Recreation Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes
July 14, 2005
7 p.m. Town Hall Council Chambers
Board Members Present: Mary Beth Healy-Henrick, Libby Wilhelmson, Beth Arthur, Kathy Hamilton Brown, Mark Phelps, Alan Patterson
Board Members Absent: Randy Adamson, Matt Clifton, Patty Glembocki; Ex-Officio: Hank Dickson
Staff Present: Len Bradley, Sarah Kennedy, Johnny Dickinson, Carl Dean
VISITORS: Sean Mayefskie, Art Cathcart, Jennifer Garrison, John Alexander, Thomas Mulligan
CALL TO ORDER
Chairman Mary Beth Healy-Henrick called the meeting to order.
MINUTES
Libby Wilhelmson made a motion to approve minutes from 06/09/05. Kathy Hamilton-Brown seconded the motion. All were in favor, minutes approved.
CHALLENGE SOCCER PROPOSAL
Carl Dean , Town Manager, presented a draft of a soccer agreement between the Town of Holly Springs and the Holly Springs Challenge Soccer group (Attachment #1) The agreement is a result of meetings over several months with coaches, soccer commissioners, parents, and volunteers. Complaints regarding challenge soccer initiated the meetings and resulted in the agreement to address the problems. The town will maintain its recreation soccer program. The HSCS will manage challenge soccer. The proposal addresses the fee charged to HSCS for field rental and the scheduling of fields. The agreement will allow the HSCS to rent fields for 12 weeks at a cost of $494 per team per season. There are nine teams. They will work with the Parks and Recreation department to cooperatively schedule around our recreation programs. After talking with the Town Council about the proposal, the Council directed Carl to present the agreement to the Recreation Advisory Board for their input. To ensure Holly Springs children are inclusive, the proposal is written for a Holly Springs group to be part of the proposal. Carl then fielded questions and comments from those present and they are paraphrased as follows:
Question: How do costs for the challenge program compare with what parents pay now?
Response: Since this is not a town managed program, there will be additional expenses. If you go to an organization outside of this program, there will be additional costs.
Question: Is there any financial support for the program from the Town of Holly Springs?
Response: The Town is giving them a discount on the field rentals, roughly about a $200 discount.
Question: Will the Town be able to provide the fields for both recreation and challenge soccer?
Response: It will require a cooperative scheduling effort between staff and HSCS. Fields may have to be juggled. When the Holly Spring High School opens next year this time, fields will be available for use. The Town just signed a Joint Use Agreement with Holly Ridge Middle School , so their fields should be available and Holly Springs Elementary School has fields.
Question: Are games played here in Holly Springs ? And on Sunday afternoons?
Response: Yes. They will be using the fields 4 hours per team for games and practice. The amount of time is equivalent to what Challenge Soccer received in the spring. If they go above 4 hours they pay regular price contingent upon field availability or they may need to locate other places to play. Recreation programs have first priority for field usage. Julie Elliott, an athletics program manager, will be the contact person for the HSCS group.
Question: Name of group?
Response: Holly Springs Challenge Soccer.
Question: Who is the HSCS?
Response: It is the parents and volunteers who worked in the challenge soccer program last year.
Question: Is this same group advertised in the Holly Springs Sun as Holly Springs based TFC (Triangle Futbol Club)?
Response: Not sure, but think so.
Question: What happens if the group folds?
Response: There is a non-performance clause in the contract.
Question: Do they have by-laws?
Response: The Town is only renting fields, not managing the soccer group.
Question: What organization does HSCS belong to?
Response: Triangle Futbol Club
Question: Since they are working with the Triangle Futbol Club is there a third party involved in the contract?
Response: This is agreement is between the Town and the HSCS only. A third party is not involved.
Question: Since TFC is part of NCYSA are they bound to playing by their schedule?
Response: HSCS would have field time available to schedule their own games. This agreement is not intended to allow other organizations to use Town fields.
Questions: Does TFC allow Holly Springs to limit tryouts to Holly Springs kids?
Response: The agreement calls for 75% of the children to be Holly Springs residents. What TFC allows is not the Town's deal. The Town is only looking at scheduling and fields.
Question: Would the Town sign this before they become a non-profit?
Response: Probably not. Again this is the framework for what the Town wants to talk about.
Question: Would this group have a vote with TFC?
Response: We don't deal with that, only fields and scheduling. The intent is to keep challenge soccer kids here in Holly Springs , instead of being split to various organizations such as FVAA, Goldstar, CASL, etc. Everyone has the opportunity to play challenge soccer with any of these organizations. This would be another option for those players.
Question: The advisory committee had questions and wanted clarification concerning the TFC and its relationship with HSCS. Why are there not representatives from HSCS here?
Response: This was not setup as a negotiation session; it was to present the agreement to the committee for their review.
Question: Who is the group present tonight and what is your objective?
Response: Triangle Y Soccer Club. They are present to obtain information on the agreement. The group is interested in challenge soccer for Holly Springs children also. This is an established group with a board of directors composed of Holly Springs residents with bylaws, membership in the NCYSA, fields to play on, and challenge soccer. Would the Town be interested in an agreement with them? This is an entity already set up that can offer what these kids are looking for right now. The hope is that the two groups could unite for the common goal of challenge soccer.
