Members Absent: Secretary Bill Lucas, Commissioners Nealy and Madore Are Absent

Commission Minutes: January 14, 2016 Members Present: President Joe Krapohl, Vice President Jim Washington, Cloyce Dickerson, Commissioners Keeler, Nolden, Wright, Lynch Members Absent: Secretary Bill Lucas, Commissioners Nealy and Madore are absent. Staff Present: Amy McMillan, Director; Matt Armentrout, Director of Facilities Management; Denise Bowles, Crossroads Village Manager; Danielle Fulcher, Marketing Specialist, Deborah Wilkes, Secretary; Patrick Linihan, Administrative Intern

Others Present: Tom Kehoe, LaMonica Harris

1) Call to Order. President Krapohl presided and called the meeting to order at 10:00 a.m. 2) Nomination and Election of Officers. This is our annual organizational meeting and we will start out with election of officers for 2016. President Krapohl asked for nominations for the office of President of the Parks Commission.

Commissioner Bryant Nolden nominated Joe Krapohl for the office of President of the Parks Commission. Commissioner Jeff Wright supported that nomination.

President Krapohl called for any other nominations three (3) times. With no other nominations, the nomination process is closed and a motion is made to close the nominations and elect the nominee by acclamation. With no further discussion, the following action is taken:

Motion and support to close the nominations and accept the nomination of Joe Krapohl for office of President of the Parks Commission for the calendar year 2016.

Ayes: All Ayes Nays: None Absent: Secretary Bill Lucas, Commissioners Gloria Nealy and Joe Madore are absent.

MOTION CARRIED 7-0

President Krapohl asked for nominations for the office of Vice-President of the Parks Commission.

Commissioner Bryant Nolden nominated James Washington for the office of Vice- President of the Parks Commission. Commissioner Wright supported that nomination.

President Krapohl called for any other nominations three (3) times. With no other

January 14, 2016 Page 1 nominations, the nomination process is closed and a motion was made to close the nominations and elect the nominee by acclamation. With no further discussion, the following action is taken:

Motion and support to close the nominations and accept the nomination of James Washington for office of Vice-President of the Parks Commission for the calendar year 2016.

MOTION CARRIED 7-0

President Krapohl asked for nominations for the office of Secretary.

Commissioner Wright nominated William Lucas for the office of Secretary of the Parks Commission. Commissioner Lynch supported that nomination.

President Krapohl called for any other nominations three (3) times. With no other nominations, the nomination process is closed and a motion was made to close the nominations and elect the nominee by acclamation. Jo Krapohl informed that if Bill Lucas was nominated he would accept. Motion and support to close the nominations and accept the nomination of Bill Lucas for the office of Secretary of the Parks Commission for the calendar year 2016.

3) Opportunity for members of the public to address the commission. LaMonica Harris addressed the commission.

Tom Kehoe told the Board there is an article in the Park rules about adjacent property owners holding a seat on the board and asked if that position was filled.

Also he asked about the oil spill that he mentioned before. It has been cleaned up but wants to know where the spoils were taken care of.

4) Consent Agenda. President Krapohl asked commissioners if there are any items they wish to remove from the consent agenda for discussion. No items were removed from the consent agenda.

Action Taken: Motion by Commissioner Bryant Nolden Supported by Commissioner Mike Keeler

January 14, 2016 Page 2 Motion and support for approval of consent agenda items A through C, as listed.

Roll Call Yeas: Dickerson, Keeler, Krapohl, Lynch, Nolden, Washington, Wright Nays: None Absent: Secretary Bill Lucas, Commissioners Gloria Nealy and Joe Madore are absent.

MOTION CARRIED 7-0

5. Director’s Report

A. Ms. McMillan introduced Denise Bowles as our new Crossroads Village Manager. She began work last Tuesday.

Denise graduated from Beecher High School, received her associates degree from Mott College, and University of MI for her bachelor’s degree. She worked at Red Cross for 24 years as the manager of the health and safety department and covered Michigan, except for Detroit, Ann Arbor and Port Huron until her position was eliminated. Recently she worked at University of MI. This is her dream job and she couldn’t be happier to be here and it is an honor to have this position and she will work very hard to exceed expectations and recognizes the great responsibility she has as manager of Crossroads Village. Everyone has been welcoming and wonderful. Thank you.

