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Home My WebLink AboutMN-YB-1997-02-10 Ithaca Youth Bureau Advisory Board February 10, 1997 Minutes Attendance: David Delchamps, Cathy Currier, William Murphy, Joan Spielholz, Deb Traunstein Staff Sam Cohen, Allen Green, Marilyn Hall Excused: Sally Grubb, Gino Bush The meeting was called to order att7:37 p.m. and a motion was made, seconded and carried unanimously to approve the meeting of January43th minutes. The December meeting minutes need a short revision by Sam before distributing to the board for approval. II. STAFF AND COMMITTEE REPORTS 1. Director's Report Stewart Park& IYB Cutia Building: a) Skateboard Park: Common Council passed a resolution naming the Ithaca Youth Bureau as the preferred site for the new Skateboard Park; a non- programmed park open to the public. The Board of Public Works has concerns with the cost of and responsibility for maintenance. The Parks Commission has concerns over fencing and appropriate landscaping. A construction committee will be established to come up with design and construction schedule for possibly opening in summer `97. b) Walkway: The Skateboard Park is a reminder that a safe walkway is urgently needed from Boynton Middle School and the Ithaca High School for youngsters coming directly to Youth Bureau/Stewart Park area. Town of Ithaca, City of Ithaca are all very interested in this project. Thys Van Cort will call a meeting of interested parties including reps from the City of Ithaca, Town of Ithaca, Cornell and State Transportation. Bill Murphy will join Sam to represent Ithaca Youth Bureau. c) Alcohol use in Stewart Park - The possession of alcohol is permitted for adults (the sale of alcohol is prohibited). Since there will be more youth in the Stewart Park area the use of alcohol might be addressed, although no one supports a full ban of alcohol. d) Boathouse - Certain agencies are interested in doing programming at the Cascadilla Boathouse. Alice Green and Leslie Chatterton (City Planning) are on a small committee to come up with ideas for usage of the boathouse. Grant money from the waterfront project might be available. Board members expressed an interest in touring the boathouse when the weather improves. •• 2) Recreation Department Special thanks to Alice Green for her special delivery of the Recreation report tonight (in spite of not attending because of illness). Thanks Alice! Sam delivered the following special points: - IYB Rec intern, Meghan Kelly, is working on soliciting ads to help cover costs of the summer day larger mailing this year. - Fees for Cass fields- trying to get uniformity that includes all variations - Mark Wenham recommends that the OZ-13 affiliate with the American Youth Soccer Association (AYSO). This is a full partnership matter and;twill be discussed by Rec Partnership committee. Bantam Basketball had a successful season with 35 girls and 98 boys - Family Swim enrollment was very high this year due to the increased publicity - Fencing has successfully begun with another 8 week offering - Tot Spot seems to be a great creative new idea and a very valuable community service. Offering might be expanded to include every Saturday. - Center for Expressive Arts has 16 children in the new Imagine That program for ages 3-5 . Youth theatre held Saturday morning at South Hill school is full and Wednesday night teen theatre offerings are underway - There will be an Open House reception on Tuesday,'Feb 11th from 3:30 - 5:30 p.m. sponsored by the Ithaca High School Activities Program and the IYB in appreciation for the IHS faculty who helped contribute to extra-curricular activities. Youth Network mural project is still underway Saturdays. - Downtown Outreach group is being staffed by Patrick and continues to meet Wednesday after school, Friday afternoon musical jam sessions and Sunday night teen community center meetings - Skateboard Park Benefit Concert was successful and our Chair, David Delchamps, was able to stop by! - Teen effort - Sam and Patrick will be attending a Center for Religion, Ethics and Social Policy (CRESP) Board meeting to discuss CRESP sponsorship of a downtown teen center. - There has been a request submitted to Ithaca Transit to consider moving the bus shelter that is in front of the IYB to free up parking for Tot Spot, after school programs and use of the new skateboard park when it is ready. - Sand Volleyball court proposal should be reconsidered. Recreation staff will be contacting IHS promoters of beach volleyball to explore a cooperative project. Outing and recreation equipment have been relocated from Cascarilla Boathouse to the cold storage trailers located in the back parking lot at the IYB. Recreation Partnership Board update (Joan Spielholz) Joan reported that Phil Dankert and JoAnn Cornish Epps were re-elected as chair and vice-chair of the Rec Partnership Board. The Finance Committee is working on reviewing and setting criteria for fees for the summer brochure. They are studying the actual cost for delivering each program/ revenues generated and fees charged by similar programs. Discussion at this meeting also included the season pass rates and admission fees for Cass Park Pool that have been recommended by Mayor Cohen. Next meeting is set for February 13th at 7:00 p.m. Recreation Mainstreaming Services - Winter activities are underway for children and adults. We will be hiring a new Recreation Specialist position in RMS to fill a current vacancy. Cass Park: (Sam Cohen) The Cass Park Rink Task Force has a tentative preliminary draft,with their recommendations but they now have new questions to consider after meeting with Mayor Cohen. The Mayor wants to consider privatizing. One benefit with public.skating is the free ice time given to school districts for after school skate. Focus on positives anc emphasize Cass Park Rink works! 3) Youth Development - Youth Employment Service - since the minimum wage has increased (up 50 cents/hour), we have submitted a special budget increase request to hire the same number of youth as last year and pay $4.75/hr. Without this needed funding there would be reduction of ten employable youth. There is a good chance we can receive $3,000 in additional revenue funding from the County for summer jobs. This request is going to B&A February 24th. - Transition Task Force - Special thanks to Joanie Spielholz and Cathy Currier for serving on this committee. One to One has received a gift of$10,000 which will be applied to the second half of 1997 with the goal of maintaining 1-1 service countywide. It is a goal for next years revenues to come from existing ongoing'budget lines (not to depend on donations, etc.) The key is having sufficient time to adjust the service delivery to be fair to City taxpayers. All individual program components will be examined. Handout #1 - geographical distribution showing overview of all kids we worked (includes MW) with during 1996 - up a few percentage points from 1995). Handout #2 - DFY breakdown ages, gender, ethnicity shows more girls than boys with ages and ethnicity similar. Hours/child figures indicate most impact. Building costs, general administration, fringe benefits are all part of costs. III. BOARD COMMENTS/ISSUES There will be a Youth Bureau Legislative breakfast meeting on Tuesday, March 11th in Albany which Sam might be attending. The f overnor's initiative is to create a new department of Children and Families, unifying various state children and family programs in one department. - Joan Spielholz: suggests doing a fund raiser to help preserve Cayuga Cafe for summer. One idea might be to have bands. Suggests speaking with Ben and Jerry people. Fund raiser will be discussed at staff level and brought back to Board. Bill Murphy is willing to bring this possibility up to the Finger Lakes Magic Group which meets on Thursday evening. Meeting adjourned at 8:52 p.m. The next meeting will be held Monday, March 10, 7:30 p.m. in the Activities Room at the Youth Bureau.