in the parks manager side deal with all the park development and some supervision over the maintenance in the parks as well as does have some programming to he's within the city let's find out a little bit more what is a current make up of our park system you know acreage parks preserved playgrounds whatever really we own and operate eight hundred sixty acres of parkland that's made up of thirty six active parks and fourteen preserves and open spaces so we have a lot of created you know we currently just kicked off an opportunity create a park systems plan that kind of would give us a twenty year vision of what we were looking for for our parks and open spaces it will use chapter six and seven of the current twenty thirty comprehensive plan is kind of our baseline but that compound left some open ended questions and we want to fill in some of those questions with answers on how we're going to support our parks financially and what our what our priorities are for redevelopment you know when our park system was created it was twenty twenty five years ago and and trends and things that people do to recreate our parks are different than when we created these parks twenty twenty five years ago so we really want to look at current trends and find out exactly how we c n some things on our part to meet today's residents needs and you mentioned it was created twenty some years ago and course there is a lot more developer will land in maplewood and so it's a struggle on a year to year basis to come up with equipment those are the dollars we're struggling to meet the needs and that's why we're looking at alternative funding sources moving forward and a twenty year vision on how to allocate those sources entire park system you know i think the point is that we in th past spent the money to acquire the ground ready to build the parks the playground equipment but if we're going to adequately maintain these we have to be able to pay for i think that's a point w got to get across to a pub to our citizens is that we have these wonderful parks we have these are wonderful amenities but we still have to keep paying for it so i know i guess on that or why our parks and trails  the residence parks and trails are important because they contribute to the quality of life in our community both for our residents and the businesses that are located here you know it gives our residents a sense of community a sense of community pride with a gathering place and we have a lot of people that are are definitely connected to their neighborhood parks and that's where their families spend their time and it's great that we have so many parks and open spaces and we can and we can accommodate that so overall i think it just really contributes to our all the life in the city it's a very good very important point in that it's just a wonderful amenity to have for the neighborhoods my final question jim for your part of our segment is some residents out there may want to get to get involved in how do they go by doing this for the parks aspect we want this to be a plan that's created by our residents not by city staff not by  i but by our residents we want to get the word out there that we're doing this so people can come have an opinion and tell us what they're looking for in our parks system so we are setting up both a park systems plan task force we actually had our first meeting last week that's made up of residen and other stakeholders from within the community we have about twenty one members on that task force in addition to that we're going to do a series of community meetings in june and july we're in the process of putting together a postcard that we're going to send every resident business in the city of to let them know when those meetings are we're going to target specific areas in maplewood as you mentioned we are pretty spread out and we know we're going to hear differences from the south maplewood folks to the north may put focus on what they're looking for in their park system so we want to target those individual areas with community meetings and really have open discussions on what our strengths what are weaknesses and one of the residents willing to pay to continue to have a great park system i think that pretty well sums it up for this segment thanks  jim and there james taylor i should thank you for coming in this segment and we look forward to your continued and hard work in our park system next segment on earth our park spotlight and that is our newest staff member and recreational cord nater neil brennaman neil welcome and tell us a little bit about yourself i thank you for having me i have worked responsibilities of the recreational coordinator i program multiple in lots of different programs from recreation to some that are non sport and not as much sports related i also schedule impact but it's change from the old days were we used to put down the the the number and then cut off from the sign up sheets and move around here and there and it's all computer right now all right we have a new system especially moving into of people use it may think it's you know it seems easy enough to run and you know a soccer program or a floor hockey program it's young they show up on that day and they play but there's a lot of behind the scenes stuff that goes into it and trying to convert all the requests that we have from all the other children had i woud say cadillac space but really a nice gym which perhaps could have been built to the same level without the city dollars commingled with the school district dollars and then we also as a community as residents we have the use of those gems during the hours that they're not being used by the by the by the children that's correct and so it works out really well they have  schedule or you know we we schedule with them and make gas make all the day's work out that we can and it's a benefit to everybody involved that was it was it's worked out really it's worked out really well for for us as we talk about you know our clients and stuff what are the whole grams that you offer and and the age groups we offer i offer programs in general for anywhere from we have programs for you know newborns ballroom dancing classes that are maybe sports related they could talk etiquette classes and all the all different types of things and we have programs that we do for seniors as well and  just wide wide range of programs for all different age groups that's true fiqh tell me a little bit more about some of the programs for the youth that we offer as far as the team asked better so we do we're actually just starting out we have our spring soccer program starting up and that's for a younger age group kind of get them into soccer one of the one of the new programs that we have that i'm excited about is we're going to be partnering with  know contact of certain sports is offering those different those different activities and i know you bend very much involved in the aspect of partnerships with other communities in the programming of different experience rather than you know us maybe if limited not limited to a small amount of teams but we have the option of going to other facilities even if in times of need it helps out with  what are some of your most popular programs a lot of the programs that are very successful or some are ones that are dead this spring you know the sports we like this soccer and floor hockey but we also have other programs that crowd has been very successful we we partner with edge martial arts and that's been a very special program for us along with or our tumbling classes one of our our telling genetics class there one of our one of our most popular they've you know they have no guitar class that's that's that's pretty popular as well we not only mix the legs but some of the cultural activities so you know recreation just isn't isn't pigeonholed for sports  experience that as well tell us some programs