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08/22/2006 Regular Meeting 1fB) lE (G lE ~ Wi ~ ~ PARKS & RECREATION COMMIT iru OCT - 3 2006 /!!J REGULAR MEETING-August 22, 2 06 MINUTES BOROUGH CLERK'S OFFICE KODIAK ISLAND BOROUGH CALL TO ORDER The regular meeting of the Parks & Recreation Committee was called to order at 7:00 p.m. by CHAIR SIROFCHUCK on August 22, 2006 in the Borough Conference Room. ROLL CALL Committee Members Present Absent Excused Others Present Hans Tschersich X Duane Dvorak Jeff Huntley X Community Development Kevin Foster X Mike Sirofchuck-Chair X Murphy Forner X Pam Foreman X Patrick Saltonstall X Andy Schroeder X Vacant Wayne Biessel X Ian Fulp X Barbara Williams X Roy Brown X Scott Arndt X A quorum was established. APPROVAL OF AGENDA COMMITTEE MEMBER HUNTLEY MOVED TO APPROVE the agenda as presented. The motion was SECONDED by COMMITTEE MEMBER SAL TONST ALL, and it CARRIED by unanimous voice vote. MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING COMMITTEE MEMBER FOREMAN MOVED TO APPROVE the minutes from the meeting of July 25 as well as the minutes from the meeting of August 8, 2006. The motion was SECONDED by COMMITTEE MEMBER SALTONSTALL, and it CARRIED unanimously. AUDIENCE COMMENTS AND APPEARANCE REQUESTS OLD BUSINESS A) Chapter 9 Comprehensive Plan Issue Discussion. COMMITTEE MEMBER HUNTLEY inquired if something was passed at the last meeting? DVORAK said that chapter 9 was really a recitation of existing conditions that had quite a few corrections made in terms of the comments. The issues and the goals and objective sections at the end of the chapter were really not there, and there was some thought that the committee could think of some issues that would be appropriate for that chapter between that meeting and this meeting to make sure that some of those issues were in there. The trail issues in particular were 8/22/2006 Parks & Recreation Committee Page 1 of 8 kind of spread between the two chapters, the Transportation Chapter and Parks and Recreation Chapter, and it was the consensus that the survey work that was done and the planning that was done was really done from a recreational perspective rather than a transportation perspective. So while there may be some need for some cross over, that data and that effort should be documented in the Parks and Recreation chapter. COMMITTEE MEMBER FOSTER said that it seemed like according to the minutes done it seemed like everything was finalized and the only thing to be kept on the agenda was Item Band the CIP List. COMMITTEE MEMBER SALTONSTALL said there were some recommendations made at the previous meeting. COMMITTEE MEMBER FOREMAN said she believes there are two separate issues here. There's confusion over where the whole trail ought to fit in the Comp Plan, whether it should end up in transportation or in recreation. There were some specific motions made about that, but the main discussion was around what happens now with the Trails Plan, because there's nothing in the Comp Plan about it. The main comment back was where's the Trails Plan? She doesn't see that written here as things that we have passed in the minutes, so if we want that message to go clearly back to them then that should be in a formal motion. CHAIR SIROFCHUCK said when we had started on the Trails Plan and realized what a daunting task it was, there was a point when because of the Borough Comprehensive Plan we said lets stop on the Trails Plan until the Comp Plan is finished, saying it will be a sub plan of that plan. So when people say where the Trails Plan and the Comp Plan are, are we expecting the consultants to have a draft in there for us? COMMITTEE MEMBER FOREMAN made a MOTION TO AMEND the minutes from August 8, to include the email Duane sent that outlines each of the points the Parks and Recreation Committee listed as a concern in the Comp Plan. The motion was SECONDED by COMMITTEE MEMBER HUNTLEY, and it carried unanimously. Chapter 7 - Transportation 1. Page 5, Para 2, under "Existing Conditions"; in the second sentence add the following language after "activity centers".. .remove the "and" and insert "but lack the desired level of' before "connecti vi ty". 2. Page 5, Para 2, under "Existing Conditions"; in the last sentence it indicates that the issue of motorized and non-motorized trail use is addressed in Chapter 9, Parks and Open Space chapter. No discussion could be found in that chapter. (Incidentally Chapter 9 is titled Parks and Recreation, not Parks and Open Space.) 3. Page 5, Para 1, last sentence; add the following benefits of reducing traffic to this sentence: energy conservation and health benefits. 4. Page 6, Bullets under Bicycle Facilities; Add a bullet: "For the purposes of bicycle facilities they should be developed in the following priority, physically separated paths, grade separated paths and designated bicycle lanes 5. Page 6, 1st Para under the trail survey, Aug. 2004 Report: The task of developing a plan for road-accessible trails IS NOT underway by the KIB Parks and Rec Committee. The 8/22/2006 Parks & Recreation Committee Page 2 of8 5. Page 6, 1st Para under the trail survey, Aug. 2004 Report: The task of developing a plan for road-accessible trails IS NOT underway by the KIB Parks and Rec Committee. The resources that might have been allocated to that project were included with the regional comprehensive plan so that the completion of a detailed trails plan may be a needed follow-on to the larger comprehensive plan effort. 