Wednesday, October 1, 2025

EVMD Board Meeting 9/18/2025 Recap

This is an unofficial summary of the Sept. 18, 2025 Meeting of the Board of Directors of the EagleVail Metropolitan District held at the EagleVail Pavilion and online produced by EVMD Communications staff. A draft of the minutes will be posted to the EVMD website once they are composed.

Board members present: Barcza, Laughlin, Copeland and Rumford.

Parks Master Plan

Manager Steven Barber thanked the community for strong engagement since April before turning it over to Pedro Campos, landscape architect, with Zehren and Assoc.

Campos reminded that driving the master plan efforts are three priorities:

Irrigation system replacements for greater watering efficiency, water conservation, including identification of areas for potential turf reduction at the pocket parks, if deemed appropriate.
Playground facility replacements due to age and condition, to meet present day regulations, with focus on new equipment that is up-to-date, fun, durable, safe, and universally accessible.
Providing pedestrian and wheel-chair access that is compliant with the American with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Input opportunities:

EagleVail and Tell Community Open House held April 9, 2025
Parks Committee Meeting March 27, 2025
Ice Cream Social 1 Coyote Park & Holland Pond held June 5, 2025
Ice Cream Social 2 West Park & Ptarmigan Park held July 24, 2025
Ice Cream Social 3 Pavilion Park & Trout Pond Park held August 14, 2025
Ice Cream Social 4 West Park & Ptarmigan Park held August 28, 2025
Homestake Peak School EagleVail Student Engagement, September 9, 2025
Parks Committee Meeting September 9, 2025
Parks Master Plan Survey, September 3 to September 16, 2025

Input summary:

Coyote Park:

Improve entrance and access and transition from Stone Creek Road into the Park
Add bike rack / bike parking flat pad.
Renovate playground with code compliant play equipment.
Provide play equipment for different age groups, separated.
Consider naturalistic looking play equipment.
Provide classic features in new equipment – slide, swings, monkey bars.
Upgrade surfacing from crumb rubber.
Preserve large mature spruce trees for shade – limb up as needed for light / visibility for safety.
Preserve flat lawn space as highly functional lawn space for informal play, sports, and social activities.

Holland Park:

Keep this park passive and generally as is. Valued for peace, tranquility, views to south and golf course.
Maintain Ice for winter use, highly valued for neighborhood skating and informal winter community gatherings.
Consider 2 to 3 additional benches strategically placed around the pond for more seating.
Consider adding temporary hammocks at strategic locations for residents to relax.
Improve water quality and appearance with more regular flow of water.

West Park:

Minimize change to the park, as majority of residents value existing conditions.
Make only necessary priority improvements addressing irrigation, playground safety, and ADA access.
Preserve as much of the open lawn areas as possible – highly valued for play, dog walking and sledding.
Preserve the basketball court and enhance with striping for other court sports.
Preserve the volleyball court.
Preserve the open terraced lawn areas for the popular winter sledding use of the park.
Preserve the Pet Memorial in a meaningful way, even if the shelter needs to be replaced.
Play elements for different age groups with emphasis on natural play and climbable features.
More swings and play features that spin.
Consider an additional shelter closer to the playground for birthday celebrations and family gatherings, and for parents to be close to their kids when they are playing.
Extend the fence at the bottom of park slope to make sledding safer and prevent sledding into the street.
Add more seating at different levels of the park, out of the way of active areas.

Add bike rack / bike pad parking area at top and bottom.
Consider a new seating area at the top of the park with new seating overlooking the rest of the park.
Consider reducing non-functional turf areas such as at the bottom behind the fence, or along the sides of the park and converting to native grasses and wildflowers.
Preserve the existing trees. Consider additional trees for shade around edges of the park.

Ptarmigan Park:

Make the necessary priority updates to irrigation, playground equipment and provide ADA access.
Greater separation between adjacent homes and park with landscaping to avoid trespassing.
Additional seating – benches and picnic tables.
Consider adding a hammock area for residents to relax at the park.
Removal of cottonwood due to safety and hazard concerns.
Preserve other trees and limb up for visibility and safety.
Upgrade the playground due to its age.
Playground equipment is in good shape and may have more life left.

Pavilion Park

Preserve open lawn and mound areas for play and dog walking.
Add trees for shade to west and south sides of the playground, coordinated with more seating.
Expand the playground to include more features for the youngest age group (2- to 5-year-olds).
Expand the playground to include more features for older age groups (10–12-year-olds).
Wishlist includes big slide, zipline, regular swings.
Consider a multi-use sports court in the park outside the fenced-in area for tennis and pickleball.
More seating around the playground area including benches and picnic tables.
Reduce areas of non-functional turf around the edges of park that are not as well used.
Consider testing outdoor fitness cluster at Pavilion Park before placing at other parks.
Consider an adventure trail or small bike pump track.
Add bike racks and bike pad to also serve the pool in the summer as many residents arrive by bike.

