The Nederland Parks, Recreation, and Open Space Advisory Board (PROSAB) met on Thursday, April 18, 2024, at 5:30 p.m. to discuss the results from the municipal election concerning the Chipeta Park Pump Track project. Board members also analyzed the future of the collaboration with community groups in drafting a preliminary concept for improvements to NedRINK.

The Board welcomed their newest member, Trustee Luke Miller, who will be serving as liaison between PROSAB and the Board of Trustees (BOT). Miller was recently sworn in as a new member of the BOT.

PROSAB Chair Kat Barr presented an update regarding the open Town Administrator position. The final day for Nederland’s current Town Administrator, Miranda Fisher, will be May 24.

Applications for the position are currently being accepted, with a due date of May 3. Parks Manager Nicki Dunn will begin training for the role of interim administrator on April 29, and will serve in that role from May 25 until the position is formally filled.

Dunn addressed questions from the Board concerning the role, stating that she will be focusing on acting in a supportive role for Town staff as each department head will continue to be responsible for their staff and areas of focus. She added that she hopes that staff will support her in this role, which she expects to hold until the end of June. Fisher will still be available to Dunn and to Town staff as a consultant while a new administrator is hired and brought up to speed.

Barr also updated PROSAB regarding a vacant seat on the BOT due to former Trustee Tom Mahowald’s resignation on April 5. The new BOT approved allowing the public to apply for appointment to the position.

Applications are currently being accepted with a due date of May 3.

Dunn presented a discussion regarding updates being made to the Parks, Recreation, Open Space, and Trails (PROST) Master Plan.

The plan is defined as the guiding document for “planning for and delivering parks and recreation services” to Nederland for the next 10 years. The plan is designed to assist Town officials in responding to community needs as they change, and to “identify priority areas for implementation.”

Because the PROST Master Plan is tied directly to the Town’s Comprehensive Plan, currently being updated by the SE Group, PROSAB must wait until the Comprehensive Plan is complete before a final edition of the Master Plan can be drafted and voted on. The Comprehensive Plan update is not expected to be complete until December, 2024.

The Comprehensive Plan will include goals, priorities, and recommendations for short- and long-term projects that concern the Town’s existing and future recreational commodities.

The Board decided, per recommendation from Dunn, to review the recently updated Chapters 2 through 4 of the PROST Master Plan during their next scheduled meeting in May, and to have the Master Plan as close to complete as possible before the Comprehensive Plan is finalized.

Dunn provided PROSAB with an update from the Parks Department. The Town plans to apply for the Safer Main Streets grant, which involves the installation of “beaconed” crosswalks at the Nederland Community Library and at the junction of the Visitors Center and East 1st Street, as well as a new crossing at North Jefferson Street and Highway 72.

It was noted that with the projects under the Safer Main Streets grant, the projects involved in the Multimodal Transportation Plan, plus the road widening being conducted by CDOT, there will be heavy construction in the center of Nederland during the summer.

The Parks Department will be hiring three temporary positions for summer maintenance. Dunn expressed that she’s hoping to hire by mid-June. The positions last for 12 weeks, with the Nederland Downtown Development Authority (NDDA) paying the temporary staff’s salaries for two of those weeks.

Dunn detailed the difficulties that she and the Parks Department faced during the snowstorm, which brought nearly five feet of snow in the middle of March. Their equipment struggled to deal with all the snow and even required repair; the Utilities Department lent the use of their equipment, but otherwise the Parks staff were using just shovels and snowblowers to attempt to clear the Town’s walkways.

“Around the roundabout section we had to call the police to come give us traffic control because people were literally slingshotting around that thing and honking their horns at us and screaming at us,” Dunn said. “It was a scary day, actually.”

“It wasn’t just physically, but also mentally exhausting to get literally cussed out while in the machines,” Dunn added as she provided her perspective. “More than once the police were called to different areas to try and calm residents. It was a really exhausting storm and it was followed back-to-back by the power outage.”

Dunn described the intentional deenergizing of power lines by Xcel Energy over the weekend of April 6 and 7 as being taxing on her staff, as they were continuously having to refill the Town’s generators, answer calls from the community for assistance, and to check on neighbors and tend to those in need.

PROSAB Vice Chair Sam Ovett was scheduled to discuss the results from the April 2 municipal election. The ballot question regarding whether they would support a concrete pump track to be constructed at Chipeta Park between the parking lot and the basketball court received a strong negative, with 286 votes for “No” to 196 votes for “Yes.”

