and
that's kind of when i was listening to
some of the
the questions and um
first and foremost pickleball has a
strong community you know it's kind of
thinking in different ways of
of how to help them be their
gain their own autonomy and and let them
do what they want to do i mean even
within covet and outside covet aspect of
it
and i know how similar to softball
baseball soccer
um now there's kind of a mutual
there's their own organization which i'm
sure they could get a pickleball
national organization
and not necessarily lease the fields but
also do
be in charge of what they're doing
at the fields and kind of in this
setting
i know kind of similar to golf courses
and multiple
businesses having to either one create
and to follow some of kind of new mexico
department of health and the covet
safe practices um or they have that
right
and now um the only one i think they're
and i was kind of hoping that there
would be a
the governor would speak today and cut
things back because there was
obviously more testing more positive
then now there's obviously decreased
testing and
decreased positives so i was hoping
today would be a
nice little cut down on some of the
restrictions but that didn't happen so
maybe next week but in the aspect of
kind of the violations i think she did
answer that in the mass gathering
greater than five
if the pickleball and tennis community
could come up with kind of a copic safe
practices
that can fall in that category then it
might be uh
beneficial to staff and also
the pickleball and tennis community um
it's kind of one of my my thoughts on
kind of all of tonight
can you hit the light my computer's
gonna die quickly to jump in
concerning the the amount of play if if
reservations could be extended longer is
that something that pickleball would
want to
do i mean that sounds like the 45 minute
issue is if we continue the reservations
and extend it does that work better for
people
and madam chair members of the board
sony delgado parks recreation director
okay so when we first sent the plan
forward we had a set amount we had the
days and we had a set amount of time
that was agreed upon by a state
epidemiologist
so that's the plan we're working with
what i can do i can't add any
more hours to the program itself but i
can
change the way the hours are so for
example
if um let's say we were open eight to
twelve
and uh no one was playing from ten to
noon
every day let's say we open every day so
i had four hours a day for five days
twenty and nobody's playing from ten to
twelve then i could move those two hours
for
all those days so another what 10 hours
and i can move them let's say make
it a little bit earlier instead of eight
go to seven and then maybe put those
other few little hours on saturday
morning
as long as i didn't go i did as long as
i didn't add more than
what was already approved okay and i
just used 20 because it was for easy
math by base
that's that's the only reason i use that
as as an example
if i want to increase the hours or
increase the number of programs or
increase facilities to be open i would
have to
resend the plan to the state
epidemiologists
and based and i would say based on the
changes the governor has made
this is what i would like to do and this
is and then and then put that forward
we can certainly do that we will do that
once those things start to change
once those orders start to get relaxed
uh we will certainly do that
as long as we that's what i was told to
stay to align the plan with
it when the state epidemiologist first
approved it
they did say we did a very good job of
aligning with the current orders
and they liked that we were doing it
slow and i don't
i to be honest i really don't know if
anybody else
was told to do the same things that we
did it doesn't
it maybe not i have no idea like i said
i can't speak for them
so and when we did the swimming
and we started doing the reservations we
sent that to the state epidemiologist to
say okay
can swimming be in there because
swimming was not allowed in the very
beginning
it was slowly starting to come out we
had to put a plan together
there were some things that got changed
had to be a little more strict we had to
have more time
and it really did restrict the number of
swimmers per lane
so for example we're working with the
swim teams i have a certain amount of
hours that were approved but i'm
starting to move those hours around so
we can accommodate that swim team a
little bit better and
and still stay within those five people
numbers
which is that's the difficult part i
can't have a whole team in there you
can't have
she completely said no teams okay no
coaches on nick
okay so we are trying to figure out how
to work with that and we have been
um i haven't added any more so to do
that i would need those orders to relax
a little bit
and then we would resubmit and add
things that that fell right into place
so again we're willing to do that once
that happens we will be there
i hope that helps
and if they want how long was the
turnaround from the sending it to the
epic
epidemiologist back when we sent our
original plan
it was at least a couple of weeks could
have been longer but at least two weeks
at least and i understand you know
they're they're very busy and i get that
um but that's about what it took
and then once we had to look that over
made sure all our protocols were in
place
we had signage we had to get place it
out there put some news releases talk to
some people let them know what was
happening
and then we opened up
and at that time we did have staff that
would go open but they
we didn't have enough staff with enough
hours to stay there their entire time to
