Parks and Recreation Commission Meeting: April 10, 2025

Present         Members      

Y                 Deb Faucher, Chair

Y                 Ed Harley, Clerk

Y                 Sherry Horeanopolous

Y                 Martin Sterman

N                 Seat 5 is currently open

Y                 Addison Barwise (Alt 1)

N                 Andrea Surabian (Alt 2)

Present         Other Attendees    

N                 Walter Zawacki, Advisory Committee and liaison to P&R

Y*                Elisabeth Bottomley, Princeton Youth Soccer

* Left after providing information about and payment schedule request for PYS

Deb called meeting to order at 7:31 PM

Open Meeting and Commission Role Call

Approve Minutes: 
Deb made a motion to approve the minutes as amended from April 2, 2025.  Martin seconded.  All in favor.

Public Comments:

• None

Updates/Discussion Items:

Financial:

• N/A for this special meeting

Events/Programs:

• N/A for this special meeting

Fields & Parks

N/A for this special meeting

Other Business

Princeton Youth Soccer Proposal

• Elisabeth Bottomly, PYS, discussed her past experience that they were supposed to be charged $12/child for year, although it turned out to be per season.   The very young age groups at TPS was popular from the start (right after Covid), and there are multiple groups now.
  • Per a PYS board meeting last night, they discussed paying one lump sum at the end of the year based on the actual enrollment for previous spring + fall seasons.  Last year, it would have been about $3000. The proposal is intended to simplify the payment/cost structure.
  • A summer program started last year, since Holden no longer offers a summer program, and it was very successful.  It is pickup, no instruction, and the kids just have fun playing.  Last year it was free, both for field use and no charge to participants.  PYS proposes that this year they would pay per hour, $180 (6 hours  x $30/hour), and they would still not charge participants.
• Just for background:
  • PYS is a volunteer, not for profit soccer club that offers a low cost Princeton soccer program.  Our travel teams play within Central Mass Youth Soccer and PYS is a member of Mass Youth Soccer, US Soccer, and the Mountain Soccer Club. Our home fields are at TPS and Krashes.  Our primary expenses are:
    1. Player/Staff Insurance
    2. Princeton Field Fees
    3. Travel League Fees (pays for refs, playoffs, etc.)
    4. Uniforms
    5. Team equipment
    6. Porta Pottie Fees
    7. Field Paint (TPS uses PYS paint and PYS fills supply gaps at Krashes)
    8. Other miscellaneous expenses
• After presenting and discussing the above, Elisabeth left the meeting.

Woo Sox Princeton Day

• Addison has lined up a singer – Sofia Jordan
• Hometown Hero suggestions: Deb Cary, Karen Rousseau, Sean Doyle, Joelle Jones
  • Deb is already being honored as person of the year by the town.
• Still also need to line up child to bring ball to mound.  Suggestion is Max Acuto.  All in agreement; Deb will reach out.
• Need to decide what event for Smiley Ball to show up to advertise the Princeton Day event.   Potentially Easter Egg Hunt?

Field Use Agreement

• Lots of discussion that resulted in the following structure agreed to by all.
• There will be two fee structures for field usage that the teams/groups can choose from:
  • Per participant for the season
    1. Youth teams at $12 / participant / season (current rate)
    2. Adults at $20 / participant / season
       (new rate consistent with other Adult programs, i.e Basketball)
  • Hourly rate at $30 / hour for Krashes, $25 / hour for TPS (current rates)
  • Both will still include the Port-a-Pottie fee
• A flat fee of $150 per day will be charged to anyone wishing to use Krashes for an event.
  • It will be possible for the commission to waive the fee for any users with a majority vote, but sound justification is encouraged to provide equal treatment to all users.  (One example of a potential waiver situation is the Sullivan Memorial event where no one is selling anything, there is no additional cost to P&R, and the memorial flagpole is located at Krashes making it the appropriate location for the event.)
• For the adult and youth pickup leagues, they will be conducted similar to the Adult pickup basketball at TPS.
  • The groups will have to schedule their timeslot on Skedda
  • PYS has chosen the hourly rate for the kids pickup group.
  • P&R will ask the adult pickup group to use the per person option like pickup basketball.  The fee will be waived for the first 2 or 3 events to see if it will be popular enough to continue the program.
  • P&R will sponsor both leagues and get the activity added to the Town Insurance like the adult basketball.  Deb will reach out to Sherry Patch to request the certificate.
  • Each participant, both youth (their parent/guardian) and adult, will need to sign a waiver before they can play.  It will be the responsibility of the organizer to collect fees and waivers (at least until MyRec is up and running).

FIELD LINE PAINT

• The current arrangement will be continued for this year:
  • Parks and Rec will supply field paint for Krashes because it is a multiuser facility.
  • Parks and Rec will continue offering a discount to Tom Narita’s adult soccer league for Tom’s setup and maintenance of the soccer field lines.
  • PYS will continue to set up and maintain field lines at TPS using PYS paint because they are the sole users of the TPS fields.
• TOPICS STILL REQUIRING DISCUSSION
  • P&R and Town use were discussed without a consensus being reached by all commission members
    1. P&R and Town Dept Field Use:
       • P&R sponsored programs (similar to PYS soccer, Challenger Soccer, etc) that use the fields will
         Viewpoint 1: be free of charge
         Viewpoint 2: need to charge a participant fee to cover their share of the costs of field maintenance, port-a-pottie, etc, per the schedule above the same as any other team/group.
       • P&R (like Winter Carnival), Town (like Princeton Day), and non-profit events will
         Viewpoint 1: be free of charge
         Viewpoint 2: be charged the flat fee the same as any other user.
  • The supporting arguments for each viewpoint were:
    Viewpoint 1: The town / P&R owns the land, so it doesn’t make sense to charge the town/P&R or participants to use our property for town/P&R events.
    Viewpoint 2: It only seems fair to charge the same as we are charging others to use the land.  The use still could/does put wear and tear on the property, so  even town/P&R event uses should pay their share for maintenance. Winter Carnival vendors, for example, could be charged a fee to pay for the event.  The current agreement does not distinguish between P&R and other town groups.  The agreement should encourage the contributions of citizen groups rather than incentivize P&R labor.
  • The commission was split on these viewpoints.  More discussion (and a vote) will be needed to finalize the policy in the updated agreement.
• The agreement itself still needs to be updated to make it current, but time ran out to do this during the meeting.  Deb will modify the document and send around for review.

Strategic Plan

• The meeting time expired before the commission was able to discuss the strategic plan.  This will be carried over to the next scheduled meeting.

Director’s Update:  N/A – since the position is currently vacant.

Deb adjourned the meeting at 9:03 pm.

Next Meeting:  May 7, 2025 – next regular meeting