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REGULAR MEETING AUGUST 26, 2013 <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />Councilmember Henry Davis stated that he wanted to recognize the fact that he is a strong <br />supporter of the Zoological Society and what they bring to the table. I offered a resolution and <br />obviously it was passed by acclamation from the Council, so I don’t want it to make it seem like <br />I’m not in support. So after Oliver finishes his comments I would like to offer a <br />recommendation. <br /> <br />Councilmember Oliver Davis asked to share the rationale of why you lumped the zoo with this <br />part because of the fact that we have been having separate meetings to discuss those kinds of <br />matters with the Zoo and now this has kind of caught us in terms of curve ball that was thrown at <br />us. I just wanted to have that explained. <br /> <br />Mark Neal advised that he takes personal responsibility for having it put in as a budget transfer <br />rather than as an appropriation and when we submitted it, we did try to highlight it. The reason <br />for that was in an effort to be good fiscal stewards rather than appropriating new monies or <br />additional monies, we said let’s take a look at our budget, where might we have resources that <br />we don’t believe we are going to use this year or not going to spend or are going to make a <br />decision not to spend in order to fund this important Parks Master Plan and Zoo Master Plan out <br />of existing resources rather than additional resources. That was truly the only reason that we did <br />it through a transfer rather than through appropriations, just trying to use existing resources. <br /> <br />Councilmember Schey asked in terms of the Park Master Plan 2 years ago, 3 years ago in 2010, <br />the Council had approved a $250,000 Plan for Miracle Park, how does that relate to this plan and <br />where is that money today? <br /> <br />Mark Neal stated that a good deal of that money was not spent; it was unspent money that was <br />returned back to the parks fund. Park Superintendent Phil St. Clair can give you a longer answer <br />to the activity regarding Miracle Park. <br /> <br />This being the time heretofore set for the Public Hearing on the above bill, proponents and <br />opponents were given an opportunity to be heard. <br /> <br />Phil St. Clair, Superintendent, Park Department, 321 E. Walter Street, South Bend, Indiana, <br />advised that they did ask the Council for a $200,000 appropriation in the summer of 2011 as a <br />part of their Master Plan, one of the things that we have done is we have been looking at access <br />for all kids in our parks. It started off with a project at Potawatomi that we were very fortunate <br />to get funded through the St. Joseph Community Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation and have <br />been working with District 11 Little League also with regarding to finding a location for them <br />and for Miracle Field and where we have been up-to-date with our studies, we have put a <br />feasibility study together but we have to do now is we have to lock down the actual property. <br />Once we’ve establish the property and we are working on that internally, but once we have <br />established the property we are going to go ahead and finish the plan and that point in time we <br />will be ready to move forward. But we still right now need to find land and that’s been our <br />major stumbling block. So we are working on that and hope to have some answers to the <br />Council very soon. That’s where we are at. I think that the good thing about the studies that we <br />have had a lot of folks involved in the process met with a lot of different folks from different <br />agencies that have given us great feedback on the type of field the type of park you are looking <br />at, so we got some good information we just need to get some land. <br /> <br />Councilmember Schey of that $200,000 a good portion of that is still remaining? <br /> <br />Mr. St. Clair stated that again a lot of the studies have been done and the means have been done <br />but I wasn’t prepared to discuss that tonight, but I think that we have spent about $115,000 of <br />that $200,000 we won’t spend any more until we have land, but what we need to spend from this <br />point on has to be spent after we’ve identified land and finish committing to the project. <br /> <br />Councilmember Varner: I guess my request would be in the way that it is handled if and when <br />you identify some property before you spend the rest of that money you come back and identify <br />it rather than spend the rest of it and then come back and say that we spent $200,000. Because I <br />know that there are going to be some discussions about it. <br /> <br />8 <br /> <br /> <br />