enforce the rules and i think that was
one of the other questions
we couldn't really enforce it because
they couldn't stay there all the time
but now that we've increased the hours
we're going to be able to have a staff a
team member there the entire time to
help enforce that
and and that's going to be difficult uh
some individuals are okay and they
understand they need to abide by all the
rules
we have some individuals that don't want
to um
refused not and that that's going to be
a tough one that is going to be tough
um and then with regards to the hours so
we understand that
the 45 minute limit they want more we
can certainly do that what we did was we
maximized
the amount of hours and a number of
participants
so that they could play now if we go
back and move some of those hours around
let's say we have
we give you an hour and a half that
means i need to take 45 minutes from
somewhere else from another day and ask
you to shorten that day or i'm going to
get rid of that day
so that we can have that that also means
we'll have a
less number of players able to play in
one week
so i did get calls that
they would go stand in line they
couldn't stay that long they didn't get
on the court right away
they couldn't stay that long they didn't
get to play then they would go back and
the same thing would happen again
um i get calls that they got to play
maybe once every couple of weeks
um i did get a phone call saying they're
happy that they have to call in for
reservation
because now they know that they will get
to play and they know when they'll get
to play
so i i get it um and i understand
but we will work with them we just ask
that they
let us try this out and and then we'll
get some feedback because
we do have a lot of different people out
there wanting to play both those sports
that aren't necessarily part of those
organizations
and i had a really good conversation
um with the tennis president yesterday
and
they're willing to go out there and help
us with that and we did talk about some
of these issues and how we're going to
work through them
and it was very very positive and i've
talked with phil and our program
team they do know how to program
programs they have programmed pickleball
before
they're the ones who program the one at
meershade and they have worked with that
group
a lot and i have a lot of confidence in
that entire team
and i know that they will do a good job
and they will sit down and they will
talk with them and if
changes need to be made we will do so we
will listen
and we will work with them
any other comments from the board
robert i think you're removed
yes i'm muted sorry about that i was
going to say in the aspect of
the state park and wreck organization is
there any set
and how the state is a as a whole with
the positivity rate and kind of how
that's been
changing and using that as a different
criteria is there anything
within the state because there is the
state park and rec
organization is there any
specific goal number that we're looking
for in
as similar to the state with the
positivity rate or any of the other
rates
that will give us a go ahead to
open up in the park setting
since we are outside we are doing lots
of different
healthy activities um
any answer for that mr delgado
madam chair remember tony delgado parks
and recreation director
if i'm understanding the question
correctly you're asking me
if the new mexico recreation and park
association has a different number than
the state
to reopen facilities correct or just a
a number are they aligned together
somewhere along the way
in the aspect how is the state new
mexico park and rec association
involved in what's going on and do we
have any
certain number goal as a whole on cases
or
in that nature what is our our gaining
criteria to
move forward um madam chairman
the gaining criteria that we're
following across the state is what's
coming out of the state
out of the department of health out of
the main office up there
the nmrpa or nrpa which is our national
recreation and park association
they are telling us to follow all the
guidelines set by your state
what is your state doing what's the
governor what's your department of
health doing
and follow those now cdc says the same
thing we look at their guidelines as
well and then of course with every
organization
for example just recently usa swimming
usa swimming said the same thing here
are some guidelines however
the first and foremost you have to
follow your state
and then move down and so that that's
what we have been doing so the state has
been our guide
instead of with this pickleball stuff
particular is there
any i know there's a certain couple
individuals that
is there any particular person that can
lead in meeting with you and saying okay
here's our
covet tape practicing for courts because
i mean there's a kobe take practicing
for golf covert say practicing for
medical facility
coveted practicing for restaurants is
there anything kovitzek practicing for
courts that may be meeting with some of
the
uh pickleball and or tennis community
and saying here's what we need to do
versus answering each individual
question which i kind of think we have
tonight
but i think it may be just meeting with
them in
whatever they might have as a
uh additional organization or loose fit
organization
uh madam chair members of the board sony
delgado parks and recreation director
we so our team when we are putting these
things together
and when we started when we started
putting our plan together for reopening
and talking to the state epidemiologists
we did look at those safe practices for
those different areas and see which ones
would work
