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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2015-01-27 Parks & Recreation Summary MinutesApproved 1 2 3 4 MINUTES 5 PARKS & RECREATION COMMISSION 6 REGULAR MEETING 7 January 27, 2015 8 CITY HALL 9 250 Hamilton Avenue 10 Palo Alto, California 11 12 Commissioners Present: Deirdre Crommie, Jennifer Hetterly, Abbie Knopper, Ed Lauing, Pat 13 Markevitch, Keith Reckdahl 14 Commissioners Absent: Stacey Ashlund 15 Others Present: Council Liaison Eric Filseth 16 Staff Present: Elizabeth Ames, Daren Anderson, Catherine Bourquin, Rob de Geus, 17 Lester Hendrie, Peter Jensen 18 I. ROLL CALL CONDUCTED BY: Catherine Bourquin 19 20 II. AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, and DELETIONS: 21 22 Chair Hetterly: Now that I've read the packet, Item Number 5 on the Master Plan we 23 have scheduled for 45 minutes. I imagine that'll take at least an hour, so let's plan for 24 that. Also, everyone try to be efficient in your comments so that we can move things 25 along. 26 27 III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS: 28 29 None. 30 31 IV. BUSINESS: 32 33 1. Approval of Draft Minutes from the Special Meeting of December 9, 2014. 34 35 Approval of the draft December 9, 2014 Minutes as written was moved by Vice Chair 36 Lauing and seconded by Commissioner Markevitch. Passed 6-0 37 38 Draft Minutes 1 Approved 2. Selection of Chair and Vice Chair for 2015. 39 40 Chair Hetterly: Every year we select a new Chair and Vice Chair. We start with the 41 Chair. I can describe the role of the Chairperson and then the process for nominations 42 and elections. You know most of what I do here at the table, but also there's a lot of 43 coordinating with city staff, with other commissions, with Council liaison, coordinating 44 meetings, setting agendas, checking in with Commissioners about any issues that they 45 want to add to the agenda, prioritizing work, keeping things moving forward, staying on 46 top of Council action and action in other commissions that's relevant to our work, 47 managing meetings, identifying and building consensus, trying to keep us on message as 48 we're sorting through issues and managing our time, and also keeping on top of the ad 49 hoc committees. We have a lot of ad hoc committees doing work on their own. 50 Checking in with them and figuring out where they are and keeping that work moving 51 forward as well. Another big job for the Chair is planning and directing the Retreat and 52 the joint Council session. Finally, speaking on behalf of the Commission to the Council 53 or to media or whoever. Skills it requires are basically organizational skills, attention to 54 detail, initiative to keep track of what's going on and keep us moving, communication 55 skills, tact and diplomacy, trying to keep track of who has an interest in what and making 56 sure they get heard. That's kind of a nutshell of what the job looks like. For the election, 57 it's pretty simple. I open the floor to nominations. Commissioners can nominate one 58 Commissioner at a time, and each nominee must get a second. A Commissioner can 59 enter your own name into the nomination as well. After each nomination, I'll ask the 60 nominated person if they're willing to accept the nomination. If yes, we continue on to 61 the next nomination. Once there are no further nominations, we'll close nominations and 62 take a vote. There's a ballot in front of you with a list of names, and you pick the one 63 name that you want to elect. Catherine will tally the votes. The newly elected Chair will 64 assume responsibility for chairing the rest of this meeting including election of the Vice 65 Chair, which follows the same protocol. I'll open up to nominations. Are there any 66 nominations? Commissioner Markevitch. 67 68 Commissioner Markevitch: I nominate Commissioner Reckdahl for Chair. I've watched 69 him over the last year really grow into his role. He's very detailed oriented and asks the 70 right questions. I think he'd be a really good Chair. I think it's time for him. 71 72 Chair Hetterly: I'll second that. I think Keith will do a great job. Any other 73 nominations? 74 75 Vice Chair Lauing: You need to ask him if he's going to accept. 76 77 Chair Hetterly: Are you willing to accept the nomination, Commissioner Reckdahl? 78 79 Draft Minutes 2 Approved Commissioner Reckdahl: I'd be willing. It's not optimal for me; I've got a lot of work 80 commitments. If there's others that would be interested, I would support their interest. 81 82 Chair Hetterly: Any others? 83 84 Commissioner Reckdahl: I'd like to nominate Jen Hetterly. Is there a second? 85 86 Commissioner Knopper: I forget from last year. Are we allowed to ask you if you're 87 interested or do we have to nominate? 88 89 Chair Hetterly: Officially the nomination happens and then we have to say. It's a very 90 awkward process. 91 92 Commissioner Knopper: It is. It's terrible. 93 94 Vice Chair Lauing: I think every nomination should be seconded. I'd be happy to second 95 that and get a response from our current Chair. 96 97 Commissioner Knopper: Yeah, okay. I was going to say it also. 98 99 Chair Hetterly: I would prefer not to do it this year. I have some family situations that 100 need my attention for the next few months at the very least. I don't think I can give it my 101 full attention either. I would decline. 102 103 Commissioner Knopper: Ed. 104 105 Vice Chair Lauing: That died for lack of a second. I think the question is if you can do 106 it. If you're going to be absent half the time, then you're not going to feel good about 107 that. The nomination's there. 108 109 Commissioner Reckdahl: Deirdre, would you be interested in being Chair? 110 111 Commissioner Crommie: I guess I would be, if you don't want to do it or Jen doesn't 112 want to. I guess I would be if no one else wants to do it. 113 114 Commissioner Reckdahl: I nominate Deirdre Crommie. Is there a second? 115 116 Chair Hetterly: I'll second. Any others? We have Commissioner Crommie and 117 Commissioner Reckdahl on the table. If there are no others, we'll close the nominations 118 and go ahead and vote. 119 120 Catherine Bourquin: There's four for Reckdahl and two for Crommie. 121 Draft Minutes 3 Approved 122 Chair Reckdahl: Next, we'll move on to election of a Vice Chair. Commissioner Lauing, 123 could you explain the roles and duties of the Vice Chair? 124 125 Vice Chair Lauing: Yes, and I plan to spend at least 5 minutes in this administration. 126 The Vice Chair role has the obvious responsibility of serving in the absence of the Chair 127 and on any of the things that Jennifer discussed including chairing the meetings. That's 128 happened but rarely in my five-year tenure. Beyond that, it's really up to the Chair to 129 involve the Vice Chair in any way, shape, or form that he or she wants. It can be a very 130 close partnership to do a number of things including planning and organizing issues to 131 come before the Commission. Divide up the workload to help share that workload a little 132 more than just give it all to the Chair. Certainly interface with city staff and also just 133 being a consigliere to the Chair about what should we do, what do you think, etc. That's 134 how the last two Chairs and Vice Chairs have operated, but it doesn't have to be that way. 135 Overall, that's what it is. 136 137 Chair Reckdahl: Okay. We'll open the floor for nominations. Any nominations for Vice 138 Chair? 139 140 Vice Chair Lauing: I'd like to nominate Commissioner Markevitch. 141 142 Chair Reckdahl: Do we have a second? 143 144 Commissioner Knopper: I'll second. 145 146 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Markevitch, are you interested? 147 148 Commissioner Markevitch: I kind of put you on the spot there about workload, so I 149 guess I'll back you up. 150 151 Vice Chair Lauing: My nomination of Commissioner Markevitch is that she has very 152 long experience on this Commission, knows the issues and the process inside and out. 153 She's in the last year of her current term. She also has very specific experience as the 154 Chair, a few years back. As a mentor to a new Chair, that's kind of interesting and very 155 helpful. She knows a lot of the city staff very well and has worked with them in and 156 outside the recreation group. She has very good experience and relationships with 157 multiple Council Members as well, which is helpful. Given our new liaison, maybe she 158 can be a mentor to our new liaison and get him up to speed. That's my statement. 159 160 Chair Reckdahl: Very good. Any other nominations for Vice Chair? Okay. With no 161 other nominations, we'll now vote for Vice Chair. 162 163 Draft Minutes 4 Approved Ms. Bourquin: Six for Markevitch. 164 165 Chair Reckdahl: Before we start the business, we really should thank Commissioner 166 Hetterly. Last year was her first year as Chairman, and it didn't seem like it. She ran the 167 Commission very well, and we all owe a big debt of gratitude to her because she really 168 took a lot of the load off of us organizing meetings. The meetings were organized and 169 productive, so we thank you for your service. 170 171 3. Report on New 7.7 Acres of Dedicated Parkland at Foothills Park. 172 173 Chair Reckdahl: We have Peter Neal as our first speaker, followed by Claire Elliott. 174 175 Peter Neal: Good evening. I'm Peter Neal, a Palo Alto resident and a long-time 176 volunteer at the Acterra native plant nursery. I actually helped move the nursery into the 177 Foothills Park site in 2003, and I've been there about two days a week for more than 11 178 years since then. I have a pretty good understanding of the nursery operation. I'm also 179 quite familiar with the 7.7 acre parcel. I can offer to make myself available as an 180 information resource any time if necessary during the discussion of these topics. I'd also 181 like to say I recall distinctly the difficulty that Acterra had in finding a suitable location 182 for the nursery. We looked at many potential sites and rejected many potential sites until 183 finally this wonderful place at Foothills Park became available. Since the nursery 184 relocated there, it has expanded dramatically and has become a real focal point and 185 primary supplier for native plant restoration in the local area. It's highly respected within 186 the restoration and native plant communities, not only for the quality of the plants it 187 supplies but also for the professionalism of the service. I might also add that the nursery 188 is an indispensable part of the Acterra Stewardship Program. All plants used in Acterra 189 stewardship activities are grown at the nursery. I would really like to see the nursery 190 lease renewed and the nursery be allowed to stay at this great location for a long time to 191 come. I'd also like to comment on two other proposals, that being the hydrologic study of 192 Buckeye Creek and incorporating the 7.7 acre parcel into the Parks and Open Space 193 Master Planning process. I think it's very important to do those things. I also suggest 194 that no kind of alteration, construction or development be undertaken on the site until the 195 results of those studies can be completed. I just urge us to take a slow but thorough 196 approach to deciding the best thing to do with this property. Thank you. 197 198 Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. Claire Elliott is up, followed by Alex Von Feldt. 199 200 Claire Elliott: Hi, I'm Claire Elliott. I'm a resident of Palo Alto and have enjoyed using 201 Foothills Park for a couple of decades. Full disclosure, I'm also an Acterra employee, 202 and I work with the Stewardship Program. I support whatever we can do to incorporate 203 that land as parkland, especially if there's a way to restore Buckeye Creek. I think we 204 need to look at the environmental impacts of removing all the sediment that's there, but I 205 Draft Minutes 5 Approved think that's doable. I think the nursery is a very low profile, low impact use that has a lot 206 of positive benefits especially that we're also helping to steward Foothills Park. Some of 207 the plants for the restoration could come from very close by and they'll be locally specific 208 native plants, which is really important for the co-evolution with local wildlife. That's 209 something that people are understanding more and more, that we're not providing that 210 link between our plants and our wildlife, because there's nothing that can eat the plants. 211 The non-native plants don't support insect life. For example, 96 percent of birds are 212 eating insects when they're feeding them to their young. That's very important for us to 213 have that base of the food chain be moved up through the insect population. The only 214 way to do that in any healthy way is with native plant species. I also think that the 215 nursery could be accessible to the public. It already is at certain times. There's no need 216 to have it closed off to the public. There's not really anywhere to go from there, so I don't 217 see any need to have trails going through the area. On the other hand, I think it would be 218 possible to do. Thank you very much. 219 220 Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. Next is Alex Von Feldt, followed by Jerry Hearn. 221 222 Alex von Felt: Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Alex von Felt, and I'm the 223 program director for Acterra Stewardship Program. I know several of you were out at the 224 site when we had the site visit. For those of you that weren't, Acterra is a Palo Alto based 225 environmental nonprofit that engages and educates the community to restore our local 226 open spaces, parks, and creeks. We've been partnering with the City of Palo Alto to 227 assist with land stewardship since 1996. Basically we get people out to enjoy and restore 228 our valued open spaces. We educate our youth about the importance of preserving these 229 places and the services they provide, so that they can be environmental stewards and 230 make informed decisions as adults. Last year, we worked with over 3,500 volunteers on 231 Palo Alto sites alone including Arastradero Preserve, Foothills Park, San Francisquito 232 Creek, Matadero Creek, Barron Creek, Adobe Creek and also several sites within the 233 Palo Alto School District. Over half of our volunteers are youth. Also this past year, the 234 dollar value of this labor was estimated to be about $250,000. On top of that, Acterra 235 secured about $115,000 in other grants that went to the direct benefit of Palo Alto sites. 236 Our nursery supports all of our projects as well as it is a regional provider for other 237 agencies such as the Santa Clara Valley Water District and the Midpeninsula Regional 238 Open Space District. We also provide an educational resource. In fact, the California 239 Native Plant Society just had a large conference recently, and one of the sites they went 240 to was our nursery. As Claire mentioned, we are the steward for Foothills Park, and we 241 just recently secured some additional funds to help restore Buckeye Creek. I'd like to 242 voice my support for the staff report, specifically the part about keeping the nursery. We 243 appreciate that. We also support the restoration theme concept and funding the 244 hydrologic study as well as postponing the investment in the infrastructure until we know 245 what the hydrologic study shows us. We are at the nursery site Monday through 246 Draft Minutes 6 Approved Thursday at least. We'd be happy to keep it open so that people can come visit the site, 247 visit the nursery in the interim until the city decides what to do. Thank you. 248 249 Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. Next is Jerry Hearn, followed by Emily Renzel. 250 251 Jerry Hearn: Thank you. Good evening, Commissioners. Jerry Hearn. I'm a resident of 252 Portola Valley. I've been associated with Acterra since its inception. Like Peter, I've 253 been involved with the nursery since it was in the backyard of our stewardship manager's 254 home many years ago. Peter also mentioned how difficult it was finding a place, and we 255 really appreciate having the site that we have right now. We work very well with the 256 multiple entities in the Palo Alto system to stay there. I wanted to compliment Daren and 257 the staff on this report. I think it's excellent. I think it was well done and very 258 comprehensive. I wanted to add a few things to what you've already heard tonight. I 259 have worked in the Stewardship Program for many years. Through that I get to know a 260 lot of the kids who are actually doing the work. Let me tell you that the work that they 261 do here leads them into fields well beyond what we would normally expect kids of that 262 age to do. Many of them move on and become conservation biologists. I know some 263 that are climatologists. Some of them are field biologists. All this because of their 264 experiences with Acterra, and that's supported by the nursery. The effect of what's 265 happening here goes far beyond just the community of Palo Alto. As a matter of fact, 266 hopefully it's changing some of the ways that we operate as humans in the world. 267 Turning to the report exactly, I would also strongly recommend that you extend the lease 268 for Acterra for obvious reasons. The hydrologic study is an excellent idea. I also happen 269 to work a lot in the watersheds, the watershed right around San Francisquito Creek. 270 There is definitely steelhead in Los Trancos Creek. Were it possible, they would also be 271 coming up in Buckeye Creek. There is a possibility of some fairly extensive and 272 important restoration to happen there. The study has to happen first. I also happen to 273 side on the committee that's working with the Master Plan project for the parks. I've 274 heard a lot of things that could possibly go on in that area. That 7.7 acres is not an easy 275 area to either restore or to put amenities in for a lot of reasons. However, there have been 276 some relatively interesting ideas. I think before making any changes to the current status 277 beyond opening it up when the Acterra nursery people are there to sort of steward people 278 who want to come in, I think the hydrologic study should be completed and the Master 279 Plan process should be completed so it can inform how that area would be used in a very 280 thoughtful and comprehensive way. Like Peter, I know a lot about this area, and I remain 281 open to any questions or any problems you want to bring up. I'd be happy to be engaged 282 in those. Thank you very much. 283 284 Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. Next is Emily Renzel, followed by Shani Kleinhaus. 285 286 Emily Renzel: I also think staff did a very thorough job on this staff report. It seemed to 287 me that repeatedly the issue came up of the need to deal with the hydrology of the site 288 Draft Minutes 7 Approved before doing anything else. The hydrologic study is something that I hope you will get 289 solidly behind. I think it should be the driving force of how this site is worked on over 290 time. We tend to think of doing projects in short timeframes, 5, 10 years. This might be 291 a 50-year project. The first step is to understand the hydrology of the site and to make a 292 long-term plan for how it works before trying to do anything else. Just looking, without 293 knowing all the ins and outs of how things are done, it would seem to me since much of 294 this site has been disturbed, that it might make sense to explore moving the maintenance 295 yard to a portion of that site and use the part that's more contiguous with the current 296 Foothills Park for the kinds of activities that have been requested of group picnic areas 297 and so forth. Primarily if you look at the left side of that picture, it's open space and that's 298 probably what this whole area looked like at one time. Over a longer term it would be 299 worthwhile to look at how to make that work both hydrologically and naturally. While I 300 think it's important to have some concerns about adjoining neighbors, our first process is 301 to protect and enhance the park. As far as Acterra, up until this was park dedicated, there 302 was no issue about temporary use of the site. Over the long term it should be explored 303 whether there are other non-park sites for this kind of activity because it's just like a 304 camel's nose in the tent. When people want to do things, they always want to look to 305 parkland because it's the only land left. I think it's important to treat this as a park first 306 and to deal with the hydrology first. Thank you. 307 308 Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. Our last commentator is Shani Kleinhaus. 309 310 Shani Kleinhaus: Good evening. I'm Shani Kleinhaus with Santa Clara Valley Audubon 311 Society. Our members frequent the park, and we have some bluebird trails there that our 312 stewards monitor how the bluebirds are using them. Children have the opportunity to 313 bring the box down to look inside, to see the bluebirds as they grow. It's a great thrill for 314 a lot of our people. Some of our programs are with Acterra together. When I visited that 315 site, I remembered Daren was there and he said, "Just imagine if all of this was a restored 316 meadow." I think he was right on. I think the hydrological study is needed to see how 317 this could potentially become a restored meadow. It would be lovely to have Acterra and 318 other groups like ours work on that. I also think that the nursery is a regional resource 319 that we should not give up. Acterra's nursery is really important to a lot of restoration 320 efforts throughout our county. They have a frog pond. One of the things that came up in 321 one of the meetings of the Palo Alto Parks Plan was people said, "Where are the frogs? 322 Bring them back. We want to see the tadpoles. We want to see the frogs. Where are 323 they?" Here is your opportunity to show. Emily's concerned that other organizations will 324 also want to do things there, but there is a possibility of saying this is grandfathered in 325 and no more. I would think that this should be a recommendation, so there wouldn't be a 326 proliferation of all sorts of other activities or maybe just carefully consider any more that 327 want to come in. To me, it would be wonderful to realize Daren's meadow. Thank you. 328 329 Draft Minutes 8 Approved Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. That is the end of public comment, so we'll move onto the 330 presentation. Technically this is the ad hoc committee. Daren, I assume you're the 331 president presenting. 332 333 Daren Anderson: Is the ad hoc committee okay with me presenting this? Great. Good 334 evening. I'm Daren Anderson. I'm with Open Space, Parks and Golf. Tonight I've got 335 my colleague, Lester Hendrie, Supervising Ranger at Foothills Park, with me as well. 336 We're here tonight to discuss that 7.7 acre parcel of parkland up at Foothills Park and to 337 receive guidance from the Commission on how best to use this land, help us chart our 338 way forward through the process, and guidance on concepts that you think should be 339 further developed to include cost estimates, if that's the way the Commission would like 340 to move forward. A quick background. In August 2014, Council dedicated this piece of 341 land as parkland and directed the Commission to guide the process through developing 342 options for land use. We hosted ranger-led tours up at the site and held a public meeting 343 to collect suggestions on what the public wanted to see at this location. There were three 344 major themes that came out of this public meeting and outreach that we had done. 345 Primarily there were recreation activities, and there was a variety. All this is in the staff 346 report. Restoration themes. The third being sustain the nursery; it's a vital part of the 347 park, and we'd really like to see it stay. The staff report lists a number of challenges 348 associated with developing this particular parcel. They range from the very poor soil 349 which is about 5 feet deep. It's overburdened; that came from the adjacent quarry. 