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PR01-05-2021MinPARKS AND RECREATION ADVISORY BOARD LONGWOOD CITY COMMISSION CHAMBERS 175 WEST WARREN AVENUE LONGWOOD, FLORIDA MINUTES January 5, 2021 Present: David Putz, Chair Jim Vogel, Vice -Chair Amanda Sackett, Member (7:06 p.m.) Judi Coad, Member Lori Rice, Member Teresa Ray, Member Samuel Friedman, Member Chris Capizzi, Leisure Services Director Ryan Rinaldo, Recreation Coordinator Donna L. Alt -Bowes, Recording Secretary 1. CALL TO ORDER. Chair Putz called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. 2. PUBLIC INPUT. None. 3. ACTION ITEMS. A. Approve Minutes from December 1, 2020 Member Rice moved to approve the minutes from December 1, 2020, as presented. Seconded by Member Vogel and carried by a unanimous voice vote with Member Sackett absent. B. Election of Officers i. Chair Member Rice nominated David Putz for Chair. There were no other nominations. Nomination carried by a unanimous voice vote with Member Sackett absent. ii. Vice -Chair Vice -Chair Vogel nominated himself as Vice -Chair. P&R 01-05-2021/1 There were no other nominations. Nomination carried by a unanimous voice vote with Member Sackett absent. Member Rice congratulated and thanked Chair Putz and Vice -Chair Vogel. C. Board Meeting Time Chair Putz asked if the meeting time was discussed in the previous meeting. Member Rice said January would be the month that the Board would discuss any changes to the way we do business which included the meeting time. She said there are a few liberties and our meeting time is one of them. According to our Charter, we cannot begin before 6:00 p.m. and over the last several years most of the other City meetings, (i.e. Commission meetings, Land Planning Agency meetings) have changed their start time to 6:00 p.m. or 6:30 p.m. Member Rice moved to discuss beginning the meetings at 6:00 pm starting February 2021. Seconded by Member Ray. Discussion ensued about the meeting time. Member Rice restated her motion for the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board meeting to start at 6:00 p.m. beginning February 2021. Seconded by Member Ray and failed by a three -to -four (3-4) voice vote. Member Rice said she would love to hear another motion. Member Coad moved to have the Board meetings start at 6:30 p.m. effective the 1st of February for the year 2021. Seconded by Member Sackett and carried by a unanimous voice vote. Member Rice asked Chair Putz to ask staff to check if permission is needed from the Commission to change the meeting time. Member Coad said this room had been used by other meetings in the past. Member Rice said they meet on a different week. Member Coad said she wanted to make sure there would not be a conflict. D. Chili Cook -Off P&R 01-05-2021/2 Member Ray said she did not have much to say about the Chili Cook -Off right now but she did the flyers. Chair Putz said we were looking for dates and he thought she was too. Mr. Capizzi said that Mr. Rinaldo and Member Ray have been working together on the Chili Cook -Off and hoping to do it in March. He asked Mr. Rinaldo to give everyone an update and then Member Ray can let everyone know what she has done. Mr. Rinaldo said he spoke with Member Ray this afternoon and will be contacting the vendors, just as he did with the Christmas Parade, to see if they are interested and available for the Chili Cook -Off. In the past five (5) years, he has received about twenty- five (25) different emails from teams who have participated. He is going to send them a survey to see who wants to participate. If we only get one (1) or two (2), we might want to look at shelving this until November. Historically, the teams that have been a part of the event have returned. If we get the survey back and fifty percent (50%) of the twenty-five (25) teams say they want to come back then it will make sense to go ahead and speak about moving forward with it. Mr. Capizzi said we have the resources from the last several years but if you all do know someone who would like to participate please give us their information and we will put them down as willing participants. This is not just limited to the people we have had in the past for this survey. If you do not want to contact them you can give us their information and we will contact them to see if they would be willing to participate. Chair Putz asked if we had a date. Mr. Rinaldo said a while back we had talked about March 13, 2021, which is the same day as the Car Show. Chair Putz asked if we were sticking to contacting this twenty-five (25) people plus anybody else we may dig up. Mr. Rinaldo said yes. He said if we push to April, May, or June, we are getting close to the original November date. We do not want to have to reset our calendar each year. He said we did not want to have two (2) Cook -Offs within four (4) or five (5) months of each other so that is why we like the idea of having it in March. Chair Putz said they will wait on the survey feedback. Mr. Rinaldo said we are sending out the survey tomorrow and are going to give them a week. We will post it on the Facebook page and the Chili Cook -Off Facebook page. Based on his research, no one else around us is doing a Chili Cook -Off. He said Orlando has one of the biggest cook -offs and has postponed it to the following November. We have been trendsetters with our signage, social distancing, and hand sanitizer so it is not to say that we cannot have it, but the consensus in the Chili Cook -Off world is they have P&R O1-05-2021/3 postponed it to the