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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAG RPTS 1998 1102 PR JNTCITY OF MOORPARK PARKS AND RECREATION COMMISSION AND TEEN COUNCIL JOINT MEETING AGENDA November 2, 1998 7:00 p.m. 1. CALL TO ORDER: 2. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE: 3. ROLL CALL: Commissioners David Badoud, June Dubreuil, Sandra Thompson, and Chair Janice Parvin. Teen Councilmembers Kenny Bobertz, Jami Evans, Randy Koszela, Michael Lipka, Angela Nunez, Lindsey Sanders, Ashley Schoonover, and John Sherwood. 4. PROCLAMATIONS, COMMENDATIONS, AND SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS: 5. PUBLIC COMMENTS: 6. DISCUSSION /ACTION ITEMS: A. Discussion on Current and Future Youth Programs and Services. Staff Recommendation: Discuss teen programming and make recommendations on future programs. B. Consider Overview of the Proposed Youth Master Plan. Staff Recommendation: Discuss Youth Master Plan; receive and file report. 7. ANNOUNCEMENTS /FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS: 8. ADJOURNMENT: Any member of the public may address the Commission during the Public Comment portion of the agenda. Speaker Cards must be received by the Recording Secretary prior to the Public Comments portion of the meeting. Speakers will be heard in the order that their Speaker Cards are received. A limitation of three (3) minutes shall be imposed upon each speaker. Copies of the reports or other written documentation relating to each item of business on the Agenda are on file in the office of the City Clerk and are available for public review. Any questions concerning any Agenda item may be directed to the Community Services Department Secretary, 799 Moorpark Avenue, Moorpark, CA 93021 (805) 529 -6864, ext. 227. AGENDA REPORT CITY OF MOORPARK TO: Parks and Recreation Commission FROM: Shelly Shellabarger, Recreation Superintendent DATE: October 23, 1998 (Parks & Recreation Commission Meeting of November 2, 1998) SUBJECT: Overview of Teen Activities BACKGROUND The City of Moorpark offers a variety of programs for teens with varied success rates. This report serves as a review of current programming, an orientation to programs in their planning stages and programs and projects recommended by the Teen Council. CURRENT PROGRAMS & PROJECTS The Recreation Division has planned activities through March 1999. Many of these programs are underway. This discussion provides a brief overview of these activities. • Teen Council: The Teen Council meets the second and fourth Thursday of the month to discuss teen issues and assist staff in the development of programs. The current Teen Council has been very active in publicizing City programs through venues such as Country Days and Catch A Star. The Council also plans to give reports to City Council on a monthly basis. • Open Gym: Teen open gym is currently being offered monthly on Friday evenings from 8:00 -10:00 p.m. This program provides access to the gymnasium for teens only. The intended purpose was to provide teens a place to hang out on Friday evenings, therefore reducing the potential for juvenile crime. The participation has been poor. • Game Room: The Game Room runs every Friday from 2:30- 5:30 p.m. and offers table games, foosball and ping - pong. Nintendo has also been made available if the Game Room is set up in the Multipurpose Room and there is staff available to monitor use. Participation has been very slow. For example, during the month of October, the Game Room was offered five times. Two teens visited on Friday, October 2nd and three teens visited on October 23rd. However, staff makes the ping pong table and foosball table available for teens that drop in during the week if there is not a class conflict. More teens drop in than attend the structured program. Staff will try to offer a drop -in after school Game Room in conjunction with the afterschool open gym (3:00 -5:00 p.m.) during the school year on days when there is no conflict with other activities. • Teen Band Jams: Band Jams are currently offered monthly. This program consists of staff booking a local "garage band" to perform on a Friday evening (usually once per month). In the past, the bands have advertised to their following and participation has been high. However, the program has a number of concerning aspects including security concerns and incidents of "moshing" and drug and alcohol use. Another problem lies in the fact that most of the bands are very unstable and frequently break up between the booking and the performance. Staff is focussing on securing bands whose members are younger and therefore have a younger (Middle School aged) following. • Teen Division Basketball: This extension of the Junior Basketball League (for ages 12 -14) started with the Fall of 1998 and has experienced success with 21 participants. In light of this successful beginning, staff intends to continue this division. • Teen Basketball Tournaments: Staff has offered a several