Though Ovett was not present for the meeting, the Board discussed how to best move forward, as the pump track project is one of their listed priorities. It was noted that American Ramp Company, who were hired to create the preliminary designs for the proposed project in Chipeta Park, are awaiting payment for the delivered product, which was funded by the NDDA.

Board members decided to address the pump track project and their own goals after hearing from Ovett and other members of the project’s subcommittee as to how they plan to proceed. The Board will discuss possible alternate locations for the pump track, though Dunn stated that there were no available locations within the Town’s, and therefore PROSAB’s, boundaries.

Barr led a discussion concerning the Town’s Comprehensive Plan update being drafted by the SE Group. Board Members assessed the results of a public survey directly related to PROSAB and its goals and priorities, and gauged those results on their impact on the Board’s future projects.

The results were gathered by SE Group from an open house meeting held at the Nederland Community Center on January 23.

Nederland residents who attended that meeting indicated that PROSAB’s vision statement could be improved with mentions of wayfinding, trail connectivity, and trail mapping as set goals.

PROSAB’s vision statement reads as follows: “Our community and its visitors enjoy ecologically sound, well-maintained, and accessible parks, open space, and trails with recreational and cultural services and facilities while protecting and enhancing the unique mountain ecosystem of which we are a part.”

SE Group stated in a post-meeting report that some residents felt that recreation threatened the environment, while others expressed that conservation threatened recreation.

The results from that January open house meeting detail how Nederland’s residents wish for a pool facility, dog park, pump track, and an outdoor event space. However, the community listed as their top three priorities were for PROSAB to maintain and enhance local walking trails, maintain existing facilities, and to work with Boulder and Gilpin Counties and the U.S. Forest Service on trail connectivity.

SE Group’s report also specified that “when given a choice between prioritizing the maintenance of existing assets or building new ones, respondents preferred maintenance.”

The Board began discussing the efforts already being made towards two main areas of focus, maintenance and trail connectivity. Dunn expressed that she has met with local stakeholders regarding rebuilding many of Nederland’s trails, as well as designing trails for the Town’s newest recreational asset, Moose Meadows, the forested area near the Elementary School and NedRINK.

Dunn expressed that she hopes to work with Wild Bear Nature Center in acquiring a grant to assist with trail connectivity while also providing educational and informational signage, as well as interactive “playscapes” out on the trails.

Miller mentioned the possibility of a multi-use trail to be constructed to connect the Nederland Middle- Senior High School to the downtown area. Dunn stated that she has been in contact with Boulder County officials regarding the proposed path, and noted that they have been more receptive to the fact that the lack of sidewalk infrastructure creates a hazard for those kids who walk to school, and that such a path would mitigate that hazard.

In relation to the survey results from the open house hosted by SE Group, the Board also expressed alignment with some of the Sustainability Advisory Board’s priorities, primarily fire mitigation, promoting walkability and bikeability around Town, and protecting the natural wildlife and habitats.

Dunn provided PROSAB with an update regarding work being conducted on a concept design for proposed updates to NedRINK. This concept paper is a requirement for applying for Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) grant funds to pay for the project.

Dunn expressed to the Board that she had paid for a mediator through the Parks Department budget to assist discussions between Town staff, members of PROSAB, and community groups representing the interests of those who use the ice rink and those who use the tennis courts. These separate entities had formed a committee with the intention of compromising on a concept design.

Town Administrator Fisher had reportedly left discussions about the potential updates to NedRINK, leaving Dunn responsible for leading the meetings moving forward. Dunn acquired a mediator but stated that issues with finding a compromise persisted after that first mediation meeting. Dunn stated that she would prefer the GOCO grant application become the responsibility of the Town and of PROSAB.

“It’s not productive, we’re not getting anywhere; so what I’d like to see is this group pull away from the committee and we’re no longer to work with rink or tennis,” Dunn said. “We’re going to create the concept paper for the facility that works for our town citizens, not what’s best for one group or another. It has to be the best thing for the facility in order to sustain the Parks Department.”

The Board agreed with Dunn’s recommendation to disband the committee and for PROSAB and Town staff to complete the concept design and grant application without the assistance of community groups. PROSAB will draft a letter of separation with the community representatives and will build upon their original concept design, previously rejected by GOCO, but incorporating advice received from GOCO and data learned from the mediated meeting.

The Nederland Parks, Recreation, and Open Space Advisory Board meets every third Thursday of the month at 5:30 p.m. Their next meeting is scheduled for Thursday, May 16, 2024. Meetings can be attended online via WebEx.

For more information go to: https://townofnederland.colorado. gov/parks-recreation-open-space-advisory-board.