following year. He said we are still going to send this survey out for March and if we get positive feedback we will proceed with it. Chair Putz asked if we would know about this before our next meeting. Mr. Rinaldo replied yes. Member Coad asked if Mr. Rinaldo would be able to email the Board with this survey by the end of the month. Mr. Capizzi said we will give it a couple of weeks, that way we get a better idea. He said sometimes it takes a week for somebody to answer you. Member Coad asked about the guys who wanted to do the BBQ competition and if they were still moving forward with it. Mr. Capizzi said they had shown interest in doing a separate BBQ event but not any time soon. He said they wanted to possibly do it in the Fall. We are going to re -open those discussions with them and see where they are at and if they would be willing to do it. We will do the survey for the cook -off and give it a couple of weeks, which is more than enough time to garner how much interest people have in putting a team together. He said Member Ray has been working on the flyer and turned the floor over to her. Member Ray passed out the flyer to the Board. She also passed out an advertisement from the Altamonte Springs Magazine that showed the Barkfest event was being held on the 13t" and she thought we were not going to do it. Member Rice said that she liked the idea of including the survey on the Facebook page. She said in the last month there have been eight (8) new likes and she has seen a couple every month throughout last year. She said they were not all from the immediate area so she was thinking that maybe there would be more interest in coming to our cook -off since other events have been canceled. She said just like they do with some of the college classes, there is minimum participation to move forward and if you make that known, as well as a deadline, there might be more interest. If it is looking like we have an interest, she asked that everybody work as hard as possible using all forms of advertising to get the word out. She said there is not much going on with the Orlando Sentinel so they should have space. All we have to do is email them. She said for those that are not on Facebook, Channel 13 scrolls community events. She thinks there are so many places to successfully promote the event if we come together. Mr. Capizzi said if there are any places in particular that you know of, feel free to let Mr. Rinaldo know so he can get the word out. Member Rice said she had given staff a list of media outlet places. Chair Putz asked if Mr. Rinaldo had that list. P&R 01-05-2021/4 Member Rice said that it had been several years since she gave the list out but that she will be glad to get that list over to him. it does not have to fall all on Mr. Rinaldo either. She said the Board can lend some participation. Member Coad said the contacts at the hospital might want to put out a flyer and may have a team or two (2) from there. She said we have been working hand -in -hand with them so maybe they would like to foot a team or two (2) which would boost everything. Mr. Capizzi said they would run it by their public relations person. Mr. Rinaldo said that if we decide to go ahead with the Chili Cook -Off we will blast it out on all of the outlets. He said the advertisement in Lake Mary Life magazine that Member Ray presented was a misprint. He said it looks like they re -ran our ad from last year since these are all last year's dates. He will reach out to Lake Mary Life magazine and see if we can get a correction for the next one. He said he will probably do a post on our Facebook page to address this. Member Rice asked if we were still using Eventbrite for ticketing. Mr. Rinaldo replied yes. 4. BOARD MEMBER REPORTS Vice -Chair Vogel reported and said she has been to the pocket parks and there were a few issues. She asked Mr. Capizzi how far we mow into Shadow Hill. Mr. Capizzi said he believes we go down as far as we can go on the lake. Vice -Chair Vogel said the park looked great but there was trash all along the waterline of the lake. It looks like the lake has somewhat receded and it has left a lot of trash sitting right at the waterline. She said Sandalwood Park had some trash but that all of the other parks looked great. She noted an issue at Magnolia Park with the gazebo supports. She said there is some rust at the joints and did not know if that would be an issue. She said she does a lot of walking in this area and has seen some old signs that say Longwood Recreation Trail. She asked if we still promote that or if it is something that is still in existence. Mr. Capizzi said yes we have sidewalks from park to park and explained where the sidewalks are connected. He said they are working on a project now to have the Cross Seminole Trail meet the Grant area adding everything together. Discussion ensued concerning the Cross Seminole Trail project. Member Rice reported and said she attended Celebrate the Seasons and it was an awesome night. She volunteered and enjoyed being able to work with the little children writing their letters to Santa. She asked how many letters there were to Santa. She said it turned out to P&R 01-05-2021/5 be a wonderful event and gave kudos to the staff for everything. She commended Chad DeGroot of Mr. B's Bikes and Boards and said he started another GoFundMe account to put towards improvements for the skate park. She said he funded the candy corn piece that is at the skate park through GoFundMe. Discussion ensued concerning the GoFundMe account for improvements