A new face and chairman on Charles City Parks and Recreation Board

By Thomas Nelson, tnelson@charlescitypress.com

Dennis Petersen chaired his first Park and Recreation Board meeting Wednesday night at City Hall.

He was elected to the position by the board at its January meeting.

Jeff Otto has come on the board to replace Bob Kloberdanz, who served previously as chairman and left the board in December.

During the session, the group discussed its committees and the 2018 swim lessons program offered by the Parks and Recreation Department.

Otto will replace Kloberdanz on the riverfront/trails, Charles City Chamber hotel/motel steering and finance committees, and board member Chris Eldridge will replace him on the swimming pool/concessions committee.

The committees usually meet about once a year, said Charles City Parks and Recreation Director Steven Lindaman.

The board also looked at the swimming lesson the Charles City Parks and Recreation Department offers in the summer.

There will be two sessions of lessons offered, from June 11 to June 27 and July 9 to July 25 at the Lions Field Pool. The classes are offered 10:30 p.m. to 11 a.m. and 11:10 a.m. to 11:40 a.m for grades kindergarten and up, and a preschool class for 4-year-olds is offered from 11:45 a.m. to 12:10 p.m.

Pre-registration is required for the classes.

“Last year we started offering evening swim lessons for those people that could not make it during the day,” Lindaman said.

Last year about 10 people participated in that session. The time frame of those classes hasn’t been determined yet, but 6:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. was considered.

“It sounds like that’s maybe the way we’d like it to go,” Lindaman said.