with regards to the plans that the
the orders that were coming out at that
time the team has done the same thing
now we will certainly sit down with them
and we we can work with them some more
and let them know
um but the guidelines that are going to
be setting they're going to
fit to the top are going to be the ones
that are coming from the state and we're
going to make sure we abide by those
first and then make sure that program
fits that
and then we'll move forward i hope that
answers your question
no it it does i think it's just a tough
time for all and
i know we want to be outside playing
baseball people want to be outside
playing
their particular sport and
one pickleball to be outside playing too
so
thank you
stan eric anybody else um
comments
no thank you to staff okay
alrighty yeah um i guess if there are
any more questions
to have those get emailed in um
and yeah i
concur with robert's sentiments as well
all right let's move on to eight staff
member
comments
uh madam chair members of the board i'll
start calling the staff
kathy anything
madam chair members of the board kathy
matthews
mom's cape architect um we just continue
working
on projects um keeping things moving in
particular
we've been focused lately on the skate
park assessment
finishing that that report um on our
existing
skate park so that we can prepare to
dive right into the skatepark renovation
as soon as that funding becomes
available from the state
later this fall i want to let you know
that we're continuing
continuing with electrical improvements
at veterans memorial park
coordinating those improvements with
the planning and design for the parking
lot
so that those two projects can move
seamlessly together as soon as that
project starts
um i wanted to let you know
as well that um highland park
is we're nearing uh completion of the
design process in highland park and so
hopefully within the next um two three
months i'll be reporting on
um the construction
bidding process and uh letting you know
when we'll be actually
starting construction on that project um
those are just a couple of the
highlights
um and uh we're working on many many
things of course but i i wanted to hit a
few
important things just to keep you up to
date on a couple things we're doing
thank you oh i apologize um
i do have some items that franco
branil wanted me to let you know about
with regard to
the work that parks section is doing
so um we are working on internal design
standards
um so myself jimmy zabriskie our
community forester and franco as well
as other park staff will be creating
internal design standards
over the next several months to use as a
reference
and to pass along to community
development so that we can
start to inform the overall city design
standards for landscape and parks
as the community development department
moves forward
with modifying those design standards
um we'll be incorporating some of the
documents and policies and guidelines
that we've already completed namely
um tree care policy um
uh median median design
uh standards as well as as other
standards such as irrigation standards
and
park amenities standards
sports field staff continues to assist
on maintaining trails
and recently they
laid down their first application of pre
and post emergent
treatments to help keep the weed
issues under control
tree work on hadley you may have noticed
hadley avenue
experienced some decline in the health
of many of the trees on hadley avenue
the issue was identified as an
infestation of mites
and so jimmy's the briskey our community
forester is working on applying a
miticide
um to try to save those trees
and they take several applications of
the
um miticide and
likely we won't be able to tell the
effectiveness fully
until next spring when the trees leaf
out again but
just in case you have noticed those
declining trees we are
absolutely aware of them and we're
taking steps to
address the issue and try to save those
mature trees
the right-of-way and medium staff is
working on the
city beautification program called clean
sweep
they are entering into a four week cycle
city wide so they cycle through each of
the areas that need to be maintained on
a four weekly basis
parks gis staff is looking at the
current schedule
um to clean up and and readjust
in order to reduce the driving time so
we were trying to
use our technology to realize some
efficiencies and
use our limited time and resources as
best we can to accomplish
the maintenance of the medians and
rights of way
and keep the level of service what our
citizens expect
construction staff is working on several
projects including
the installation of a sculpture
called tree of knowledge at the
callebuelo neighborhood park park's
furnishing replacement program
is moving forward uh we're replacing
furnishings
at benavidez community center park and
also
um working on ada tables and benches
at the battlefield shooting range
and uh construction staff is also
working on
um wood the
wood chip engineered wood fiber safety
surfacing replacement at
playgrounds throughout the city
also i want to let you know that franco
will be compiling another list of winter
projects
for construction staff to work on um so
that
we can methodically accomplish the
bigger kind of repair projects that need
to occur including
bollard installation in several parks
and
more intensive trail cleanup as well
especially around the um
i-25 university avenue interchange which
of course is
in a bit of disarray due to um new
mexico department transportation
construction that's going on there
um and so our perk staff will be working
to
clean that lower portion along travis
and
remove some of the erosion in the sand