350 Buckeye Creek flows right through the property and associated sediment, flooding, 351 culvert issues and creek setback limitations. All part of the creek passing through this 352 piece of property. The need for the hydrologic study to address those aforementioned 353 creek issues. The lack of any existing utilities on the parcel. The easements, such as the 354 emergency ingress and egress easement. The fact that it's a one-way entry and exit that 355 passes through a maintenance area. In November 2014, the ad hoc committee provided 356 an update for Council at a joint meeting. The Council had a number of suggestions and 357 questions, all enumerated in the report. The staff report includes a section on feasibility 358 and needs assessment associated with these themes that were generated. I just want to 359 highlight this. This assessment was done by staff; this was not part of the Master Plan. It 360 was predicated on an analysis of our existing facilities, such as our campground. We 361 looked at our reservations and confirmed when it's busy, when it's booked, and when we 362 had extra requests. This is staff analysis and analysis of our existing reservations. For 363 example, on the recreation theme we looked at camping. This was one of the elements 364 we looked at. The demand on camping is there. We've got our existing Towle Camp. 365 When we look at reservations, we know weekends during the summer we always book 366 out. There is demand for more camping at our park, and we could definitely fill 367 additional requests if there was another campground. The feasibility section lists a 368 number of issues that make camping problematic in that area. Likewise for restoration, 369 it's fairly clear the site would definitely benefit from restoration. The need is very clear. 370 It's bare soil basically, compacted, with a few weeds. You can see in the photo of the site 371 Draft Minutes 9 Approved the adjacent area is heavily treed and wooded. There's a variety of options for 372 restoration. The feasibility of restoration, however, is challenging but not impossible. 373 I've been to restoration workshops where I've seen very compacted, poor soil eventually 374 made proper, healed basically. There's a variety of different ways that could happen, but 375 it would be long and involved. The last page of the staff report includes a list of nine 376 options that the staff and the ad hoc committee have put together, that we thought might 377 foster discussion and help guide the discussion a little bit tonight. Attachment C, there's a 378 number of aerial photographs. If there was a particular amenity that you saw that was 379 generated as part of these suggestions that you thought was really important to add to 380 Foothills, let's say camping or a group picnic area, but you thought it might not be 381 appropriate for the 7.7 acre spot, but you did think it was necessary, Attachment C was to 382 help illustrate there are other areas in Foothills that might be an option to consider. This 383 particular one is a little spot below Station 8 up in Foothills. It's flat, small. You'll see 384 the depiction of what it would look like if you put one of the amenities there. I believe 385 this is a group pavilion area and what it would look like with the Acterra nursery in that 386 spot. Only to illustrate that if there was a particular amenity that you really wanted to 387 have and you didn't think it would fit in the 7.7 acres, this was just another option to 388 consider. There is an aerial photo that shows what it would look like if you placed the 389 group picnic area and a parking lot in the 7.7 acres. This was just an example we took 390 from a Santa Clara County park. This is a group picnic area that would probably 391 accommodate about 100 people. It's covered and a parking lot that would accommodate 392 about that many vehicles is associated with it. Again, it's rough estimates; just strictly to 393 give you an idea what it would look like with these amenities on this property. That 394 concludes the staff presentation. I defer to the ad hoc committee if there is anything else 395 to add. Lester and I are available for questions. 396 397 Chair Reckdahl: Anyone from the ad hoc committee? 398 399 Commissioner Knopper: Thank you very much, Daren and Lester, for leading the group 400 meetings. Obviously this is a hot issue. A lot of people have opinions about it, and 401 there's a lot of different elements that go into making the appropriate decisions as to what 402 this parcel of land could or couldn't be. I wanted to say thank you very much for that. 403 This staff report was extremely efficient and laid everything out so everybody 404 understands all the different parameters and all of the different issues that might preclude 405 us from going in one specific direction. We obviously want to open it up to the 406 Commission for discussion. 407 408 Chair Reckdahl: We'll open it up for questions or comments. Commissioner Crommie. 409 410 Commissioner Crommie: Thank you for the report, Daren, and thank you to the ad hoc 411 committee for your work. I think it's a really well thought out report. I have a couple of 412 comments. First of all, I think what has been missing is the hydrology study. That is of 413 Draft Minutes 10 Approved paramount importance. We know there are problems there. Despite some kind of 414 attempted remediation, the creek channelization has gotten worse. Those things are 415 definitely deteriorating rather than getting better. For us to make the best use of our 416 natural resources, we need to invest in the study. It just seems like a no-brainer to get this 417 study done. I appreciate you, Daren, having worked on this previously. The last time 418 you proposed it, this wasn't yet dedicated parkland. There's a lot more interest in this 419 now. I hope that will gain traction. I wouldn’t ever want to see a parking lot go into that 420 area. Any activity that needs a parking lot should automatically be crossed off the list. 421 The beauty of this land is it's a continuation of this valley. I don't see why we would 422 want to mess it up with a parking lot. Something that is undervalued in this report is the 423 interest in hiking trails. There's a comment here that it wasn't stated in public meetings, 424 but I do recall people mentioning it. There's a couple of line items, Number 7, it's 425 mentioned in your list of public comments. Line item number 23 for connectivity. I 426 think people are interested also in trails with respect to this idea of it being a rustic 427 campground. The idea is that you would hike in there. I don't think anyone, aside from 428 using it maybe as some children's activity center, was really contemplating having people 429 drive into this area. I don't really support camping at this site, but I do support trails 430 because I support connectivity. Connecting this as one continuous valley, it doesn't have 431 to be some extensive trail system. In supporting the hydrology study, I very much 432 support restoration in whatever way we can do it. It'd probably have to be done quite 433 slowly. The hydrology study would help plan that all out. As far as Acterra goes, I know 434 they provide essential activities for the city, but I do not think it should be assumed that 435 Acterra should be on this site. It's parkland. There are other places Acterra can go if the 436 hydrology study shows that they're in the wrong place. I feel the same way about the 437 maintenance yard. That was recently remodeled, so obviously we wouldn't want to do 438 anything to it too soon. Again, there wasn't a big picture. There wasn't a comprehensive 439 look at this land the last time that maintenance area was remodeled. I think it is in the 440 way, but it happens to be there and I know it was really expensive. Just in terms of long-441 term thinking, maybe it should go somewhere else. The same with Acterra. I would not 442 support renewing their lease for 5 years, not until the hydrology study is done. Maybe 443 some shorter term renewal. That's not to say that Acterra is not incredibly important to 444 our city. Thank you. 445 446 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Lauing. 447 448 Commissioner Lauing: Just a few questions before getting to the options that were 449 discussed. Is it fair to say that under almost all circumstances, unless it were a parking 450 lot, that that 5 feet of stuff has to come off? I didn't quite get if you can put stuff on top 451 of that and get habitat going in there. 452 453 Mr. Anderson: Again, I think that's partly predicated on the outcome of the hydrologic 454 study. That'll dictate some of that. The other part is there are lots of options that could 455 Draft Minutes 11 Approved go on top. That wouldn't necessarily have to be removed. I was talking with some of our 456 Public Works staff who have talked about you could get rid of some of it. You could 457 reshape and contour parts, bring in new soil for a portion. There are lots of options to 458 consider that don't involve necessarily removing all of it. 459 460 Commissioner Lauing: Okay, that's going to be a huge cost. I just had a detailed 461 question. The water goes through there, and you were talking about how the sediment 462 settles out at the end of the acreage. This is the last opportunity to clear that before 463 getting into the large culverts. If it goes in there, does it just settle in there and that's 464 where it mostly has to get cleaned out of? 465 466 Mr. Anderson: Ideally you're doing the clean outs before that. There are multiple points 467 where you've got access. The adjacent landowner does have his staff person come in and 468 do those clean outs. If you didn't and you had an accumulation of those heavy sediments 469 and you had a big rain flush, yes, it could back up there and eventually clog certain 470 elements either downstream or right there in the 7.7 acres and cause overflow. 471 472 Commissioner Lauing: Thanks for adding that information that that cost has been 473 covered by the owner there. That's important for Council to understand. The hydrologic 474 study, Keith and I are both on the CIP committee, and we battled for that last year. I 475 think there's going to be more receptivity to that. We've got to do first things first, and 476 that's clearly one of the first things. Also, it's great that you just point out that whatever 477 need comes up, it doesn't have to go in that area. There's other places at the park. I think 478 that was really helpful. I don't think, in terms of the context of this report, that we should 479 be too optimistic that the specifics for the 7.7 acres is going to be forecast or identified by 480 the Parks Master Plan, because they're looking at a gazillion acres, and the specific uses 481 of that one is not likely. They might come up with "we need an outdoor place 482 somewhere for meetings," and that's one of ten options as you said. I want to be on the 483 record for that. In terms of general comments, that's it for me. 484 485 Mr. Anderson: I was just going to tag onto one point you mentioned. To highlight again, 486 the Master Plan will be completed November 2015. If we got approval for the hydrologic 487 study, the earliest it could start is July 2015. It would not be completed by the time the 488 Master Plan is. Any studies or any analysis done by the Master Plan would be absent the 489 information from the hydrologic study. 490 491 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Hetterly. 492 493 Commissioner Hetterly: Thanks. First, I want to thank all the speakers for coming 494 tonight. I really appreciate that every time this is on the agenda, a lot of you show up and 495 tell us about what it is that you love about that spot. Just as a lot of folks didn't know it 496 existed, we also don't know much about what Acterra's doing there or what the nursery's 497 Draft Minutes 12 Approved all about. It would really be helpful for us and for the public to reiterate that at every 498 opportunity that you get. Looking at the ad hoc recommendations, I think we would 499 likely have consensus up here about supporting the hydrology study, and that should 500 come first before anything else. I agree with Commissioner Crommie that five years is 501 probably too long a lease, given that we haven't done that study yet and we don't know 502 what our options are or how quickly we may or may not want to act on something. I 503 would renew the lease but for some period shorter than the five years. I would also not 504 support expanding the scope of the Master Plan to include a lot of work on this topic. 505 Simply because of the timing, I don't think it's very effective. I also don't think it makes a 506 lot of sense to try to invest in fencing and supervision to open up the site to the public in 507 the interim. We've had numerous opportunities for the public to go there. There hasn't 508 been a public clamoring for information, to see what's going on. I don't feel a compelling 509 need to jump through hoops to open it for people to look around. 510 511 Chair Reckdahl: Any other comments? I have a few comments and questions for you, 512 Daren. What was the native condition, say 200 years ago? Would this be a grassland or 513 would there be shrubs there? Do we know? 514 515 Mr. Anderson: I don't have that information. Perhaps Lester Hendrie can comment. 516 517 Lester Hendrie: I showed the pictures to Peter. I did some research just to see the oldest 518 aerial photos I could find, back into the '50s. Excuse me, not the '50s, the 30's I believe, 519 before the quarry was excavated. It was contiguous valley, Los Trancos Valley, where 520 the picnic and the Interpretive Center are. Buckeye Creek had always meandered across 521 it, about in its existing location. It wasn't channelized. 522 523 Chair Reckdahl: That valley was covered with wildflowers or would it be shrubs? 524 525 Mr. Hendrie: The valley had been used for pasture land for quite some time. Just 526 looking through the aerial photographs and the history information, we could not find 527 when Buckeye Creek was diverted against the hillside. It used to flow right down the 528 middle of the valley. In the oldest aerial photographs we could find, it had already been 529 diverted. It was probably diverted at the turn of the century. 530 531 Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. Also the bathrooms right now that we have at the 532 Interpretive Center and by the picnic areas, are those septic or do we have a sewer system 533 or how do they get rid of the waste? 534 535 Mr. Hendrie: The Interpretive Center at Foothills Park is the last restroom on the sewer 536 system. It ends at that point. The Oak Grove picnic area, the one that's closest to the 7.7 537 acres, is on a septic system. 538 539 Draft Minutes 13 Approved Chair Reckdahl: If we put a new picnic area in where we wanted a bathroom, would we 540 use septic or would we try and hook up? 541 542 Mr. Hendrie: Yes, it would have to be on septic. 543 544 Chair Reckdahl: How about that alternate location, we'd septic that also? 545 546 Mr. Hendrie: The location below Fire Station 8, that cut slope, would be accessible to 547 sewer. The sewer is between that site and Boronda Lake. It flows along the turf there. 548 549 Chair Reckdahl: If we were to put camping in, would that be a big financial impact? To 550 be able to hook up the sewage versus septic. 551 552 Mr. Hendrie: I don't know what the costs would be, but it's not that far of a run. 75 yards 553 approximately from the flat below Fire Station 8. 554 555 Chair Reckdahl: In the past, have we considered adding camping at all to Foothills Park. 556 557 Mr. Anderson: Many years ago, the former director had considered different options to 558 increase revenue. One of them was adding yurts in and around the existing campground. 559 560 Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. That's it. 561 562 Commissioner Hetterly: One more comment? 563 564 Chair Reckdahl: Yes, please. 565 566 Commissioner Hetterly: I meant to comment on the theme concepts that you had 567 outlined in the staff report. Generally speaking, I'm probably leaning most supportively 568 towards the habitat restoration. Buckeye Creek dechanneling is a really interesting 569 prospect. I think that if we were to displace Acterra, I would want to make it a priority to 570 find them another suitable location. Just for the ad hoc's benefit as you keep thinking 571 about that. Thanks. 572 573 Chair Reckdahl: What? Go ahead. 574 575 Vice Chair Markevitch: I don't know what our next steps are for this report. Do we take 576 this to Council with our findings? 577 578 Mr. Anderson: I'll be looking to the Commission for guidance on that. Specifically we 579 have to come back for a recommendation from the Commission before we come back to 580 Draft Minutes 14 Approved Council for something. If that's what you want to do. If you wanted to do a study session 581 with Council, whatever the Commission would like, I'd be glad to help facilitate. 582 583 Vice Chair Markevitch: If I recall, I think we did want to do a study session with Council 584 at some point. I'd also like to see, before we do that, a "back of the envelope" on the 585 groupings. If it's a campsite, what would the rough costs be? If it's restoration of the site 586 to wild lands, what that would be. That type of thing. I know, for example, we can't 587 relocate the maintenance yard because of the fact that there's an underground gas tank 588 there, and that would be prohibitively expensive. It would be nice, because it gives us 589 more to think about and to discuss with the Council. 590 591 Commissioner Lauing: I'd like to put a question back to the ad hoc. Did you guys give 592 any weight to any of these or are they equally weighted? That's the first question. The 593 second question is, because of this good work of saying there are alternative spaces, it 594 seems like that's another level of analysis that should be—come to think of it, now that 595 we see that, it'd be better to be away from the personal residence of Mr. Arrillaga and 596 stuff like that. Maybe three of these go off of here relative specifically to the 7.7 acres. 597 598 Commissioner Knopper: Before I address what you said, I want to slightly disagree with 599 what you just said. I know that there was a possibility of a discussion/study session with 600 Council that was requested at our joint meeting in December. That's almost putting the 601 cart before the horse. Until we do the hydrologic study and find out what is possible and 602 what are the environmental impacts, it's almost impossible to make suggestions as to 603 what should actually happen there. There's a lot of creek setback requirements, the 604 channelization, the sediment, if we get rain again and it floods. There's so many things 605 that would have impact, that if we make a suggestion and people just sort of lock into, 606 yes, we need a picnic area, and then we realize after we do that study, well, you know 607 what? That just doesn't make sense now. Then we have to sort of backtrack. 608 609 Vice Chair Markevitch: I agree with you on that. The two things that are going to drive 610 these decisions are the hydrologic study and the costs of each option. Getting back to 611 what Ed had asked, we did not weight these. We just put them all out there, because we 612 just wanted a discussion amongst the Commission members to get their ideas. We didn't 613 want to sway them one way or another. These pictures of the other options for the 614 campgrounds and other areas of the park, I don't want to start getting into a "let's redesign 615 the entire park." We need to stick to the 7.7 acres. It's comforting to know that if there 616 are other options out there, it could be done. It's just something to think about. 617 618 Commissioner Knopper: The other issue that I wanted to bring up is I too agree that we 619 shouldn't dive too deep into the MIG because of the weird timing of the report. However, 620 the benefit of having all of that download and that strategic information is that we will 621 see what gaps are in our programming as a city overall. From a broad analysis 622 Draft Minutes 15 Approved perspective, if we see that we need more campsites in the City of Palo Alto, that could 623 help drive this conversation. It doesn't have to be specific to the 7.7 acres. 624 625 Chair Reckdahl: Rob, do you have a comment? 626 627 Rob de Geus: I just wanted to mention about the study session. Sometimes when we 628 have study sessions with Council, you get nine different opinions about something. This 629 was one of those things. It may have been mentioned by one or two Council Members 630 that a study session might be helpful, but I don't think that was a consensus or direction 631 necessarily from Council. If the Commission or staff are generally in agreement as to 632 what the recommendation is, then a study session probably isn't necessary, rather a staff 633 report that's written together with staff and the Commission should be forwarded to the 634 Council. They can decide, if they agree or disagree, whether they want to engage the 635 Commission in a study session or something else. 636 637 Chair Reckdahl: I'll make one comment here. It seems to me like this is a new toy, and 638 people really want to use this new toy. We have to be careful of saying we want to put a 639 campground here as opposed to putting a campground in the best spot in Foothills Park. 640 If that happens, then we'd choose the spot. If it's not the best spot, we shouldn't do it just 641 because it's our new toy. Commissioner Crommie. 642 643 Commissioner Crommie: I think that the ad hoc has done its role. They met with staff. 644 They studied it. They held a public meeting. They got public input. I don't think there's 645 anything more the ad hoc needs to do other than write a draft of a recommendation to 646 City Council. Having the ad hoc spin off and do anything more would be an 647 inappropriate use of an ad hoc. I picked up on that at our Council meeting. I heard a 648 couple of comments saying, "Is this behind the scenes work or is this your full 649 Commission?" People were asking that. The ad hoc has reported back to us, and we're 650 all fully capable now of commenting on a report they write and suggesting edits, coming 651 together as a Commission and doing that. That's what we've done in the past. We did 652 that when we had our creek and urban trails ad hoc that led to a recommendation. We did 653 it on El Camino Park. 654 655 Commissioner Lauing: I don't mean to interrupt. It may be that the consensus is already 656 here right now from what we've heard. We're ready to recommend that we do the 657 hydrologic study and put the rest of it on hold. 658 659 Commissioner Crommie: In that case, it would just be a step-wise recommendation. 660 There's a lot of meat in this document that we've mulled over. Do we want to say just the 661 hydrologic study or do we want to write a memo saying what we think is important there? 662 Just like in categories. 663 664 Draft Minutes 16 Approved Commissioner Lauing: I was just trying to summarize what I heard around the table so 665 far. It seems like everything is dependent on that study, before we can prioritize 666 anything. On top of which a lot of this stuff needs fleshing out in terms of cost and so on. 667 668 Commissioner Crommie: We might also give a recommendation on the Acterra question, 669 because we probably should weigh in on that. I didn't hear everyone's opinion on that. 670 I'd like people's advice on whether we think we need to weigh in on that or not. I have an 671 opinion on it. 672 673 Vice Chair Markevitch: I have a point of order on that one. This is a discussion item, not 674 an action item. I don't know if we can take a vote tonight. 