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2021-03-10 PARKS, RECREATION AND BEAUTIFICATION BOARD MINUTESMINUTES – REGULAR MEETING OF THE CITY OF PEARLAND PARKS, RECREATION, & BEAUTIFICATION BOARD, HELD ON WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10, 2021 AT 8:30 A.M., ON A CONFERENCE CALL. I. CALL TO ORDER Meeting was called to order at 8.39 a.m. II. BOARD ROLL CALL Jeff Webb Chair Ken Rice Vice Chair Charlie McMurrey Board Member Dennis Jackson Board Member Nancy Bankson Board Member Zachary Boyer Board Member Catherine Chennisi Board Member Carry Capers Parks & Recreation, Parks & Recreation Director Kevin Carter Parks & Recreation, Assistant Parks & Recreation Director Ellen Stansbury Parks & Recreation, Executive Assistant Richard Vaughan Forever Parks Foundation, Vice President III. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Mr. Jeff Webb asked the board to approve the February minutes. He asked if there were any comments, changes, or feedback for the February minutes. Mr. Charlie McMurrey made a motion to approve the February minutes. Mr. Webb seconded the motion. The motion was approved. IV. BOARD REPORT Mr. McMurrey mentioned that he received his COVID vaccination, and complimented Ms. Ellen Stansbury on her detailed minutes; and thanked the staff for sending the weekly reports which provides updates on what is going on in the City. Ms. Catherine Chennisi mentioned she enjoyed the new picnic tables at Independence Park. Also mentioned that her brother-in-law mentioned he had noticed dead fish at the Nature Center pond. Ms. Chennisi shared a fundraising opportunity with AARP which is a livable space grant that funds things to enhance the community, Ms. Chennisi will share more on this opportunity with the board. Mr. Ken Rice mentioned he read the minutes from the last board meeting and it sounded like an informative meeting and was sorry he had missed out on it. Mr. Rice mentioned the strategy meeting that took place on February 20, and that he is reviewing that material. Ms. Nancy Bankson mentioned she enjoyed the update on the vaccination distribution and was glad to see the City helping with the water distribution. Mr. Zach Boyer replied to Ms. Chennisi comment regarding the fish, he stated that the fish don’t do well under 40 degrees. Mr. Boyer asked if we had an estimate on how many fish we had to pull out. Mr. Jeff Webb mentioned that he read on the Weekly Ops Report that Ms. Patricia Willey, our volunteer coordinator had announced her retirement. Mr. Webb complimented Ms. Wiley on her service to the City and department and would like as a board to consider a resolution thanking her for her service in April. Mr. Webb mentioned we need to set a date for a park tour April/May timeframe for our new advisory board members. Mr. Webb reiterated the conversations had regarding the Director search, and even though we're all 100% supportive of Ms. Carry Capers taking on the role, and that he personally supported her candidacy with a letter to the to some of the City officials, but as the board serves in an advisory capacity, we want to have the chance to be involved in reviewing candidates and we are diligent about the process we undertake for things like that in the future. V. DISCUSSION – Winter Weather - Ms. Capers provided an update on the Winter Weather Event: - February 15 – Warming center was opened 24 hours through Wednesday, approx. 100 people took advantage of it. - We were prepped and ready to go as we had a natural gas generator installed over a year ago at the Recreation Center and Natatorium. - Seven additional warming centers were opened on Tuesday when the roads cleared. - Two water dispensing pods were opened on Saturday and distributed over 20 pallets of water in one hour. The remaining water is stored for the next emergency. - The Melvin Knapp Activity Center had the most significant damage; as there was a broken pipe in the ceiling causing water damage, this has now been repaired. - The restrooms at Shadow Creek Ranch and Hickory Slough also had broken pipes, but we were able to get to those quickly. They were repaired within four or five days. - The fish that didn’t survive the freeze were Plecostomus fish. These types of fish remove a lot of the algae. They are non-native fish to this area so it’s not necessarily a bad thing that some didn’t survive as it helps to control the species a little. The dead fish were not removed as it is part of the cycle of life and they provide a great source of food for the turtles, birds, and other wildlife that is at the Nature Center. We received phone calls regarding the fish smell in the area, it was identified that the smell was coming from the water treatment plant beside us. To help educate the community, we posted information on our social media channels. DISCUSSION – POD/Vaccine Update - Ms. Capers provided an update on the POD Operation: - 9500 vaccines have been administered; and have started administering our second doses. - 2000 vaccines will be administered this week. - Unfortunately, we don’t know week to week what the state is going to provide, we request 5000 doses