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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMMPC.2023.1024.MinutesMCDOWELL MOUNTAIN PRESERVATION COMMISSION OCTOBER 24, 2023, VERBATIM MINUTES Post -Production File TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS OCTOBER 24, 2023 MCDOWELL MOUNTAIN PRESERVATION COMMISSION MEETING VERBATIM MEETING MINUTES Transcription Provided By: https://Otter.ai ********* Transcription is provided to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. - 1 https://otter.ai MCDOWELL MOUNTAIN PRESERVATION COMMISSION OCTOBER 24, 2023, VERBATIM MINUTES TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING MCDOWELL MOUNTAIN PRESERVATION COMMISSION OCTOBER 24, 2023 A Regular Meeting of the McDowell Mountain Preservation Commission was convened at 16705 E. Avenue of the Fountains in open and public session at 5:00 p.m. Members Present: Chair Scott Grzybowski; Vice Chair Steven Nurney; Commissioner Bill Craig; Commissioner Janice Holden; Commissioner Sherry Irwin; Commissioner Brian Jennings; Commissioner DJ Willard Staff Present: Interim Community Services Director Kevin Snipes; Executive Assistant Patti Lopuszanski Audience: None 2 https://otter.ai MCDOWELL MOUNTAIN PRESERVATION COMMISSION OCTOBER 24, 2023, VERBATIM MINUTES GRZYBOWSKI: Okay, welcome. So, we're calling the MMPC. What month is this October meeting to order at 1700? Roll call, please. LOPUSZANSKI: Chairman Grzybowski? GRZYBOWSKI: Here. LOPUSZANSKI: Vice Chair Nurney? NURNEY: Here LOPUSZANSKI: Commissioner Craig? CRAIG: Here. LOPUSZANSKI: Commissioner Holden? HOLDEN: Here LOPUSZANSKI: Commissioner Irwin? IRWIN: Here. LOPUSZANSKI: Commissioner Jennings? JENNINGS: Here. LOPUSZANSKI: Commissioner Willard? WILLARD: Here. LOPUSZANSKI: Thank you. GRZYBOWSKI: Do we have any Reports by the Commissioners anything noteworthy? No. Alright, Number 4 Call to Public do we have any speaker cards? LOPUSZANSKI: No Call to Public. GRZYBOWSKI: Item Number 5 is stricken from the agenda. We did not have time to get the minutes out. So, we'll get those out next meeting. Number 6 Consideration and Possible Action for the Naming of Two Recently Approved Trails. So, I'll leave that with Bill and Janice, because I know the Sonoran Conservancy is kind of working on this as well. CRAIG: Not yet. I think we need to bring it up for consideration as to the process for naming the two new trails. GRZYBOWSKI: Okay. I think that is fair. CRAIG: I call one of them a name now because it's the one that we will first get to above the Sonoran Trail. GRZYBOWSKI: Good. Yeah, I agree. I think we should come up with a process. Like just ask the Sonoran Conservancy. Can we like, you know, ask for input from the public on some names? HOLDEN: I mean, Bill did put it on the agenda for our November 6, whatever that Monday is the 6th meeting so we can discuss it with the Board. But it's a good point. Do we want to take that out to the community at large? I mean, I guess it's a timewise, it doesn't matter, because we know that the first trail to be built will just be the Overlook, right? Yes. So that's done. So, we have a long time before we're going to start on the second trail. WILLARD: I would prefer that we not take it to the public. I mean, we've got some... HOLDEN: Sorry, when I say public, I meant Conservancy. I didn't say public. So, let's just first go to the Conservancy, the 130 whatever volunteers or not? I would not recommend that we need to go to the public for that. My question is, do we want to actually go to the Conservancy and ask them to throw out three to five names or something and ask them, to pick just to involve them in that? I can take it to the Board. I don't know if it matters. - 3 https://otter.ai MCDOWELL MOUNTAIN PRESERVATION COMMISSION OCTOBER 24, 2023, VERBATIM MINUTES CRAIG: I think we ought to take it to the Board. A Steward Meeting is coming up and it might be good to just throw it out there. Is it before the sixth? HOLDEN: Yeah, we have training on the fourth, you have it on the third or fourth, and we have it on. the fifth, we have training for our volunteers. CRAIG: Well, let's just ask for it at that time, what they... any names they come up with, and then take it to the Board also, to get a recommendation to come to us. WILLARD: Yeah, I think I think it's important to be clear that we're asking for input, but we're not going to vote. I mean, this is not a popularity contest for the name, right? This is just getting