675 676 Commissioner Crommie: No, you're right. I meant for that to come back to us; make it 677 an action item next time. We have to decide the scope. You just presented hydrology 678 only. I'd say maybe broaden it out just a little bit. 679 680 Commissioner Knopper: I think that it should be hydrology only. We've been working 681 on this for several months now. Any future decision really is dependent on that. Any 682 element that we pull apart out of the staff report could change based on what the 683 hydrologic study comes back with. That would be very useful information for the 684 Council. It would be definitive. To the point earlier, it does feel a little bit like a new toy 685 that everybody's really excited about and it's fantastic because it's so rare. In a 686 geographically stressed area like Palo Alto, to all of a sudden find new acreage, it's pretty 687 awesome. A thoughtful, scientific, definitive study would provide much needed 688 information. Next steps would logically flow from that. 689 690 Chair Reckdahl: Let's break this off now, and we can talk more about it when we set the 691 agenda for next week at the end of the meeting. Any final comments, Daren or Rob? 692 693 Mr. Anderson: I could use just a little guidance. I heard some suggestions that we start 694 with the cost estimates. That was one of the original ideas from Council, and we've heard 695 it in various different iterations throughout the process. What I was hoping to have is 696 maybe a little guidance on what to get cost estimates on. It's fairly time intensive to get 697 cost estimates for everyone of those. If there was anything that you felt strongly about or 698 guidance or do you want cost estimates for everything? I just need a little guidance there. 699 700 Vice Chair Markevitch: That's going to come after the hydrologic study. It's a waste of 701 time to do it before. It's just something that I felt was important when it was presented 702 later on. If it looks like next month we're just going to vote on the hydrologic study, then 703 it's not necessary now. 704 705 Draft Minutes 17 Approved Mr. Anderson: Great, thank you. Did you want to see in combination with the 706 hydrologic study a recommendation regarding the Acterra nursery lease renewal? 707 708 Commissioner Lauing: I would say yes. In connection with Commissioner Crommie 709 saying broaden it, we might also want to include what Jennifer suggested about making a 710 statement that we do not think it should be open to the public at this point. 711 712 Commissioner Knopper: I would agree with that. 713 714 Commissioner Lauing: That's an issue that more than one person was supporting, so we 715 need to be clear in our recommendation in that regard. 716 717 Chair Reckdahl: We'll talk about this at the end when we set the agenda, figure out what 718 we want to do next week and what we want to put off. Next month. 719 720 4. Update and Discussion of the Design Competition for the 101 721 Highway/Pedestrian Bridge Project. 722 723 Chair Reckdahl: We have four speakers. Each speaker gets three minutes. Since we do 724 have a lot of speakers, please try and keep it brief if possible. We would like to keep the 725 meeting going. The first one is Alex Von Feldt, followed by Claire Elliott. 726 727 Alex Von Feldt: Hi again. As I said early, I'm Alex Von Feldt with Acterra. The reason 728 why I'm speaking on this agenda item is that Acterra is one of the seven or eight 729 environmental nonprofits that actually reside in the Peninsula Conservation Center. That 730 is a building that was purchased with funds from generous donors in the late '70s or early 731 '80s with the intent that they would rent out the space very cost effectively to local 732 environmental nonprofits. We are in the building. Canopy, Committee for Green 733 Foothills, California Native Plant Society and others. Our building is very close to this, 734 and we actually have many people that work for our nonprofit as well as other nonprofits 735 that bike to work all the time. Having this option is wonderful because, as you all know, 736 when it rains they close the undercrossing from Adobe, so it makes a much longer ride. 737 In looking at the three options that were presented, I'd like to voice my support for Option 738 C for a few reasons. One is just that the profile is much more understated than the other 739 ones. I think it reflects Palo Alto's ethic, if you will, of respecting the land, where 740 manmade structures should be sub-serving, especially in a setting like this with the 741 beautiful Baylands around. It's also, compared to the other options, much more friendly 742 to wildlife. Birds are all around this area. This is a very important estuary as you 743 probably all know. So many birds are migrating around. You see herons and eaglets all 744 the time around here. The other structures look like they would pose a bigger threat to 745 them. I would say I support Option C. Lastly, the way that it interfaces with the 746 Draft Minutes 18 Approved Baylands, using a native plant pallet. I know the landscape architect that is on that plan. 747 I have confidence that it would be done sensitively. Thank you. 748 749 Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. Next is Claire Elliott, followed by Emily Renzel. 750 751 Claire Elliott: I'm Claire Elliot. I'm a resident of Palo Alto and a frequent bicycler to 752 work at the Peninsula Conservation Center, because I work at Acterra. I'm absolutely 753 delighted that we're getting closer to having a year-round overpass. I would be curious to 754 hear, I didn't see it in the staff report but I didn't read every word of it, whether anybody 755 actually considered making it less expensive perhaps by using an underpass that was 756 watertight. I don't know if that's done anywhere. We go under the Bay in BART, and it's 757 probably a little late to bring up that option. It seems like it might be cheaper to go that 758 route. It might be kind of cool. It could be translucent, so you could see the fish 759 swimming upstream. That would be one option that maybe no one has considered. I 760 would love to see it connect to Adobe Creek Trail, so that people can avoid going out on 761 West Bayshore. That's very treacherous as you're bicycling down Fabian and have to 762 crossover to get to that underpass. It's a really dangerous spot. If we could have the 763 water district's support and Palo Alto's support, I don't know what it's going to take to be 764 able to bicycle up along Adobe Creek and avoid that road crossing. That would be 765 fabulous. Like Alex, I like the lower profile look if we're going for a bridge, to do 766 something with less bird entrapment and lower expense if possible and lower profile. I've 767 also worked on creek cleanup days along that stretch of Adobe Creek. There's a lot of 768 wildlife in there. I was delighted to see and hear a kingfisher fly up that stretch of creek. 769 It's a really special place, and it's delightful that we're going to get people out there on 770 foot instead of driving to go visit the Baylands. Thank you. 771 772 Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. Emily Renzel, followed by Irene Steves. 773 774 Emily Renzel: Well, I concur with the last two speakers with respect to preferring Option 775 C, which is the low profile proposal. It's very exciting to see the other proposals, but I 776 think they would be a huge distraction from the beautiful natural areas that we have there. 777 Also they're not consistent with the idea of just enjoying that natural area rather than to 778 be distracted by being in the McDonald's arch or whatever. As I looked at the different 779 videos of these things, the one that's like a canoe kind of lost me. The large one that is 780 the choice of some of these other commissions struck me as being a real traffic hazard. I 781 listen to 740 traffic all the time when I'm driving, because I want to know where I can go 782 and when. We have a lot of accidents along this stretch in Palo Alto; San Antonio, 783 Embarcadero, Oregon. All the time there's traffic backups due to accidents. I worry that 784 putting something that has all these sparkly disks or whatever they are is going to distract 785 drivers and make it an unsafe thing. It's secondary to my concern about having a profile 786 that fits with the concept of Baylands which are low and flat. I urge you to support 787 Option C. 788 Draft Minutes 19 Approved 789 Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. Irene Steves, followed by Shani Kleinhaus. 790 791 Irene Steves: Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Irene, and tonight I'm here to 792 speak on behalf of the Sierra Club. At its regularly schedule monthly meeting on 793 January 26, 2015, the Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter Conservation Committee took up 794 the issue of the proposed Palo Alto bicycle bridge. The chapter's headquarters is located 795 near what is to be the bridge's Bayshore landing point. The chapter has been following 796 the public process, having previously commented in tandem with the Santa Clara Valley 797 Audubon Society. The Conservation Committee unanimously agreed on three points. 798 First, a signature bridge that incorporates aesthetic design features that pose peril to 799 wildlife is a bridge signature that a progressive city such as Palo Alto should have no part 800 of. We see in Options A and B unjustifiable and unmitigable risks to birds. Second, as a 801 national club that is very invested in furthering environmental transportation such as 802 bicycling, we would prefer that bicycle transportation funding be used economically in 803 order to achieve more bicycle infrastructure. We have a long way to go before we feel 804 that we have so much bicycle infrastructure that we can start spending large sums to turn 805 our bridges into public art over freeways. Please consider using half the money to fix the 806 Embarcadero Bridge. Third, our Conservation Committee recommends that Palo Alto 807 proceed with what we perceive as the only Baylands-compatible design, Option C. 808 Option C is humble and brings nature to the city rather than the city into nature. Thank 809 you. 810 811 Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. Our last speaker is Shani Kleinhaus. 812 813 Shani Kleinhaus: Thank you. Shani Kleinhaus with Santa Clara Valley Audubon 814 Society. I also live really close to the bridge, and I use the underpass when I walk my 815 dog sometimes. It's near home. Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society together with the 816 Sierra Club sent a letter saying that we really worry about birds and risks to birds and 817 how the bridge designs will interact with nature in the Baylands. As we looked at the 818 three designs, we find all of them have issues, but some of them have issues that we think 819 are unmitigable, no way to deal with them. There are two things that kill birds in general 820 in terms of structures. One of them is collision, and collisions occur with transmission 821 towers, with wires. Wires is a big thing, bridges included. And with buildings. Some 822 cities around here started looking at bird-safe design for buildings. There is no reason to 823 put wires in one of the most used areas for birds of this kind. The other thing that causes 824 mortalities is lights. Light pollution is a huge issue, and cities are starting to adopt 825 ordinances for dark sky during migration season and other times. Bridges that have 826 something that includes a lot of light, like the second option, are really dangerous. Even 827 Option C, which we favored because it's lower and it doesn't have those protrusions and a 828 lot of wires only some, has lights at night. We would like to see a change in that. Option 829 A, which looks to us as the most hazardous to birds because of its size and because the 830 Draft Minutes 20 Approved incompatibility with nature or the sense of space of nature in Palo Alto, if you look at the 831 handouts that you were given, the lights during the evening or during fog can actually, 832 those reflective things that are supposed to mitigate the problem, will probably be not 833 effective. During the night, you don't see anything and birds migrate during the night. 834 That's the time they fly. Only the largest birds actually fly during the day. Most of the 835 birds fly at night. There's energy conservation and many, many other reasons, I don't 836 want to get into it, but almost all the shore birds fly at night. Those are the birds that will 837 fly through there. This is a real, huge risk to them. The other thing is those disks have 838 not been tried. I have seen them used at McClellan Ranch. A different type of disk but 839 still the same idea of a reflective disk that moves around to prevent birds from nesting 840 during construction. We found them to be non-effective in terms of how the birds 841 respond to them. People on the trail and people in the offices are really annoyed. Thank 842 you. I hope you move with Option C recommendation with some modification in terms 843 of lighting and potentially a few others. I'm sure there will be a lot of work with the 844 designers later on. Thank you. 845 846 Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. Elizabeth Ames is here from the Public Works Department. 847 She's been heading up this study, this contest. I'll turn it over to her then. 848 849 Elizabeth Ames: Thank you. Good evening. I'm Elizabeth Ames, Senior Project 850 Manager with the city in Public Works. I also have Hung Nguyen, he's our project 851 engineer, sitting over here. I was hoping that we could try to structure this meeting where 852 we could show the YouTube videos and then potentially have the design—there's one 853 design team here. Do I have two design teams? We have one design team here, the 854 winning design, Submission A, here. They can talk about their design after the YouTube 855 video. What we've been doing is structuring these as a study session. We would present 856 the YouTube videos and then segue into the design team discussion, if they are here, and 857 then we would have more discussion with the Commission. If you're okay with that. 858 859 Chair Reckdahl: Yeah, I'm okay with that. Go ahead. 860 861 Ms. Ames: I also wanted to highlight that Judith Wasserman is here. She is the chair of 862 the design competition. She's also here and available for questions. I wanted to just draw 863 your attention to this comments matrix. I think this is the first page in Attachment F. I 864 don't know it the Commission got the latest—oh, you did get the latest one that has the 865 Public Art Commission comments. 866 867 Chair Reckdahl: We received that by email. 868 869 Ms. Ames: Do you want a hard copy? 870 871 Chair Reckdahl: If you have copies, please pass them around. 872 Draft Minutes 21 Approved 873 Ms. Ames: Yes. I also have the latest comments we had from the public via the city's 874 website, cityofpaloalto.org/101. We have the YouTube videos and then this way to 875 comment on the designs. That's another attachment. Those two documents are relatively 876 hot off the press, so to speak. We have an updated comments matrix, which is the first 877 page of Attachment F in the packet. I was basically taking comments from all the boards 878 and commissions in the month of January on the pros and cons of each design 879 submission. I will forward this over to the City Council. The City Council would then 880 decide on potentially a design on February 23rd. That's the tentative Council meeting. 881 That's the emphasis I was hoping to gain from the Commission. I'm not asking for a vote. 882 Unless you feel compelled to vote, that's fine. We can do a straw poll. I was trying to get 883 comments in general and fill in the matrix, pro and con for each design submission. 884 That's really what I was trying to do tonight, and forward this to Council. The last time I 885 saw this Commission, we talked about the guiding principles with the Park and Rec 886 Commission and we formalized the guiding principles with this Commission, and then I 887 forwarded that over to the City Council. Those guiding principles, I believe, are an 888 exhibit or attachment in the packet. We used those guiding principles and the design 889 guidelines as the guide, so to speak, for the design competition. The City hired AIA 890 California Council to manage the competition. With those materials, they solicited 891 design teams internationally and locally. We got 20 proposals, qualifications, and a 892 design intent. Those 20 proposals were narrowed down to three. Those three teams 893 received a $20,000 stipend to develop the designs that you see now, which are on the 894 YouTube videos. The boards are here as well. We have the design boards and a 895 YouTube video, which was made available to the competition jury, which was the five 896 member jury and the four member ARB panel, so it was a nine member group. This 897 information along with the design competitors, they were all presenting their designs via 898 PowerPoint. The competition jury decided the winning team was Submission A, which is 899 the confluence or arch design, which is over on the far left. Judith Wasserman's the chair 900 of the competition, and she could recap a little bit more about what happened there. With 901 that, we're just taking this information forward to the boards and commissions and we're 902 hoping to get comments from this Commission tonight. 903 904 Chair Reckdahl: I have a question. You said on February 23rd the Council will be 905 talking about this, voting on which design to pick. How is all the board and commission 906 input being transmitted? Are they just getting the same type of thing that we got from the 907 notes? Is there going to be some staff report summarizing it or is it just going to be raw 908 results like we had? 909 910 Ms. Ames: There will be a staff report, and we'll try to generally summarize what we've 911 heard at the boards and commissions. If there's meeting notes, we're going to incorporate 912 those. We have, for example, verbatim meeting notes of the competition itself. I don't 913 know if we get any meeting notes from study sessions. If we do ... 914 Draft Minutes 22 Approved 915 Rob de Geus: We'll have meeting notes on this. 916 917 Ms. Ames: I was going to include the meeting notes from all the boards and commission 918 if possible and a high level recap in the staff report. 919 920 Chair Reckdahl: Very good. Do you want to start with the videos now or do you have 921 more content you want to talk about? 922 923 Ms. Ames: I think that's self-explanatory. The videos say a lot. Then we can go into 924 questions and answers after that. First will be Submission A, which was the winning 925 design. 926 927 [Video presentation] 928 929 Ms. Ames: I believe we have some of the design team members here tonight, so they can 930 speak roughly five minutes on the design. That's what we've been doing on the other 931 commissions and boards. If that's okay with you. 932 933 Commissioner Crommie: Are you going to show the other videos too? Okay. 934 935 Ms. Ames: Just to simplify, we were thinking of having the design team speak now or 936 we can wait. It's up to you. 937 938 Chair Reckdahl: I'd like to see all three videos and then go into comments. Otherwise, I 939 think it'll break it up and stretch it out too much. 940 941 Ms. Ames: Okay, sure. Sounds good. 942 943 [Two video presentations] 944 945 Ms. Ames: We can have the design team ... 946 947 Chair Reckdahl: My preference, unless Commissioners object, would be not to have 948 them give a talk right now. If each individual Commissioner has questions that they can 949 answer, then we'll have them answer at the time as opposed to a presentation. 950 951 Ms. Ames: Okay, sounds good. 952 953 Chair Reckdahl: Any comments? 954 955 Draft Minutes 23 Approved Commissioner Hetterly: I have a couple of questions to start with. On the last one we 956 saw, "C", the touchdown area on the west seemed to spend more time on what happens 957 when you touch down on the west side. We don't have very much information in our 958 packet on "B" or "C" frankly. It was hard to tell what the surfacing is, whether there's 959 landscaping there. From the video, it looked like it was just a hardscape all along the 960 road there. Can you tell us a little more about what that looks like on the west side? 961 962 Ms. Ames: The west side near the Adobe connection, where it converges there at the 963 Adobe Creek Reach Trail, is very constrained. It's difficult to landscape that area, so 964 we've highlighted that issue in the design guidelines which, I believe, is Attachment E. 965 966 Commissioner Crommie: Can you give us page numbers. 967 968 Ms. Ames: Maybe I highlighted that. Hold on. On page 24 of Attachment E. It shows 969 this constrained area where you've got a small landscape buffer and then you've got the 970 sidewalk. You have a stairwell leading down over by 3600 West Bayshore. Do you have 971 all the that? Do you have the picture of that? 972 973 Commissioner Hetterly: Yeah. 974 975 Ms. Ames: Essentially it's constrained because we have to put the ramp next to the 976 sidewalk. Right next to the sidewalk would be theoretically the curb. That area still 977 needs to be designed. We only gave the design teams a month essentially to come up 978 with these concepts. Those touchdowns or those tie-ins still need to be more refined. 979 This highlights that we still have constrained landscaping area, and we also are showing 980 the bicycles sharing the vehicle lane at that location as well, where the ramp ties into 981 (inaudible). 982 983 Commissioner Hetterly: Given those restrictions and the extent of the design, there's not 984 much variation at this point in what the west side looks like. Is that what you're saying? 985 Between the various plans. 986 987 Ms. Ames: Correct. There's not much variation where the tie-in occurs. 988 989 Commissioner Hetterly: Another question about that last one. The plaza on the west side 990 that's below the loop, what is the surfacing there for the plaza? 991 992 Ms. Ames: I believe that was cement or pervious. They could propose pervious 993 pavement, but I believe it was cement. 994 995 Commissioner Hetterly: It's some kind of hardscape? 996 997 Draft Minutes 24 Approved Ms. Ames: Yes. 998 999 Commissioner Hetterly: My other question was whether Submissions A and B have stair 1000 access on one or both sides? 1001 1002 Ms. Ames: I believe Submission A has the stairs on the west side. I don't believe it was 1003 located—no, I think it was on both sides. Submission A does have it on both sides. I'm 1004 not sure about "B"; it wasn't clear. 1005 1006 Commissioner Hetterly: Those are all my questions. Thanks. 1007 1008 Commissioner Knopper: For Submission A, since that was the chosen submission, I'd 1009 like to focus on that particular one. Can you address the bird issue that came up a few 1010 times during public comments? Since we are the Park and Rec Commission, I thought 1011 that was important for us to talk about. 1012 1013 Ms. Ames: The design team was really charged with innovative design. I just wanted to 1014 point out that we did have these guiding design principles, Attachment D, which is 1015 innovation, versatility, interconnectedness, and conservation. With this kind of 1016 challenge, the design teams came up with what you saw in the YouTube videos. Part of 1017 that was those bird ... 1018 1019 Commissioner Crommie: That's on page 13. I'm sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to let 1020 the Commission know the guidelines are on page 13 of our handout. 1021 1022 Ms. Ames: This is Attachment D, guiding design principles. Yes, thank you. 1023 1024 Commissioner Crommie: It's really hard to leaf through and find all the attachments in a 1025 moment's notice. Any time you can give us page numbers, it's really helpful. 1026 1027 Ms. Ames: Okay, sorry. Thank you. Page number 13 in the staff report. With that 1028 challenge, each design team came up with the unique concept. Submission A came up 1029 with these disks, these brushed stainless steel disks. That design needs to be studied 1030 further. We would have to ask the teams to provide studies and more evaluation, more 1031 research if that can work as a bird-friendly design. It was an innovation as part of this 1032 submission. It's not something that we got research on or it was proven. 1033 1034 Commissioner Knopper: I think it would be important moving forward to meet with 1035 stakeholders like the Audubon Society and the Sierra Club, organizations that work, 1036 study, live, breathe, eat saving and conserving the creatures that would have the greatest 1037 impact for this particular structure. I did like the lighting. That was very unique, that it 1038 was motion. I read that people were concerned about the lighting, and that it was motion 1039 Draft Minutes 25 Approved driven. If no one's on the bridge at night, it's dark. I thought that was terrific. The bird 1040 issue is something that I would have experts in the field really flesh out to figure out what 1041 kind of material would work best, so we don't hurt anybody in the process. When I mean 1042 anybody, I mean feathered people. 