Minutes - Council Work Session - 02/15/2022 - Special

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Parks and Assistant Public Works Superintendent Riverblood commented for about the last year and half the Park and Rec Commission has been unanimous that they are open to or would like Staff to look at unnecessary mowing and turf grass maintenance in the interest of cost savings so that could be a tangible tactic to explore. That is being done right now in respect to Rabbit Park. He stated it should be quantifiable to put a cost to mowing and reducing mowing expenses. Councilmember Specht commented that there is discussion about playground replacement, noting some funds are in the bank to maybe do more than one park a year until it is caught up as long as the funds are available. Parks and Assistant Public Works Superintendent Riverblood replied that is being looked at too. City Administrator Ulrich asked if the suggestion is to include accelerating the park improvement program as a tactic and asked if there are ways to make improvements to neighborhood parks. Councilmember Musgrove commented that in the Parks and Rec mindset they clearly heard the message from the Council that they want to work on restoration of the parks and any cost savings that would go towards speeding up that process is already built into that as well as using some of the savings in some parks to make bigger improvements in more regional parks. She thought it might be covered in the parks maintenance plan. Parks and Assistant Public Works Superintendent Riverblood agreed, adding that Council just passed a playground replacement policy in September. They are trying that out and seeing how that fits and it seems to be working in that they had consensus on the meeting last Thursday that there is a way to do two parks instead of one. It may not need to be a tactic. City Administrator Ulrich replied they are in a good place with that and asked if everyone was comfortable with that. There was consensus. Councilmember Riley commented that they are speaking about operational efficiencies and cost savings and there is a new public works facility that has had those words used a lot. He asked if there is anything that could be measured that would produce operational efficiencies or cost savings. He stated they have a huge investment that everyone is happy with but it would be great if it could be quantified to show that they have done something else with it. City Administrator Ulrich replied that is a great idea. Public Works Superintendent Riemer commented that right now one of the biggest things coming up is the bids on the salt shed that will move them closer to where they are right now. Another thing they are doing is loading the salt trucks now because in the building there isn’t high humidity so it won’t lock up. If they know a snowstorm is coming it saves an hour or hour and a half in the morning, they can be ready to go right now. They start at 2:00 a.m. and trucks can be ready to out by 2:15 a.m. or 2:30 a.m. Right now that is one of the bigger ones. Also the fueling station now, as soon as that is up and running, that will save time so they are not going to gas stations. Everyone can fuel up in the morning or at night when they come in. Those are the two biggest ones now and the truck would be the third. City Council Special Work Session / February 15, 2022 Page 19 of 31