input from the Conservancy members. HOLDEN: That's fine with me. So, we would throw out two or three names that we already have, do we have asked them for their input? GRZYBOWSKI: Sure. I mean, what I would recommend is that anybody who has an idea, send it to Patti. Patti can then email it to all of us commissioners, at least so we all know that somebody has a name. I haven't even thought about any potential names. And then we could get any of these names that we think of first to you to get into the Conservancy. And I like the idea of the people that are invested in our trails, the stewards the hosts, to be able to throw out some ideas, but DJ is right, we're not asking for a vote. We're not going to take the most popular one because seven people said so. We're just asking for thoughts. SNIPES: Well, I think that you guys are the only ones who have seen those trails and what's out there to make it so it has a name so I think that it makes sense to not let anybody just throw it out if they have no idea what's in the area, or why it should be named something, then that doesn't make a whole lot of sense either. WILLARD: When I saw this on the agenda, I gave it a little thought and my recommendation would be, we've got a Sonoran, and we've got a Lower Sonoran that we call the next trail up the Upper Sonoran. And we've got probably a couple of years to decide on the last trail's name, right? So, I would almost say, I would defer the last trail and work on the next trail and for me, Upper Sonoran is a nice fit. CRAIG: I agree to put names out now I call it Saguaro because as Kevin is saying, familiar with the area, and there are some beautiful saguaros along the next one up, that you are calling Upper Sonoran so I'm going to throw that out as a name. GRZYBOWSKI: Yeah, I would just shoot them in an email to Patti, so we have an electronic record. Okay, all right. Moving on to Number 7, MMPC Scope of Charter Working Group. So again, Janice, myself, and Steve met last week and we came up with a draft document that was attached to the agenda. That is our recommendation to the staff and council on how to handle sunsetting MMPC. WILLARD: I was very surprised to see this document. At the last meeting, there seemed to be a consensus of shifting over to the Community Services Commission and that's nowhere in this document. GRZYBOWSKI: Very good point. We had a discussion that ran around and kept convincing ourselves that we didn't need it. So, if you think about the Sonoran Conservancy, as we discussed in the previous meeting, the Sonora Conservancy is the agency responsible for trails. So, without that, to me, CSAC never cared about the other two trails. It's not even part of their charter. So, to add three, the Preserve and two other trails of the CSAC didn't make sense to us. Whereas if we leave it up to the Sonoran Conservancy, any of us can help join their Board, right, if they need additional board members, then we go directly to staff for anything we need. Right? We've done everything major that we need to do. So - 4 - https://otter.ai MCDOWELL MOUNTAIN PRESERVATION COMMISSION OCTOBER 24, 2023, VERBATIM MINUTES we talked ourselves out of the CSAC. So, absolutely right to be surprised that it's gone. NURNEY: And also, because the CSAC would have the same open meeting issues that we've had and that was one of the things we're trying to avoid right? WILLARD: I've heard from Janice that there's an issue with the Conservancy relative to getting the Town's attention. So, I don't know how this changes that because the Conservancy is still an unofficial appendage. I mean, it's a 501(C)3 non-profit, but that doesn't really in this write-up have a real link to the town, an artificial link, which has been a problem in the past, I believe. HOLDEN: So I think if we kind of, really, as we talked last time, establish the relationship with Kevin. We have it today on certain things, but it's not very structured, I suppose. So, when we have Trailblazer issues or kind of structural issues in the Preserve, then Bill will go to Kevin with no problem. And it's not a problem when we do either. But it's not structured. And I think that's what we would need to do. And we would establish quarterly meetings or whatever was needed to do that. And I think the issue with going to CSAC was just you were taking a person and you would have to then educate them and go through them and explain to them and then they would take it and explain to the