1043 1044 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Lauing, do you have comments? 1045 1046 Commissioner Lauing: Are we at the stage where we're also weighing in for comments 1047 that she writes down or are we just asking questions at this stage? 1048 1049 Chair Reckdahl: At this point, let's go with questions and then we can summarize to give 1050 her material. 1051 1052 Commissioner Lauing: I don't have any questions. 1053 1054 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Crommie. 1055 1056 Commissioner Crommie: I have a question for Chair Wasserman, if I'm saying your 1057 name correctly. I watched the entire video and read the transcripts. I really digested 1058 what went on in your December 17 meeting. I thought you handled everything really 1059 well. I was a little bit disappointed when the jury was getting ready to vote. The ARB 1060 got to speak first, and I thought they gave some really interesting—I'm addressing this to 1061 you too, Elizabeth, thank you so much. I should have started out by thanking everyone. 1062 This project has been so long in coming. It's just been amazing to watch this evolve. I've 1063 been pleased that I've been able to support it along the way. I think I was probably the 1064 first person to bring this to our Commission's attention. I'm an avid cyclist and 1065 environmentalist. I spend a lot of time in the Baylands, and I had a connection with 1066 PABAC, the Palo Alto Bicycle Advisory Committee. Richard, I can't remember his last 1067 name, who was two or three Chairs ago, fought so hard for this project. It almost died 1068 many times. He really kept it going. I think our Commission actually brought some 1069 visibility to this project. I'm really happy you've come to us. Getting back to that 1070 December 17th meeting, before you guys had your vote, I noticed that the ARB got to 1071 discuss things. It was a joint meeting with the Architectural Review Board sitting there 1072 and also the jury. I didn't get to attend it, but again I got to watch it and read the 1073 transcript. When it came time for the vote, I think that people were a little perplexed by 1074 "B," and people were leaning to Proposals A and C. I was a little bit disappointed 1075 because when it came time to vote, there was an over-emphasis on innovation. Let me 1076 ask this as a question. What did you feel about your purview in terms of looking at these 1077 four categories? You're judging these bridges on four different categories. The first 1078 being innovation, the second versatility, the third interconnectedness, and the fourth 1079 conservation. The conservation stipulates bird-friendly design. Interconnectedness is 1080 just to respect the ecosystem. Versatility is engineering and art and useful for everyone. 1081 Draft Minutes 26 Approved Innovation is contemporary, creative, original, maybe identifiable as a landmark. I want 1082 to know if you can speak to us on how you as a jury balanced all of those criteria. 1083 1084 Judith Wasserman: That is a very good question, because I don't think that we addressed 1085 them all individually and said, "Okay, which bridge do you think is the most innovative? 1086 Which bridge has the best conservation attitude?" I think we just looked at the bridges as 1087 a whole and discussed how they met the various criteria in the ways that they did it. On 1088 the bird issue specifically, everybody had a case to make. Everybody addressed the 1089 question. It was taken seriously. We felt that since each of them addressed it, that they 1090 were all equal in that range. The team with the flashing disks is here and can answer 1091 your questions about how they're intended to work. They introduced it to us by saying 1092 that they were modeled after the Mylar strips used in vineyards to keep critters, birds in 1093 particular, out of the grapes. They thought that a similar design would keep birds out of 1094 the bridge. I don't know a whole lot about birds, so I don't know whether they would do 1095 that. There was a landscape architect on the jury. People had different points of view, 1096 but we really did look at each one as a whole. If you want me to go into why we ended 1097 up where we ended up, I can do that, but I don't think that's what you want to do. 1098 1099 Commissioner Crommie: No, that's good enough for me. I just wanted a general idea. 1100 Thank you so much. 1101 1102 Ms. Wasserman: I think it might be instructive to find out why these people did, since 1103 that seems to be the biggest argument against that. 1104 1105 Commissioner Crommie: Yes, I will bring up one of them. I'll ask a question. I'm really 1106 concerned with creating something that you have to mitigate. What is bothering me 1107 about "A" is it's creating this problem and then trying to address it. Whereas, "C" doesn't 1108 even create the problem at all. I know "A" is a very talented group. Did you guys do the 1109 Mary Avenue crossing. Many of us have driven under that bridge on Highway 280, 1110 which is a very cathedral-like bridge. Have you done a pedestrian bridge over a 1111 waterway? Did you do anything in Missouri? I don't know if I got that right. Can you 1112 come up a minute? I have a question. I want to know if you've ever designed a bridge 1113 over a waterway or in an estuary. I also want to know why you came up with a design 1114 that you have to spend so much time mitigating for bird safety. Those are my two 1115 questions. 1116 1117 John Litzinger: My name's John Litzinger with HNTB. First off, we'll take 1118 responsibility for Mary Avenue Bridge whether it's good or bad. 1119 1120 Commissioner Crommie: (crosstalk) 1121 1122 Draft Minutes 27 Approved Mr. Litzinger: It seems to get a lot of positive critique and is still talked about in 1123 engineering circles and even in the communities. As far as bridges over estuaries and 1124 wildlife environmentally sensitive areas, we designed the twin bridges at the Happy 1125 Hollow Park and Zoo that go over the Coyote Creek area. That was using the same 1126 bridge type as what was proposed here as a concept. The whole corridor from the east 1127 side of Happy Hollow, from the parking lot area going across the Coyote Creek area was 1128 all an environmentally critical area. Through that area, the same bridge type, same type 1129 of cable arrangements. We worked with the City of San Jose on that particular project. 1130 Over the course of the design process, we were able to address concerns like that. The 1131 cables that are supporting the bridge, the spacing between the cables can be adjusted, but 1132 then you enlarge the size of the cable to support the weight. There's a balancing act 1133 between art, environment, birds, etc. That's one location in a wildlife area. A second 1134 location is the Lake Champlain Bridge, same type of bridge over a waterway. It's on the 1135 border of Vermont and New Hampshire. So far for the number of years that it's been 1136 there, we've heard no complaints or comments on wildlife and structure conflicts. What 1137 we heard from Elizabeth is through the design process, we could provide studies that 1138 would either address it or mitigate it or show that there's not an issue. It's an issue that 1139 we need to make sure that is addressed with whatever type of bridge used. 1140 1141 Commissioner Crommie: Thank you very much. 1142 1143 Mr. Litzinger: Sure. 1144 1145 HNTB Team Member: May I add to that comment? 1146 1147 Commissioner Crommie: Yes. 1148 1149 HNTB Team Member: I'll be quick. We took the conservation objective very seriously. 1150 In thinking about the project as a whole, not just about the span, the greatest threat to bird 1151 species as well as many other species is actually the loss of habitat. When we're talking 1152 about conservation, I think it's fair to talk about the whole project and the way it affects 1153 bird species, not just about the way it passes over the highway. Our scheme is 1154 differentiated in that we do not place any fill in the Baylands. We actually create Bay 1155 volume. Our scheme anticipates sea level rise, anticipates habitats that these organisms 1156 will need in the future. We reactivate the ecological properties of Bay mud, which lies 1157 underneath the fill that is placed in the Bay with storm water and removing that fill. 1158 There are many ecological components to the design as a whole, looking far into the 1159 future that assures we can do all we can for the species. You asked a very specific 1160 question about why create something that you have to go through a lot of trouble 1161 mitigating. A simple answer to that is that bridge design is very complicated. In this 1162 situation, it's even more complicated. In a larger context, the topic of cost is a driving 1163 consideration. The most structurally efficient, cost efficient way to negotiate this very 1164 Draft Minutes 28 Approved complicated situation is with an arch. The jury member and engineer on the jury, Steve 1165 Burrows, said the Romans did it pretty well, and it's a very time-tested method. That's 1166 very true. The arch accomplishes all of these challenges very effectively in terms of cost. 1167 It does create a cable-suspended deck. We're showing you one approach. As John said, 1168 that approach can be modified. There's other ways to support that deck with cables. In 1169 the Bay context, it is not an unprecedented structural approach. If you look at the 1170 Berkeley Pedestrian Bridge, equally wide, in a more Baylands condition than this because 1171 it is an active tidal flat and this is really upland areas and it's a flood control basin and so 1172 on. That structure has been in existence for over ten years. It's a cable-supported deck. 1173 As a precedent, it should be looked at closely if you're serious about involving 1174 professionals who study patterns of birds and strike incidents. 1175 1176 Commissioner Crommie: Thank you. 1177 1178 Chair Reckdahl: Do you want to say anything? 1179 1180 Vice Chair Markevitch: I don't have any questions. 1181 1182 Chair Reckdahl: I have some questions to go through first, and then everyone gets their 1183 elevator speech of which design they prefer. I first have some questions for Palo Alto 1184 City. On the east side right now, do we have the pictures of east side? As you come off 1185 the bridge, you end up in a "T" right at the current bike path on the west side. Anyone 1186 coming off the bridge is going to have to take a sharp left turn, go across the bridge, take 1187 another sharp left turn to get back on the path. Considering that the bulk of the people 1188 are going from the west side over to the Baylands, why isn't it optimized for someone 1189 going to the Baylands as opposed to dumping you off right next to the freeway there? 1190 Rob, can you bring up the picture? (crosstalk) 1191 1192 Ms. Ames: Are we talking about the west side? 1193 1194 Chair Reckdahl: I'm sorry, east side, on the east side. 1195 1196 Ms. Ames: The east side. The Bay side. 1197 1198 Chair Reckdahl: Yes. When you get off the bridge, there will be a "T" there. Anyone 1199 coming off the bridge now will have to slow down, take a sharp left turn, then go across 1200 the current existing bridge across Adobe Creek, and then take a sharp left going out to the 1201 Baylands. 1202 1203 Commissioner Crommie: I think page 48, sorry, page 28 has a picture of that, of the east 1204 side if our Commission wants to look at it. 1205 1206 Draft Minutes 29 Approved Chair Reckdahl: Initially when they were looking at possible layouts, there was one 1207 layout that went across the bridge. When it went to the east side, it didn't stop right there, 1208 but it continued going across and crossed Adobe Creek and then dumped you out on the 1209 way to the Baylands. I was wondering why we removed that as an option. 1210 1211 Ms. Ames: Maybe we can look at page 9 of the packet. Attachment B shows the 1212 location of the bridge and the alignment that has this "T" intersection at the San Francisco 1213 Bay Trail. Where the approach ramp meets the Bay Trail, it's like a "T" intersection on 1214 the east side of the Baylands. We had looked at various alignments in the past, namely 1215 the one you mentioned that goes along the creek. We realized that a lot of the users 1216 weren't necessarily going in that direction, towards the Bay. Rather, they might be 1217 commuting. If you're a recreational user, you might be going towards the Baylands. If 1218 the bridge ramp was going parallel to Adobe Creek and terminated by Adobe Creek, that 1219 was one specific direction. This direction where there's a "T" intersection seemed most 1220 versatile, where somebody going north or south could decide at that point and not have to 1221 backtrack if they were going to the north. 1222 1223 Chair Reckdahl: Have we done surveys? I take that route to work, and I see everybody 1224 going back into the Baylands and then heading over to the Googleplex and the Shoreline 1225 Business Park. I hardly see anyone going north. Before we make a decision on the 1226 layout like that, you'd want a survey of where people are going when they cross the 1227 bridge. 1228 1229 Ms. Ames: Most of the users we looked at given the build out of this whole area, say 1230 that's 20 years from now, there's a complete build out on the east side and the west side. 1231 Alta Planning and Design looked at the potential uses and did find that they would 1232 mainly go towards the south. Given that though, we also had issues with the Santa Clara 1233 Valley Water District. They didn't want us crossing over the Adobe Creek channel on the 1234 east side of the freeway. They had a lot of maintenance concerns. With the Santa Clara 1235 Valley Water District concerns along with the desire to have connections both north and 1236 south, leaving it open for the user to decide, the design team came up with this approach. 1237 The design team meaning Alta Planning and Design had done these alignments and 1238 presented these alignments to the commissions and the boards previously, and we came 1239 up with this kind of connection instead of the one that you saw in 2011, which was 1240 parallel into the Baylands and went by Adobe Creek on the east. 1241 1242 Chair Reckdahl: What's problematic is that we're making this bridge with a nice turning 1243 radius so you don't have to slow way down. Then at the end of the bridge where it's flat, 1244 you're off the bridge now. The expensive part is done and we have a "T." Everyone's 1245 going to have to stop and slow their bike down and take a sharp left turn. If you're 1246 making the big arching turn on the expensive bridge and stopping at the end, then 1247 keeping up speed is not nearly as critical on the bridge. 1248 Draft Minutes 30 Approved 1249 Ms. Ames: I could say that we are going to potentially go through site and design 1250 review, and maybe there can be some design considerations to slow down the bikes and 1251 maybe do a better integration and not have this abrupt "T" intersection. There might be a 1252 way to have more of a gradual transition. 1253 1254 Chair Reckdahl: Some type of "V." Another question is on the west side. All the 1255 designs dump you out away from the freeway. If you now are going back northbound, 1256 you're going to have to cross over West Bayshore Road at that point. Are we having a 1257 crosswalk there? Are we just going to have the people play Frogger and jump across the 1258 traffic? There is quite a bit of traffic on West Bayshore. 1259 1260 Ms. Ames: The west side is complicated. When we had our public scoping meeting, 1261 which seems forever, like two years ago, the community asked to open up the Adobe 1262 Creek Reach Trail. 1263 1264 Chair Reckdahl: Which I think is a marvelous idea. I like that a lot. 1265 1266 Ms. Ames: Mainly because this access point on the west is so constrained, maybe West 1267 Bayshore isn't the best connection to the bridge. The community at the scoping meeting 1268 was saying, "Let's open up that maintenance road," Santa Clara Valley Maintenance Road 1269 which we're calling the Adobe Creek Reach Trail. That could be a main entrance to the 1270 west side of the bridge. Yes, this design crossing, if somebody's going north on West 1271 Bayshore, would have to cross over to get to this ramp. There's probably going to be 1272 some kind of crosswalk or some kind of crossing that's safe. That's not part of the 1273 competition. 1274 1275 Chair Reckdahl: At this point, it's irrelevant because all the designs are in the same boat. 1276 Let me move onto some things that are relevant. We have cost estimates for all these. 1277 How real are they? Did all three groups have to submit bases for all their costs or did 1278 they just do their best guess estimates? Are they based on previous built bridges? 1279 1280 Ms. Ames: At this conceptual stage, we still asked for cost estimates. All the design 1281 teams did that. They were roughly in the $8 million range, which included a 10 percent 1282 contingency. The jury also thought that the numbers looked adequate. We don't have 1283 engineering drawings, but we did ask for the teams to have design experience. They had 1284 to have designed and constructed a bridge in the last ten years. The staff feels and the 1285 jury felt that the estimates were okay for now. We'd need to get more cost information 1286 later on. Once you do engineering drawings, you know how deep the piles or columns 1287 need to be. At 35 percent design roughly is usually when you get a solid estimate and 1288 can verify the numbers. At this stage, everybody is saying it's roughly in the $8 million 1289 range. 1290 Draft Minutes 31 Approved 1291 Chair Reckdahl: The experts on the jury concur with that? 1292 1293 Ms. Ames: Yes. The technical advisory panel, which looked at the cost estimates prior 1294 to the competition, didn't have the benefit of seeing the presentations, but they looked at 1295 these estimates prior to the competition, had some commentary on the cost estimates and 1296 had questions. I think the technical advisory panel memo is also in your packet. 1297 1298 Commissioner Crommie: Yes, it is. It's at the end of the ... 1299 1300 Ms. Ames: It's part of Attachment F I believe. 1301 1302 Commissioner Crommie: Yes. I think it's at the very end after the jury makes their 1303 decision. 1304 1305 Ms. Ames: Roughly everyone thought they would basically meet the $8 million 1306 threshold in construction only. 1307 1308 Chair Reckdahl: If we tried to be as cheap and no-frills as possible, what would be the 1309 cheapest bridge that we could put over that spot? Do we have an estimate of that? 1310 1311 Ms. Ames: When we did the feasibility study, which was approved by Council at the 1312 December 2011 meeting I believe, we had an estimate range between $6-$8 million for a 1313 bridge. The $6 million construction estimate was really based on a simple, Caltrans-1314 related bridge. I think it was only 10 feet wide. These bridges are on the magnitude of 1315 18 feet wide, the ones presented tonight. 1316 1317 Chair Reckdahl: If it is only $2 million over, then we are getting some value. I worry 1318 that these $8 million bridges will become $16 million by the time they're built. That's 1319 outside of my pay grade. I have some questions for the designers. These wires on the 1320 network arch are very thin. They're 1 millimeter. Have you worked with that type of 1321 wire before? Have you built an arch like this before? 1322 1323 Mr. Litzinger: Yes. We have several designs that we've done that have been constructed 1324 within the engineer's estimate from the start. We have a lot of confidence in the bridge 1325 type. It's a proven bridge type with low risk of cost escalation along the way. As the 1326 spans change, then you have wires of different sizes. We've done a variety of these with 1327 different wire size types, different densities of the mesh. If you think about the mesh that 1328 way, that kind of balances it. It comes down to the point of aesthetics and other 1329 considerations. 1330 1331 Chair Reckdahl: You mentioned Happy Hollow. That's a network arch? 1332 Draft Minutes 32 Approved 1333 Mr. Litzinger: Yes, it's a network-type arch, very similar to the concept we have shown 1334 here. 1335 1336 Chair Reckdahl: They have 1 millimeter wires there? 1337 1338 Mr. Litzinger: Those may have been a little bit larger. In fact, I had some notes that I 1339 was taking down to go back and look and see how many wires we were using. The spans 1340 were very similar. We might have gone to a larger diameter cable, so we would have 1341 fewer of them rather than a small diameter and more frequent. 1342 1343 Chair Reckdahl: But that's going over a creek, so there's birds in that area. 1344 1345 Mr. Litzinger: Correct. 1346 1347 Chair Reckdahl: Have we had any bird hits? Are you familiar with ... 1348 1349 Mr. Litzinger: We've heard of no complaints from the City of San Jose, from their parks 1350 and rec group on that issue. 1351 1352 Chair Reckdahl: That has no mitigation? That has just plain wires? 1353 1354 Mr. Litzinger: That's correct. 1355 1356 Chair Reckdahl: I would assume that if you made the wires thicker, it'd be easier for 1357 birds to see the wires. 1358 1359 Mr. Litzinger: I think so. I'm not a bird expert; I'm just a civil engineer. We have 1360 experts on the team that could address that. 1361 1362 Chair Reckdahl: What would happen if you do some testing now? Maybe I should back 1363 up. What testing do you plan to do for these little flappers, the mitigation? Are you 1364 building a scale model? 1365 1366 HNTB Team Member: We have a working prototype already. 1367 1368 Commissioner Crommie: He has to go to the mike. 1369 1370 HNTB Team Member: The disks are a collaboration of our teams. We have an artist on 1371 our team. His name is Ned Kahn. He's an internationally renowned artist known for the 1372 merger of art and science. We've built a working prototype of one of the disks. There 1373 Draft Minutes 33 Approved would be many steps to determine their reflectivity and their durability. Would they 1374 work with larger cables? Yes. If that's the question. 1375 1376 Chair Reckdahl: Let's suppose you do some testing and find out that these disks don't 1377 repel the birds. Now what do you do? Do you change the design or do you just go to 1378 thicker cables and have less of them? 1379 1380 HNTB Team Member: I'd leave that question to the engineers in terms of the structural 1381 systems. The conservative case would be to go to precedented structural types in the 1382 area, like the Berkeley Bridge which I believe is an orthogonal arrangement of cables. 1383 That would be the base case, let's say. This would be what we presented to really address 1384 the innovation and the signature quality of the bridge. Would it work with a conventional 1385 type? I believe so. I'd leave it to John to answer the question. 1386 1387 Chair Reckdahl: By conventional, do you mean vertical? 1388 1389 HNTB Team Member: To vertical or let's say tested and established. Using dimensions 1390 and cable types that have been proven to work in other similar conditions such as the 1391 Berkeley Pedestrian Bridge, which is a cable-supported span and the cables are 1392 orthogonal to the arch and the deck. 1393 1394 Chair Reckdahl: Why is the arch canted? Was there a functional reason for that or was 1395 that aesthetics? 1396 1397 Mr. Litzinger: It's an aesthetic. 1398 1399 Chair Reckdahl: One of my concerns is that there's going to be perching spots above 1400 that, and birds will sit on there, and there will be bird droppings on 101 and bird 1401 droppings on people going across the bridge. Should I be concerned about that? 1402 1403 Mr. Litzinger: It's a concern. I think it's something that we would look at, the path. One 1404 of the features of this, where the path swoops out away from the plane of the arch, is to 1405 keep the path out of a landing spot or a perching area for the birds. That certainly is 1406 something that we would work out in a collaborative manner through the design process. 