Trout Pond Park

Not enough variety of play elements, too oriented to small children.
Remove the low log structure and add more vertical play elements that allow kids to climb up.
Add strap swing or two to park if space allows.
Limb up trees and consider removing some to open up the entrance from Gopher Road as residents like to walk between Gopher Road and Trout Pond Lane.
Consider natural materials for play features that are more cohesive with natural environment.
Consider a hammock grove but keep separate from the play area.
Preserve the majority of the trees for shade.
Create a new entrance from Gopher Road that reflects the presence of Trout Pond Park.

If you wish to review the parks survey, please visit https://www.eaglevail.org/Community-Corner/parks-master-plan-information.

Brent Barnum, Superintendent of Golf Courses & Parks, provided a comprehensive overview of the parks’ aging irrigation systems (the parks use potable water, which comes with constraints.)

Next steps include project-specific recommendations from staff and Zehren to help finalize board decisions and to be able to pursue grants in 2026; earliest construction start would be in 2027.

Discussion from the board and three members of the public ensued about maintaining green space but also creating opportunities for more water efficiency. Budget numbers will be honed as projects are identified.

Communications Update:

Sept. 17 Coffee Chat/final of the summer season with Barcza and Barber EagleVail;
Committee meetings;
Audubon press release ran in Vail Daily; realvail.com
Wrap up of community outreach events, including survey, for Parks Master Plan effort;
The Enhance Communications Survey closed; saw about 100 respondents; results will be shared at October board meeting.

Committee report outs:

Lauren/Traffic: Good feedback on speed tables and want more. Good feedback on 3-way stop sign and keep working with county to make permanent. Would like to see more traffic enforcement with officer presence. Discussion about how to make e-bikes safer.

Terri/Recreation: Want to involve school-age kids to play pickle ball. Clarification around pass use. Very pleased with Nordic – discussion about how to possibly expand even more up 18^th? Funding for an improved groomer? Ways to improve ice sheets? Discussion about sledding hill safety – create one or two more safe paths coming from the clubhouse.

Steven/Parks: VVMTA update regarding west side of EagleVail Trail extension project – likely late spring grand opening.

Management Updates:

Barnum:

We recently celebrated our last day of “peak season” in September, and I am pleased with the course conditions that we accomplished this season, despite the challenging drought conditions. With the ninth month of the year here, there is change in the air. The day light hours are shortening, and the morning breeze has a crisp bite to it. With this change, we are increasing our workload as we embark on the first stages of preparing the golf courses for the winter.

Deep tine aerification to the greens
Core aerification to the Driving Range Tee
Core aerification to the approaches
Core aerification to the fairways
Topdressing the approaches
The first winter chemical applications
Core aerification to the greens - Core aerification to the tees
Core aerification to the field
Topdressing the greens
Topdressing the tees
Winterization of the irrigation systems

O’Neill:

Exploring potential electronic ideas for resident cards.

Barber:

Courts:

We are experiencing another extremely busy summer at the courts. Individual and couples passes along with daily drop-in fees are available to be purchased online. We have sold 70 court passes to date and have collected nearly $32,500.00 in revenue thus far. There are a couple of projects for 2026 that we will be considering during this year’s budget discussions.

Golf:

Par 3 closed for season.

We are anticipating the increased rounds to continue into the fall season as we

wrap things up in early October.

Efforts underway to find Director of Golf replacement.

Finance:

Stronger July sales tax collection anticipated.

BOARD ACTION:

Unanimous approval of a Resolution supporting Eagle River Water & Sanitation District Ballot Measure on General Obligation Bond for Regional Wastewater Facility Upgrade.

Background:

The District provides public wastewater treatment for its service area from Vail to Cordillera, including properties located within the EagleVail Metropolitan District’s boundaries;
The District’s wastewater system is comprised of three interconnected treatment facilities, with the Edwards facility serving as the only location that treats solids for the entire service area;
The District is required pursuant to state regulations to upgrade the Regional Wastewater Treatment Facility in Edwards by 2029;
These upgrades are essential to maintain regulatory compliance, protect water quality in the Eagle River, and address aging infrastructure;
This public project is estimated to cost $93 million, which will require the District to secure debt through one of two types of bonds:

A revenue bond, which would be repaid through fees; or
A general obligation (GO) bond, which would be repaid through property taxes and requires voter approval;