Park and Recreation Commission
Minutes of the Meeting
March 10th, 2010
Meeting called to order: 7:35pm.
Commissioners in Attendance: Andy Paterno, George Caye, Sharon Parlapiano, Rob O’Connor, Craig Zimmerman, Dave Romejko, Katie Graham, Ray Favreau
Also in Attendance: Mayor John Pelkey, Nancy Yario, Gary Bazzano, Skip Bourke, Skate Park Committee (Alex Butler, Kevin Roback, Eric McDowell, Addison Majestri, and John Boutin.)
Approval of minutes: Motion to approve February minutes was seconded and accepted unanimously.
Public Input: Skaters identified some good parks (Bristol, CT ; Hudson, MA ; Glastonbury, CT ; Academy (indoor), New Haven, CT) and bad parks (Wethersfield, Enfield, Manchester, Windsor). Ray is looking to set up a day to drive to four or five of the state skate parks with the Skate Group and PARC members. Tentative date is March 28th in the afternoon. More details will follow.
Special Report: Ashley Kitchens from the Rec. Dept. gave a demonstration of the new Rec. Dept. Web Site, designed a a more user friendly marketing tool, which will be going online by the end of March. The Rec. Dept has been working on the new site for about eight months. Features include: a drop down menu on the left side of the main page, a calendar of events, hot buttons to go directly to PARC and South Windsor Walk & Wheel Ways. It also has photo and video capability. The site will also be able to flash any cancellations right away for events of the day and can be updated as needed in-house to keep things current. It will take about a year to work all the problems out.
Council Liaison: Mayor John Pelkey: The Town Council has brought up the need to ban smoking in all town owned parks. They would like an endorsement from PARC. The only ban now in town is inside the fencing at VMP and all school grounds while school is in session.
Ray sent out a question to other towns on their policies. The best one was from Newport Rhode Island. Gary Bazzano would like a recommendation from PARC to request no smoking or the use of any tobacco products in the Town Parks.
Andy Paterna would like to use this to start a “Healthy South Windsor 2020” campaign to get the town off the couch and become an active and healthy community. He would like to involve the town Health Department, American Lung Association, and the American heart Association along with PARC members to work on a healthier community. Sharon and Katie volunteered to help Andy. Ray is going to use the Newport ordinance as a starting point and rewrite it to fit South Windsor’s needs. He will go to the Police Department for their viewpoints on the feasabilty of enforcing a “No Smoking in the Parks” ordinance.
The annual Penguin Plunge at Crystal Lake was a big success. Roseanne Sapula was the highest fundraiser. The group raised almost $40,000. Congratulations.
Open Space Task Force: Nothing new to report.
Report of the Recreation Director: Work is starting to celebrate the 20th year of the South Windsor Seals Swim Team. He is trying to get all past coaches to attend the event.
Rye Street Shelter: Thanks to Darren DeMartino and Gary Bazzano for their work in getting Boston Pizza to donate for the purchasing and installation of concession equipment for the facility. Chef’s Emporium is giving us new equipment at cost and refurbished equipment free. The town is receiving about $20,000 of equipment for the facility for $10,000.
Community Center: The proposal to expand the senior portion of the building is going to be much more than originally planned. Craig Zimmerman would like PARC to make a commitment and state that the Recreation Department needs to stay in the building do to the closeness of all the activities, related to recreation, that occur near the Community Center at Nevers Park. The expansion should be on the left side of the center to give the seniors their own entrance to the building.
Armed Forces Day is May 15th at Nevers Park.
A modified version of the 4th R Program is going to be set up in the afternoon at TEMS in the fall of 2010. The program will be more of an activity club setting than just watching the kids.
Safe Routes to School has a meeting set for March 31st at 7pm in the Alt. 6 room to discuss how they are going to use the $800,000 in grant money they received.
Ray will be on vacation for our April meeting and will have Ryan attend.
Nancy Yario spoke to members about why nothing is being done to the area on the east side of Chief Ryan Way and the Bark Park. Andy explained that he is getting ready to plant trees around the Bark Park fencing to act as a noise buffer and will speak to the SWPD about the possibility of placing no parking signs on both sides of the street from Andreis Trail to the Bark Park. She spoke for about 40 minutes stating it’s been more than two years and nothing was done. Andy also said that the town did place no parking signs on one side of the road to lessen traffic. She wants trees planted on the east side of the street for 450 feet to buffer the sight of the traffic as well as the noise.
PARC members brought up that people should be allowed a maximum of five minutes each to talk during the public input section of the meeting. Ray will have that information placed on our next agenda set up.
SWW&WW: Now that the Master Plan was approved by the Town Council, the group is working on some projects to get their name out to the public (more bike racks and maps of all the parks for walkers and bikers etc.). Google launched a new website on March 10th for bike riding to locations as an alternative to motorized transportation.
Meeting adjourned at 10:45 pm
Next Meeting: 7:30pm April 14th, 2010
Respectfully Submitted
George S. Caye
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