1407 1408 HNTB Team Member: The condition that you're referring to and most people have 1409 experienced commonly occurs when there is ample food source and ample water supply 1410 very close by, like food vending situations or college campuses or urban streets where all 1411 those things are present, ready and available. Over a freeway, that condition doesn't exist 1412 and it's different types of bird species. 1413 1414 Draft Minutes 34 Approved Chair Reckdahl: It still makes me nervous. If we're looking to get a black eye, having 1415 either dead birds or bird droppings cast down on 101 would not be good for Palo Alto. 1416 We do have to look at that. One more thing. You mentioned about the transporters. 1417 Where would you anticipate building the bridge and moving it? Would that be on other 1418 parkland or would it be somewhere else? 1419 1420 Mr. Litzinger: There are a few options in the area. There's one location that we looked 1421 at. As you go up East Bayshore, there's a little bulb-out maybe a quarter mile up the road 1422 that seems to have a sufficiently wide area and that could be used as a construction zone 1423 for the bridge to be assembled. Once it's assembled there, then you have the transporters 1424 that are supported on either end that would travel down East Bayshore, come to a point 1425 where the bridge would be located across 101, have some temporary holes in the barrier 1426 on an overnight closure with Highway 101. The transporters would rotate and the bridge 1427 would rotate into place. 1428 1429 Chair Reckdahl: The assembly actually would be blocking East Bayshore and all 1430 assembly would be done on the road? I just want to make sure that we're not anticipating 1431 using any parkland for the assembly, because I think that would be a big impact. 1432 1433 Mr. Litzinger: Right. Right now we're not looking at any parkland. What other work 1434 areas are available that are in the public area? Either public roadways, side streets, 1435 parking lots. There's a number of different options that could be investigated that is in 1436 close proximity to the location. You have the advantage of this bridge type with the 1437 assembly being done, then it can be wheeled and dropped into place. 1438 1439 Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. If there are no more questions, we'll express our comments. 1440 This is our message to the City Council, what you think, what you like, what you don't 1441 like. 1442 1443 Commissioner Lauing: Want me to start? 1444 1445 Chair Reckdahl: Yeah. 1446 1447 Commissioner Lauing: First of all I think that our comments, as everyone's should be, 1448 are coming off this page 13 which is the guiding design principles. Clearly the judges 1449 have decided that all three make that cut. This discussion of birds is appropriate but, 1450 even as a couple of the speakers said, we're going to lose birds. You put up a bridge; 1451 you're going to lose some birds. That's not the driving force of all things. There's 1452 probably thousands of things that come into account in this whole bridge. Just looking at 1453 the four criteria, I guess you just want to get some specific comments down here. 1454 Talking about innovation and inspiring, I do think that the first one is inspiring as a work 1455 of art, elegant and really a lovely statement without being over the top. It really meets all 1456 Draft Minutes 35 Approved of the criteria. I would rate that the highest. I also think some of the previous comments 1457 are worth pointing out, which is the separation of pedestrians and cyclists. Obviously we 1458 just talked about this to death, but they attempt to make it as unobtrusive to bird species 1459 as possible. As they point out, which was helpful, the habitat and the connection areas 1460 are equally important. I would say a close second—I appreciate the public comments on 1461 this—is Submission C. There's one comment on the jury side where they said it's 1462 actually too subtle, which I would agree with. It's not quite enough of a statement in spite 1463 of its elegance and connectivity and getting the job done. The third one, "B," visually it 1464 looks too temporary. It almost looked like a tent and like it's not really structurally sound 1465 in some cases. I know that's not true, but visually that's the case. It's so understated as to 1466 blend in too much as opposed to addressing the issue of inspiration, engaging the 1467 community and maybe even drawing more visitors there, which I think it ought to do. 1468 Thank you. 1469 1470 Vice Chair Markevitch: I think it was 2005 or 2006 I went to the VTA Board and said 1471 that we need to have a pedestrian bike bridge there. It should have been built when they 1472 were doing all of the construction that they've doing for the last four years or however 1473 long it's been on 101. They didn't hear me. I'm glad to see it's finally here. I'm looking 1474 at all three of these, and I'm thinking there should have been a fifth criteria and that was 1475 cost effectiveness. When I was speaking to the VTA Board, I envisioned a very simple 1476 bridge that's cost effective, safe, and simple. None of these are. I looked at them, and 1477 two of them under the submissions say construction costs are likely to increase. I know 1478 that's true. I'm the daughter of a civil engineer. It's not going to be $8 million on any of 1479 them. I would be shocked. The one in the middle, the wood bridge, we're in Palo Alto 1480 which is the land of termites. That's just not a good thing especially if it's built over a 1481 freeway. My vote is for none of these. It needs to be simple, safe, and cost effective. 1482 1483 Commissioner Crommie: Well, let's see my notes. Looking at the criteria on page 13, of 1484 these three bridges Number C meets the criteria the best. I disagree with the jury saying 1485 that all of them meet it equally. I just simply don't think that's true. 25 percent of the 1486 criteria has to do with bird safety, integration into the ecosystem. That's 25 percent of the 1487 criteria. There's no way you can ignore that. I appreciate "A." The design as a 1488 suspension bridge is very beautiful. Suspension bridges make a big wow statement, and 1489 they've done a beautiful job with it. I just don't think it's in the right place. That's my 1490 only hesitation with it. I think there are too many unknowns in this particular location. 1491 Going to our website on the Baylands, it says, "The Baylands Preserve is one of the 1492 largest tracts of undisturbed marshland remaining in the San Francisco Bay." Palo Alto 1493 has been a leader in preservation, conservation of that land, so we need to have a bridge 1494 that speaks to that. "C" speaks to that. "C" is innovative in terms of the floating 1495 technology, how it uses the cable. That's why it could satisfy innovation. It's not as 1496 much of a wow; I agree with that. It's a more subtle statement which is the look of the 1497 land. I would draw everyone's attention to how the Lucy B. Evans Interpretive Center is 1498 Draft Minutes 36 Approved designed, that sits in our Baylands. It's a very elegant, subtle structure that blends right in 1499 with the marsh. The designers had that right. Under the pros for "C," I said innovative in 1500 terms of the floating technology, integrated with nature, safest design for wildlife, lowest 1501 impact, possibly the shortest route which is important for cyclists. Between "A" and "C," 1502 "C" has a shorter route. That's it. 1503 1504 Commissioner Hetterly: In terms of innovation, "B" was the most innovative for its 1505 sustainability. It's clear it's the most sustainable plan of all of them. I didn't like it as 1506 much. "C" was probably the least innovative, but the simplest and cleanest. "A" 1507 probably did the best job of balancing the four criteria and being fairly strong in all of 1508 them. The bird issue obviously needs some more consideration. I don't have the 1509 expertise to opine on that, so I'll leave that to you all. If the bird issue can be addressed 1510 satisfactorily, that would be my preference. I preferred "A" over "C" for the viewing 1511 station on the east side overlooking the Baylands to one that's in the middle of the 1512 freeway looking straight out on the freeway. I also liked the idea of the water 1513 reclamation on the east side as opposed to a cement plaza or hardscaped plaza, whatever 1514 the surfacing is. Thank you. 1515 1516 Commissioner Crommie: I just wanted to speak to the east side. I forgot about that, 1517 because we haven't really dug into that because it's not very well developed. I'm really 1518 worried about that water reclamation scenario. It's a way that "A" is trying to be more 1519 environmental as an afterthought. I wanted to voice my concern because it's different 1520 from Commissioner Hetterly. I'm just really concerned about how that's going to work. 1521 There's not a tidal flow there, so they want it to be standing water. They're going to 1522 uncover the mud and create this brackish water spot. It has so many unknowns, and 1523 environmentalists are not embracing that. I'm very appreciative that we have many in the 1524 audience tonight. I see it as an afterthought. 1525 1526 Commissioner Knopper: I liked "A." It's beautiful and it met the criteria as far as I'm 1527 concerned. I already discussed one issue, just making sure that the habitat that lives in 1528 that area—thoughtful consideration with regard to reflectors or cables, etc., which I'm 1529 sure this will be discussed infinitum for the next however long this takes. It will be 1530 addressed. I'm very happy that there will be a bridge there. I'm very happy that it's 1531 artistic and interesting and that it has looked at all the criteria from an environmental 1532 perspective and has been sensitive to that. Thank you for the examples of the other 1533 bridges. I appreciate that. 1534 1535 Chair Reckdahl: When I first saw Design A a month ago, six weeks ago, I thought, "Oh, 1536 it's just too gaudy and out of place." I didn't like it initially. Now I've looked at it and 1537 grown to like it. I think people get used to it. It is beautiful. There's that wow factor. It 1538 has a big risk, the birds. I don't think we've proven to ourselves that it won't hurt the 1539 birds. It comes down to whether Council wants that wow factor. They're going to have 1540 Draft Minutes 37 Approved to do some studies and convince themselves that there's not going to be bird problems. If 1541 they want the wow factor and they're willing to take that risk, then Design A. If they're 1542 not willing to take that risk, then it's clearly Design C. Wow factor aside, "A" did have a 1543 little better design. I like the separation between the pedestrians and bicycles. It was 1544 nice. You have seniors walking. You have young kids walking. Having a separation 1545 between the bikes and the pedestrians is a very good idea. I like the water filling and the 1546 bathrooms on the east side. Their design was a little more polished. All in all, "A" is a 1547 good design, but it has the bird risk. We're going to have to work at that; we can't just 1548 cross our fingers. We're going to have to get some evidence to show that the birds are 1549 going to be safe. All the designs do have a big risk on money. I agree with Pat that it's 1550 unlikely that any of the designs could be built for $8 million. I'm not sure if the Council 1551 wants to get independent people to look at that and price it out or if they can start the 1552 process and make decisions along the way. I don't know. 1553 1554 Commissioner Hetterly: Can I add something? Aesthetically speaking, I'm really 1555 uncertain about how that wire mesh is going to seem. It seems to me that this whole 1556 Commission felt previously concerned about costs. If we're going to go with the bare 1557 bones, it shouldn't be an $8 million bare bones option. If the City decides to reject "A," 1558 then it should consider whether "C," if that's the second choice, merits the cost or if we 1559 should go back to a simple, basic, utilitarian plan. 1560 1561 Chair Reckdahl: Elizabeth, do you have any final questions or comments or are you 1562 ready to move on? 1563 1564 Ms. Ames: Thank you very much. I really appreciate your input. The Commission was 1565 instrumental in leading this project and making this a top priority and the Bike and 1566 Pedestrian Plan that was adopted by Council in 2012. I really appreciate the 1567 Commission's support. Hopefully, you will be there at the February 23rd Council 1568 meeting. Thank you. 1569 1570 Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. 1571 1572 5. Parks, Trails, Open Space and Recreation Facilities Master Plan. 1573 1574 Chair Reckdahl: We have no speakers for this, so we can directly in as soon as Peter's 1575 ready to go. 1576 1577 Peter Jensen: Commissioners, good evening. Peter Jensen, Landscape Architect for the 1578 City of Palo Alto, here in our monthly address for the Parks, Recreation Master Plan. As 1579 the progress goes along, the information and the materials build. I'm happy to say that 1580 we have the consultant with us tonight, Ellie on the MIG project team, to go over some of 1581 Draft Minutes 38 Approved the handouts that we got this week and discuss those things. Because of time, I'm just 1582 going to let her get into it. Then we'll have questions at the end. 1583 1584 Ellie Fiore: Hi, good evening. For those of you I have not yet met, my name's Ellie 1585 Fiore. I work for MIG; I'm a deputy project manager on this process. I work closely 1586 with Ryan and Lauren who've been to meetings before me. I'm here tonight primarily to 1587 field questions and comments on several work products that we've put in front of you. I 1588 think there were five in your packet. I don't know if you have a preference for where we 1589 start. To frame the discussion big picture wise in terms of where we are in this project, 1590 we're pivoting from the information gathering and data analysis phase into 1591 recommendations. As you know, our big push at the end of 2014 was the online survey. 1592 We got over 1,100 responses which is really remarkable. We're in the process of 1593 crunching and summarizing that data. That's a big input that we'll see next month. It'll 1594 be in front of you and the ad hoc committee. Then we'll be developing recommendations 1595 and a project list, and then going quickly into prioritization in March with an adoption 1596 target deadline of October. The five pieces that were in your packet and that we want to 1597 discuss tonight were the existing system summary, which might be a good place to start 1598 because this encapsulates the work that we did last year and summarizes the pieces that 1599 make up that existing system analysis. It has a date of December 22nd. I apologize; they 1600 all look alike because they have similar headers. It is to Peter and Elizabeth from Ryan 1601 and Ellie. It's formatted with a memo heading. 1602 1603 Vice Chair Markevitch: Page number? 1604 1605 Chair Reckdahl: They're not contiguous. 1606 1607 Commissioner Lauing: This is the one. Does everybody see it? 1608 1609 Ms. Fiore: This is essentially an update on where we are in the scope of work. We've 1610 completed most of phases 1 through 5 as I said, the existing system analysis, data 1611 analysis and several elements of our community engagement approach. This outlines 1612 what we've done, what the work products are, all of which you should have had or do 1613 have now, again with the exception of the online survey summary which is underway. I 1614 just want to confirm that you've seen all of those pieces and see if there's any outstanding 1615 questions or concerns. 1616 1617 Commissioner Lauing: Can we make comments on this? 1618 1619 Chair Reckdahl: Yes. 1620 1621 Commissioner Lauing: I thought this was going to be up third, but I'm glad it's up first. 1622 It's actually the most important. Starting at the beginning of your memo where you say, 1623 Draft Minutes 39 Approved "MIG has collected and generated a foundation of data" and then "community input." 1624 Consistently we've been saying we want data. We're speaking for Council, and they want 1625 data, hard data on what the strategic direction of this thing needs to be. The community 1626 stuff is very interesting. It's beyond anecdotal, but it's not quantitative. It's qualitative 1627 data. The real data is what's going to have to drive the strategic aspects of this. Just 1628 repeating that theme, because that's what we're going to need. When we got over to page 1629 4 of this memo, demographics and trends, you guys did some research on local and 1630 regional population and demographic trends from the past several decades. This work 1631 product went to the City in September of 2014. At our next meeting, Peter, we should 1632 revisit that in some level of detail because that's the basis of it. Again I'm contrasting 1633 data versus community input. When we're hearing that people want cricket or archery or 1634 more baseball fields or whatever, that's one thing. We really would love to have trend 1635 data. For example, and I hope I'm making this up, is golf going to die, so we don't need 1636 golf courses anymore? We would make decisions like that. Is cricket going to take the 1637 world by storm? We need to know about that. We're not going to hear that, with all due 1638 respect, from just asking even 1,000 people in our community. That kind of trend data. 1639 Also, local data. We were told you were going to look at data from school districts. I'd 1640 like to know in the next 10, 20, and 30 years if our 8 to 15-year-old kid group is going to 1641 go up by 50 percent or down by 10 percent. Those are the ones that are mostly filling up 1642 our fields. We really need that hard approach to this. I don't recall that we dug into this 1643 very much in September of 2014. I, for one, would like to see that come back to us next 1644 month, so we really have something that's quantitative. Just to put a point on it, the 1645 credibility of this whole Master Plan is dependent on that kind of work. For us, for you, 1646 for the Council, for the City, for residents. The other item that you guys already know 1647 about which is that five-point plan of what everybody wants in parks, geez, we'd really 1648 like to have something more than that. Throw a ball, walk around, sit around, look at the 1649 sun. It's like that commercial says, we already know that. 1650 1651 Ms. Fiore: Right. Those are the basic elements. Thank you. 1652 1653 Commissioner Lauing: Other comments on this? 1654 1655 Chair Reckdahl: I've got Hetterly. 1656 1657 Commissioner Hetterly: I agree about the need for more data. We're sounding like a 1658 broken record; we keep saying that over and over and over again. We need harder data or 1659 more quantitative data. For this particular document, I just had a couple of comments. 1660 On the top of page 3, you talk about the recreation program review and analysis is going 1661 to review the division of responsibility for recreation programs across the Community 1662 Services Department and by private and community providers. We'll discuss the program 1663 analysis later on. I don't feel like it does review the division of responsibility. It just 1664 notes that there are services provided by different providers. Maybe there it would be 1665 Draft Minutes 40 Approved nice to know something more, like what percent of offerings in a certain category or 1666 categories X, Y and Z are provided by the city as opposed to provided by the City's 1667 partners or nonprofits or private organizations. That kind of data helps us understand 1668 what is our market share in martial arts or in teen programs. On page 6 under the City 1669 Council update, you tell us that you provided City Council with a review of your work 1670 completed to date on November 17th, but we haven't seen any feedback from that. We'd 1671 like you to provide us feedback about what you heard, what you learned from that 1672 interaction with the Council. That would be helpful for our discussions. Also the 1673 revenue analysis we have not seen yet, I believe. It's also not described in the summary 1674 of work products. 1675 1676 Ms. Fiore: That's correct. That one is in process, but there was a glitch in verifying the 1677 data that we should be using. It's been on hold for about the last six weeks. There's a 1678 meeting today that either Peter or Rob can speak to better than I. We're moving that 1679 forward. 1680 1681 Commissioner Hetterly: My last comment on this document. The prioritization process, 1682 you say that you're going to develop preliminary recommendations and a project list and 1683 that there will be dedicated prioritization meetings with stakeholder groups and other 1684 groups. I just wanted to make sure that those preliminary recommendations and project 1685 list is going to be the subject of those meetings as opposed to them happening in a 1686 vacuum from the work that's happening behind doors. 1687 1688 Ms. Fiore: I’m not sure I follow you. 1689 1690 Commissioner Hetterly: The prioritization meetings with the stakeholders and the public 1691 and the Commission, those meetings are intended to discuss the preliminary priorities 1692 that you will identify and (crosstalk). 1693 1694 Ms. Fiore: Exactly. The project list is what will be reviewed in those meetings. 1695 1696 Commissioner Hetterly: Thank you. 1697 1698 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Crommie. 1699 1700 Commissioner Crommie: Are we discussing this whole document through the 1701 following—oh, just this one. I ditto the comments that have been made. I'm really 1702 worried about what we're going to be able to do with this report once we get it, quite 1703 frankly. It doesn't seem data driven enough. It just looks like a boilerplate report when I 1704 look at this. I don't know what to do about it. When it comes to prioritization, it's so 1705 difficult to do that. The only way you can make your arguments is to try to use the data. 1706 I'm just not sure how we're going to do that. When I see you guys processing the data, it 1707 Draft Minutes 41 Approved doesn't reflect my memory of the meetings, which I'll say when we get further into this. I 1708 wish I had a better concrete suggestion. 1709 1710 Chair Reckdahl: Are we ready to move on? 1711 1712 Rob de Geus: Chair Reckdahl. I'm concerned about this too, about this question of data 1713 and what we're going to do about it. We're moving along here and we're going to get into 1714 prioritization. If the Commission's not comfortable with the material or at least the data 1715 that we have, then maybe we need to take a pause here and think about how do we get 1716 that data and what does it really look like. MIG's done a lot of this work before, and I 1717 appreciate what they're doing in trying to get data in a lot of different ways. From the 1718 intercept surveys to the electronic survey they got a lot of responses, the workshops, 1719 Commission feedback, staff interviews, and other things. I actually think there's a lot of 1720 good data there. Maybe it's not sufficient. I don't know. What I would like to hear, and I 1721 suspect these guys would like to hear, is what specifically does the Commission want to 1722 see in terms of more data. Is it a specific survey that you're looking for, additional 1723 workshops, regional trend analysis for park and rec programs? Something specific that 1724 we can then work with. 1725 1726 Commissioner Lauing: That's why I brought up number 4 on page 4 first. If you've 1727 already done that, refresh our memory and make sure that we're not missing something. 1728 You say there, "local and regional population and demographic trends from the past 1729 several decades and projections for the coming decades." That's the kind of stuff that I 1730 think is more actionable and strategic than 25 people at the community center saying 1731 what they think we could do new, which comes up with some interesting ideas that can 1732 be incorporated, but it's not the basis for a 25-year strategic plan. That's the kind of data. 1733 We talked from the get-go about school board data, about projections of school-aged 1734 children. If there's any way that someone here is predicting our own population and what 1735 the demographics might be, we should see that too. 1736 1737 Chair Reckdahl: The city does have its own projections on the population of Palo Alto 1738 going to the (crosstalk). 