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2006 01 09 CSC Minutes COMMUNITY SERVICES COMMISSION MINUTES January 9,2006 I. CALL TO ORDER A regular meeting of the Community Services Commission was called to order at 7:00 p.m. in the Study Session Room of the La Guinta Civic Center. Commissioner St. Johns presided over the meeting. Commissioner Robert Leidner led the Pledge of Allegiance. Commissioner Leidner was officially sworn in by City Clerk June Greek. Commissioners Present: Commissioner Ed Hackney, Commissioner Mark Weber, Commissioner Andrea Gassman, Commissioner Robert Leidner, Commissioner Victoria St. Johns Staff Present: Tom Genovese, City Manager and Interim/Community Services Director, June Greek, City Clerk, Kristin Riesgo, Recreation Supervisor; Community Services Department, Robert Ambriz Jr., Recreation Supervisor; Community Services Department, Anna Sampson, Community Services Secretary Guests Present: Donna Catalfamo, La Guinta Sports and Youth Association Board Member, Nathan Dunn, La Guinta Sports and Youth Association Board Member, Edie Brito, La Guinta Sports and Youth Association Board Member, Tracy Rutledge, Desert Gold Team Manager, Craig Johnson, Desert Gold Team Coach II. PUBLIC COMMENT - None The chair reserves the right to limit discussion on any topic to three minutes or less. Ill. CONFIRMATION OF AGENDA Commissioners Hackney/Weber approved. It was moved and to approve the Agenda. seconded by Unanimously Community Services CommiSSIon Mmutes 2 January 9, 2006 IV. CONSENT CALENDAR MOTION - It was moved and seconded by Commissioners Gassman/Hackney to approve the December 19, 2005 Minutes and Monthly Department Report for November 2005, as submitted. Motion carried unanimously. Commissioner Hackney asked if all Class II Teams are paying the appropriate fees. Staff confirmed this to be true. V. PUBLIC HEARING - None VI. BUSINESS ITEMS A. Facility Use Policy Update Staff presented the information contained in the Staff Report, a copy of which is on file in the Community Services Department. Commissioner Leidner discussed the timing of field maintenance repairs with staff. Staff indicated that once reported to the appropriate City department or other agency such as Desert Sands Unified School District, it is completed in a timely manner, however, since it had not been controlled by the Community Services Department until now, it is difficult to provide a definitive answer as to past repair timelines. City Manager Genovese explained the City does not have its own Parks Maintenance Department. There are two types of maintenance requests, ongoing and urgent. Ongoing maintenance, such as gopher holes, is a long-term eradication issue. If there was an urgent repair needed, the City would dispatch the Public Works Department. Commissioner Leidner asked about the grant program and if the application filing date could be extended. Staff explained due to the time needed to prepare the grant information for the City Council, it would not be feasible to extend the grant application date. Commissioner Hackney asked when the grant application was going to City Council. Staff explained it would be on the Council agenda for February 7, 2006. The grant application filing date deadline is January 27, 2006. Community Services CommiSSion Minutes 3 January 9. 2006 Commissioner Gassman asked if any grant applications had been turned in, and what is the maximum grant amount allowable. Staff explained the amount budgeted for a fiscal year is $20,000 and the individual grant maximum is $2,000 per organization. The City Council can also increase the $20,000 maximum. Commissioner Gassman asked for the basis in which a grant application would be denied. City Manager Genovese indicated if it fell within the criteria, the ability to deny would be at the sole discretion of the City Council. Commissioner Hackney asked if a travel team had ever applied for a grant, and if so, was it granted. City Manager Genovese indicated many youth organizations had applied but was unsure if a travel team, specifically, had ever applied. If the funding is available, and the organization is La Guinta-based, the grant will usually be approved. Commissioner Leidner asked if all cities contacted regarding their Facility Use Policy were included in the research report, the process used to determine the outcome of the research, and if all the cities involved were cooperative. Staff confirmed that all cities contacted were included in the research report and discussed the Southern California Municipal Athletic Federation or SCMAF, in which the City is a member. This organization includes all cities and municipal organizations that are involved with athletics. Contacts through this organization, past working knowledge of other cities, and randomly selecting cities that were size-comparable to La Guinta were used in the research. All the cities were very cooperative and several asked if the results of the research could be passed on to them. Board