citizens to the spotlight will focus on our parks and rec department we are pleased to have with us can you call the director of parks recreation and chris penn our banquet and event manager for the community center let's it's an excellent venue in opportunities for our residents to to enjoy a number of activities across the board from news from strengthening it's going to track and we do a lot of senior programming as well including in that as an opportunity to participate in some of our aquatic events and we hope folks will be lessened so there's a lap pool there as well and a lot of those those events are free we do have a membership base or that consist of were in the neighborhood of sixty seven hundred members and we encourage residents of maplewood and or nurse same paul and surrounding communities to visit the community center we have excellent staff there that's going to help you one that we're getting very excited about that one is saturday february nineteenth from ten am to four pm and it is a great opportunity to kind of hear cabin fever and you know get outside and see everything that the community center and surrounding communities has to offer as far as outdoor recreation in the summertime so help plan for those trips we have a dog sled team that comes in from minnesota and gives dad sled rides throughout the day this year we're going to have a new and exciting thing we're going to have a truck pond that the kids confession crafts with the kids as well so again a really great opportunity for fun for the whole family free admission so we recommend everyone come on down and just check out what i was available to it went to it last year and it was kind of neat the number of vendors events and it is our second year so we've kind of learned some lessons in terms of what what went right last year what went wrong and i think we put up a good program to address some of those and as i christy pointed out this is free of the public and  encourage you to come on enjoy that event how many vendors do we are we anticipating having this one between thirty and fifty really have we had about five hundred guests come through last year as well so far and just playing somewhere in that ballpark again we have a great scene in the water halt we have a great social obstacle course so people who maybe aren't familiar with snowshoeing can go outside and test out those skills and we'll show you how to fit them and whatnot so lots of opportunities both indoors and out well you know it's easy getting in there the parking three i noticed we did have some reserve officers or last year or two it's just you know people getting in and in the parking lot and so it seemed to flow real smooth so that's why should i go for that february nineteenth february nineteenth from internet performance venue for both the audience and performers that's wonderful we are fortunate to be home to ashton productions which is a nonprofit you theater company and they do a lot of different programs including the one that you guys were discussing bye bye birdie so they do programs for all ages and they work especially with kids they do summer camps during the summer and whatnot the city also runs an entertainment series in the september to december of each year so we're just wrapping up our two thousand and ten series and i'll move forward to two thousand and eleven one come september and we have a variety of acts that come in with all different kinds of musical genres and as you guys mentioned all of our tickets are available on line what arts dot com and you can also check there to see what's coming up in the next year great and we just had two v online what arts dot com and you can also check there to see what's coming up in the next year you know easy as can be yeah well there's one other item on the community center that we have to talk about and that's probably one of the main features that the community center meetings to you know weddings and continue our as or fortunate to work with three wonderful caterers and we just redid our catering contracts in this past year so new caterers on board that we're excited to talk about including canes dan good catering so it's really a great space you can have multiple things going on at one time and we also use that space to host some of our special events in a couple weeks here anywhere e twelve we have our battle expo coming up so we'll talk about all different kinds of bridal venues and whatnot in that space absolutely you're the main person to go to and i'm the contractor that is christy penn at what number six five one two four nine two one zero three zero great well no we have a special treat for the audience we are going to take a look at some early put in a community center that's going to really tie things together and make this a community for the first ring suburbs that people can be very proud of people will use and it will be a real gem for the east side of the metropolitan area w reminisce with old friends the building will be divided into two parts the maroubra leisure area and the mother level activity area here's what the center has for you theatre concerts seminars workshops like shares and  future spotlight do it but let's give a little bit of a background on the formation of the parks and recreation department and some of the initiatives that you've been able to accomplish since you've been appointed director wood community center we have the nature center and it also in compass all of our parks and preserves and staff is working very hard on that was one of the goals of to begin looking at some syner and begin working off the model that that existed in maplewood prior to two thousand and six so all staff is going forward with that some of the initiatives that we're working on and all that i'll go rob and speak to some of the  outreach that's going to work right along with our nature center programming and also our park department as well with respect to trails our community gardens which you were a part of as well that what real well what last year were doing some redevelopment to existing parks that we're excited about and and we've got a good i would what we're calling our goal mission which is get out doors and that's something that we're going to roll out here sometime