1739 1740 Mr. de Geus: Yeah, we do and the school district has it. It's readily available. If some of 1741 that is in the demographic report—I know that the school district struggles with these 1742 projections though. They typically don't project much further than five years, because it's 1743 so unreliable. We certainly can get what they have. 1744 1745 Commissioner Lauing: Even that's instructive. Right? 1746 1747 Mr. de Geus: Yeah. 1748 1749 Draft Minutes 42 Approved Commissioner Lauing: If we say, "Well, we think we need fields at the Baylands," so we 1750 put in a bunch of fields. The school board doesn't know what kind of kid population 1751 we're going to have five years out. We can't do something that's going to impact the city 1752 for 75 years. Maybe that causes us pause on some of those issues. Even not doing 1753 something is of value for this whole strategic plan that we're doing. 1754 1755 Mr. de Geus: That's helpful. Maybe others have input here. 1756 1757 Commissioner Crommie: I'm struggling with this. I'm just going to brainstorm. I 1758 personally would like to see more information from our stakeholder groups in a more 1759 succinct way. We can develop a list of stakeholders that as a Commission we're 1760 interested in, and all of us have contacts with various stakeholder groups. Then develop a 1761 list of questions that we give to those stakeholders. We have a lot of interest in the city 1762 that funnels through stakeholders. I know we did the wide community survey with 1,000 1763 respondents. A lot of us on the Commission weren't completely happy with those 1764 questions, so we have a little bit of hesitation. I'm sure we'll get some really good 1765 information from that. I'm just throwing this out. I really value our stakeholders. We 1766 can't be overpowered by any one group of them. It's our job to balance that out. As we 1767 look at them, we know the forces that be. I worked on the field use policy that our 1768 Commission reviewed. Our soccer leagues are very vocal, but we know how to place 1769 that in balance. I would like to hear what they have to say. I don't know if other people 1770 on this Commission would agree, so it'd have to be a consensus. I would never want to 1771 go forward unless other people thought it was going to yield good information. I don't 1772 want to keep doing information that people aren't excited about. I just feel like there's 1773 such a gap in understanding what the schools want. When I see on this list getting a new 1774 community pool, we have all these school pools, and I don't know anything about it and 1775 how that fits in. I didn't hear a single community member bring up a pool ever; yet, it's 1776 on this list. 1777 1778 Ms. Fiore: What list are you referring to? 1779 1780 Commissioner Crommie: We're going to get into that. I'm just saying that I don't know 1781 what's going on in the schools. They seem like a black box. They seem like they're 1782 profit motivated to me, that they're holding onto turf to sell it. That's something I don't 1783 understand. I've heard our Commission ask for information on that, and I haven't seen 1784 any of it yet. 1785 1786 Mr. de Geus: The school data, we've heard that several times. MIG staff and us have 1787 met with the schools on two occasions related to this plan, but maybe there's more that 1788 we can do there, more data, more feedback. The question about the stakeholders, I think 1789 there is a large stakeholder group that's been assembled for this work. I think they've met 1790 once, and they have two more meetings. 1791 Draft Minutes 43 Approved 1792 Commissioner Crommie: I was at the meeting. Keith was there. 1793 1794 Mr. de Geus: That's, I don't know, 20 or 30 of our stakeholders. Is that ... 1795 1796 Commissioner Crommie: No, I don't mean that kind of meeting. It was very hard to get 1797 useful information, I found, from that kind of meeting. You need to give them a list of 1798 questions and have them respond to it. It's always apples and oranges. One person 1799 saying this. We have a report on that meeting. Daren did write it up. Just having been 1800 there, my head was spinning with all the different viewpoints. I want something I can 1801 bite into, where there's similar questions being asked of people, like a script. 1802 1803 Chair Reckdahl: When Ryan was here, initially the plan was to mail the survey out to 1804 everyone in the whole—maybe I should back up a second. In my mind, there's two 1805 separate issues. One is the current assessment, what do people need and want right now. 1806 Then the projection going forward. You can break those into two. For the current needs 1807 assessment, we were originally planning to mail out a survey to everyone who had a 1808 utility bill. The question was what kind of return rate would we get. That was the only 1809 concern. Then we went away from that and just went to an electronic survey. Now you 1810 have sampling error. Ryan said in the past he had ways of, when they'd done electronic 1811 surveys like this, to reduce the sampling error. I don't know what methods he uses, but 1812 he said in the past they had addressed that. It'd be useful to hear how MIG can massage 1813 the data to reduce the effect of the sampling of the electronic survey. That's one issue. 1814 The second issue then is how do you go forward. Jen, did you have a question? 1815 1816 Commissioner Hetterly: I did. I think we're a little off track. Now we're looking more at 1817 the big issue of what are we wanting to get and how do we get there. There's a lot of 1818 details in the packet where we could give you more reaction about what we think is 1819 missing. For the big picture view, fundamentally what we're looking to learn from this 1820 study is do we have the right mix and supply of parks and recreation facilities, services, 1821 and programs to meet the needs of our community now and into the future. That's the 1822 fundamental question. The inventory and the matrix is supposed to provide us a starting 1823 point to understand where we are. The demographics information and the surveys and all 1824 that stuff is supposed to help us figure out where we should be. Right? The problem is 1825 there doesn't seem to be any information that we've seen yet suggesting how we get from 1826 where we are to where we might want to be. The demographic trends information is 1827 generalized. We're going to have more seniors. We have a more diverse cultural 1828 population. We have a growing population of kids. It doesn’t go into specific detail 1829 about how our resources should change to reflect those trends. That's a big gap that we 1830 stumble on every time. That's part of why we're looking for more data, so that we can 1831 start putting the pieces together as we think about prioritization. There's a fear that we're 1832 going to jump from here, where we have a start, to a vague generalized end but nothing in 1833 Draft Minutes 44 Approved the middle. March is two months away. How are we going to be able to prioritize 1834 anything by then if we don't have any of the middle? I think that's the problem that we're 1835 struggling with. 1836 1837 Ms. Fiore: Thank you. That's a valid concern and it's completely understandable, based 1838 on the work we've put in front of you to date. The short answer is we're working on it. 1839 As I said, we're about to make that pivot into recommendations, all of which will be 1840 based on these many pieces that we've been gathering. I know it seems probably like it's 1841 been a slow process and that a lot of the information we've put in front of you you may 1842 already know because you are Parks and Rec Commissioners. Again, that is part of the 1843 systematic analysis of the system. We are generating recommendations, site specific. 1844 Another work product that you haven't seen yet is existing conditions maps with detailed 1845 analysis of all of your parks including photographs, and the ways they're used, and key 1846 features. Our next step is applying recommendations to each of those sites as well as the 1847 system. 1848 1849 Commissioner Crommie: When you give us your recommendations, I really want to see 1850 the data that you're working with. Not everyone needs to look at it, but I want to see it 1851 all. I just want to have complete transparency of what you looked at and what you got 1852 from that. If we are questioning any of your decisions, we can go right back and look at 1853 it. I'm asking for that right up front. 1854 1855 Commissioner Hetterly: Other kinds of data. Two of the questions we have all hoped to 1856 answer through this plan at a very basic level is do we need more fields, as Commissioner 1857 Lauing raised. Where is the best suited location for more dog parks? There doesn't 1858 appear to be a source of data that you all have been working on that would generate the 1859 information to reach those conclusions. If there is and we just aren't getting it, then it 1860 would be helpful for you to explain that to us. We're not seeing how you're going to 1861 make the leap from what you have so far to provide that kind of recommendation. 1862 1863 Chair Reckdahl: If there are no other comments, we'll move onto the next section. 1864 1865 Ms. Fiore: Thank you. Why don't we move to the sustainability review, which was the 1866 first product in your packet. This is a high level analysis of where the department and 1867 your system is in the context of sustainability. What policy guidance exists, what current 1868 practices and programs exist, which of these elements of sustainability and policy areas 1869 generally are most directly relevant to the work that the department does and which can 1870 be supported but are really the purview of other departments in the city. Starting on page 1871 8 of this document, we have a list of options. This is not intended to be incredibly 1872 directive, but we're imagining this as a menu of options that staff can take as potential 1873 directions. If you do want to make increasing sustainability of the department a focus, 1874 there's some case studies in there that illustrate where principles of sustainability have 1875 Draft Minutes 45 Approved been done very well in parks, including one here in Palo Alto. Then some next steps, 1876 should you want to take this effort further. This is intended as a snapshot in time of 1877 where you are, what the policy framework is, recognizing that there's many other similar 1878 efforts going on that's citywide, but none would be focusing necessarily on parks and 1879 recreations and programming. There is some good news in here in that there are a lot of 1880 really strong, sustainable, and resource efficient practices and programs going on even 1881 where there's not strong policy direction. That was one of our key findings. I should add 1882 this can function as a standalone document should staff want to run with any of these 1883 recommendations. This menu also may be pulled forward into the recommendations that 1884 are elevated in the Master Plan as action items. 1885 1886 Commissioner Crommie: I just have a question on this. Where would we find rain 1887 gardens in here, collecting water more efficiently? I just couldn't find it. 1888 1889 Ms. Fiore: It should be under water. 1890 1891 Commissioner Crommie: Under water conversation maybe. 1892 1893 Ms. Fiore: Yeah, under water conservation and water quality. Number 9 on page 12 1894 mentions rain gardens specifically. 1895 1896 Commissioner Crommie: We have a sustainability piece in our city Comp Plan. Did you 1897 pull a lot of this from that? 1898 1899 Ms. Fiore: We reviewed that as part of the policy context. We did not pull these 1900 recommendations from that. We pulled these from national best practices of 1901 sustainability plans that were specifically done for parks and recreation departments, 1902 which can be $50,000 standalone products on their own. This again was a snapshot, a 1903 high level report. We did have your Chief Sustainability Officer, Gil Friend, review this 1904 document before it went to you. 1905 1906 Commissioner Crommie: Thank you. 1907 1908 Commissioner Hetterly: I have just a few comments on this one. At the top of page 2, 1909 further sustainability goals if they result in a positive change to one of the following 1910 indicators, and then you list the indicators. I found it notable that there's no mention of 1911 the balance or interrelationship between the indicators. Not all indicators are necessarily 1912 created equal. Improvements in one area can sometimes prove detrimental to other areas. 1913 That's something that should be addressed one way or another here. For example, 1914 transportation is something that could easily conflict with natural resources and habitat. 1915 1916 Ms. Fiore: Yep. Very good point. 1917 Draft Minutes 46 Approved 1918 Commissioner Hetterly: On pages 7 and 8, public health and safety is indicated as a 1919 primary consideration on page 7, but then on page 8 it's pulled out as a secondary. That's 1920 just an error I suspect. Public health and safety should certainly be primary. We have a 1921 lot of policies and practices in our strategic plan and our programs that address that. 1922 1923 Commissioner Crommie: Where is that one? 1924 1925 Commissioner Hetterly: I don't know. You'll have to find it. Page 9, one of the 1926 suggestions at the top, create green ambassadors within a department to support 1927 sustainability initiatives. I'd like to be sure that that's not just about recycling and 1928 greenhouse gas emissions. Maybe they're ecology ambassadors who present the fuller 1929 view of impacts. Page 10, natural resources and habitat. There are six recommendations 1930 there and many of them, to my recollection, we are already doing. Is this supposed to be 1931 exclusively a list of new things that we should do? In other areas, it seemed like new 1932 ideas. Many of these we seem to already be doing. One of the things we aren't doing is 1933 developing metrics for how we measure benefits to the natural resources and habitat. On 1934 page 11, transportation section, it was unclear to me why some of these were in here. 1935 Coordinating improvements like showers for employees and ride share services do not 1936 seem like something that would be within Community Services. Similarly, alternate 1937 work schedules to avoid travel peaks, encourage telecommuting and other practices. Is 1938 that about the employee structure or is that something that you're proposing be a policy 1939 that the Community Services (inaudible). 1940 1941 Ms. Fiore: Our intention was that this is one of the supporting functions of this 1942 department. You work with a transportation management agency, which is under 1943 formation right now. Whether it be Planning or Public Works, whatever the lead agency 1944 is in the city who has primary responsibility, you coordinate and work with them on that, 1945 but then keep an eye towards the staff of this Department and the telecommuting and the 1946 showers and the amenities that support their own behavior. In essence it's both. 1947 1948 Commissioner Hetterly: Number 1, install electric vehicle charging stations at park 1949 facilities with parking lots. I would like to know a little information about whether that 1950 attracts nonusers to park there just to use the charger. What the experience has been in 1951 that regard would be helpful to know more about. Finally on page 15 and 16 under 1952 education and training and natural resources and habitat, there are a lot of programs and 1953 practices that are missing from this table. I'd be happy to shoot you an email about them 1954 if you'd like. 1955 1956 Commissioner Crommie: We have an element of our Comp Plan called the Natural 1957 Environment Element (NEE). We're up in the air with the Comp Plan, but that's where a 1958 lot of really good material is, that the sustainability person might not be aware of. He 1959 Draft Minutes 47 Approved might not know that whole section, because sustainability is a part of it. It really does 1960 encapsulate habitat preservation, which is a piece that's not as well developed in here. 1961 1962 Commissioner Lauing: I have just a couple. I was pleased to see on page 8, getting into 1963 the detail there. There's such a good emphasis on maintenance, where we say maintain 1964 trees for a 100-year permanence. That recognition is really important particularly in light 1965 of some of the history we've had in the last year about mitigation for trees. You've got to 1966 fund the maintenance too or what's the point. I was really glad to see that in there. 1967 There's other places there, for example, retrofitting for solar power, not quite 1968 maintenance but it's in the same general direction. On your equity point on page 9, I 1969 wasn't quite sure what you meant by underserved neighborhoods. On point 3 under 1970 equity. 1971 1972 Ms. Fiore: That could be defined a couple of different ways. It could be geographically 1973 underserved, parts of the city that have fewer parks in their geographic area. It could also 1974 be underserved neighborhoods, low income populations, or cultural groups who aren't 1975 necessarily active participants in your current system. 1976 1977 Commissioner Lauing: The top of page 11, you talk about true cost pricing. Whatever 1978 the definition is, it's good that we're actually taking everything into account. We don’t 1979 always do that. Overall, generally, that was pretty well constructed for what we're trying 1980 to do. 1981 1982 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Markevitch. 1983 1984 Vice Chair Markevitch: On page 6, align Community Services mission statements, 1985 budgets, and operations with city sustainability goals. I almost feel like it should be the 1986 other way around. The sustainability goals should fit into what we already do. We do 1987 quite a bit already. I'm afraid that if we are held to a certain level of rules by this 1988 sustainability section, we're going to start losing a lot of the flavor of our city, parks, 1989 services, classes. It's all going to get compressed into this bland thing. That seems to be 1990 happening in other cities. I don't quite know how to put it. That one statement just didn't 1991 sit well with me all afternoon. I kept coming back to it. Yes, it's important, but it's not 1992 the end all for what we do. 1993 1994 Chair Reckdahl: I have one comment that this seems to be a collection of good ideas. I 1995 would like to echo Commissioner Hetterly. You can't always do this, but whenever 1996 possible you should use metrics. For example, energy efficiency, when it talks about 1997 retrofit facilities with energy efficiency and select energy efficient products. That's just a 1998 nebulous good thing to do. It would be nice for us to say, "Well, we're getting some 1999 recommendations." If you can say, if you do this, invest this much money, you'll get this 2000 much return. Have some type of either money or energy use return and say, "Are these 2001 Draft Minutes 48 Approved six good ideas? Which one is the best?" That all comes down to metrics, and whenever 2002 possible we need metrics. If there are no questions, let's move to the next section. 2003 2004 Ms. Fiore: Let's move to the recreation program analysis, which is the last piece of your 2005 packet. The one that has draft stamped all over it. This again is a piece of that existing 2006 conditions summary, a snapshot of what exists on the ground, what the layout is. We 2007 wanted to focus on getting the full picture of programs that are available to Palo Alto 2008 residents, whether or not they were provided specifically by the city or specifically by the 2009 Community Services Department. We took a look at what the private providers are doing 2010 in the city and what the full range of programs available to your residents is. We have 2011 been working with staff. We've identified some areas where we want to beef up the 2012 detail behind a lot of these and learn more about, not just what programs are in demand, 2013 but how in demand are they. We are going to get some data to back this up, which is why 2014 it has draft stamped all over it. Key findings from my perspective are that you are a 2015 community with excellent resources, and there are a lot of things that are in high demand 2016 which is good to know. You have a strong and well administered strategic plan that's 2017 guiding the department and that's still of value and can be used in the years going 2018 forward. There are probably some opportunities for streamlining communications and 2019 possibly departmental organization. That's something we'll look at when we get into the 2020 recommendations, and that will be augmented by this revenue analysis which is 2021 happening in parallel. 2022 2023 Commissioner Lauing: How do you want to process this? Do you want to go through 2024 the whole thing here or the pros and then the graph? There's findings at the end, so 2025 there's a lot of sections. We could just blast through it if you want. 2026 2027 Chair Reckdahl: Let's just blast through it. Any comments you have. 2028 2029 Commissioner Lauing: The first five, six, seven, eight pages, I think the conclusion is 2030 we're doing pretty well already and we've got amazing resources here. As a consultant, 2031 you don't have to find stuff that's broken. It's okay to say, "Hey, this is already a pretty 2032 good place." The breadth of public and private opportunities is really pretty cool. I'm 2033 sure a number of people are going to have comments on this grid. First, I want to make 2034 sure we understand it, this two-page grid here. They're both called recreation and 2035 programs matrix. Is it just the sort that's different in terms of the x and y axis, because 2036 you're taking demographic market segments and cross-tabbing it to stuff that's available? 2037 2038 Ms. Fiore: Correct. 2039 2040 Commissioner Lauing: The other page is the reverse. Right? 2041 2042 Ms. Fiore: Correct. It's two different ways of looking at the same information. 2043 Draft Minutes 49 Approved 2044 Commissioner Lauing: A few things on this conceptually. Are you using things like 2045 Equinox Gym and University Club as examples of private stuff that's available? One 2046 argument could be we shouldn't list private stuff on here at all, because it's not in our 2047 purview. The other answer is people could take advantage of it, but they've got to pay a 2048 lot of money for it because they're really private clubs. They're not necessarily shi-shi 2049 clubs but private clubs. Should that be on here or not? 2050 2051 Ms. Fiore: The intent behind including that was to see universally where the gaps or 2052 overlaps were, recognizing again that the city is not the only provider but that some 2053 people have different levels of access to these different things. If we somehow looked 2054 around and uncovered that no one was providing aquatics, even the private providers, that 2055 would be a key finding. That's obviously not what we found, but that was the intent of 2056 including those private organizations. 2057 2058 Commissioner Lauing: Some of the examples that you have used and could use are 2059 pretty inaccessible to a lot of segments. I'm not sure that that's really valid on here. 2060 Pardon? 2061 2062 Commissioner Markevitch: Because they're private. 2063 2064 Commissioner Lauing: Yeah, because they're private and expensive. That seems a little 2065 bit of a skew to me. It's probably not necessary. I've heard in a number of groups, as 2066 we've gone through this process, that we probably don't have enough going on for 2067 seniors. That's one of the things we want to prove, if we do or we don't. Just taking that 2068 as an example, I could just go down there and check a lot of boxes that aren't checked 2069 here, if I'm using the same methodology that you are. For example, seniors can go to 2070 Brad Lozares' golf shop and that wasn't checked. They can do master gardening. They 2071 can go to a gym. They can play some community sports. They can go to the Oshman 2072 JCC which is private. They can go to the YMCA. I'm wondering why that wasn't 2073 checked. Similarly, maybe this is a different answer, when we got to people from diverse 2074 cultures nothing was checked over there. I don't know what you were saying. That's the 2075 question. Why are these not checked? What are we trying to do? 2076 2077 Ms. Fiore: The intent behind the check marks was that it was targeted towards those 2078 populations or marketed to them. It's obviously a subjective analysis. This was intended 2079 to, at a glance, identify those gaps and overlaps. Certainly it doesn't preclude that seniors 2080 could take advantage of those programs, but our read of it was that it wasn't necessarily 2081 intended for or marketed towards them primarily. 