members of the La Guinta Sports and Youth Association provided positive feedback on response time from the City when reporting field maintenance issues. Commissioner Gassman inquired if a $2000 grant would cover the parent's cash outlay for those having children 16 years of age and under on a travel team. Mr. Rutledge indicated when practicing twice a week for ten months, the cost of field lighting was approximately $3500. Commissioner Gassman asked if a travel team could use the snack bar, and if so, how much revenue was generated in the past. Staff explained that use of the snack bar followed the same priority as field use, but the travel team could use the snack bar when using the field, provided no other team is using the snack bar. Community Services CommiSSion Minutes 4 January 9, 2006 Board members of La Guinta Sports and Youth Association commented on snack bar revenue. On a good year, the average made could be $12,000, but this was when all fields were being utilized. Also, this is not revenue by team, but by a league as a whole. On a team basis, there would not be enough revenue generated. Commissioner Gassman indicated she was exploring ways in which the travel team could generate future revenue, acknowledging Commissioner Weber's concern of field use growth and the travel team's ability to remain without fees. Mr. Rutledge commented as field use increases, the fees a travel team would pay will become a moot point because of the field use priority. Mr. Dunn acknowledged the difficulty. In his experience with winter ball, there were two divisions with 26 teams of nine through twelve year olds in 2005 compared to only eight teams in 2004. More and more youth want to play. Commissioner Hackney asked Mr. Rutledge about the $50/tournament fee and the cost of a child on a travel team for the season. Mr. Rutledge said last year, his team played 15 tournaments at a cost of $450 - $500/tournament. Travel and World Series added approximately $1 OO/child for the hotel stay for a week. For the entire team, if including hotel cost and food, it cost approximately $35,000 for the ten months his team played. Further, the team has fundraisers every month and is still behind monetarily. Mr. Johnson stated if the children are residents of La Guinta, it should not matter what type of team in which they play. He continued to point out that their travel team ranked 11 th in the nation in AAA and third in Southern California and thought the people of La Guinta would want to back their success. Mr. Dunn agreed with Mr. Johnson's point of residency. He explained his understanding of the recreation league's priority because of the large number of children, and one team can not disrupt a league, but if the travel team is playing when the other teams are not, they should be treated the same. City Manager Genovese explained the City provides recreation through recreation leagues. It is provided to all children, and all have this opportunity. The leagues of our current discussion are a little different, and are made up of both children residing in La Guinta and those residing in surrounding cities. Other examples falling out of the recreation category are band participants from La Guinta High School Community Services CommiSSion Mmutes 5 January 9, 2006 and softball teams, both of which have applied to the Grant Program. Mr. Rutledge commented that Palm Desert worked with travel teams because as a city, they feel they must encompass all levels of play. Palm Springs will call the travel teams to clean a trash-filled field in exchange for playing at no cost. Commissioner Leidner commented he had recently attended a meeting where he met a parent living in Mission Viejo, who subsidized his daughter's competitive softball travel team at $200/month, indicating the travel was the most costly expense. Commissioner Hackney asked how much in fees was collected in 2005 for Class II teams. Staff explained the fees are new to the travel team, and have only been in effect since September, 2005, but directed the Commission to the Community Services Department Report included in their Agenda Packet, which showed the Sports Field revenue by month, and not year-to-date. Commissioner Hackney inquired further because he was under the impression the fee had been in existence for years. Staff indicated the current fee schedule was approved in June, 2005 and became effective in September, 2005. The Class II fee always existed, but the travel team was recently reclassified from Class I to Class II due to a policy change. Because the prior fee schedule was already contracted for summer, the new fee schedule did not become effective until the fall contract. Commissioner Hackney asked if anyone had the previous definition of the fee schedule. Staff indicated they could obtain one, but did not have one with them currently. Commissioner Gassman asked if there was any other distinction that could be made to assist the travel team, while keeping things in tact, for