Park Board: Radio City Renovation Approved, Lots of Other Business

It was a full agenda at last Wednesday’s Park Board meeting. Get the full rundown below.

Radio City Park & Splash Pad Gets the Go Ahead

Park Board members voted unanimously to move ahead with the ~$1.8 million renovation of Radio City Park in Southeast Minot. The plans include a splash pad similar to what’s at Oak Park, a basketball court, and a walking path. Keller Paving was the low bid on the project; work is expected to be complete by November, with the splash pad ready for the summer of 2016. The majority cost of the park — ~$1.6 million — will be covered by City of Minot property owners through a special assessment. View the site plan PDF here.

Oak Park Amphitheater Gets Approval

Again, the vote was unanimous. Construction on the new stage will start this summer with completion expected this fall. The project was made possible because of multiple grants. Two from the Minot Area Community Foundation totaling more than $200k and the $100k Coke grant that was earned in the fall of 2011 when Minot supporters organized an online voting effort in support of Oak Park. Additional funding for the ~450k project was made up by the Park District and Minot Parks Foundation.

Note: One change to the rendering above and in the gallery below — the radiused roofline was prohibitively expensive. The approved plans call for a pitched roof.

Leach Park Improvements

Also approved was a resurfacing of the Leach Park tennis courts, court striping, and a new fence. Work is expected to get underway quickly.

Rock the Leaves is Approved August 15 & 16

Dan Hanson, the organizer of the Rock The Leaves, appeared before the Park Board requesting permission to host the annual late summer event. This year’s event will stretch over three days starting August 14th at the Auditorium and continuing August 15th and 16th at Roosevelt Park. Get more details about the Rock the Leaves concert weekend here.

Other Business & General Discussion

Legislative Issues: Executive Director Ron Merrit updated the Park Board on a few legislative issues. Senate Bill 2144 was signed by the Governor this past Wednesday. The bill provides revisions to the manner in which the Park Board can levy property taxes and removes a cap that limited the Park Board to levying no more total mils than were levied in the year 2000.
Resolution of Support and Thanks to Minot Area Community Foundation. Special recognition was given by the Park Board to the work being done by the MACF and their assistance with many matters related to Park operations. The resolution was supported unanimously.
Golf Business: Several new pieces of equipment were approved for the golf maintenance staff including an automated irrigation program that will allow staff to run sprinklers from a computer or app. Also approved was a lightning detection system. And there was some unofficial discussion about progress relating to a new golf course site in Northwest Minot. Park officials have been looking at solutions for providing irrigation water to the site including testing for quality and availability via a well and the logistics of getting river water to the site. The land in question is located near the Bolton Heights development West of the bypass. If a water solution is found, the Park Board may consider purchasing the land.
Flood Control: Preliminary design and engineering for the dike on the North side of Souris Valley Golf Course and near the Wee Links has been taking place. Park officials met with the team at Ackerman Estvold to get an update on the progress. The good news associated with that meeting — it is believed the Wee Links will not need to be moved.
Food Truck Day? Board member Nancy Beck brought up the idea of using one of the area parks for a monthly gathering of food trucks and other food vendors. She experienced a similar event in Arizona and felt it was a neat idea for Minot.

Final MARC Discussion

Park Board members were unanimous in their support of the work by President Connie Feist, Ron Merrit, and Elly DesLauiers in getting out to the community to educate people and tell them about the MARC proposal. There was some general discussion about how in both Williston and Dickinson, two votes were required, but perhaps Board President Connie Feist’s thoughts best summed up the sentiment regarding where to go next.

Final Thoughts on MARC Election

Connie Feist, Park Board President

I’ll tell you my feelings, I think the plan that was presented was presented as well as it could have been. I don’t know how we could have gotten the information out there more. I’m sorry about a lot of the misinformation that was out there, but I feel that the consulting firm gave us a plan that our user groups wanted. […] I’m not interested in changing the plan in anyway. I think the public spoke, and they don’t want this for our community, so I think we just have to accept it.