6. Page 7, 1st Para, summary of trail survey data; Trail survey data and discussion should be moved to the Parks and Rec chapter. (The Committee discussed the reason for including trails in the transportation chapter and felt that was appropriate for discussing urban/suburban trails and paths along major transportation routes. In the case of the survey data however, they felt the context of the survey was aimed at the primarily recreational trails that were not really perceived as part of a transportation "system". For that reason they felt this discussion should be moved to the Parks and Rec. chapter. 7. General suggestion; along the lines of the prior comment, the P&R Committee felt that the entire trail survey should be included in the plan as an appendix. 8. Page 7, Last line; amend the bullet point for Existing Trails to say "Increasing" instead of "Continuing" prior to the word maintenance. 9. Page 8, 2nd bullet point; add the following language to the end of the sentence, "and to increase connectivity between existing trails. 10. Pages 7 and 8, The committee recommended moving the Issue bullet points for Existing trails, Mapping and Access to recreational areas to the Parks and Rec chapter. 11. Page 11, under Issues; the committee suggests adding a reference to the Antone Larsen Bay Dock and Boat Ramp as an emerging issue. The facility was originally created in support of Terror Lake development, but was requested to be left in place by the KIB when the project was completed as a recreational support facility. With recent improvements to the boat ramp and parking area, the facility appears to be supporting a more transportation related role in support of commerce and intermodal transportation needs of remote communities. 12. Page 11, under Issues; add an additional bullet point: "increase boat launch and dock facilities for recreational and transportation use in Women's Bay, Monashka Bay, Thumbs Up Rock, and Pasagshak. " Chapter 9 - Parks and Recreation 1. Page 1, bottom of page; add Parks and Recreation to a companion list of non-area wide powers that have been adopted by an election of the public on the Kodiak Road system. 2. Page 2, 2nd Para, 1 st sentence; the KIB no longer owns land on Shuyak Island. It was sold to the State of Alaska about 10 years ago for $40,000,000. In terms of land owned by the KIB, it is recommended that another example of Borough land that may have a high value as open space is the Russian Ridge area along the lower flanks of Pillar Mtn. This area is generally located between Selief Lane and Monashka Bay Road. 8/2212006 Parks & Recreation Committee Page 3 of8 3. Page 3, Under "Trails and Other Facilities on Borough Land"; The Parks and Rec. Committee reiterate that it is not working on a trails plan at present. You should have all the information that has been developed relating to trails in hand already, i.e. surveys, GIS mapping, etc. If the trails piece of the Parks and Recreation chapter is not to be very specific, the Committee has indicated they are prepared to make specific recommendation for maintaining and improving public access in areas where private land may be a limiting factor. This may involve recommendation for future land or easement acquisitions for that purpose so that there might be a rational nexus contained in the plan for future reference should opportunities to improve access come along. 4. The Parks and Rec. Committee is interested in making further comments when the draft is further along. They did not see this draft containing much in the way of issues, it seemed mostly an inventory of existing facilities and existing conditions. The Committee in interested in making further comment as new information is added from the various community meetings. 5. Page 7, relating to the "Tugidak Island Critical Habitat Area"; there was some question why Marmot Island was not mentioned somewhere in this context. Apparently it is also a critical habitat area according to State Park District Ranger Wayne Biessel. 6. Page 10, Issues; Issues have come out in scoping meetings and Parks and Rec issues have been a big part of this. The Parks and Rec. Committee will forward their own issues in a later review. They will include trail issues for the Transportation Chapter as well as for Chapter 9. DVORAK said he would have the secretary include the points CHAIR SIROFCHUCK asked if we should send someone from the committee to next Thursday's Assembly meeting? He stated that when committee reports are brought up, they could say briefly that we have been discussing the Comp Plan and the Parks and Recreation, and that we wanted to call their attention to our list of concerns that Duane had forwarded to the consultants. Our efforts would be to reinforce that they take a look at that and be aware of those. COMMITTEE MEMBER FOREMAN responded that she didn't know if that was inappropriate to do at all. Assembly members read these packets and they do pay attention, but sometimes it ends up maybe a month later in their packet. B) Recreational Access Recommendations COMMITTEE MEMBER SAL TONST ALL said that we have to get something in there, but if we're allowed to do a trails plan and get it incorporated into the Comp Plan than we really don't need to do Recreational Access Recommendations. We'll need to make some recommendations if we're not doing something. COMMITTEE MEMBER HUNTLEY stated that what we need then is some feedback just to see what direction we need to go. COMMITTEE MEMBER FOREMAN stated that Sharatin, for example, is not a trail so you're talking about recreational land not just