Basketball Tournaments with mixed success. With the upswing in teen registrations in the Basketball League, it is expected that these events will begin to recover. • Skatepark: The Skatepark opened in April 1998, and quickly grew to a membership of 110 registered skaters. In July, with the advent of the new fiscal year, new registration forms were required. To date, forty -six skaters have turned in their new forms. Over the summer, participation dropped to almost nothing (two or fewer teens per day) due to the heat and competition of other recreation opportunities. Because of the poor participation, Staff is considering discontinuing the Skatepark during the summer months. Since September, however, Skatepark has increased to a participation of about fourteen teens per day. Most participants are in -line skaters as opposed to skate boarders. Staff has been working to offer incentives to get teens to register to use the park. On September 30, 1998 staff ran a Skatecontest which stirred a lot of excitement. Staff plans to have another contest in early November and promote the Skatepark through mailings, news releases, and school announcements. Staff plans to continue these efforts to encourage participation in the Skatepark. This includes a proposed Skateparty following construction of the rollerhockey fencing. • Skate Contests: These events feature opportunities for skateboarders and in- liners to show their stuff and win prizes. There has been a lot of excitement over these new additions to the Skatepark. The next competition is scheduled to follow the construction of the roller hockey court fencing. • Teen Newsletter: Staff is developing a teen newsletter promoting activities. The newsletter will be mailed to our database periodically. The mailings may take the form of a newsletter, flyer or postcard. • Teen Trips: All the summer trips were canceled this year, as they have in the past. The pool parties, beach trips and midnight bowling trips received zero registrations. In fact, the only teen trips that are successful are the ski trips. Currently two ski trips are planned for the Winter of 1999. These are typically very successful excursions. Staff plans to refrain from offering trips (with the exception of ski trips) in the future. • Teen Classes: The division offers a variety of classes for teens and encourages teen participation in courses offered for adults. The babysitting course is experiencing tremendous success, filling every season. Staff takes a waiting list and requests the American Red Cross offer additional classes. Teens have shown interest in other general classes such as dog obedience, painting, swing dance and fitness. A suggestion for a future class is to offer a swing dance class that culminates in a swing dance. Mesa Verde Middle school has expressed an interest in a co- sponsored program. FUTURE PROGRAMS & PROJECTS • Catch a Star: This program coordinates the donation and delivery of holiday gifts to needy teens. Teen Council members have volunteered to wrap and deliver gifts in the past. Teen Council voted to participate in this activity again with Jami Evans as the 1998 Committee chair. • Moorpark Teen Volunteers: The school district has established a new guideline for high school graduation requiring students to complete a mandated number of volunteer hours. In response, Teen Council and staff are developing a formalized Teen Volunteer Program, which provides guidelines for volunteers, identifies volunteer opportunities and connects interested teens with these programs. • Project Pride Coordination Committee: Staff is working with Jose Ireta (Project Pride Coordinator) to develop joint projects. The first coordination meeting was held on October 20th. Those in attendance talked about potential joint projects between the City, Project Pride and school principals. Monthly meetings were set up to facilitate program development. • Teen Survival Guide: At a recent conference, staff picked up a copy of the City of Lakewood's Teen Survival guide which provided information to local teens on resources as well as advice and straight information on everything from drug use to skin care. Staff would like to develop a similar document. This project would involve identifying a funding source and may be a potential joint project with the police department and the school district. • Skateparty: In the past, the Teen Council sponsored a Skateparty open to the public. Teen Council voted to offer another such event, which will be restricted to authorized skaters following the construction of the roller hockey stadium fence. The event could include a DJ, refreshments and skate contest. Teen Council recommended that the skate contest be held in the afternoon (4:00 -5:00 p.m.) with the party starting at 5:00 p.m. The event will probably be held in January or December and will need to be coordinated around the roller hockey league schedule. STAFF RECOI4MENDATION Staff recommends that the Parks and Recreation Commission