commission. And you know, if there is an issue that we can't resolve with Kevin, is CSAC, the best? Is that the best alternative? Or is there a better alternative? Like we take it to somebody else with Kevin? So that was kind of how it kind of fizzled out when we started talking about the value of adding yet another kind of intermediary, sort of like we have now except it's us. SNIPES: Well, and if you wanted to get something on permanent record in minutes, then we could absolutely do it three times or four times a year presentation to CSAC so that it gets on their minutes and then they would be there. And we could certainly have that discussion of if you guys go, 'Hey, there's something, something that we'd like to get going or we want to make sure it gets on to official record'. I don't have any problem with you guys as Conservancy coming in and giving a presentation whenever and however that fits. GRZYBOWSKI: Yeah. And that's actually recommended. I mean, there should be to do most of the commission, there should be more presentations, right from a lot of the parts of the community come into the commission like SPAC and Planning and Zoning. And then they can all Conservancy can actually make a presentation or bring up a particular item. SNIPES: And I know that CSAC would appreciate that as well. We can absolutely make that work. GRZYBOWSKI: So I mean, we don't have to make a decision tonight, we just put it together. That's our first draft. If you guys want to think about it, take it home, edit it up, send emails to Patti, of course, and send all that out to us. Absolutely. You know, we weren't we're not sold on not having CSAC. It just made sense. Like we said, as we kept talking around, we were like, wait a minute, when we bring up CSAC it's just adding another layer, which we're trying to remove our layer, because we got everything done? Community Services owns the trails. Kevin, they own the trails, they're not going away. They're still in their purview, right? That's what they're in charge of so we're like, okay. WILLARD: Yeah, I guess my only thought, at the moment is maybe in this write-up to include specifically, what Kevin brought up in terms of periodic interface with the CSAC. SNIPES: One, I think, I think with it just being the first time that is brought up like you said, it's the first draft, so anything like that, that you want to see put in, send it over to Patti. And then we can get it into another version of this, we'll bring it back. And then we can hash it out when we get to that point, and figure out what we want the final to look like, and then we can get the final done after the next meeting, I think that would be a good time to try and do that. 5 - https://otter.ai MCDOWELL MOUNTAIN PRESERVATION COMMISSION OCTOBER 24, 2023, VERBATIM MINUTES GRZYBOWSKI: Agreed, right? We put no timeframe in that doc. Right? We'd have to decide that today. Let's get another version of the document out in the next meeting. And then, you know, we could decide that and what we want to do. SNIPES: Perfect. CRAIG: Scott, can I backtrack for one question? GRZYBOWSKI: Sure. CRAIG: If we end up deciding on names, is that it? Or do we have to go to the Council? SNIPES: It'll have to go to Council, I'm sure. Yeah. I don't think that they would go against anything that you recommend. But we will have to go that route. GRZYBOWSKI: Yeah. Some of these items could be one of those items we don't need to present. It's just in front of them. They just approve it. But yeah, it has to be approved by Consent. Thank you. Okay, Number 9 Stayloc Installation at the Entryway. Kevin? Oh, Number 8 did I skip? So yeah, we talked about this last time about the Trail System Designation as national recreational trails, did anybody do any research on that? CRAIG: I conferred quickly and felt that we should go ahead and make an attempt with one of our trails. Ridgeline Trail or Lower Sonoran Trail. It's a matter of going through the process, there's no immediacy needed since it won't be decided on for another year, it will be decided on November 1st for this year. process for doing that, I'm not sure. We didn't talk about that, whether I should go through and try to do it or you or, somebody else volunteering. WILLARD: I did look at the application. It's a multi -page application. So, I think in terms of where we're kind of heading in terms of having the Conservancy be more of the lead if the commission doesn't exist. To me, it looks like it