in the background on what you're doing and what you're looking at and what you see for the department this coming year ok well like you said now that we're moving forward and and the department is is now back under on one  we're you know united with the community center again in the nature center it just see really good things for us in two thousand and eleven and one of the most exciting things we've done has been the new partnership with the city of north think paul and recording our recreation programming in providing services for them in partnership and it's really been exciting process and i know it's been going it's been going to good i haven't seen anybody complaining from either north st paul or  maplewood none of the the north st paul staff or our staff it just seems to be going seamless so you know what's going on there you know it's taken a lot of effort on both sides but a great partnership and working closely with nate from the city  good time that we some day trips coming up and so people can either participate at the table residents can participate at the north st paul community center and vice versa i presume yup if you're a member of either community center you get the same discount rate for programs and you can take part and either facility sell well i've noticed in maplewood monthly that we've made a special effort to highlight programs that are available in north st paul community center participate in whether be mahjong or bridge or or kickboxing or whatever where i know one of the complaints we had in the past was that the programs filled up and people were on waiting lists and couldn't participate and so i said i suspect that that is going to be one of the primary benefits is that there's going to be more venue is for people to participate in whether whatever activity is absolutely in fact  camp now in the mornings evenings and weekends and like you said classes that may fill up the community center that doesn't fit the time for a member then go over to north st paul and take part in the class there it's really great we also have a partnership with healthy passport where they're doing some things like if their version of antiques road show but in collectors road show and some health screening some blood pressure and all these things that we would normally have that are are going to be offered now so it'll be available to me put and our st paul residents it's great and so let's spend a little time talking about budgets and the different challenges that we're facing here in two thousand level particularly as it affects our parks recreation department sure i'd be happy to address jim was to start to look at these these partnerships and trying to kind of combined some of the services maybe try to come up with more synergies and consolidate a lot of those areas where we're doing duplications but on a much bigger scale the whole part development program is funded by pac which is our park acquisition charge and the funding for that come from development one time money is one time money correct and because we're in a down economic cycle and maplewood is for the most part developed out we've got some challenges ahead of us  engaging the private sector the business community and we're going to do some outreach to our foundations and look at graham and we're going to have to look at the non traditional funding mechanisms as we go forward to help support some of our activities that we did with regard to projects and redevelopment that includes both new equipment that we development of existing parks and even the trail component as well so i that's one of the goals that the staff are going to be working directly with the park commission and hopefully by the end of two thousand and eleven we can bring back a plan to city council but that is a concern i think staff is up to the task but we are going to have to secure some so people are going to have to be aware that and also taxes i mean it's it's not a popular subject but if we're going to have a quality program we have to be able to pay for it and i know one of the main things that we're looking at in the coming years and i think we're going to set this as a special program is the open space referendum his is ending i believe in two thousand and fourteen and start planning for it so you know in order to have a quality department you have to pay for it but i know we're running out of time and there's one last item that i want to talk about one is real near and dear to me  excited about that again another partner private partner public development project their unique thing about land park is we adapted some of the natural environmental programming elements into the into that park and we kind of went away from the traditional park planning process we incorporated a lot of elements including hidden airy for kids to look around w included to create crawl we could more space for kids to explore to look for bugs to look for those kinds of things and it's patterned after the idea that we need to get kids outdoors and do what kids like to do sure they also like to play player on the traditional equipment in this light and stop but there's also another element out there were kids need to go alternate in the kids climb trees and so when we designed it in there was a lot of input from the surrounding neighborhood and the park commission as well as we looked at some more natural features and tried to incorporate those into the redevelopment of alliance park so i'm excited about that part we should be completed in fact a lot of it is in now and that part should be done by august of what about goodrich part of which is another park we're looking at that's a twenty two acre park on the border of mayport in our st paul and that's a park that was given an area that was given to the city from ramsey county into the area that needs design components that are there again we set up a task force working directly with our park commission they've been just champions of this effort as well and we've got a couple concept plans that we're currently working on and we hope to have something the good work that your staff do in the new parks recreation department that's at first but like maplewood thanks for coming and we look forward to seeing you again thank you