B. Ratification of Parks bills. You have received the list of bill, the end of the calendar year is the year end closing process for the County’s budget and staff has been putting in many hours and consecutive days to meet the closing deadline so the bills were not ready in time to go out with your packet. Ms. McMillan shared that the County’s new team within the controller’s office has done an extraordinary job to put together this new leadership team; Joy Hawkins and Christy Premo were tremendously helpful, accessible and available in a way we have not experienced before during the year end process. As issues arose they were very responsive.

Today, Leisa is in training on the new CGI software program that the County will use to manage County finances. We are very impressed by the training program. In the past when new software was implemented it was never as organized and we are very happy with that; particularly with the connection between downtown and the Parks. There were many times we were forgotten out here at the parks and Leisa has been able to be part of decision making and the software company has been working with her to make this easy for us to manage. We send our great appreciation to the Controller’s office.

Action Taken: Motion by Commissioner Bryant Nolden Supported by Commissioner Mike Keeler

Motion and support for ratification of Commission bills.

January 14, 2016 Page 3 Roll Call Yeas: Wright, Washington, Nolden, Lynch, Krapohl, Keeler, Dickerson. Nays: None Absent: Secretary Bill Lucas, Commissioners Gloria Nealy and Joe Madore are absent.

MOTION CARRIED 7-0

C. Holiday Program Updates. We don’t have a full report of Christmas, but we have some figures for you today. Last year was a banner year for Christmas at Crossroads. This year exceeded that number by about 5%. Our total attendance at Christmas was 58,630 compared to 55,547 last year. Our total attendance at Crossroads for the year was 158,396, up about a 1,000 people from last year, which again, last year was a banner year. Our record attendance for Ladies Night Out helped. We will have the final payroll from Christmas hit the books last week, exclusive of wages to put the displays and equipment to rest for the wintertime. We do know that our revenues exceeded our budget projections and our expenditures were in line with what we expected. We are starting our second quarter of the fiscal year in very good condition. Typically, if we don’t do well during the first quarter during Halloween and Christmas that really drives what we have to work with in our expenses for the rest of the year.

President Krapohl asked how the free admission on opening night in 2014 and 2015 may have affected attendance. He believes the positive benefits of offering free admission for Genesee County residents seem to be showing up.

Ms. McMillan said 2013 was the highest attendance and 2014 exceeded that and 2015 exceeded the record attendance going all the way back to 1995. 1995 the program was virtually new and there wasn’t much competition for the program at that time. It has really been an extraordinary year. She would say that there is a direct link to attendance after free admission for County residents, even though opening night had lower attendance than last year’s opening night; it was pretty darn chilly this year on opening night. But what we think is there is a whole lightness of the atmosphere and people saying, well, if I didn’t get a train ride on opening night, they could come back again. Getting a seat on any train during the entire Christmas program was very difficult. With the exception of a couple nights, we added trains every night we were open. Most weekends we were running nine trains per night with the maximum number of train cars that we could pull. This was a great team effort all around.

D) Amendment process for 5 year plan. In December we informally talked about amending the plan to include the Poulos property on Hegel Road that we intend to submit a grant application to acquire, and to allow municipalities to opt-in to our plan that did not take advantage of that when the plan was originally adopted; and include the Planning Commissions Trail Map that has been updated. In order to meet the DNR requirements for the approval and adoption of the amended plan we must set a public meeting to accept public comments. We must have a 14 day notice to do that. An ad is going into the Flint Journal today to give public notice and upon approval of the Parks Commission today everything will go up on our website today to indicate that

January 14, 2016 Page 4 the proposed amendments are ready for public comment.

Action Taken: Motion by Commissioner Wright Supported by Commissioner Nolden

Move to designate the January 28, 2016 Genesee County Parks and Recreation Commission meeting as the time to seek public input on proposed amendments to the County Parks and Recreation 5 year master plan.

