The Minot Park Board held a special meeting Wednesday with Minot Park District department heads to look back on what they have accomplished in the past two years and look forward to what still needs to be done.
Ron Merritt, director of parks, ticked off a long list of items from a long-range plan developed in 2007 that included everything from technology upgrades to communicating more with the public. While a few of the items on the list, such as training opportunities and developing local partnerships, haven't yet been completely dealt with, the vast majority of them have.
"I just think, you know, once you start looking back and realizing everything that has been accomplished in a relatively short amount of time ... and you're able to say 95 percent of our focus items have been addressed, that's pretty good," said Commissioner Connie Feist.
Department heads from maintenance, Roosevelt Park Zoo, horticulture, Souris Valley Golf Course and Maysa Arena then made their reports.
Randy Burckhard, maintenance superintendent, was first at the podium to present the park board with his list of goals he would like to accomplish, both short- and long-term.
A project that is well under way is a "handicapable" playground, possibly slated for Oak Park. Fundraising is already under way for the project, which is being spearheaded by Power of the Purse. The playground will be designed to offer full access to children and parents with disabilities.
Park security, tennis court resurfacing, furniture for the Oak Park splash pad and a new Frisbee golf course were all items Burckhard also touched upon.
Commissioner Ron Bieri mentioned he would like to see some resolution on the land set aside for the Souris River Botanical Conservatory near Jack Hoeven Park.
"Nothing has happened, and I'm not so sure anything will in the near future," Bieri said. "At some point we need to decide if we want to do something with that property, and what we should do with it."
Horticulturist Steve Wharton suggested the area could be planted with grass and trees, perhaps with a shelter so visitors to the baseball complex have somewhere to go if it rains.
Burckhard also spoke about the forestry department because Brian Johnson, city forester, could not attend the meeting. Forestry is mostly in need of equipment, much of which is shared with maintenance and other departments. Since the forestry and maintenance departments share so much equipment, Commissioner Robert Petry asked why a bigger share of their budget isn't used for equipment purchases.
Merritt said it's been a long time since a piece of equipment has been expressly purchased for forestry, as most of the equipment forestry uses is also used by other departments. He said it would be possible to put a percentage of forestry dollars toward equipment purchases, just not the entire amount.
The big item on zoo director Dana Pritschet's agenda was the new zoo entrance building, on which they will hopefully break ground this fall. She also named a necropsy room for the examination of deceased animals and the second phase of the entrance building, which is the parking lot, as important projects in the near future once the entrance building is complete.
A new primate yard, which the Greater Minot Zoological Society will be fundraising for, new big cat complex and a giraffe exercise area completed Pritschet's list of big-ticket items.
Rounding out her list were small projects such as a clinic food preparation room, Discovery Barn renovation, and updates to the penguin pool and bear den.
Pritschet said they are concentrating on projects that will renovate the space they already have rather than trying to acquire more space to make the zoo bigger.
Minot Park Board President Robert Walstad said he liked Pritschet's focus on making the zoo better rather than bigger by beautifying the zoo's current space instead of trying to expand.
The focus of Wharton's horticulture department is also on the zoo entrance building in the form of landscaping that could start this fall.
He also listed updates to Corbett Field, which Burckhard had mentioned previously, the irrigation project at the Optimist Soccer Complex, additional space for the Kiehn Greenhouse Complex and improvements to Radio City Park as being important to his department.
Like many of the other departments, Wharton also listed equipment purchases that needed to be made to replace aging vehicles that are in some cases decades old.
Kim Knatterud, golf course manager, said erosion on the Souris Valley Golf Course is his top concern.
"The only couple of things I really want to point out, and I think everybody knows, that erosion problem out there on that golf course," Knatterud said. "If we start to go to this, I don't know if it's a more normal winter or if it's not, but we're gonna start dealing with runoff, and we've got some problems out there."
"The bridge that hooks No. 4 tee to 4 green or 7 tee to 7 green, that really makes me nervous this spring," he added.
On the other end of the moisture spectrum, he noted that irrigation heads at the golf course are also due for an update. Knatterud said overall, however, he is quite happy with the shape the equipment used at the golf course is in.
Chuck Emery, manager of Maysa Arena, wrapped things up for the department heads. His list was a mixture of small items and bit-ticket projects.
His main priorities were small-scale things including occupancy sensors that turn the lights off when a room is unoccupied, flag poles in front of the arena, a floor scrubber, televisions in two of the meeting rooms, new carpet in the heated viewing area and sound systems in the rinks, among other things.
At the top of his more expensive list was an additional employee. Emery said with as busy as the arena is, he's finding less and less time to get things done such as blade changes, sharpening blades and ice maintenance - tasks that part-time workers can't handle.
"That is my number one thing that I need, is an employee out there," Emery said. "Someone that I can feel comfortable is not going to leave. We can pay the person, but without benefits it's hard to keep them around."
He also mentioned the addition of a third rink that could be used by high school and college hockey players as something to think about. Emery said a third rink wouldn't be to give more ice time to the current hockey and figure skating users, but to bring in new users.
No one on the board was keen about getting into a potential political spat with the All Seasons Arena over ice users, but they did recognize the benefits of having a third rink at Maysa.
"Having all the ice users under one roof is good for ice, because right now there is a complete disconnect from youth hockey to high school," Emery said. "In the days where we were in one building, the high school boys and girls would come over and help out the little kids, college would come over and help the little kids. And little Johnny would say to mom, 'I want to go to the game tonight,' so mom's gotta buy a couple tickets."
"I think if a third rink is determined to be feasible for us, I wouldn't want to do it in the spirit of undermining the All Seasons Arena by any stretch. I'm not wanting to get into a political firestorm over this, and I don't think it needs to be," said Feist. "But I think open communication is the key."
After the department heads had made their reports, Walstad called for forward-thinking ideas to beautify Minot.
Bieri mentioned the idea of a "pocket park" in downtown Minot. It would basically be a small green space in the middle of downtown to let people sit and have lunch or drink a cup of coffee in a nice, park-like setting.
Petry said as long as they were dreaming, he thought putting a gazebo on a slice of park property just south of the Keith White Sertoma Complex by Minot Municipal Airport would turn a piece of unused property into a beautiful scenic stopping point for visitors and residents alike.
"(We need to) see how we can improve and make life worth living within the park district, and create more usership and pride of ownership. More safety, more beatification, more usership, that makes things work a lot better," Walstad said. "So let's get this stuff going and think about your priorities and some of those outside-the-box ideas. Nothing is stupid until proven so."