example, age differentiation. Commissioner Hackney asked Mr. Rutledge about player's age limitations. Mr. Rutledge indicated children are less than 14 years of age. Community Services CommiSSion Mmutes 6 January 9, 2006 Commissioner Gassman ascertained that there are travel teams with children 14 years of age and over, but these children use the high school's fields to play. The definition of the travel team Mr. Rutledge is representing is one with children under the age of 14 years, is considered non-recreational, and consists of 75% La Guinta residents. Commissioner St. Johns agreed with Commissioner Gassman's distinction of the children. Commissioner Leidner asked Mr. Rutledge if the overall cost burden was the field lighting or the fee schedule as a whole. Mr. Rutledge indicated the field lighting was most costly at $15/hour compared to the cost for field usage at $5/hour. Commissioner Leidner asked if a recommendation was made to City Council to reduce the field lighting costs by 50% for the Class II team, would it be sufficient in conjunction with the team's fundraisers and the approval of the grant request. Mr. Rutledge felt it would. Commissioner Leidner suggested leaving the team classifications as is and with grant approval and the reduction of the field lighting fees to possibly $ 7/hour, for the Class II, non-profit team, the compromise could make it financially feasible for everyone, especially for the parents. Commissioner Hackney asked staff the cost of the field lighting in the past. Staff indicated that the recreation ball organizations have never paid for the field lighting, but for Class II teams, field lighting has always been $15/hour. Further, travel teams did not pay for field lighting until the recent reclassification from Class I to Class II. City Manager Genovese explained the travel team was not classified as a recreation organization, but rather as a La Guinta non-profit or community-based organization. He pointed out if a group of La Guinta residents wanted to play baseball, they would pay $20/hour for field lighting, if they were not a part of a recreation league or travel team. Commumty Services CommiSSIon Minutes 7 January 9, 2006 MOTION - It was moved and seconded by Commissioners Gassman/Leidner that Commission recommend to the City Council that the Class II field lighting fee be reduced from $15/hour to $7/hour. Motion carried unanimously. B. Youth Workshop The Commission had requested a progress report on what the Community Services Department had done since the last Youth Workshop. Staff presented the information contained in the Staff Report, a copy of which is on file in the Community Services Department. Commissioner Hackney asked about the discussion at the last Commission Meeting as it related to having the Youth Workshop in conjunction with a City Council Meeting. He indicated the Commission was soliciting feedback from staff on their thoughts, but based on what he just heard, it sounded as if staff did not want to involve the City Council. Staff confirmed that Commissioner Hackney was correct. Staff did not understand the direction the Commission was headed in involving the City Council with the Youth Workshop and felt that more insight could be obtained from the students without involving the City Council. Commissioner Gassman felt that seeing how local government worked would be helpful for the students to learn, particularly by involving the government class or the student body officers. City Manager Genovese indicated this could still be done, but it really wasn't thought to be a part of this workshop. However, making the invitation to the students would always be open, even to middle school students. To have the students come to Commission Meetings could be less intimidating than a City Council Meeting in the future. The City will hopefully start the Master Plan this year, and it should prove exciting for the Commission. As it moves forward, there will be several components, including assessing the City's recreation needs. The recreation needs will be much broader than leisure classes and youth sports and will include information received through the Youth Workshop. The term, Youth Master Plan, although not new, is being used by the City of Indio. La Guinta has already been working the Youth Master Plan indirectly for years, receiving input from the La Guinta youth, but has not funneled it into a Master Plan as of yet. Commissioner Weber felt having one-on-one dialogue with student leaders would be most beneficial. It would reconfirm the investment the community is making in Communrty Services CommiSSion Mmutes 8 January 9, 2006 the youth through the programs and the parks, while conveying the cost of surveillance cameras, for example, due to the acts of a few not adhering to the rules. He felt this to be a very important learning tool. having ASB students from the High School and Middle School at Commission Meetings, participating in the Youth Master Planning there. He also