Question: What your saying is your group is doing what HSCS is proposing to do and you are already doing it so why isn't the Town entering into an agreement with you?
Question: Is this the same soccer group from two years ago? What is the name of your group?
Response: Triangle Y Soccer Group
Question: If there are two existing groups why is the Town entering an agreement with HSCS versus Triangle Y Soccer Group?
Response: There is history behind the challenge soccer program, but basically the intent was to take challenge soccer out of the Town's soccer program. At the time Triangle Y Soccer (formerly known as Holly Springs Soccer Club) made a proposal they were members of NCYSA. NCYSA will not allow challenge soccer unless certain a percentage of the players are recreation. The Town was not willing to relinquish its recreation soccer to another organization for a couple of challenge teams. Discussions were held to try to keep challenge soccer without losing recreation soccer, during which Holly Springs Soccer Club (Triangle Y Soccer Group) set up and began running their own organization. After this group broke off from the Town, another group of parents continued to work with the Town to develop the challenge program through volunteers, parents, and commissioners. After this past spring soccer season, some of the old complaints surfaced again regarding challenge soccer, so the Town worked with parents who had been involved in developing the challenge soccer program for the last two years and this agreement is the result of those meetings and discussions. It is not that the Town did not want to talk with the Triangle Y Soccer Group, but that there was already a group involved in the challenge program with the Town. There are nine teams and the intent is to keep those teams playing challenge soccer in Holly Springs without losing recreation soccer.
Response: The Triangle Y Soccer Group has 200 members and they play recreation and challenge soccer. They are a member of NCYSA, the same as TFC. You can keep the kids in Holly Springs if you went with Triangle Y Soccer.
Question: The HSCS group does exist?
Response: Yes. These are the parents involved in challenge program for the last two years.
Question: From this discussion it sounds like HSCS is not an established entity with an organizational structure?
Response: The last conversation with the group concerned a name change and the Town is waiting to hear further.
Question: Has the HSCS been approached about partnering or functioning within the already existing group (Triangle Y Soccer)?
Response: The politics involved in the past history of the challenge soccer program is the reason they are separate groups, but they both want the same thing for the children of Holly Springs . The Town only wants to be involved in field scheduling and rental.
After discussion, Kathy Hamilton-Brown made a motion to recommend the following:
The Recreation Advisory Committee recommends the Town facilitate a meeting between the two groups (HSCS and Triangle Y Soccer) to discuss the possibility of forming an integrated group, which the Town could consider entering into a contractual agreement with to provide challenge soccer.
Beth Arthur seconded the motion. The motion passed with all in favor. Kathy Hamilton-Brown agreed to mediate the meeting between the groups.
PARKS & RECREATION POLICY MANUAL UPDATES/CHANGES
Members were given a list of amendments to the Holly Springs Parks & Recreation Policy Manual to review (Attachment #2). Johnny Dickinson , Recreation Superintendent, explained the amendments were mainly wording changes. The board suggested adding that Holly Springs residents have first priority for registering for Summer Camp, After School, and Youth Athletic programs. Registration for these programs will be the first two weeks for Holly Springs residents and then the third week will be open for non-residents/residents. If approved by Town Council on August 2, this process will be effective for the 2005/06 Basketball season. There was discussion concerning youth athletic drafts, specifically children of head coaches being the third pick of the draft. Len stated they will work on the rules for the draft. Another topic discussed was coaches' behavior. A file is not kept on coaches at this time. The committee suggested documenting coaches that have behavior problems and complaints lodged against them so they can be evaluated before they are selected to coach again.
DEPARTMENTAL uPDATES
Personnel
Jed Poston has resigned from his position as an athletic programs manager. He has accepted a position as a youth minister at a church in Cary . The position has been posted for applications and staff will be going through previously received applications.
Veterans' Park
Attached (Attachment #3) are updated versions of the existing house at Veterans' Park. A change was made to allow access to the restrooms from the outside as well as from the inside of the building. Staff plans to present the master plan to Town Council at the August 2nd meeting.
Wake County 4H Youth Development
Mayor Sears received a letter from Katherine Williams with Wake County 4H Youth Development. (Attachment #4) They propose to help the Town assess the current and future needs for youth development programs in our community. The Mayor has responded that the Parks and Advisory Board should be the steering committee for this effort and has placed this on the agenda for the July 19th Town Council meeting. Kathy Hamilton Brown is familiar with what this group proposes and would like to ensure that if the Town Council endorses this proposal that recreation is considered a viable service in the development of youth. Recreation should be considered a major component in development of youth assets in partnership with education, social services, and faith based organizations. Kathy Hamilton-Brown made the following motion:
Send a letter of support to the mayor stating the recreation advisory committee is in favor of this proposal and if approved be contingent upon the advisory board being the steering committee.
Alan Patterson seconded the motion. All were in favor. Libby will draft a letter to send to Mayor Sears before the Town Council meeting.
Projects
Construction should begin shortly to complete Womble Park . Staff is n the process of finalizing an agreement to build restrooms at Jones Park . There are plans are to build a parks and recreation maintenance building on Lee Street .
OTHER ITEMS FOR DISCUSSION
Town Public Information Officer Tamara Ward may be contacting advisory members by phone to interview for an article on the Advisory Board.
Adjourn
There being no further items for discussion, the meeting was adjourned.