needs a champion that heads it out. The champion can pull in lots of the pieces that are needed to fill out the application. But there needs to be if we want to go down the path of the National Recreation Trail, a designated person to lead that. It does look like it would be a worthwhile thing to do and we've got a full 12 months to do it. GRZYBOWSKI: So, can you guys bring that up at your next board meeting? IRWIN: I'll do it. CRAIG: Good. You looked into it last meeting. GRZYBOWSKI: So, We got a champion yay. *In audible to transcribe CRAIG: One additional thing with that at the Conservancy meet last Conservancy meeting when it was brought up, I think Janice said, Hey, it might be good to look into if there are other possibilities. And I did that quickly. There is an American Discovery Trail, which is coast to coast 6800 miles a north route and a south route started in 1996. It is in existence but is being added to all the time, try to make the connection. So, somebody can go across the country, through urban, rural, and so forth. I quickly went to it for came up here. I haven't found as yet a process to ask if any of our trails, for example, Andrew Kinsey going from us to Scottsdale might be able to be a part of that. But I will look a little further and hopefully before the Conservancy meeting, bring it up there also and see if there's any other possibility for that. GRZYBOWSKI: All right, great. Number 9, Stayloc Installation at the Entryway. SNIPES: I haven't got to confirm on what day they're going to be starting it. Bill and I did meet up there with them. They said end of this month, depending on when they got done with another project. So - 6 - https://otter.ai MCDOWELL MOUNTAIN PRESERVATION COMMISSION OCTOBER 24, 2023, VERBATIM MINUTES we're looking at less than two weeks. They're planning on it being a three-day process. We're going to do 20 feet wide, 100 feet long from the gate. They're going to do a tuck -in at the end to keep it from getting undermined. So yeah, we're excited to see it get started. I think it'll make a huge difference to that. We will close for a day so as soon as I find out which day. They said they can work around 99% of it, they just are worried about when the tractors are backing up and pulling forward and somebody getting him behind them. If it wasn't for that they would be willing to just leave it open. But with that being the only entrance, it makes it tough. So as soon as I find out that date, I will let you know. It comes sprayed, it's infused. And so, it makes it to where that you get a better lock with it. What makes it lock is the compaction. JENNINGS: So, they're going to be doing some regrading up there as well? SNIPES: Yes, they will be manipulating we talked about increasing the slope in a couple of areas to make sure that we don't get it coming around the side of it. I think we have a pretty good plan for how to get it done. HOLDEN: So is it like smooth like a like smooth asphalt? SNIPES: They use it for parking lots and stuff like that as well. Like Sedona has done I think 33 miles of trails now that they've used it for or they have 33 Miles planned out. They've started and done quite a few but yeah, they've been up there for the last four years. Just laying a trail for them. CRAIG: Kevin, two things. One you were going to try to contact me about having our crew smooth out the base of that before they get up there and second, the grading. There was mention of the grading up above 100 feet. Is that still part of the process? In other words, the ruts that are up there, right directly above where this new base will stop was mentioned trying to get a grader in there and making that a little smoother instead of the ruts that were there. SNIPES: I don't recall how that ended up, to be honest with you. But I'll check with Clay on that. CRAIG: Okay. And if they end up going up that far, the area right before the North Leg Trail, if we could bring them up for that area also do some grading and that that is rocky and I've got one path over to the right-hand side. But the rest of it's pretty rough rock -wise. SNIPES: Okay. CRAIG: So, if you could. SNIPES: We can see if we can get that looked at once we get up there to get started and see everything and see how that looks. CRAIG: You know where I mean? SNIPES: I think so. What I may do is just reach out to you. CRAIG: Where the Promenade goes downhill to the North Leg. SNIPES: Okay. Yeah, where we were talking about it ending just