stated that he was present at the Indio City Council Meeting where the Youth Master Plan was presented, and felt that La Guinta had already received input as good as or better than what he saw in Indio. What La Guinta has already been receiving appeared to be what Indio is calling the Youth Master Plan. He encouraged continuing the dialogue and getting one-on-one time with student leaders. He suggested after a few meetings, invite students to attend the City Council Meeting, and let there be dialogue between student and Council, possibly a presentation to Council about their involvement with the Commission. Commissioner Gassman thought this was a good idea because a Commissioner can only make recommendations to the City Council and that would be the same process the students would also follow, taking their recommendations to City Council. Commissioner Weber said this would be a demonstrative form of government, which needs to be taught to the students, that there is a cause and effect and investment in time pays a reward. Commissioner Leidner asked how many student participants there were last year. Commissioner St. Johns indicated not many. Commissioner Hackney estimated less than 40 students and approximately 20 adults. Commissioner Leidner asked if it would be proper to recommend to City Council that students attending a City Council Meeting be acknowledged formally. The news of this might spread and assist in increasing the student participation. Commissioner Hackney felt there are two outlets, getting the student's input and having the type of dialogue as Commissioner Weber outlined, and felt the Commission has the ability to allow people to come and express what is important in an informal setting. Commissioner Gassman asked if students had received a Certificate of Participation in the past. Commissioner St. Johns indicated they had not. Commissioner Hackney indicated that instead of having staff prepare a report card on how well the Commission responded to student suggestions, approach it Community Services Commission Mmutes 9 January 9, 2006 differently. He suggested having staff show the students how much the City supports youth and the kind of efforts taken with a dollar amount to support this, such as the cost of the skate park. Commissioner Leidner did not think this would matter to those wanting to go on a shopping excursion or to a Big Bear trip. He did not feel this would cause a student to open their mind about the money spent. He felt that when you're 15 years old, you think the City has all the money in the world. He felt this to be more self-gratifying to announce what the City has spent. Commissioner Weber felt ASB student leaders might be more interested in the information of how much money the City spends, for example on supporting the youth. In their capacity of representing the student body, they may take this information back to the other students. If nothing else, he felt the students would see a reality, that there is a cause and effect, that participation does pay dividends, their voices are heard, and they would see how the process works, which is very positive in the development of our youth. Commissioner Leidner felt talking dollars might backfire, when the youth would see thousands spent by the City compared to millions and billions spent by the state and federal government, they might draw the conclusion that the City does not spend much money at all. Commissioner St. Johns expressed her dislike of the idea discussed previously, relating to agency leaders from Sun Bus, banks, etc. The idea of ASB student leaders, from the High School and Middle School, coming in and developing some kind of Master Plan, actually having them do some of the work and presenting it to City Council was a wonderful idea. Commissioner Leidner agreed and asked if this should be expanded to other age groups in the community as well, a senior workshop for example. Commissioner St. Johns and Commissioner Gassman agreed. Commissioner Hackney asked if this should be done in February or March. City Manager Genovese indicated the City was not ready to move on the Master Plan as of yet. If the Commission wanted, they could have a workshop and gather input in advance of the Master Plan. This could eventually go to City Council. With the Master Plan, you will be contacting all the different segments of the Commumty Services Commission Minutes 10 January 9. 