March Meeting Minutes

March JROC Minutes (3/6/24)

Moment of silence to honor Chris Hull, prior JROC president and crucial member of this community, who passed away recently.

Meeting called to order at 6:08pm.

• February meeting minutes reviewed and approved.
• Introductions made (Matt Rosenberg’s last day as president, he thanked everyone for contributions over the years) — 14 people total at meeting.
• JRPS Report (more details in full Park Report)
  • Visitation: Counts are a bit low for February = 74,370 (two counters missing in this tally), actual use is probably in the 100,000 range to match 2023, 2022, and 2020
  • Updates:
    • Pressure valve reducer installed at JRPS HQ
    • JRPS looking to hire two seasonal operations staff
    • Park staff participating in Richmond INSPIRE, city-wide park master plan (in early development stages)
    • Ancarrow’s Landing dredged
    • Backflow preventer will be installed to water spigot at JRPS HQ
    • Replacement gates ordered for 22nd St, 42nd St, and Huguenot Flatwater park entrances
  • Recent projects:
    • Roadwork at 42nd Street (service road going west); improved materials to hold up better to recurring ruts
    • Changing blinds at 14th Street take-out completed by park staff and JROC volunteers
    • Interdepartmental project to replace manhole cover at CSO, between JRPS and DPU at 22nd Street
    • Prep work for 24’x24’ JRPS Outdoor Education deck under way — grading and stone base completed; excavation for footers is next.
  • Next (March) JROC project: Huguenot Flatwater, move existing bridge to new concrete abutments. Proper footers will be dug. Project will be to take apart bridge and re-assemble it on the new footers.
  • Also coming up: Dock Street property, new park parcel — lots of prep work (plantings, trail building, invasive removal, remove fence, etc.) to get this online by June 2024 (slated to open in line with JRA Facility).
• Greg asked about getting river stone down to 14th St., Ross to get estimates on how much it’d cost. Katie mentioned drop-off at Shelter could possibly be a place to put similar stone.
• Greg spoke to online donations: Hull family asked that any donations people wished to give in Chris’ memory be sent or given to JROC or Friends of James River Park System. Discussions held around making the Donations part of the website more visible/accessible; suggestion made to get JROC on Venmo. Sally and Matt will look into it.
• 14th St Signage: Giles reached out 2 weeks ago about the signs (“to park there you need to be a boater/have boat racks”). Signs have been removed; we need to revisit language — to deter commuters, but be more inclusive to include more park (especially river) users (boaters, fishers). Something like “River access only, no commuter parking. This access brought to you by JROC.” Ross will present this to Giles as a viable alternative. Matt will write up language to present to executive board.
• Puddles forming near trash hut at Reedy Creek, and at ramp entrance to Reedy Creek HQ.
• Riverrock: JROC invited back if we want to do tabling. Asked for a vote: do we want to table there? A few volunteer shifts found, Matt will set up a schedule for Saturday at least, to man the table.
• Gear swap: working with Joey’s class at OAP to put the gear swap on for April 20th. Invited by Simms Metal back to event at Bryan Park, but JROC looking to respectfully decline (due to location not being the best). Lake / paddling portion will likely not be done this year due to dredging, questionable access to lake, and JRW not able to spearhead it due to ACA training that weekend. Discussion held about Monument 10K happening same day; possibly shifting the gear swap to later in the day. Need to figure out logistics of drop-off time, and actual event time. Matt will talk with Joey’s class about starting later in the day.
• Promotions Committee: Joey’s VCU class working on new flyer, per Max; they’re working on an online form to preregister items for drop-off. We’ll also do physical forms. Greg updated: Peak Experiences willing to include JROC projects and details in their monthly Cliff Notes email newsletter.
• Projects: February report, we have changing rooms at 14th St! Greg will put a little hanger and shelf on the outside of one as a lost and found. March project, Huguenot Flatwater bridge – Matt will be there to wrangle volunteers. Encouragement to go online and fill out registration form. Captcha put on volunteer registration online.
• Music at Maymont dates announced, Matt will email that to gauge JROC’s involvement similar to prior years.
• Ranger Rick gave a brief update on the ranger program. Their time will be spent 80% in JRPS and 20% in other parks within City of Richmond PRCF. They just got a 2nd vehicle so Aimee and Rick can divide and conquer — relationship building, safety, enforcement, information, education, etc. Started work on a junior ranger program. Unable to issue any citations at this moment (but moving toward being able to), but sharing into to improve education. Working on some GIS systems to track interactions /incidents. They’ll be issued radios to be in the loop with emergency communications. Working on the budget for getting at least one more ranger position created & filled. Working on updating RVA311 to have a new Parks icon to report items to the rangers.
• Elections
  • Current nominations…
    • Secretary: Natalie Somerville — yea’s (no nays)
    • Treasurer: Sally Wetzel — yea’s (no nays)
    • Vice President: Greg Velzy — yea’s (no nays)
      • All the above voted in.
    • President: open, no nominations
  • Board (in non-executive positions) — deals with issues in between meetings:
    • Max Posner
    • Charles Ware
    • Shawna Shade
    • Sam
    • Katie Lemmert
    • Matt Rosenburg
    • Tricia (out of country but wants to be on the Board)
    • Matt will keep doing website stuff.

Meeting adjourned at 7:39pm.