7.1 PRSR at 3 Hand out from meeting

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Hecker, Michael From: Sevcik, Tim Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2022 9:30 AM To: Hecker, Michael Cc: Baas, Josh; Femrite, Justin Subject: RE: Furniture proposed by Furniture & Things Michael - A few concerns with these products. While they look great, neither the tables nor benches appear as though they can be bolted to a concrete slab. Our standard is that all amenities such as these are placed on a concrete slab and bolted to the surface to prevent movement by the public which results in tables missing from shelter rentals, tables in the middle of mowed turf grass areas which requires 2 maintenance staff to move for mowing, or worse tables end up in lakes and rivers (we pulled three old tables out of Orono during the dredging project two years ago). Attentionally, for the benches, without being able to bolt these to the surface they are a potential tipping hazard. These tables appear to be made entirely of recycled plastic. While aesthetically pleasing when new, this material tends to be a magnet for vandalism. Often these tables end up having words or images carved into the surface, people trying to burn them, or just general graffiti. This was a big reason we went away from the solid surface wooden tables the city had when I first started working here. The solid flat surface tends to be a canvas for the crude. This would require us to also keep replacement boards on hand at all times as the only way to remove the carved in graffiti is to sand the surface as deep as the table or melt the surface to distort the graffiti. Lastly, over the past six years we have systematically worked our way through the city replacing the old wooden picnic tables. Just this spring we received the last remaining tables to complete system wide replacement in our parks. We have spent over $75,000 over the past 6 years making this happen and now have a standardized set of tables throughout the park system. Additionally, we have been utilizing two types of park benches in our parks over that same time, the memorial benches and the landscape structure benches that we currently have next to the Orono playground are the two types we are currently using. As old benches need to be replaced, we have been replacing with these. At this time, my recommendation would be to continue with our current site amenity program as we are already highly invested in it and have largely achieved standardization across the system. I would not support the alternate proposal for Park Dedication as presented by Plants and Things and would recommend cash for park dedication. Thanks, Tim From: Hecker, Michael <MHecker@ElkRiverMN.gov> Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2022 3:54 PM To: Sevcik, Tim <TSevcik@ElkRiverMN.gov> Cc: Baas, Josh <jbaas@elkrivermn.gov> Subject: Furniture proposed by Furniture & Things Importance: High Attached is the proposal from Furniture & Things for tomorrow's Commission meeting regarding the type of furniture we could consider in lieu of cash. Can you please review and let me know what might be of interest for our parks?