2006 community. The timing is rather awkward because you would normally have a youth workshop or youth input during the master plan. Commissioner Hackney asked when the Master Plan would begin. City Manager Genovese indicated the soonest would be March, and this would be bypassing the request for proposal process, which he felt could be done now. Commissioner Weber asked if it made sense to have the youth workshop in conjunction with the Master Plan, to possibly eliminate any duplication of effort. City Manager Genovese indicated if the Master Plan is kicked off in March, which is when the consultant would begin at best, the youth workshop and getting input would probably be pushed back until May. If the Commission wanted to have a workshop prior to the Master Plan kick-off, this input could be used in lieu of the Master Plan input, or the students could be contacted again. Commissioner Weber felt it best to wait and have the Youth Workshop in conjunction with the Master Plan, but start the process now by working with ASB student leaders in March, wait for the Master Plan and involve student leaders in that process as well, asking for their help by becoming advocates to increase attendance at these workshops. Commissioner Leidner asked if it would be proper to invite student leaders to the next Commission meeting and make it an agenda item to get input from them on how to achieve greater participation. City Manager Genovese thought this was a good point, to invite ASB student leaders to a Commission meeting, explain the Master Plan and its objective to get input from the students on their needs, and soliciting their input on the best way to open the communications. Commissioner Hackney felt the Youth Workshop should be done as in past years, taking the student's input and having staff use it as part of the planning process. This has resulted in excursions such as Raging Waters, the Big Bear Ski Trip, a Laker's Game, etc. Commissioner St. Johns would rather see more youth than inviting Sunbus or other local businesses. The Commission discussed a date to invite students to a Commission Meeting. Community ServIces Commission MInutes 11 January 9. 2006 Because of the two school holidays in February and Spring Break in April, and no school holidays in March, March is thought to be the best time. The intent at the meeting is to gather student input on how to get student participation in a future workshop. When entering the contract for the Master Plan, the contractor will assist in conducting the workshop. MOTION - It was moved and seconded by Commissioners Leidner/Hackney that student leaders be invited to the March Commission Meeting, with the intent of student assistance in planning a future workshop. Motion carried unanimously. VII. CORRESPONDENCE AND WRITTEN MATERIALS A. Calendar of Monthly Events No other correspondence or written materials offered. VIII. COMMISSIONER ITEMS A. Reports from Commissioners Regarding Meetings Attended Commissioner St. Johns attended a Gang Workshop in Riverside and provided handouts. Coach ell a Valley is in Region 1 and has many gangs. There are approximately 2,000,000 gang members in the United States, but only seven to eight percent are violent. Youth 14 to 24 years of age are the most criminally active, but by this year, the number in the United States will reach 30,000,000. There is a Hispanic gang in Santa Ana that makes $1,000,000 a week selling methamphetamines. It is difficult to say to young men and women that they should work at Wal-Mart when there is money being made illegally like this. Unfortunately, the money being made is to support their families. Also, 60% of all the world's illegal drugs are used in the United States. Commissioner St. Johns also commented because of the money to be made in selling drugs, it doesn't just involve gang members any longer, but students that may not do too well in school, students we would hope would come to the youth workshops, where they can be shown other opportunities. Also discussed were tattoos and their meanings. There is a book available on the web that shows where to get tattoos removed. The closest tattoo remover to Coachella Valley is in Orange County. There are also 11,000 gun dealers in California in 2,000 high schools. Commumty Services CommISSion Minutes 12 January 9, 2006 Commissioner Gassman attended the jazz concert at the Tack Room at the Empire Polo Grounds on December 29th. She attended an opening at the Figurative Art Studio and will be attending the grand opening of a new art studio at Point Happy. Commissioner Leidner attended no meetings but asked if notification was made to residents regarding the expiration of their Silver Rock cards. City Manager Genovese indicated there was notification in a newsletter and in the Gem. The card has been extended to three years at the same $15 processing fee and now utilizes a bar code on the back for better security. The card is only used for golf at Silver Rock at this time. Commissioner Weber attended a meeting at the City of Indio. There was a PowerPoint presentation of their Youth Master Plan. He felt the input La Guinta is receiving is as meaningful if not more meaningful than what he saw in Indio. IX. ADJOURNMENT MOTION - It was moved and seconded by Commissioners Hackney/Gassman to adjourn the Community Services Commission Meeting at 8:47PM. Motion carried unanimously. NEXT MEETING INFORMATION Monday, February 13, 2006 @7:00 PM La Guinta Civic Center - Study Session Room Submitted by: . r ( / " " )( , A~n~ ~~~~s~n, co'~munly se'rvices Secretary