04-13-16 Special Elbel Committee Minutes

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Committeemember Perri clarified that the subdivision is on the table, and it isn't to have the tree farm change hands, it is actually to protect the property, so the tree farm is protected. Jason Banicki Critchlow 3322 W. Ford St. thanked the committee for the hard work they've put into this. We forget sometimes that there are people involved when talking about selling or leasing the course. I am the grandson of a man who worked forty -two (42) years for the Park Department, who raised a family of eight (8) on a City worker's salary. It's nice to think about the dollars and cents, but we have to remember in a City that's hurting for quality paying jobs, with good benefits, that the golf course provides this opportunity for people to support their family. Not only do I want to see the golf course stay, I want to see it stay in City hands. Once we lease it out, it becomes easy to get rid of it completely. We're talking about people's livelihoods and their ability to support their families. Councilmember White stated that it appears there is a consensus on Recommendations One (1) through Five (5). Councilmember Broden stated that she wanted to add the point about environmentally sustainable course maintenance with regards to operations and management as part of the golf course management consulting because it is consistent with the voices they've heard from Elbel for Everyone. Councilmember Broden stated that the staff point is significant, particularly because we are looking for efficiencies across three (3) courses. Are there clearly delineated job descriptions and goals? We need to make sure that's not an oversight. We also have some union labor involved, so we need to be very conscious. The Committee discussed adding the date of June 2017 as the due date for the Natural Resource Management Plan to Recommendation Two (2). Committeemember Perri believes that one of the consulting groups will be able to produce a portion of that for Elbel by this fall. The Committee decided to add interdepartmental collaboration to Recommendation Three (3). Councilmember Kelly asked where we would add the designation as an Audubon International designation, and the committee decided to add it to Recommendation One (1). The committee discussed crossing out the word "consider" in Recommendation Four (4), and adding the educational component to the stakeholders section in Recommendation Three (3). Councilmember Broden commented that the educational value hasn't been looked at very closely, and related to that, the alternative use of Elbel Park and the idea of leaving room for the Heinz Trust or the Indiana Land Trust to step in and fill a need. I wonder if we need another recommendation that allows that track to be followed. Committeemember Perri stated that the whole idea was for us to come together and put together some recommendations, get everyone on the same page and working from the same set of information, and reboot a process that was messy from the start, then make some recommendations to move it forward in a healthy process. The recommendations do that, but 12