A fairly brief meeting of the Waterloo Park District Board amid the quiet winter season featured talk of a newly completed website and some policy changes while also leaving the board short one commissioner.

At the end of the meeting, Park District Vice President Curtis Haentzler stepped down from his position, explaining that his family moved recently and, though they still find themselves quite close to the Waterloo community, they no longer live within the bounds of the park district, precluding him from serving on its board.

Park District Commissioner Gina Pfund and other peers on the board voiced their appreciation for Haentzler’s time with the district.

“Thank you,” Pfund said. “We’re gonna miss having you on the board, but thank you for the time you served, that you were willing to serve.”

Haentzler noted his intent to continue assisting the park district in the future as a volunteer, also suggesting he had some recommendations for the board regarding a successor.

He first joined the board in September 2024, stepping in to fill the seat vacated by Shelby Mathes.

Earlier in the meeting, Park District President Mary Gardner announced that the new website for the district is live, and Park District Attorney Paul Schimpf spoke about the site more later on.

Waterloo residents can now access park information at waterlooilparkdistrict.org. Schimpf noted that the “www” subdomain is required as, without it, folks will instead find an empty webpage.

Along with information pertaining to the board, city parks, policies and ordinances, the site also features a newsletter sign-up, allowing residents to receive email announcements from the district.

“This is going to dramatically increase our ability to communicate with our patrons,” Schimpf said.

Schimpf also led the discussion concerning changes to two board policies.

The first change was to the communications policy, required simply to acknowledge the change to the park district’s web address.

The other change concerned the financial matters policy, aligning with a change in statutes to set the bidding requirement for supplies and materials to $60,000, though bids would still have to be requested for any labor costs exceeding $30,000.

Park District Superintendent Don Prater’s monthly report was brief given the winter lull, though he did note that an icing issue at the Waterloo Community Splash Pad had been addressed thanks to the replacement of a furnace filter.

Though the cold has kept many away from Waterloo’s parks over the past few weeks, it was also noted amongst commissioners that a brief bout of warmer weather did bring some traffic to William Zimmer Memorial Park earlier in the month.