trails. COMMITTEE MEMBER SAL TONST ALL stated that he thought the trails plan was going to include more than just trails too, but also camp sites. Trails give us sort of a generic term. COMMITTEE MEMBER FOREMAN stated that it's difficult to follow the changes on the website because you never know if a chapter has changed completely when it goes up, so did you ever get any feedback from them on that? 8/22/2006 Parks & Recreation Committee Page 4 of8 DVORAK said he hadn't. Matt Hastie has been out of the office quite a bit. He has been corresponding with one of his associates, Teak Wall. While he has responded to a few emails here and there, they have been more or less one-line responses. Teak Wall is the new associate, who is handling the stuff in between, but he is not the decision maker and he doesn't really answer questions like Matt. He sends me information at the direction of Matt and he has received a few write-ups of issues, and they are more preliminary than anything. COMMISSIONER SAL TONST ALL said that our D&R recommendations, those covered a lot ofland on the road system. It only covered public land, state land it didn't cover native land. C) CIP List. COMMITTEE MEMBER HUNTLEY stated that we have some definite things from the villages and there is a couple of them that come under, he didn't believe they had done this before he didn't remember seeing anything like this from the villages before. A couple of things in there that we should make note of and put in our list if you will in an appropriate spot, because he would hope that these people would rely on us for some of this stuff. DVORAK said that at the last meeting he neglected to get some ofthe information to you. The Borough gave itself non-area wide park authority outside the city and primarily outside the city of Kodiak. By implication it also excludes all the other cities, he didn't think we could go there. Really the election was about Parks and Recreation facilities and not programs and that type of thing. This ordinance that created the Parks and Recreation Committee flows from that authority and it was such a long time ago, he doesn't believe that people actually know or understand what was said and may think that Parks and Recreation authority extends to programs or activities that are not facilities. This year because of high oil prices and the anticipation that Juneau would have a lot of extra money to spend, they put in all the projects that were on the B list that aren't brought out until something gets completed and moves off the A list. COMMITTEE MEMBER SALTONSTALL mentioned boat landing from the last Comp Plan discussion. We never really considered those in the past. He noticed that the Monashka Bay boat ramp and parking, that's under transportation projects, he proposed moving some of those things on to our list. DVORAK responded saying that boat ramps kind of like trails sort of live in the transportation world as well as in the Parks and Recreation world. When he thinks of the Antone Larson Bay boat ramp and dock facility, the improvements that were done over there, he was pretty sure the money came from Fish and Game, not the DOT. DOT may have been a participant because they own the right-of-way and pretty much most of the facility, but you've got Native Corporation land on the other side and you've got State Tide lands on the other side outside the right-of-way, and so it was Fish and Game. So maybe it would have been better to classify it as a Parks and Recreation and Cultural Category, but he wasn't sure. CHAIR SIROFCHUCK suggested rather than start changing categories, as an advisory committee it would be entirely appropriate for us to memo the assembly and say that item 6 and 7 we believe, is in higher priority because those are important recreational projects. So even though they are under transportation we feel they should be given a higher priority. DVORAK stated that in regards to the list if you have a recommendation to make regardless of what category it's in, the thing would be to look at the scoring and see what the economic benefits, health and quality of life, safety and public support. The Parks and Recreation Committee could have a lot of influence in the health and quality of life issue scores and manipulating the score and that type of thing. From a staff prospective we score these things and that's primarily the scores you see, and when we go to the Planning and Zoning Commission if 8/22/2006 Parks & Recreation Committee Page 5 of8 they see it differently, and they make a motion and amend scores in various blocks, as you can see they don't usually have a lot of comments, so this could be a good area for the committee. CHAIR SIROFCHUCK said that it seems that we want to memo P&Z to express our support for boat ramps and to ask them to look at the possibility of adding a Women's Bay boat ramp. DVORAK said that we did get the $48,000 legislative grant for the Island Lake trail upgrade. At one time it came out at $64,000, but somewhere in the governors budget process it came down. Facilities and Engineering is going to need to figure out how to do it, but he thinks that project has been funded and needs to drop off the list. COMMITTEE MEMBER FOREMAN MOVED that we take last years CIP List f~kS c.ni} , and Recreation section, we remove the Island Lake trail upgrade, we remove Lake ia ake"'" ''!J Summit, ATV trail improvements providing that has been funded. The motion was SECONDED by COMMITTEE MEMBER HUNTEL Y, and it carried unanimously. COMMITTEE MEMBER FOREMAN MOVED TO ADD