and Teen Council discuss teen programming and make recommendations on future programs. n- AGENDA REPORT CITY OF MOORPARK TO: Parks and Recreation Commission FROM: Shelly Shellabarger, Recreation Superintendent DATE: October 23, 1998 (Parks & Recreation Commission Meeting of November 2, 1998) SUBJECT: Youth Master Plan Introduction Staff has reviewed Youth Master Plans developed by other agencies (such as Ojai and Santa Paula) and researched ongoing Youth Master Plan projects (including Supervisor Schillo's and the City of Thousand Oaks Youth Master Plan project development). This information was compiled and developed into a proposed Youth Master Plan project for the City of Moorpark. This report identifies what a Youth Master Plan is, what it accomplishes, why it is important and the steps staff recommends to accomplish this task. YOUTH MASTER PLAN ORIENTATION As part of a long term planning process undertaken by many government agencies, documents identifying needs for specific populations are developed. A Youth Master Plan is such a document. It identifies resources available to children and teens in the community; • Notes the gaps between these resources and the current and projected needs; • And establishes a network or plan to fill the identified gaps in services. Oftentimes, local area agencies work together to build a network to extend services. County agencies, other local cities, private organizations and districts can and should be included in the process. THE PURPOSE OF A YOUTH MASTER PLAN The purpose of this project is to develop a document that memorializes policy and outlines resources for youth services in the years to come. The overall objective of this project is to reduce the potential for juvenile crime through intervention and prevention efforts. The Youth Master Plan will also serve to establish goals, strategies and costs for a long term improvement of non - school 'hour activities for Moorpark's Youth, develop a focused and organized approach to the delivery of programs and coordinate the resources of youth serving organizations. The final document will serve as a resource for youth serving programs as well as a roadmap identifying the steps required for our future success. YOUTH MASTER PLAN STEPS The proposed Youth Master Plan project consists of four steps: Identification of the stake holders, identification and ranking of needs, analysis of trends and issues and the compilation of the Youth Master Plan document. These steps are detailed below. 1. IDENTIFICATION Identify Stakeholders: This step involves identifying youth serving organizations throughout the County. A preliminary letter will be sent to all known organizations asking for information on the programs offered and also asking the contact to note other youth serving organizations with which they are familiar. This will assure that no essential stakeholders are omitted from the process. At this point, a steering committee will be identified. It is anticipated that the steering committee will consist of the Recreation Superintendent, a member of Teen Council, a member of the Parks and Recreation Commission and any interested stakeholder. 2. EXPLORATION Identify and Rank Needs: With the stakeholders identified, the next step is to use this resource group to identify the current and future needs of Moorpark's youth. A survey will be developed and sent out to each organization on the stakeholder list. With the return of these surveys, the Steering Committee will invite members of the public to attend a focus group meeting at a forum. This focus group will serve to identify additional concerns and to rank the needs noted by the youth serving organizations in their survey. 3. ANALYSIS Analyze Trends and Issues: Following the focus group meeting, the Steering Committee will meet to analyze and discuss the results of the survey and the focus group forum. Through the analysis process, the committee will work to identify resources and potential solutions to the identified problems. 4. DOCUMENTATION Develop Youth Master Plan Document: The final step in this process is to bring the findings together into a document that serves two purposes: A. The first part of the document outlines the identified issues in ranked order and identifies potential solutions and /or resources available to address the problem(s). B. The second part of the document will serve as a resource guide to the Youth Serving Organizations identified in the initial phase of the process. It is hoped that this document can serve as a valuable clearinghouse of resources for other agencies in Moorpark and throughout the county. The final document will be drafted by the Recreation Superintendent, reviewed, and approved by the steering committee. The document will then be forwarded to the Teen Council, Parks and Recreation Commission and the City Council. STAFF RECOMMENDATION Staff recommends that the Commission discuss the Youth Master Plan Project and make recommendations to proceed.