Roll Call Yeas: Dickerson, Krapohl, Lynch, Nolden, Wright, Washington, Keeler Nays: None Absent: Secretary Bill Lucas, Commissioners Gloria Nealy and Joe Madore are absent.

MOTION CARRIED 7-0

E) Hegel Road Property Grant Submission We are also required to set a public meeting for public input on our submission of a grant application to the MDNR Trust Fund for the acquisition of the Hegel Road property.

Keeler: Have we received the appraisal yet?

McMillan: We should have a number by the beginning of next week. The full appraisal should be done by February 3. That is why we are targeting February 11, 2016.

Action Taken: Motion by Commissioner Wright Supported by Commissioner Keeler

Motion and support to designate the February 11, 2016 Genesee County Parks and Recreation Commission meeting as the time to seek public input in submission of a grant application to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources Trust Fund for the Hegel Road acquisition.

Roll Call Yeas: Wright, Dickerson, Lynch, Nolden, Krapohl, Keeler, Washington Nays: None Absent: Secretary Bill Lucas, Commissioners Gloria Nealy and Joe Madore are absent.

MOTION CARRIED 7-0

F: Grants We are not ready to ask for formal action today, but the Planning Commission has awarded us 423,000 of TAP funds in 2017 for the purposes of constructing the next section of our Iron Belle Trail that will go from our office up to Belsay Road, along the shoreline. If you think the Stepping Stone Falls section is beautiful….

January 14, 2016 Page 5 Derek Bradshaw, the Planning Commission Director, has also wrangled some more funds from the state for that project, about $800,000 for 2017. If we can get confirmation of those two 2017 amounts we will come back to you and ask to apply for a Trust Fund Grant for development of that trail section for an amount of $300,000, which is the max amount under the Trust Fund, which would pay for that whole section of the trail. Even though we are applying in 2016, we don’t know if we are funded until the end of the year and construction would not be able to begin until 2017. We only have those two informal commitments that Derek has secured funds; but we must have formal confirmation of those commitments.

We want to site the Planning Commission’s extraordinary efforts on our behalf to wrangle money out of all the pots that they have control over that we do not. We also recognize that the Road Commission, who is the actual applicant for those funds because they are the Act 51 Agency, has been extraordinary cooperative with us. If you, Mr. Dickerson, could send our compliments their way at your next meeting, we’d appreciate that.

Keeler: Which side of the river would that trail be?

McMillan: The office (south) side of the river. Our initial plan was the north side, but there are so many water crossings that it would be cost prohibitive. The south side advantages are that it also has the direct connections to the fishing sites. From a Trust Fund perspective, that amplifies our application. From a strategic perspective the Iron Belle Trail projects are scoring the highest, even though this one has tremendous natural resource components that go with it, the Governor has a couple years left in his term so the Trust Fund Board…should the Governor not be here, the Trust Board still meets this year and this would still be a high priority project.

Keeler: Are there any water crossings on this side of the river? How many more are there to get from Belsay to Columbiaville? Each one of these would be two-mile chunks, as the crow flies?

McMillan: No water crossings. Depends how you divide it up, from Belsay we will go up to Irish Road, which would be the next section. They are anywhere from 1.2 to 2 miles, it depends on how they get divided up and how many dollars we can put toward them at a time. The goal is always to match up the TAP dollars with the Trust Fund dollars so the least amount of money has to come out of our pockets. That is what really makes it possible for us to build those trails.

G. Contract for Farm Animals at Crossroads Village. One of our displays is farm animals during the summer season. They go back for Halloween and Christmas. We had two bids, through the Purchasing Department, and we are requesting that the contract be awarded to Carousel Acres. They are our current provider and their proposal was for $69,660 for the next two seasons.

Wright: What type of animals do we get for that amount? The animals stay at Crossroads, they don’t go home every day?

January 14, 2016 Page 6 McMillan: Alpacas, cow that we milk, and a calf, chickens, miniature horse that are our Pony Express to deliver our mail, goats of various shapes and sizes. Carousel Acres provides staff in the Village to care for the animals. They are certified and licensed as required. They milk the cows; feed everybody what they are supposed to be eating.