past that trail and talked about going to right? CRAIG: Say again. SNIPES: So, we're going up the 100 feet and ended up being a timeout right where we talked about doubling it off or.... CRAIG: No two separate things, the grading from the end of the 100 feet up to where the swale the wash has been. And the second one, the being on up in an area right before the North Leg goes out. SNIPES: Yeah, you're talking up and around the corner. Yes. So that won't be something that's involved in this process for sure. And that would be less inclined to what they do. We might be able to - 7 - https://otter.ai MCDOWELL MOUNTAIN PRESERVATION COMMISSION OCTOBER 24, 2023, VERBATIM MINUTES get Carume up there to take a look at that. They did the original bypass where we did the culverts under the trail. That would be more the type of equipment that they have. CRAIG: That would be fine because it's a safety factor there. SNIPES: Sure, sure. Yeah. Sorry. I wasn't following but now I am. Gotcha. CRAIG: Thank you. GRZYBOWSKI: All right. Number 10 Updates from the Sonoran Conservancy? HOLDEN: Yeah, I got a few we. So, we're organized for our fall events and they're doing really well. They started already with night hikes. I think there are 19 events for October, November, December. Then we finalized our 2024 winter -spring events from January through April, and we submitted them to the Town. And as soon as the Town gets them up, which should be the beginning of November, we'll be able to start registering for that. We got a QR code from Skylar, which helps us. So, we've had these issues where people think they've registered, haven't registered, or the system doesn't log it properly, or whatever happens. So they come up, and then they're not registered, and we can't accept them. So we got a QR code, which means we can access the site from the QR code directly. So somebody can sign up right then in there if they're not registered, which is a great thing, especially for those night hikes. We have about 100 plus or 130 volunteers now who are not all active, but we hope that we get a lot more interest on November 1st when we do the launch of the November Hiking Challenge. So, it's six hikes or 35 miles in November and I hope everybody's registered. And we do have a number of training scheduled, so we have kind of a welcome event on November 1st and we hope to kind of attract more people. And then on November 3rd Bill, it is your Trailblazer training for crew leaders. And then November 5th, Sunday is our training for stewards and hosts. So we get all that in and then we are also scheduling Desert First Aid classes just for volunteers for December and January. So you'll be getting that information as well. I think Kevin, and Pam sent you a note about and I'm not sure if it applies or it's needed, but we're thinking of having a patrol function much like us the Scottsdale Conservancy has, so their people go out they wear their shirts or caps or whatever the requirement is their badges. And when they go hiking, they wear this stuff and then they're recognized as people who kind of know what to do if you're lost or hurt or have questions or need water or whatever it is. And, as a Patroller in Scottsdale, you carry extra water, and you carry a little first aid kit, we have to be a little bit careful about what we offer in terms of a first aid kit. But we'll have training on that. So I guess the question we had was, do we need to amend our use agreement that we do that as opposed to just to what we do you know, we trailblaze, we host, we're stewards, and we have the garden? Do we need to add that? What do you think? SNIPES: Let me check in on that with Dave. And I'll see what he thinks about that. Because like you said there is a Yeah, a little bit of a... HOLDEN: Sometimes I think if we just didn't know, but that's not kind of the purpose, right? We don't want to go outside the Use Agreement. So it will also apply to bikers for any of you who bike up there. Also, if you wear your shirt and you identify yourself or a hat. You know, if somebody has a problem with the bike and the chain breaks, I don't know, I don't know how to fix it. But maybe you guys do. So that would be great. IRWIN: We identify as bike fixers. HOLDEN: Yes, you just kind of where you bring your kid along. I just had one other question. Do you have an electronic version of our map of the most current map? - 8 - https://otter.ai MCDOWELL MOUNTAIN PRESERVATION COMMISSION OCTOBER 24, 