a Women's Bay boat ramp and parking to the transportation projects CIP List. This motion was SECONDED by COMMITTEE MEMBER HUNTLEY, and it carried unanimously. COMMITTEE MEMBER FOREMAN in discussion of the motion stated that his truly has come up on every meeting that she has been at recently for the Women's Bay community council stuff. It's come up at the Comprehensive Plan meetings that have to do with Women's Bay. She believes it's worthy of throwing out there and having P&Z take a look at it. COMMITTEE MEMBER SALTONSTALL MOVED TO communicate to P&Z that we feel that the economic benefits, health and quality of life deserve higher scores for boat ramp projects. The motion was SECONDED by COMMITTEE MEMBER FOREMAN and it carried unanimously. DVORAK mentioned that the Borough has been approached from Donna Jones at the Soil and Water conservation district about doing that project and they may have access to some money. Certainly they're looking for the Borough to substantially match whatever effort they can bring to the table. Bud Cassidy and he went out to Mill Bay Beach a week ago with Donna Jones. We explained that the park area does kind of have a relationship with the Island Lake trail system, but he wasn't sure if there was a viable project there at this point. There is some talk of moving forward and at least addressing or accessing how much resources may be available to do this project. He believes the consensus was that a ramp would be more ideal than stairs. We were looking at a different location at the other end of the parking lot where a ramp could go down. It makes it difficult because there is a limit on the amount of slope a ramp is allowed, and so that is where the design comes in we would need to find a way to maximize the slope. There was discussion on reasonable accommodations and access for wheel chairs and strollers. Also there was discussion on the need for ADA compliance. NEW BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS A) DVORAK said as he mentioned earlier there may be a project with the Kodiak Soil and Water Conservation District. The city was looking to build a new building, but now their in the process now of renewing their lease for this building. Another thing was the city council is not really happy, to be down at the School District Conference Room while the Borough Parks and Recreation Committee is enjoying the comforts of the Borough Conference Room. They feel that they should be here and we should be there or somewhere else. It's probably going to 8/22/2006 Parks & Recreation Committee Page 60f8 happen, it's being work worked on by the administration, and he has discussed it with some of the Department Heads and the assembly. CHAIR SIROFCHUCK stated that you can tell the Administration there are no objections. DVORAK wanted to mention that he put in for the RTCA assistance grant, it was sent in and we're still waiting for a couple ofletters of support. He received a letter from KANA today, so that means we have letters from KANA, the Borough School District, and after the last meeting Wayne Biessel gave us a letter of support. Not just a letter of support but a letter of volunteering to be a part of the project. He still hasn't received one from Providence Kodiak Island Medical Center or the Community Health Center. We still need to get those letters in because it would make our case stronger. REPORTS A) Meeting Schedule: . September 12, 2006 P&R meeting at 7:00 p.m. in the KIB conference room. · September 26,2006 P&R meeting at 7:00 p.m. in the KIB conference room. AUDIENCE COMMENTS COMMITTEE MEMBERS' COMMENTS COMMITTEE MEMBER TSCHERSICH said he has recently heard from somebody about a piece of property done in Spruce Cape, the meeting development and these yellow parcels, they said this whole area that is not roaded yet that was what is plotted but this is has been taken off the table because it is too old and they have to resubmit a plan. Now this might be an opportunity for us to talk about connecting trails to other areas around it, maybe we can get public easements in there. He wanted to talk to the department about how to approach this especially since this little church property that was not developed, maybe we can do this. DVORAK said it was one of those situations where he doesn't know when the appropriate time would be to make that request. It may be something that should be in the Comprehensive Plan, certainly if they come back that would be a plat that we'd want to route to Parks and Recreation and you would have the opportunity to make a request or recommendation at that time. COMMITTEE MEMBER SCHROEDER said that some of the water conservation did trail improvement to the south end of Near Island. It looks really good and he recommended taking a look at it. They have geo block in there and some good planking. He also commended Koniag on their work even though there is still a lot to do. The leading edge of trail design looks great here on the island. And back to the North end south end trail on Near Island the Coast Guard provided the man power for that. CHAIR SIROFCHUCK said thanks to Andy for the work done by him. ADJOURNlVIENT CHAIR SIROFCHUCK requested a motion to adjourn. COMMITTEE MEMBER FOREMAN MOVED TO ADJOURN the regular meeting. The motion was SECONDED by COMMITTEE MEMBER .SCHROEDER. The meeting adjourned at 8:36 p.m. 8/22/2006 Parks & Recreation Committee Page 7 of8 KODIAK ISLAND BOROUGH PARKS & RECREATION COMMI TEE By: DATE APPROVED: September 12,2006 8/2212006 Parks & Recreation Committee Page 8 of8