Recreation manager reports holiday events, staffing shifts and growth in pickleball and youth hockey

Lisa Tovar, recreation manager, summarized recent and upcoming recreation events and staffing changes at the Nov. 4 meeting.

Tovar listed recent programs including trunk-or-treat events and a senior-center health fair and described many upcoming seasonal events: a Veterans Day celebration, a Ninja Turkey Trot, car shows, holiday teas, toy drives, winter swim parties and New Year's Eve activities across multiple centers. She said five recreation positions are frozen or held and that staff reassignments were completed to rebalance center coverage.

Adam Siqueiros, municipal sports coordinator, briefed commissioners on the sports unit: two coordinators oversee allocation and programming; the unit manages roughly 175 athletic spaces with 50—60 nightly local user groups and hosts about 75—00 sporting events annually. He reported marked growth in youth indoor hockey and both youth and adult pickleball and noted professional partnerships such as clinics and donations from the Raiders and Golden Knights.

Commissioners asked about shot clocks in gyms to match new high-school rules; Siqueiros said tournaments typically bring portable shot clocks and that most city gyms lack built-in shot-clock capacity. He also said planned Wayne Bunker pickleball construction is in contract finalization and could begin after the holidays once notice to proceed is issued. On adaptive leagues, Siqueiros and Tovar said there are adult wheelchair football and basketball teams and that youth with disabilities are typically welcome to participate though organized youth adaptive leagues may be limited.

No formal action was taken; the reports were informational.