2023, VERBATIM MINUTES SNIPES: I believe so I printed out a couple of 11 by 17 and I was trying to make sure that it was our most recent one from Kenny and I haven't got that for sure. But I will shoot that over to you. HOLDEN: Yeah, if you could get that to me because we're looking to put it in our manuals and just have something that we can use. Oh, DJ, thank you very much. DJ updated that chart. Have you been able to get it up in the you know? I didn't check. SNIPES: Yeah, they should be. I was told they are but I have not gone up to check. So, I'll say yes. HOLDEN: And I'll bring this up just in case. And I'll put it there when we have our training. So I think that's it for me. Thank you. CRAIG: Could I also have a copy of that I am in contact with Bill Hines of Adero Resort to get adequate information to him about the information they send out. GRZYBOWSKI: I assume we got a PDF or something. It would just be good to send it to all the commissioners. Because that brings up when I was standing in the lobby doing nothing. Guess what that picture we have right there on the kiosk at the front door is the old one so the new 11 by 17 would be perfect or just remove it. WILLARD: One question I have I'm not sure for whom. When do we expect the timing to change the signage for the trail names? CRAIG: I talked with Kenny Valverde this past week. And they have to develop a full plan so that it deals with maps and all other information. And he says to plan for January. WILLARD: I don't think there's a real rush. CRAIG: No, just to inform Conservancy stewards of that it won't be until then. I mean, they've had information about the naming but....it won't be changed until then. SNIPES: I spoke to him this morning and he was saying the same thing, but January's about what we're looking at. HOLDEN: Okay. Because we have it in the newsletter that's coming out this week. Should I just say, you know, early next year? Fine. Good enough. GRZYBOWSKI: All right. Item Number 11 Installation New Trail Counters. Any update on that? SNIPES: So, with my National Parks and Rec Conference the week before and the week after, no. I do have two hours blocked off for next Tuesday. So that's what I plan on getting them going. There's a couple of little classes on how to do stuff. So, after that, I plan on having them ready to roll out. GRZYBOWSKI: All right, Item number 12 Trail Counter Activity. I know the numbers are ticking back up again, which we assume is normal. I was even impressed. We had some, you know, almost 1000 people even in the summer, especially on the Lake Overlook, you know, so, again, good, but all good there any comments on the trail counters? Alright, Item Number 13 Future Agenda Items. I do know that we're going to need to have the Scope Charter Workgroup Update again, or we can call it whatever we want to draft. We may come up with some better Patti, but we need to talk about the Sunsetting of the MMPC. Right. We'll talk about the New Trail Counters, right hopefully we'll have an update, something will happen. Always ever. The Conservancy Liaison will have an update, we leave the Stayloc Installation, because that may be done talking about that. Anything else you guys can think of at the moment you can always email them right going once going twice. Now, you could always email the agenda items to me or Steve and Patti. Alright, our next meeting is November 28. And it's still exactly on the schedule. That's okay. No worries. All right, then. Can I get a Motion to Adjourn? SNIPES: Go D-Backs! - 9 https://otter.ai MCDOWELL MOUNTAIN PRESERVATION COMMISSION OCTOBER 24, 2023, VERBATIM MINUTES JENNINGS: I motion to adjourn. WILLARD: Second GRZYBOWSKI: OK seconded by DJ. All in favor? ALL: Aye. GRZYBOWSKI: Adjourned at 1732 Having no further business, Chair Grzybowski adjourned the Regular Meeting of the McDowell Mountain Preservation Commission on October 24, 2023, at 5:32 P.M. MCDOWELL, OUNTAIN PRESERVATION COMMISSION tt Grzybowski, Chair ATTEST AND PREPARED BY: aptt, Patti Lopuszans i, E,fe�cutive Assistant CERTIFICATION I hereby certify that the foregoing minutes are a true and correct copy of the minutes of the Regular Meeting held by the McDowell Mountain Preservation Commission in the Town Hall Council Chambers on the 24th day of October 2023. 1 further certify that the meeting was duly called and that a quorum was present. DATED this 28th day of November 2023 ti Patti Lopuszanski, akecutive Assistant -10- https://otter.ai