27 July 2015 Advisory Parks Board Meeting Summary

27 July 2015 Advisory Parks Board Meeting Summary

Below is a written summary of the July 2015 Advisory Parks Board Meeting. This is the segment before the public comments. Thanks to Greg Stenslands Between the Lines program, you can listen to the public commments here.

The 27 July 2015 Advisory Parks Board meeting started with a statement by Jordan Skiff, the Director of Public Works for the City of Fond du Lac. He stated that there were two significant considerations that caused WLA to not present a revised proposal at the meeting.

The first significant consideration was the 2005 lease between WLA and the city. The current copy came from a search of WLA files. The city has not been able to locate a copy in their files.  This answers our questions about why the lease is not dated or notarized.  An offical copy has not been located.   He stated that with staff turnover at the city and WLA, locating documents has been hard. 

 He described the area under the lease as a 60 ft wide x 750 ft long strip. (See the map below that shows this area, it is the red strip on the east property line of McDermott park, in the legal description with the 2005 lease it is about 1 acre of the park)  He said the city likely approached WLA because the city needed an easement across the WLA property for the proposed water mixing plant that was to be located in McDermott Park, but it was never built. He said WLA clearly got something out of the lease.

The second consideration is the floodway. He showed the floodway and the flood fringe on a map and described how a floodway acts in an event. (Below you will see a flood plain map of the area.  In our map the floodway is blue and the flood fringe is tan.) 

Basically, water moves in a floodway. In the flood fringe, the water pools; it is more like standing water. You can understand the importance of this distinction if you think about what you want to have happen when you have a flood. You want the water to move out. The floodway is where this occurs. 

The performance of the floodway is very very important during a flooding event. That is the pathway to get water out so you do not have more flooding. Because it is the pathway for the water to leave, there are special restrictions on the floodway areas. As Mr Skill stated: The land elevation cannot be raised more than 0.01 ft. (Well, you can do that, but you must compensate by lowering somewhere on the property to replace what you have altered. This is very expensive and highly unlikely for McDermott Park)  Mr Skiff said there are options for the flood fringe area and WLA and their engineers may be looking at that.

Mr Skiff then addressed “How we got here.” In a previous discussion with staff on both sides (none of who were involved in the current discussions) there was another plan. (This is shown below. The time stamp on the photo says 7/24/2011, we are calling this the 2011 proposal) When they started talking about a year ago, this was a document they looked at.  He was concerned about how spread out it was and he asked WLA to compress the plan. Unfortunately, they didn't consider the floodway.

He also wanted residents to know that any construction will have to comply with the storm water code. Not only is quantity an issue, runoff quality is important as well. Usually a wet pond is constructed and solids have a chance to settle out before the water goes into the storm water system. 

 Mr Skiff ended his presentation by saying the ball is in WLA's court. Then he took questions from the board.

Board member Block asked if the floodway can be recreated in the flood fringe.  Mr Skiff said yes, but it is very expensive and most unlikely here. 

 She asked if field #2 was fenced in the earlier proposal. (2011, this is the northern most field, it is right by the parking lot) He said they did not get that far in the discussion. 

 She asked if the proposed south parking lot was in the flood area? No it is not. At this point, Mr Skill moved the illustration so the 121 stall parking lot was visible.

Board member Eischeid asked about section #3 in the lease. Is WLA the sole user of the parking lot if it is built? Mr Skiff said that would be his reading but he would follow up with the city attorney. He said the lease is broadly written and does not protect either party very well. 

 He mentioned that Mr Brossenboek was under the impression that the public had the right (not just the opportunity) to access the baseball field. The lease does not seem to grant this right.

Mr Eischeid asked about section #14: does it mean WLA would have to remove a parking lot in 2036 if they built it? Mr Skiff said, yes, but he also thought the DPW could have it remain and the city would take it over. Mr Eischeid also confirmed that there is no renewal language.

At this point, Mr Skiff said that city staff had hoped before the floodway issue came up to find a way to make the new lease work with this 2005 lease and that they would try to make them compatible.

Board member Dennis asked if the city had alternate plans for McDermott Park. Mr Skiff said they do not. There is nothing in the capital improvement plan. He said all the citizen interest expressed about the WLA lease proposal might make them take a look at it. He said there had been a question about why the city did not do the improvements to the ball fields and lease back to WLA.  City Manager Moore has stated there is no need in the city for the ball fields, and that is correct.  The city has plenty of ball fields. 

Mr Skiff talked of meetings he had with Dr Clements and Ms Sondergard. He said Dr Clements was interested in a path that would connect with other parks and the Agnesian paths. He said Ms Sondergard had neat ideas, but he felt all of those could be put in the northern area of McDermott park that was outside of the WLA lease area.

Next, Principal Dave Schroeder of WLA spoke. He said they were notified by the city on Thursday, July 23rd of the floodway issue. They told their supporters they did not need to appear at the meeting and that might explain why there were mostly people opposed to the WLA proposal at this meeting. He said they had met today with the city about the floodway issues. They will go to their Executive Board and their General Board. Those meetings are this Thursday (7/30/2015) and next Monday (8/3/2015) and they will keep in touch with the city.

Board member McCready asked if the city got an easement for the piece of land in the 2005 lease? The question was asked of board member Kiefer as he was the Superintendent of Parks at the time. He said, yes, the lease was in exchange for the easement, but the city never used the easement. The easement still exists.

Board member Eischeid asked if WLA could extend their existing parking lot 60 ft to the east. Mr Schroeder said that was part of their revised proposal, but they are revising this again.

Mr. Eischied said he had asked for the emails sent to city council members about McDermott park. He took those roughly 80 emails and signatures on the petition against the proposal as well as the people speaking at the last parks board meeting and his tally was 75 in favor and 188 opposed.

Board Member Block asked if WLA could build a parking lot right now on the 60 ft strip with city approval. Mr Skiff said they could with his approval.

At this point, the public spoke. You can hear those comment here http://www.radioplusinfo.com/episode/7-28-mcdermott-park/

At the end of the meeting, City Clerk Margaret Hefter said that the City Council resolution approving the execution of a lease with WLA was found. She would email that to anyone who wanted it.  That resolution will be addressed in another post.