a week, and on average we have been getting about 2000. - The State has opened the vaccine to our teachers and anyone that works with children. We are working closely with Alvin and Pearland ISD to get staff vaccinated. - If anyone of our board members are interested in receiving the vaccine or volunteering for the POD – please let us know. - Ms. Chennisi mentioned that she works very closely with childcare workers and asked that we please notify her because she would love to help with that. Ms. Capers responded that the childcare workers and schools are critical for use right now and we will reach out to you next week. - Ms. Capers added that a few positions at the POD require a little more training than others, it is difficult to fill those positions with one-time volunteers. These positions interact with the software to enter data and information that gets reported back to the State. We require 100% accuracy for that work –those positions are filled by City Staff. HIPAA training is also required. - Governors order lifted the mask order. The City released a policy statement saying we will continue to wear our face coverings. - Ms. Bankston stated that an email was sent out in January about the membership being placed on hold through March; and asked if this would continue. Ms. Capers responded that if members are not ready to come back, we can continue to suspend those memberships. We are being very conservative with our appointment schedule and will continue to heavily sanitize everything - we want our members to feel safe when coming back into our facilities. VI. DIRECTORS REPORT - We will schedule the parks tour for May 13th which will consist of a half day van tour; with everyone wearing face coverings. - The last weekend of the month we will be hosting the USFA softball tournament, at the same time we are excited to have the Houston Art and Music Festival at Independence Park, and also this month the Pearland Half Marathon. - We are rescheduling Ruff Runner formerly Paws in the Park to take place during national dog week in September. - POD Operation – we are hoping to be done with POD vaccines at the end of April if our goals are met. - To ensure that our Summer Camps are safe we are planning to do them with smaller groups. - Staff Changes: o Patricia Wiley has left the organization – and we wish her the best on the next phase in her life. o Myranda Asbury our Athletic Specialist will now be our Camp Coordinator. o Kevin Carter formerly our Parks Superintendent is our new Assistant Director o Chrystopher Bickham formerly our Parks Supervisor, who has been with our department for the past 10 years was promoted to Park Superintendent. o The Parks Supervisor position - we’ve so many qualified candidates internally, we will be wrapping up interviews soon. - March 22 is our next City Council meeting; on that agenda we have two items to present. We will be asking Council to approve the RFP for irrigation repairs, this agenda item will be presented by our Capital Projects and Engineering department. The second agenda item is the multimodal master plan, which was created in conjunction with the Parks and Recreation trails and open spaces master plan. A lot of the information in the multimodal master plan is also in our parks master plan, as it relates to trails and reforestation of the trail. I will share a copy of both the Thursday packet memo that was submitted to the City Council for the irrigation, as well as the multimodal master plan documents. -Mr. Dennis Jackson – added that the board was discussing the budget process and what the department has been doing and asked if the board can contribute a joint statement that could be submitted to City Council. Ms. Capers responded that the early budget input session went very well and that there were no questions for Parks & Recreation. We are currently preparing our supplemental requests and our base budgets for the FY22, and our projections are now through the end of September 30th. -Budget will be added to Aprils agenda - we will share our budget materials. -Mr. McMurrey asked - regarding the POD, that is a lot of overtime, how does your department and the City recoup those expenses? Ms. Capers replied that the time worked on the vaccination POD is reimbursable by FEMA. The City will submit that time for reimbursement. The finance department is working on the winter weather POD as we are not sure if that is reimbursable, but the City does have a fund balance to help cover different emergency situations like this. Mr. Webb thanked Ms. Capers for the report and stated he appreciated the rundown and what an amazing amount of activity to start off the year. Mr. Webb asked if there were any other questions. Mr. Webb made a motion was made to adjourn the meeting, Mr. Ken Rice second that motion. Meeting was adorned. VII.ADJOURMENT The meeting adjourned at 9.27 a.m. These minutes respectfully submitted by: _________________________________ Carry Capers, Interim Director – (transcribed initially by Ellen Stansbury) Minutes approved as submitted and/or corrected this 4th day of May, 2021. ______________________ Jeff Webb, Chairman