2082 2083 Commissioner Lauing: For time considerations, I would encourage you to review that 2084 and see if those make sense. There are senior rates at the golf course, for example. If 2085 Draft Minutes 50 Approved we're trying to come up with gaps, what this graph tells me right now is that it's only—2086 what do we call this again?—people from diverse cultures and young adults that aren't 2087 currently served. That's okay if we have actual data to support that. I'm just taking the 2088 summary here from your grid. I'm making a methodological comment. If that's what this 2089 says and that's what you need to support, then we need to see how you support that. That 2090 everything else is taken care of, but the other two are in pretty bad shape. That's how I 2091 read this graph. Some other people should jump in on this because (crosstalk). 2092 2093 Commissioner Hetterly: Can I jump in on that point? That's where we have a data 2094 disconnect. What this tell us is that, yeah, at Recreation Services they provide some 2095 services in all these areas, but it doesn't tell us anything about how much, what the 2096 adequacy is, how accessible they are, how affordable they are. It doesn't tell us anything 2097 about how they meet the needs of our community. It only says you might be able to find 2098 a ballet class somewhere in town either through the city or one of these millions of other 2099 providers. That's not really useful information for us as we're trying to develop programs 2100 and services. 2101 2102 Ms. Fiore: Yes, understood. 2103 2104 Commissioner Hetterly: That's the data disconnect that we keep struggling with. 2105 2106 Ms. Fiore: Yes, I had the same conversation with Rob last week. That's the second level 2107 of detail we want to add to this document. 2108 2109 Chair Reckdahl: In general in the document, most of the work is qualitative. We don't 2110 see many numbers. In this case, I think there's two outages. We have the dots here as 2111 opposed to having some number that quantifies how many people they serve or how 2112 many rooms they have for rent or whatever. Also, we need to marry that with a needs 2113 assessment. If you have one community pool, is that enough? I don't know what the 2114 needs assessment is for swimmers. Is it met or not? We really need a comparison of 2115 those two. 2116 2117 Commissioner Knopper: Also from a geographic perspective, like for over-serving in 2118 one specific area with one specific programming, like north Palo Alto is clustered with X 2119 amount of facility. Knowing that overlap too. With regard to ballet, all ballet is 2120 happening in south Palo Alto, right? That's the kind of information that would be helpful. 2121 2122 Commissioner Lauing: I have a number of comments on the key findings, but maybe we 2123 should leave that to last, just as a suggestion until we get through all the other stuff. 2124 2125 Commissioner Crommie: Even the comment on ballet classes, I don't even see how you'd 2126 figure that out, where ballet classes are. There's no heading for ballet classes. We don't 2127 Draft Minutes 51 Approved have that granularity. I don't know if we could mentally process it in a table like this. 2128 Are we going to know how many ballet classes we have and where they are and who's 2129 providing them at the end of this process or is that something we're not going to know? I 2130 just want to set expectations here. This is such a general table. One thing that caught my 2131 eye were disability services. I now can't find it. I'm having trouble with my glasses. It 2132 seemed like we weren't providing any. On the table, the second row from the bottom 2133 says people with disabilities. What caught my eye were camps. Camps is the second 2134 column from the left on page 10. I'm looking in the matrix at people with disabilities, 2135 how are they doing with camps. I don't see anything checked there. I've had friends who 2136 have teenagers that have volunteered to help camps with disabilities at the Junior 2137 Museum. I've seen them standing there and asked them what they were doing. I don't 2138 know what they were doing, but they told me they were working in camps with kids with 2139 disabilities. I don't know if it was private. These were teenagers volunteering at 2140 something during the summer. Rob, do you know? 2141 2142 Mr. de Geus: Yeah, it's a camp called Summer's Excellent Adventures. Recreation ran 2143 that camp with Abilities United in partnership for many years. They take the lion's share 2144 of coordinating that camp now. We have lots of volunteers to support that program. 2145 That's right. 2146 2147 Commissioner Crommie: The reason it catches my eye is I'm always looking for ways 2148 that teenagers can volunteer. It's a really nice service that we provide. Why isn't that 2149 checked? 2150 2151 Ms. Fiore: It sounds like that was just an oversight. 2152 2153 Commissioner Crommie: Rob, do you think it's an oversight or this isn't set up to check 2154 it? 2155 2156 Mr. de Geus: I have the most concerns about this report of all the reports as well. As I 2157 looked at the information and thinking about how do I use this information to decide 2158 where to emphasize or invest versus not for programs and services, we really don't have it 2159 with this information. 2160 2161 Commissioner Crommie: I'm wondering what this is useful for, quite frankly. Can you 2162 give me the party line on what we would do with this? 2163 2164 Ms. Fiore: Again, this is the understanding of what's on the ground, what's the universe 2165 of available recreation programs for Palo Alto residents. It provides some very 2166 preliminary thoughts on directions you could go for looking at augmenting or changing 2167 program investment at the city level. This is absolutely not intended as a decision 2168 making document. That was never the intent of it. That will be a future product. We 2169 Draft Minutes 52 Approved have gotten feedback and I think it's well understood that this is not robust enough to 2170 even get us to that middle point where we're going to base recommendations on it, which 2171 is why it's still a draft product, work in progress. 2172 2173 Commissioner Crommie: The issue I have is martial arts is broken out. Someone 2174 decided to break that out, martial arts. I don't know why that has been broken out over 2175 ballet classes. I really don't know the thinking behind it, like how it ended up there, even 2176 though I think it's important. Not a lot of things are broken out, but martial arts is 2177 considered its own category for some reason of exercise. 2178 2179 Ms. Fiore: I wasn't the primary author of this document, so I can't answer all of your 2180 questions. I apologize for that. My guess is that these were areas of concentrated 2181 programming that rose to the top because there was a certain magnitude of offering. 2182 Ballet is in fact on there; it's the second one down in the third section. What I'm hearing 2183 is that this table is not particularly useful. It may not be worth reinvesting our time in 2184 fixing it. It may just be worth revisiting our approach to this entire product, so we can 2185 move more efficiently towards recommendations. It seems to be causing more confusion 2186 than helping. 2187 2188 Commissioner Hetterly: I have a bunch of comments that are organized by page. Do you 2189 want me to just go through them? 2190 2191 Chair Reckdahl: (inaudible) 2192 2193 Commissioner Hetterly: Page 1, recreation program guidance. You mentioned the 2194 recreation strategic plan, but the Comp Plan should also be prominently present there. 2195 Commissioner Lauing already addressed the University Club issue. Page 5, where you 2196 start talking about the program areas. I couldn't figure out the rhyme or reason for what 2197 is included under each section. Some things are included everywhere, but no single 2198 section is all inclusive. I can't figure out why you chose some versus others, if there's a 2199 reason for why you want to highlight certain things. There were some notable omissions. 2200 Avenidas should figure much more prominently in every part of this, including that 2201 confusing matrix. They are our primary source for senior services, and we partner very 2202 intimately with them. Without them, we show a huge gap that maybe isn't real. Also, 2203 Peninsula Youth Theater is a huge arts provider for youth. Palo Alto Neighborhoods is 2204 one of our prides as a city for emergency preparedness, and there's no indication that the 2205 city has any role in emergency preparedness in that section. All of these program areas 2206 need to be refined, and I think you need to figure what you want to say with them. Page 2207 7, youth and teen support services. Project Safety Net isn't really a program. It's a 2208 collaborative. Sort out the details for those is what I would suggest. You have this 2209 section on hours of operation and peak use with some notes about what are the peak 2210 times. There's no data to support that. We don't know the take up rate for rental space in 2211 Draft Minutes 53 Approved community meeting rooms during those peak times or during the non-peak times. We 2212 don't know if we have a lot of vacancy at any point during the week or during the day that 2213 we should be trying to figure out how to fill. That kind of thing. That's more of that 2214 middle data that we really need. Are there any categories of classes that are over-2215 subscribed or under-subscribed? There's mention of things getting busy and having more 2216 popular classes. Does that we mean we have classes that are so popular that people can't 2217 take them? We don't know that from here. That's more the kind of notes that would be 2218 useful related to peak use. Of course Mitchell Park is now open, so this should be 2219 updated to reflect that. Page 13, under user groups and partner organizations. This 2220 second sentence about Cubberley, I didn't really understand what you were saying there. 2221 It got lost in the editing, so reword that. The sampling of partners below appears to be 2222 primarily folks who are located at Cubberley. Is that supposed to be a sampling of 2223 Cubberley partner groups or is that supposed to be citywide partner groups? We also 2224 have Audubon Society there. I don't know if they're in Cubberley or if that's on here. 2225 2226 Ms. Fiore: It was intended to be citywide, but it may be biased towards Cubberley. 2227 2228 Commissioner Hetterly: It's a little bit confusing coming right after Cubberley, so maybe 2229 clarify what that's supposed to represent. Page 16 and 17 is key findings, which I'll let Ed 2230 go first since he was saving his energy for that one. Before we get to key findings, at the 2231 top of page 16, these two paragraphs talk about low income groups that we may not be 2232 making our programs sufficiently accessible for them. Later it says conflict may exist 2233 with respect to program scheduling or overcrowding. In the next paragraph, you talk 2234 about financial hardship may mean we need more scholarships. There are all these mays 2235 and mights that we could say about probably any community in the world. This may be a 2236 problem, that may be a problem. We want to know is it a problem and should we do 2237 those things. Is this specific to Palo Alto? Do we have sufficient financial assistance to 2238 provide access? Does it or doesn't it is what I want an answer to, rather than just raising 2239 the question. Though they're good questions, it's more useful to know the answer. I'll 2240 save my key findings until everyone's had a chance to comment. 2241 2242 Chair Reckdahl: Any more questions or comments apart from key findings? 2243 2244 Commissioner Crommie: I read this, and then I started to go back to see if I could find 2245 information if I was curious about it. Maybe you can help me or someone can help me. I 2246 wanted to look and see the swim leagues, how they're listed in this document. We have 2247 PASA swim league. Can you help me find where that would be listed? It might be here 2248 somewhere. It might be in the ... 2249 2250 Commissioner Hetterly: It's the first thing under program areas, aquatics. 2251 2252 Commissioner Crommie: What page is that on? 2253 Draft Minutes 54 Approved 2254 Commissioner Hetterly: Page 4. 2255 2256 Commissioner Crommie: Is that listed as a provider? 2257 2258 Commissioner Hetterly: No, every provider is not listed. 2259 2260 Commissioner Crommie: That's what we're pointing out here. That's a huge swim 2261 program. When I hear people talking about new pools, we need to know how our pools 2262 are currently used. We have a private organization that uses Rinconada. I know because 2263 my kids swam in it. That's not run by the city; that's a group coming in and using it for 2264 competitive swim league. I want to see some analysis on that. Maybe they need to clear 2265 out and make room for residents. Those are the kinds of questions I ask. I don't see that I 2266 can get that kind of information in here. It's just a glaring gap for me in the aquatics 2267 analysis. 2268 2269 Chair Reckdahl: Ed, you can start with the key points. You've been on deck for a long 2270 time. 2271 2272 Commissioner Lauing: I'm very confused by this entire section. I'm sorry to say. I don't 2273 think this is just a semantic point, but I don't see a lot of these things as being findings. 2274 First is the strategic directions. The first point, that's fine. The second one, I don't think I 2275 actually understand. We need to revise things a bit. We're always doing that, so I don't 2276 quite get that. The third one, I also don't understand, because we need an appropriate role 2277 for recreation in addressing recreation trends. I just don't follow what that is. I don't 2278 want to wordsmith each one of these and take the time, so I'm trying to buzz through it. 2279 In the programming section, I'd take out three of the five. The only things that are 2280 findings are something like this emergency preparedness and gardening are called out 2281 separately and there's a gap in programs and services targeted at young adults. The 2282 specialized divisions that have used outside funding, that's not a finding; it's a fact. It's 2283 good, but I don't see that that's a conclusion. Similarly, something like special events 2284 have been underfunded for the last few years. That's just a piece of history; that's not 2285 findings. This needs to be rewritten. The facilities thing was a big confusing. I didn't 2286 know what the recommendation is on Lucie Stern. To make it more productive as a more 2287 specialized facility servicing smaller segment of the marketplace, playing to strengths of 2288 existing facilities; I don't get it. There's another one of those. We know this here. Again, 2289 it's not a finding. We know we have some great facilities that aren't anywhere else. 2290 We're not learning anything from that, nor will Council. There was some comments on 2291 Cubberley. We're very familiar with that issue. I could say more, but I'll stop there. 2292 2293 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Knopper. 2294 2295 Draft Minutes 55 Approved Commissioner Knopper: Hi. I would concur. I just keep putting question marks next to 2296 almost every paragraph. For instance, since you were just talking about Lucie Stern, 2297 about the historic character and that the programming should reflect that. I don't even 2298 know what that means. I literally do not have enough information to actually comment, 2299 other than I'm a little confused. I like analytics. I like, "Okay, so we have 43,000 ballet 2300 classes. This is where they're located geographically. Based on population and all of the 2301 data we've collected, you really only need 37,000." Great, that makes sense to me. I just 2302 keep feeling like I'm reading these paragraphs with a lot of words that just aren't gelling. 2303 That's it. I'm done. 2304 2305 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Crommie. 2306 2307 Commissioner Crommie: I'll just bring up a couple of points that struck me. 2308 Commissioner Lauing and Knopper have made really good points. Ed was pretty 2309 specific, so that's probably going to help you. The key findings are really important, 2310 because sometimes that's all people read. We're going to need more input on this. We 2311 have to go through this document again, because we want to get it right. We want to feel 2312 good about this. Something that struck me was under programming areas and 2313 populations, the fourth bullet point. I feel like I have my finger on the pulse of the Junior 2314 Museum as a user, because my kids took virtually every camp that was offered there. 2315 When you say something like it's not present in other areas, I agree with that. Our Junior 2316 Museum is completely unique. As a parent shopping around for camps, I'd much rather 2317 send my kids there than Camp Galileo for instance, because of the quality of the staff. As 2318 a user, that just stood out incredibly to me. The city made a big investment to have a 2319 really high quality educational program there. The bottom line in my experience is most 2320 of those camps filled up really quickly. As a resident of Palo Alto, I wouldn't want you 2321 to make some regional advertisements, to strain our staff to provide even more classes. I 2322 don't understand the thinking there. Can you explain that to me? 2323 2324 Ms. Fiore: Again, I'm not the author of this document. My guess would be that other 2325 communities might make a policy decision that they want to attract regional visitors 2326 either for revenue reasons or for public relations reasons or to help serve gaps that exist 2327 regionally. That may very well not be the case based on what you just described. Again, 2328 it's one of those may considerations that we're floating out there without drawing a 2329 conclusion about it. 2330 2331 Commissioner Crommie: That's an area where you need to understand our community 2332 more. There's a lot of anxiety around being a regional supplier. It's hugely controversial 2333 in this city. You can't be superficial about it at all. That's a hot button topic as far as I 2334 see. It has to do with playing fields, our theater program. Do we want to be a supplier of 2335 high quality science camps for the rest of the region? That has to do with use. It's 2336 connected to how popular are they. It's all these economic considerations that are really 2337 Draft Minutes 56 Approved deeper than just a superficial statement maybe we should go after it regionally. Let me 2338 make one other comment. This also has to do with regional activities. For me, how 2339 much the city subsidizes the activity really makes a difference in how you want to go 2340 after it regionally. From this Commission, we've learned that we subsidize our theater 2341 programs quite a bit, to the point some of us think maybe too much as a city. If it's a 2342 highly subsidized program, I wouldn't want to subsidize it for the region. You see how 2343 the economics plays under decisions? 2344 2345 Ms. Fiore: Yeah, absolutely. 2346 2347 Commissioner Crommie: I don't know within this report how regional considerations are 2348 going to be handled. They have to be handled ... 2349 2350 Commissioner Markevitch: (inaudible) 2351 2352 Commissioner Crommie: Children's Theatre groups. We subsidize that as a city, 2353 probably more highly than any other services. I'm interested in that. As a Commission, 2354 we've been interested in how it all works. We've received tables on it, so we could see 2355 for ourselves the economics of it all. Again, it comes back to playing fields. A hot topic 2356 in this city is what to do about playing fields and whether we should provide those 2357 regionally or not. We don't really know how that all works. There are a lot of forces at 2358 play. 2359 2360 Ms. Fiore: Right, understood. Ultimately whether you want to be a regional provider, 2361 again is a policy directive from this group and from Council. That's a decision that needs 2362 to be made, and then your programming will fall out from that. We're not making any 2363 recommendations on that front right now. Again, I understand your point that you need 2364 more information to even start to get there. 2365 2366 Commissioner Crommie: I'm just reacting to an off-hand comment on this bullet point. 2367 It's just sort of dangling a bit. It's not well developed. 2368 2369 Ms. Fiore: Yes, I understand your point. Thank you. 2370 2371 Commissioner Crommie: Not that it's a bad topic. 2372 2373 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Markevitch. 2374 2375 Vice Chair Markevitch: Going back to the Lucie Stern Center. 2376 2377 Commissioner Lauing: Which page? 2378 2379 Draft Minutes 57 Approved Vice Chair Markevitch: Under facilities. It says it's a major asset to the city. When 2380 you're talking about the Lucie Stern Center, are you referring to the community room, the 2381 ballroom, the fireside room? Are you also including the theater in there? The Children's 2382 Theatre is spelled out in the next bullet point, but Main Stage is not. There are three 2383 companies that pretty much take up the bulk of the usage, about 90 percent. I want to 2384 make sure they're protected, because they're special. Without that protection, they would 2385 not be able to thrive. I just want to make sure that somewhere in here the Main Stage 2386 theater is listed. 2387 2388 Ms. Fiore: Okay. 2389 2390 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Hetterly. 2391 2392 Commissioner Hetterly: I agree with many of the comments that came before me. Under 2393 strategic directions, I'm not sure what you're trying to get at with strategic directions. 2394 You should have reference to the Comp Plan and the strategic plan working hand in hand. 2395 There should be some connection in here to the Cost of Service Study, and maybe that 2396 will come out in the revenue analysis. Those seem to me strategic initiatives that are 2397 relevant to this plan. I also am confused about those second two bullets under that 2398 section. Under programming areas and populations, the first bullet talked about missing 2399 opportunities to work together because of a decentralization of function. Rather than 2400 talking about missed opportunities, I think you're saying we should identify high value 2401 opportunities to bridge the gaps. I think I got lost in wordsmithing there. I'm sorry. On 2402 facilities, the first bullet, the Cubberley Community Center, that last sentence says, 2403 "Finding a replacement venue for the most important of Cubberley's program offerings 2404 should be a priority." Having been on the Cubberley Community Center Advisory 2405 Committee, that shouldn't be the priority. You could say "or," but there should be some 2406 mention of redesigning facility for more appropriate and efficient use to meet our needs 2407 onsite rather than trying to move services elsewhere. Finally, under gaps and overlaps, 2408 there is no mention of gaps even though that's in the heading. It only talks about 2409 overlaps. I would like to know what are the gaps. Also I'd like to have some more 2410 qualitative overlay of where are overlaps unnecessary versus beneficial. That's all I have 2411 for that section. 2412 2413 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Crommie. 2414 2415 Commissioner Crommie: I just have one quick point. On the gaps and overlaps, you 2416 have a sub-bullet saying, "The JCC primarily serves the surrounding community's Jewish 2417 population." That's not my perception of it. I don't know that there's this huge 2418 surrounding Jewish community. There is an established onsite community of retired 2419 people. As far as it being a Jewish section of town, I'm not aware of that. I'm aware of 2420 people traveling there from many parts of town. Did I misread this? 2421 Draft Minutes 58 Approved 2422 Ms. Fiore: Yeah. I don't think that surrounding community in this context was meant as 2423 neighborhood. I think it's more of a citywide/regional community. 