that the seniors can partake of now we have we have day trips that we do monthly usually we try to get a day trips every month we do  have am monday every monday and friday we have a social afternoon time that we have for seniors it's mondays from eleven to three and fridays from one to three they come in then lot of people play cards we have some people that this is that the m c c also it's in conjunction with activities for from infants on up and i think that's a major change or where we're not just take putting senior citizens in and their own senior citizen center but they're that's she loves to do it and some machine joys and you know we offer you many different opportunities for all different age groups and seniors are one of them and it's in the building that we offer all of our athletics and everything else too and let's hear a little bit more about the trip that you're off offer many different types a day trips theater trip to the white bear lake lake shore players theater and sissies to school the musical a lot of times what will you know when we go in our theater trips will stop somewhere for lunch prior to and then we go to you know theater chip we you know make trips out to the old log theater to you know broadway off st croix that they see it or different ones we go to you know we made a trip recently and we're going to get on the one to shows and you know tell us about the let's go fishing program it's all volunteer driven it's a volunteer organization and they partner with you know they schedule days with communities and we have three days with them tour of the lake you know this go put in around they do one of the days is fishing they go out and they do fishing and all the supplies are provided for for the for the registration for the people to register for it and one of them is that they get to go out and you know just go out and watch the do it in the past or just want to get out and meet new people and have some fun on the lake ok great well neil i think it's time for the next segment so we really appreciate all the work you've done and thank you very  much for our final segment but we save the best for last we're going to have some conversations with i do robins our recreation manager for the parks recreation department tell us a little bit about yourself  started there and have changed my job several times throughout the years and i'm now the recreation manager for the city and it's a great job with a lot of interesting things and it kind of runs the gamut of programming for children ages own two seniors i oversee some of the programs that that neal does and i do some of my own as well everything from adult volleyball leagues you follow the ball leagues i do special events like the daddy daughter dance easter egg hunt and then just help out and work on things with the parks and programs like the geocache program so i get to do a little bit of everything kind of legit because i wanted the folks at home to know that you really are the kind of jack of all trades for parks and recreation and we're just really lucky to have you with us and we hope to have a continued long term tenure with the city of  sense of place in their parks and just offer a way for them to feel part of the process so why is it important to our customers that residents that we have this is up for a program we have thirty six parks and fourteen open spaces and me play which is a wonderful thing but it's also can be a daunting task and while we have a great great movements girl we can always use the extra help because i think for instance we don't park here we went this park out in the shelter out every weekend usually friday night sometimes saturday sunday if they have i mean it's good to get us that kind of thing that creates a lot of amused but also creates a lot of trash and there's there's leather and sometimes we have  park maintenance has now been combined i guess probably the best work with public works so that i think we have what four or five park maintenance people  and with the park with the public works personnel we can hopefully add a little bit more to the to the work that needs to be done its best but i think in the area of equipment that that can be used back into worth crack that's that's going to be a great thing that hopefully will come out of combining services like that but just the day to day and they have all just taking care of the to structure in those things in the park so if we can get you know residents and me employed to do some of the little things that are very important they may not have time to do it just helps them so what are the some of the things that the residents can do you  something as small as you just want to adopt a playground so the playground over here if there is a group that just wanted to be in charge of making sure the playground was clean and free and feeding and i wasn't i was i'm not that would be great so we talk about groups like a lion's club or rotary club or something like that anything from a business group to individual residents to a neighborhood but it doesn't have to be the entire park you know you could adopt a ball field there could be a little league team that wants to take ownership of a particular ball field and they could make sure that you know things are cleaned off and raked and swept and and that there's no thing nothing in the fences that kind of thing or they could plant flowers by one of one of the park signs that we've got the flower beds that can help maintain those we have  that does that play kresty just make sure there's beautiful flowers planted every year we help them with that in who takes care of them doesn't require a large group of people to be just somebody and their time and so what kind of commitment do people have to give if the do it up to park program or a portion part we require it would like at least a one year commitment just so we don't have a lot of turnover but you don't have to go  every every day every week we'd just like at least once a month that you would commit to coming out and just overseeing a team care of your area and just a one year commitment and after sixty day trial period if it looks like it's going to work out in your group as it's going to keep up with it then we'll be placing the sign so for your business we would put a sign in the park we would come up with the sign that you could pick where you wanted what he wanted then just to say thank you and say that you did after the so say three am would want to adopt  can what is eligible to be adopted because there's more of the park than say just wakefield park you're right you could be a park to be in an open space you know any and undeveloped park land it could be a trail battlefield you know just kind of some of the gamut of anything that is open to the public in this recreational space for them to enjoy you can put up with that the next question is well you know what type of materials do they do they that you would talk to us first and you know just make sure it's ok and it's a safe thing to do you could and then you let us know we could rent out or you know give you rakes and shovels and brooms and things like that that we have and you know apartment in syria for you to b spring back so whatever the project here is if it's something we can help with we'll be happy so it's just not a feel good thing but it really an effort to take care of it just in the betterment of absolutely we have application for the that the part that anyone who applies would need to fill out that has guidelines and and things that we would hold you to just saying what activities are ok what are not expecting you're going to follow all of our in place that us flash recreation you can get the forms you can call six five one two four nine two one two zero and meghan would be happy to get the forms to you and you and she will even know them to you all so you can go to just if you want the most