at the skate park. Member Rice reminded the Board about Pennies for Parks. She asked what the total was in 2020. Mr. Capizzi advised it was a little over $600.00. Discussion ensued about the Pennies for Parks program. Member Friedman stated he did not have a report. Member Sackett stated she did not have a report. Member Coad reported and said we did not have Santa's Breakfast this year. She asked the staff if they were able to get over to see how the hospital's event went. She said that we talked about wanting to partner with them next year. Mr. Capizzi said we had reached out before that event but have not heard anything since. He said that everybody is back from vacation this week so he is sure we will hear from somebody. Member Coad said that Celebrate the Season was very successful and thanked Mr. Capizzi and Mr. Rinaldo for all that they did. Discussion ensued about Celebrate the Seasons. Member Coad said she missed the Dance and Magic Show and asked how the magic turned out. Mr. Rinaldo said the event went very well and had a nice turnout. He said Elevate reached out to him today asking about future events. The magician was very happy, pleasant, and professional. He said overall it was a very successful event. Discussion ensued about the magician and using him at future events. Mr. Rinaldo thanked Mrs. Alt -Bowes for replying to the letters the children wrote to Santa. Mrs. Alt -Bowes advised there were one hundred and fifty (150) letters sent back to kids with only four (4) or five (5) that were illegible or had no address. Discussion ensued about the letters to Santa. P&R 01-05-2021/6 Member Putz reported and asked if there were enough food trucks at Celebrate the Seasons. Member Coad said she thought so for the space we had. Discussion ensued about the food trucks at Celebrate the Seasons. Member Coad said that since Santa's Workshop did so well, Mr. Capizzi, Mr. Rinaldo, and myself had talked about having the workshop at an event with the Board running it as a fundraiser. She said it was not possible on the night of Celebrate the Season because we did not have enough people to do that, but maybe a Santa's Workshop during Santa's Breakfast could work. She said the company brings the merchandise and picks the leftovers up. At -the end of Celebrate the Season, a representative from Santa's Workshop told her that they did exceptionally well and were shocked. She asked the Board to think about doing it for a future event and that it does not necessarily have to be during Christmas time. Discussion ensued about what would be involved in a Santa's Workshop fundraiser and partnering with the hospital to do Santa's Breakfast. Chair Putz gave a gift to Member Coad. 5. STAFF REPORT Mr. Capizzi said the Smash Beer Festival is on January 9, 2021, from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. at Reiter Park which is the same day as the Longwood Downtown Cruise -In Car Show from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. in the Historic Downtown District. He said Hourglass Brewing is the organizer of this festival and there will be a lot of vendors there. He said they are aware of the COVID restrictions and there will be plenty of signage out. They will be using disposable cups for each beer station. There is a Movie in the Park on January 15, 2021, at 7:00 p.m. and the movie is to be determined at this time. The Food Truck Battle is on January 23, 2021, along Church Avenue from 4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. The Scottish Society is talking about possibly wanting to do a Scottish event on Sunday, January 24, 2021. They enjoyed the event last Fall. The Mustang Round -Up is going to be on February 6, 2021, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Chair Putz asked if there was an updated event list. Mr. Capizzi said yes and it would be emailed to all Board members this week. He said the Farmer's Market is doing great. They made $22,100 from the vendors and $4,325 from sponsorships from the Arts and Crafts Festival. Half of the vendor fees go to the Historic Society and the money has gone to good use. Next year we will be exclusive with Cox Media. Discussion ensued about the Arts and Crafts Festival. P&R 01-05-2021/7 Member Coad asked if the numbers had been tallied for Celebrate the Season. Mr. Rinaldo replied yes. Mr. Capizzi said he would email that information to the Board. Member Coad asked if we are doing Barkfest this year. Mr. Capizzi said they were looking to do it in March. We will coordinate with Longwood Babe Ruth to be sure they are not playing. Member Coad asked about the status of the banners. Mr. Capizzi said they are trying to get them up by the end of the week but he said they will be up by the end of next week for sure. Member Coad asked what the status of the pump track is because we had it shut down to allow the grass to regenerate. Mr. Capizzi said it is good. He said it is getting a lot of use. He said it is very difficult because it is so popular so there are always going to be areas that look better than others. Member Coad asked how the Chanukah Festival turned out. Mr. Capizzi said it was good and well attended. Discussion ensued about the Chanukah Festival. 6. ADJOURNMENT. Chair Putz moved to adjourn. Seconded by Member Rice and carried by a unanimous voice vote. Meeting adjourned at 8:15 p.m. Minutes approved by the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board: 02-02-2021 ha fl (� efiq'"�L I David Putz, Chair ATTEST: Donna Alt -Bowes, Recording Secretary P&R 01-05-2021/8