building that has occurred due to
the dot's construction project and
that's the tip of the iceberg but it's
some of the highlights again for parks
as well
thank you very much thanks kathy
uh robert
our parts section is amazing aren't they
i have no no further updates ma'am
thank you uh phil uh
madam chair board members uh uh
our staff will just continue to do uh
what we're doing
with the programming virtual programming
we'll get this pickleball and tennis
uh under control the best we can and
working with those communities
and what our staff is currently working
on is what we're going to do in the
future as we open up
because we understand that that
we have a need for the sports and the
activities and we know that groups like
baseball and basketball and volleyball
and a lot of our other areas are not
getting the opportunities that that
pickleball and tennis are getting right
now
but we wanted to make sure that we do
the best that we can for pickleball and
tennis
but we also want the community to know
that we're looking out for them as well
and we're
chopping up the bit to get back to the
sports and open up our fields
and to do what we can for the future so
our staff is focusing on what we're
gonna do when we get back we're going to
get that message out
and continue to do what we're doing and
again i want to thank the
rec staff for all the great stuff that
they've done thank you
thank you phil sassy did you have
anything
thank you sonya um madam chair and board
i will work with sonia and staff to get
some faqs put together
and get them posted on the website um as
soon as possible so that
so that the community who has the same
questions and and may not be watching
this
this meeting can have that information
as well that's it
thank you thank you hazel any
comments
no comment
uh madam chair members of the board sony
delgado parks and recreation director
i don't have anything else to add for
this evening thank you
all right thank you everybody um let's
head over to
board member comments i have a couple
but i'd like to see if anyone else does
too
it's just me hello
you dan
um madam chairman i i would just like to
um
give a sincere appreciation to the parks
and rec board
i know that these are i don't like to
use it this this word
unprecedented times but um it seems to
be fitting best
so keep up the good work um kudos to
each and every one of you and please
pass that on to all of your employees
and know that we're here with you and
we just appreciate you each and every
day and your due diligence
to making sure that our community is
safe so i just want to reiterate that to
you all
and make sure that that gets passed on
to your employees also
okay eric robert
anyone else there's a no there
i'm just gonna assume nose on the other
end
no quick short
just appreciate the pickleball group for
stating in cassie for you
reading all that and uh
them stating their opinions you reading
it and sonia and staff
appreciate you for
taking these topics and kind of
individually focusing with the groups at
hand and
trying to find the happy medium and i
think that's kind of
all that we're doing now
you have to um of float the medium
there's so much diversity going on that
there's a favorite country song from
aaron watson that has uh
takes the left wing and the right wing
to fly and i love it
and um exactly i love sonia for
taking into each consideration
their concerns so that's that's my only
comment there
so i appreciate you all and uh
talking and finding the middle ground on
everything
all i was going to say is that i really
appreciate the enthusiasm for the
pickleball community and
tennis community to come out and support
their efforts and
that they've kind of been the i hate to
say guinea pigs for this whole
um reopening um
but two i'd also like to sort of
recognize that as a sort of model
behavior sort of thing
that i drive by pickleball on saturday
mornings
and the the group aspect has been
actually kind of shocking for me too
where we all have seating out there
now and it just seems like we're we're
we're sort of skirting the limits so i i
appreciate the flexibility for
parks and rec staff to kind of see that
the play can happen
but i think that there is sort of a
responsibility that the group should
take as well
to police themselves um to basically say
hey
maybe we all don't need to be sitting
here maybe this is not as communal as it
had been in the past
because there are changes that needed to
happen so but i appreciate
there's not a lot of people that will
fight for you know what they want to do
and i appreciate that
wholeheartedly but i i think i can't
speak for tennis because i never get out
there but i drive by
pickleball all the time and there is
enthusiasm it makes me want to play
pickleball
but um i'm not that coordinated
so thank you all and i think also staff
for
um it's it's hard to kind of do this
because i think their heart's in the
place where what phil said to
we want to play we want to be out we
want to be active and
recognizing how exactly we do that and
try to be safe
numbers are getting better so here's
hoping that it kind of changes and we
can kind of
get back to like a weird sort of normal
right i think that's what we're gonna go
for
but with that said i don't know if
anybody else wants to say anything
if not there's an adjournment that could
be happening but i can't vote for it
i can't even i don't think i can call
for it right
adam chair this is eric i'm
moved to adjourn do you have a second
madam chair this is stan ingle i i
second
eric beat me to the to the punch okay
all right all in favor
aye aye all right thank you all for
sticking with me thank you