Nolden: What happens to the eggs from the chickens? Do you use them?

McMillan: We can’t use them, we don’t have a license to prepare food and serve them to the public; Carousel takes the eggs.

Action Taken: Motion by Commissioner Wright Supported by Commissioner Nolden

Motion and support to award the contract for Farm Animals at Crossroads Village for 2016-2017 calendar year to Carousel Acres Inc. in the amount of $34,830 per year for each year.

Roll Call Yeas: Lynch, Dickerson, Wright, Nolden, Keeler, Washington, Krapohl Nays: None Absent: Secretary Bill Lucas, Commissioners Gloria Nealy and Joe Madore are absent.

MOTION CARRIED 7-0

H: Fair Board. The Fair Board is in full compliance of their agreement with the Parks. We received a check for half of their required facilities use fees for the Cummings Center for their 2016 event. We appreciate their timeliness with that.

I. Annual Retreat. We will be communicating with you about our annual retreat. This year we will be having another facilitator to talk about defining and putting in writing the commission’s core values, to move beyond our mission statement.

Krapohl: In the last couple years we have had our annual retreat on a Friday and that seemed to work out rather than on a Saturday. We are looking at the end of February, possibly the 19 or the 26.

J. Furlough Day Tomorrow, January 15, is a County furlough day. ForMar will remain open, the main offices will be closed, and many parks employees will be taking the furlough day. Some park maintenance will not be working. We have some flexibility, as long as we meet all the required number of furlough days in the contract. Park rangers will be working, seasonal staff will be working. The offices will also be closed on Monday in recognition of ML King Day.

6) New Business There is no new business.

January 14, 2016 Page 7 7) Opportunity for Commissioners to address the Commission.

Krapohl asked Mr. Lynch if he was willing to serve on the executive board for 2016.

Commissioner Lynch agreed to be on the executive board.

Keeler: He was surprised how quickly the pole barn at ForMar is going up. What will that be used for? The doors are huge.

McMillan and Armentrout: Those are 16 ft. doors. That will be used for the horticultural department. Storing plant materials, work shop, etc. It will greatly improve their working conditions.

Wright: Commissioner Wright welcomed Denise to Crossroads and to the Parks.

Washington: Happy New Year.

Krapohl: ForMar and Nancy Edwards were both recognized with awards from Priority

Children.

At the December meeting he attended the tour at the Railroad Shop. He was very impressed with the layout and organization compared to the last time he was there. It is a tremendous difference from the last time he toured the shop. Congratulations to the staff for doing a fine job.

To answer a comment made during public comments: The Commission would not have the information about the oil spill, any clean-up costs, toxicity. Contact the director during normal business hours and she can get that information.

As far as part rules, adjacent property owners having a seat, he isn’t sure where that is but the Board of Commissioners appoints the park commissioners. He would have to look into that and get an answer.

8) Opportunity for the public to address the commission

Tom Kehoe asked extending a trail from the caboose across the tracks, across Stanley Rd so it would connect to the sidewalk to Genesee. It would have big benefits for school kids to get to school or anybody crossing over the tracks.

Keeler mentioned that one of his people actually fell because there is a ditch there. Also that light has a turn arrow, it is a crazy intersection.

McMillan: She understands, Commissioner Keeler, is that Genesee Township is working its Safe Routes to School program and that is outside of our sphere of authority. The township would need to address that.

You are not allowed to turn right at those railroad tracks.

Nolden: He read somewhere that the TIP funds were approved for Safe Route to Schools for

January 14, 2016 Page 8 Genesee Township.

McMillan: Back in August they hadn’t yet applied. Good for them for seeking those funds.

LaMonica Harris would love to be a member of the commission.

9) Adjournment. Hearing no objections, the meeting adjourned at 10:40 a.m.

Recorded and transcribed by D. Wilkes p:commission/2016/Agenda and minutes/1-14-2016

January 14, 2016 Page 9