2424 2425 Commissioner Knopper: It serves the Jewish community. 2426 2427 Commissioner Crommie: I think of the pool there. This is about aquatics, isn't it? 2428 There's so much going on there; what are you referring to on that sub-bullet? 2429 2430 Ms. Fiore: The point here is about aquatics. While there are multiple providers, they 2431 each target different parts of the market. The JCC may draw a different crowd than the 2432 YMCA (crosstalk). 2433 2434 Commissioner Crommie: I don't know that, unless you show me. I really don't know 2435 that. I don't know if more Jewish people go there than the Y. Is that what you're trying 2436 to say in this sub-bullet point? 2437 2438 Ms. Fiore: We're not trying to make any point about quantity, rather that there are 2439 multiple providers serving the market. 2440 2441 Commissioner Crommie: You have the word "primarily" which is a red flag to me. 2442 You're using the word "primarily," and I'm not sure that's accurate. 2443 2444 Chair Reckdahl: I just have one comment. On that same page, that last bullet really 2445 summarizes what is wrong with the document. It says, "In many cases programming 2446 overlaps are not an indication (inaudible), rather they confirm that these are popular, in-2447 demand programs." Without numerically estimating both need and supply, you can't 2448 make that statement. This whole section talks about this and that, but it's all very 2449 qualitative. In real estate, it's location, location, location. In a study like this, it's metrics, 2450 metrics, metrics. We need to know numerically what is the demand, numerically what is 2451 the supply. The difference in those two will tell us whether we are serving that need or 2452 not. The fact that there's 17 hamburger places in Palo Alto, that doesn't necessarily mean 2453 there's a shortage of hamburgers or an excess. It depends on the relative supply. That's 2454 what I want to see more of. Rob, do you want to add anything? 2455 2456 Mr. de Geus: That's really good feedback. It's such an important report. We've got to 2457 get it right. I totally understand that, but I'm concerned because we have to recalibrate 2458 expectations of what MIG's doing and how they're doing it and the data, but also the 2459 expectations of what this report is going to do and be. I don't think it can be all of what 2460 you're hoping it will be. For instance, if we look at the JCC, we're not going to have all 2461 the data about the JCC and demand and use there or the YMCA or some of these other 2462 providers. 2463 Draft Minutes 59 Approved 2464 Chair Reckdahl: In the city classes, if we know they fill up in five minutes—just the 2465 vacancy rates on all the facilities tells a lot. 2466 2467 Mr. de Geus: That data we have. I agree with you it ought to be in here. 2468 2469 Chair Reckdahl: That doesn't tell us if there's some niche that's not met at all. (crosstalk) 2470 cricket class, we don't know whether it fills up or not. 2471 2472 Commissioner Lauing: The next page, which is needs, opportunities and challenges, 2473 outlines in five bullet points what we're trying to get. I would totally agree with you. If 2474 we're not going to get that, we better make some serious changes. It says stuff in the 2475 second point, results of analyses including gaps in parks and programs and unmet 2476 community demand. That's a big part of what we're trying to get. The other stuff is that 2477 as well. If in the midst of this process we don't think we're going to get that, then we 2478 better start setting Council's expectation that that's not what's going to come out of it. I'm 2479 not saying that, but I'm agreeing with you that if we need to adjust, let's adjust. 2480 2481 Mr. de Geus: That's what I want to take a second look at. Maybe I take a look at it with 2482 a couple of Commissioners, just to go back and re-look at the scope that we defined, the 2483 outreach plan that we defined. Just to be sure that we have clear expectations of what 2484 we're going to receive in this report. We can adapt if we need to take a little longer to 2485 make sure we get it right. I do feel like we do ... 2486 2487 Commissioner Crommie: I would say don't overstate. I'm reacting to statements that I 2488 think might not be true. You have to be very careful about what you say. 2489 2490 Mr. de Geus: I completely agree. 2491 2492 Chair Reckdahl: Frankly, I don't really care whether the JCC serves Jews or non-Jews. 2493 It's irrelevant. Just say what's the capacity; that's more important. 2494 2495 Mr. de Geus: We talked about data and what is the metrics. I agree that really should be 2496 driving the report and the findings. I wonder whether it would be helpful to have a 2497 couple of Commissioners that are particularly interested in data, as we take a bit of a 2498 pause here, to think about where we're at, where we're headed, what's missing in terms of 2499 the data that we need. I certainly agree. Particularly with the recreation programming 2500 report, there's big gaps. 2501 2502 Commissioner Knopper: Do you think that the data has been collected and maybe it's 2503 just, no offense, not articulated? Sometimes when you're living it day in and day out, you 2504 just make assumptions and you don't write everything down, so they're not including 2505 Draft Minutes 60 Approved things because it's more of a shorthand to abbreviate the report. Do you think the actual 2506 data exists at this point? 2507 2508 Mr. de Geus: I think there's good data. I don't know that there's enough, probably not 2509 enough. I agree generally with where the Commission is. I struggle to understand some 2510 of this as well, because they're all coming in individual reports. I don't know how they 2511 relate to each other specifically. Some are a little further along, it seems like, than some 2512 of the other reports. I'm finding that a little challenging. I also recognize that we're still 2513 in the somewhat early phase of this. All the data hasn't come in yet. The next phase, 2514 when we're ready for it, when it starts to come all together, when start to see real trends 2515 and a picture for the future, hasn't happened yet. What I'm hearing is a fear that we're 2516 going to get to this point of prioritization before we're ready to have that conversation. 2517 2518 Commissioner Crommie: We have to take a look tonight at what the data sources are that 2519 are still coming in. Don't you think before we go home tonight we should understand 2520 that? Like what's on the docket for collection. You can probably tell us, correct? 2521 2522 Mr. de Geus: It's no surprise; you've seen it all before. It was in the outreach plan that 2523 you looked at several times. It included the Mapita research. It included the stakeholder 2524 workshops. We've had one; there's two more but that's with all of our stakeholders, 2525 representative of a lot of the stakeholders. Then we have the survey; we haven't got that 2526 data yet. That's a big piece that's missing. 2527 2528 Commissioner Crommie: We skipped a section in here. Can we just briefly look at it? 2529 We have a section on some reporting on data here. It's tabulations. 2530 2531 Commissioner Knopper: That's one of the things that is also frustrating to me. We don't 2532 have to drill down too much, but it's the format that it was presented. This was very 2533 difficult to read. It's clear that each section was probably written by a different person, 2534 because everybody has a different focus. The tables aren't consistent and there's different 2535 graphs and different kinds of bullet points. I'm not going to be overly OCD about it, but 2536 there's so much data. If it's not presented in a very formulaic way, it's just hard. 2537 2538 Mr. de Geus: The presentation of the information is an easier problem to resolve. 2539 2540 Commissioner Knopper: I agree. Maybe you can extrapolate, so people aren't as 2541 frustrated. I got very confused; I admit it. Even the way the headings are laid out. That's 2542 semantics at this point, and we have bigger fish to fry. The next time it's presented, just 2543 having a cleaner presentation might be more helpful. 2544 2545 Commissioner Lauing: In that very first report we looked at, I suggested we should have 2546 a data session around this stuff next month. If we indeed got some of this stuff that's on 2547 Draft Minutes 61 Approved page 2 of the final document: needs analysis and essential park elements, responses to 2548 demographic changes and trends, and recreation trends product. If that's really there or is 2549 going to be there, once that's there and it's digested, there's hope. The qualitative stuff 2550 isn't going to get us there. 2551 2552 Commissioner Crommie: Just responding to this report, when I look at page 14 under 2553 community workshop summary, I see things missing that I know came up at the 2554 intercepts. I'm not seeing a lot about gyms here. Maybe I'm missing it. 2555 2556 Ms. Fiore: This particular document was a summary of the three workshops that we held 2557 in October (crosstalk). 2558 2559 Commissioner Crommie: I went to two of the three. I was there, and I'm not seeing 2560 badminton. Ping pong came up strongly in one of them. 2561 2562 Commissioner Lauing: Let's focus here. 2563 2564 Commissioner Crommie: I don't know what to make of it when I don't see things. Why 2565 isn't it here under recreation? 2566 2567 Ms. Fiore: Ping pong tables is on page 15. 2568 2569 Chair Reckdahl: Right now we don’t want to be ... 2570 2571 Commissioner Crommie: We don't want to get into the details. 2572 2573 Chair Reckdahl: I agree that a lot of these points are important, but also we could be here 2574 until midnight. Ed is right in that we need to look at what data is going to be delivered. 2575 For next month, it would be very good if we say these are the pieces of hard data that's 2576 going to be delivered and where are they coming from. Are they coming from surveys? 2577 Are they coming from the city? What is the purpose? With that data, do we believe that 2578 it's going to give us actionable results for the Council? We need to be able to look at the 2579 data next month and be able to say that will be sufficient or that won't be sufficient. Ed, 2580 do you want to say anything? 2581 2582 Commissioner Lauing: That's exactly what we need to do. We'll do a gaps analysis of 2583 the data to see if we need any other data sources. 2584 2585 Chair Reckdahl: That will go for next month. 2586 2587 Mr. de Geus: Okay. 2588 2589 Draft Minutes 62 Approved Chair Reckdahl: Apart from data, do you have any more comments or questions? 2590 2591 Mr. de Geus: No. Between now and next month, does it make any sense for a 2592 Commissioner or two to work with staff on this question of data? As we think about how 2593 to present that next month, we want to present something that makes sense to you all and 2594 we don't just hear more of "it's a problem." Perhaps that's something we can do after next 2595 month. If we really do recognize that there's more work that needs to be done, then we 2596 have an ad hoc committee that works on it. 2597 2598 Chair Reckdahl: We'd talked about doing an ad hoc before, but it came down that 2599 everyone was interested. We thought this was crucial, so we wanted to keep it out of ad 2600 hoc because we all wanted to be in the loop. 2601 2602 Mr. de Geus: That's right. 2603 2604 Ms. Fiore: If I may? What would be productive, as I had suggested, would be to 2605 resurface some of the products that came before. As Rob said, it has been rolling in very 2606 piecemeal and it's hard to see the big picture. Another layer of synthesis of all the pieces 2607 we've done and the stuff that's pending, and repackage that in the framework of these 2608 needs and opportunities and challenges and goals and objectives. I agree with you that 2609 this middle piece is very unclear at this point. Doing a little bit more work around that, 2610 maybe that's what we can look at as a group next month and then decide if we're ready to 2611 get to project list and recommendations after that. It will be important to articulate what 2612 these data pieces are that were scoped and what has been delivered and what's pending 2613 and whether or not that meets your and Council's objectives for data. If not, that's a big 2614 problem. 2615 2616 Commissioner Crommie: I wonder if it will help us ... 2617 2618 Chair Reckdahl: Also ... 2619 2620 Commissioner Crommie: Sorry. Go ahead. 2621 2622 Chair Reckdahl: Ed cited this last section, that two pages that summarized what will be 2623 delivered. Adding some meat onto that would be good. We really want a good 2624 description of what we're going to be delivering to Council. 2625 2626 Commissioner Lauing: This is an engineering project. We're delivering quality; we're 2627 not solving for the timeline. We can't go to an artificial timeline. If it's not ready to go, 2628 we can't release it. 2629 2630 Draft Minutes 63 Approved Commissioner Knopper: You said the survey piece was missing. That's important for us 2631 to know. I feel like if a section is inadequately supported with enough information, we 2632 shouldn't even talk about it. There's so much to dive through. To your point Ed, we 2633 shouldn't set a false date just to hit the date if we're not going to have the right result. 2634 2635 Commissioner Crommie: Do you think it's going to be helpful if we read a report you did 2636 for another city? 2637 2638 Ms. Fiore: Actually that occurred to me earlier tonight. If we could ... 2639 2640 Commissioner Crommie: Did you send us some? I'm sorry. 2641 2642 Ms. Fiore: Yeah, we could send you some ... 2643 2644 Mr. Jensen: At the last meeting, we gave three samples. They're in that plan outline. 2645 2646 Commissioner Crommie: I'll go back. I do remember reading them at the time, but I 2647 forgot. 2648 2649 Ms. Fiore: I think they went out with the memo we sent you in November/December, but 2650 we could recirculate that. I think that would be very helpful. 2651 2652 Commissioner Crommie: I'll go back and look at those. I think that does help. 2653 2654 Commissioner Reckdahl: I think we've beat that to death. Next month it's coming back, 2655 so we're going to beat it some more. 2656 2657 Mr. Jensen: It'll come back every month until it's done. This is the main thing you're 2658 going to be working on. 2659 2660 Commissioner Lauing: That sounds like a threat, Peter. 2661 2662 Mr. Jensen: It is. 2663 2664 Mr. de Geus: We're going to wear you out. 2665 2666 Commissioner Hetterly: Maybe we can put it earlier in the agenda next month, so she 2667 doesn't have to catch us at our tired and grumpiest. 2668 2669 Chair Reckdahl: Yes, that is true. 2670 2671 Draft Minutes 64 Approved 6. Ad Hoc Committee and Liaison updates. 2672 2673 Chair Reckdahl: Deirdre and I went out to Byxbee on Sunday to look around. We expect 2674 we'll have some type of briefing next month, talking about the trail up top, and come to 2675 some conclusion whether we like the layout right now or we think there's room for 2676 improvement. Daren had some feedback that he's going to be giving to Deirdre. We'll 2677 be, I assume, sometime in the next month meeting with Daren. 2678 2679 Commissioner Crommie: Not you and me? We're both together. 2680 2681 Chair Reckdahl: You, me and Daren will get together sometime in the next month. 2682 2683 Commissioner Crommie: We hope so. Stacey Ashlund and I are on the Lucy B. Evans 2684 Interpretive Center ad hoc committee. We've had one meeting with Daren Anderson and 2685 one with John Aiken to discuss some CIPs that have been written up for the Lucy Evans 2686 Interpretive Center. We've already done our work, but we didn't get on the Agenda so 2687 we'll report next month. The work has already been done. I guess that's it. 2688 2689 Chair Reckdahl: Anything with dog parks? 2690 2691 Commissioner Hetterly: We had a short one, but we'll save it for next month. 2692 2693 Commissioner Lauing: Where are we on CIPs? Should we reconvene that one? Do you 2694 know, Rob? 2695 2696 Rob de Geus: We can give an update next month. 2697 2698 7. Discussion of Possible Dates for the PARC 2015 Retreat. 2699 2700 Commissioner Knopper: You mean next December? 2701 2702 Rob de Geus: (inaudible) 2703 2704 Commissioner Lauing: This is the Retreat. 2705 2706 Commissioner Crommie: I wanted to mention something about the Retreat. 2707 2708 Commissioner Knopper: What Retreat? 2709 2710 Chair Reckdahl: The one we go up to Foothills Park. 2711 2712 Commissioner Knopper: (inaudible) 2713 Draft Minutes 65 Approved 2714 Vice Chair Markevitch: (inaudible) this year. 2715 2716 Chair Reckdahl: That's usually in February. 2717 2718 Commissioner Crommie: I want to throw out whether we can do it at the Lucy Evans 2719 Interpretive Center. I've been talking to Daren about doing some canoeing with our 2720 Commission. He said he would get the canoes. I was wondering if we could combine 2721 our Retreat with a little tour. Plan it around the tides. Would anyone be interested in 2722 doing that? Maybe we could just—is that too much? A separate event? 2723 2724 Vice Chair Markevitch: How about an optional? 2725 2726 Commissioner Crommie: After the event maybe? 2727 2728 Commissioner Lauing: Scuba maybe? 2729 2730 Commissioner Crommie: The city owns canoes. I don't think we own scuba gear. I was 2731 just ... 2732 2733 Commissioner Lauing: What about dates? Dates? 2734 2735 Vice Chair Markevitch: We're just trying to nail down the date, not ... 2736 2737 Mr. de Geus: Is Friday best for folks? It seemed like that was best last time. We can 2738 poll Commissioners for a Friday in February. Friday morning. 2739 2740 Commissioner Hetterly: Early March is better for me. 2741 2742 Mr. de Geus: Early March. 2743 2744 Commissioner Hetterly: I defer to the Chair entirely. 2745 2746 Commissioner Crommie: Maybe we need a poll with a couple of dates at the end of 2747 February or beginning of March. 2748 2749 Commissioner Markevitch: That sounds (inaudible). 2750 2751 Chair Reckdahl: Friday morning, is 10:00 a good time for people or do you guys want it 2752 early so you have more of the day left? 2753 2754 Vice Chair Markevitch: Just send out the poll. 2755 Draft Minutes 66 Approved 2756 Chair Reckdahl: Cat, give them options for dates, but also give them options for times 2757 too. We have that set. 2758 2759 V. COMMENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS 2760 2761 Chair Reckdahl: I see none. 2762 2763 Commissioner Markevitch: You're learning. 2764 2765 Commissioner Lauing: You're getting the hang of this, Keith. 2766 2767 Commissioner Knopper: She has one. 2768 2769 Commissioner Hetterly: Just a tiny thing to add to the calendar. The State of the City is 2770 February 18th, Wednesday, at 7:00 p.m., if people are interested in hearing the story of 2771 the state of the city and what the next year's going to look like. 2772 2773 Chair Reckdahl: What was the date of that? 2774 2775 Commissioner Hetterly: February 18th and it'll be at Mitchell Park. 2776 2777 VI. TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR FEBRUARY 24, 2015 MEETING 2778 2779 Chair Reckdahl: Coming next week, we'll talk about the 7.7 acres. 2780 2781 Commissioner Knopper: Month. 2782 2783 Chair Reckdahl: Next month. The 7.7 acres, particularly we want to talk about Acterra, 2784 public access. 2785 2786 Commissioner Markevitch: Hydrologic study. 2787 2788 Commissioner Knopper: It should be an action item. 2789 2790 Commissioner Markevitch: Just state it's an action item. 2791 2792 Chair Reckdahl: Yes, action item. Hydrological study. I want to polish this a little 2793 more. We are giving a recommendation to Council or are we deciding whether we want 2794 to give a recommendation to Council? What is our purpose for the 7.7 acres discussion 2795 next month? 2796 2797 Draft Minutes 67 Approved Rob de Geus: It will be a recommendation. Given today's comments, staff will write 2798 another staff report with a staff recommendation. We'll list it as an action item, and then 2799 you can discuss it next month. 2800 2801 Chair Reckdahl: If the recommendation is wait until the study's done, that would be the 2802 recommendation? 2803 2804 Mr. de Geus: Right. 2805 2806 Chair Reckdahl: Waiting is an option. I'm happy with that. That's one item. Then the 2807 Master Plan. 2808 2809 Mr. de Geus: We also have the Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo. They were hoping to 2810 come this evening, but there wasn't time. There's been one community meeting on this 2811 already. Commissioner Lauing attended, which was great. There's big plans to renovate, 2812 rebuild the Junior Museum and Zoo with the help of the Friends that supports that 2813 program. They have conceptual plans of that. 2814 2815 Chair Reckdahl: What is the timeframe for that? 2816 2817 Mr. de Geus: We are in negotiations with the Friends this year to work through a 2818 construction agreement and potential governance agreement after it gets rebuilt with 2819 them. 2820 2821 Chair Reckdahl: I thought there was some part of Rinconada that we were waiting and 2822 going to do in tandem when they remodeled the Junior Museum. 2823 2824 Mr. de Geus: There is an environmental study that's happening with Rinconada Park that 2825 includes the Junior Museum and Zoo. 2826 2827 Chair Reckdahl: Some of the construction near there we wanted to do simultaneously 2828 with the Museum remodel. 2829 2830 Mr. de Geus: That's possible. 2831 2832 Vice Chair Markevitch: Could that possibly move to March, since February is already 2833 pretty packed? 2834 2835 Commissioner Crommie: What else is on there? 2836 2837 Commissioner Lauing: They're a long way from even raising all the money yet, so we 2838 don't have to do this next month. 2839 Draft Minutes 68 Approved 2840 Peter Jensen: It's mostly now based on the environmental report that's in conjunction 2841 with the Rinconada Long Range Plan. To keep on track and not push that out any 2842 further, already the environmental report is going to take until December of this. Every 2843 month that goes by just pushes that out further. The presentation will be solely on their 2844 proposed plan. Some of that you've started to look at already with the Long Range Plan 2845 and the expanded footprint into the park, which is probably the key thing to look at. As 2846 far as the length of time the presentation can go, it's not a very long presentation and 2847 discussion for this set, because it'll be coming back several times as the plan evolves. It 2848 would help to keep it on its environmental track to go next month. We were trying to get 2849 it on tonight, but I didn't think you guys wanted to be here until 1:00 in the morning. 2850 2851 Commissioner Hetterly: We have to review it before it can go to the environmental 2852 review process. 2853 2854 Mr. Jensen: Yeah. Some of that process is the feedback from the boards and 2855 commissions. That goes along with the studies. 2856 2857 Commissioner Crommie: What's making next month's agenda so busy? I haven't heard. 2858 2859 Chair Reckdahl: The Master Plan. We spent an hour and a half on the Master Plan 2860 tonight. 2861 2862 Commissioner Crommie: We have the bridge which is (inaudible). What are our other 2863 items? 2864 2865 Vice Chair Markevitch: 7.7 acres. 2866 2867 Mr. de Geus: 7.7 acres. 2868 2869 Commissioner Crommie: That's two. 2870 2871 Vice Chair Markevitch: If people could be briefer in their comments, it would go 2872 smoother. 2873 2874 Chair Reckdahl: It hurt us tonight. 2875 2876 Vice Chair Markevitch: You can't always count on that. 2877 2878 Chair Reckdahl: Tonight we had a half hour worth of consumer content too. 2879 2880 Draft Minutes 69 Approved Commissioner Crommie: This is later than usual, but we haven't had a late meeting in a 2881 long time. 2882 2883 Chair Reckdahl: My inclination would be to try to do that. If something pops up in the 2884 next month when we make the agenda, we will push it off a month. Let's strive for it 2885 right now, and we can examine the final agenda and see if ... 2886 2887 Commissioner Lauing: Having seen the presentation that we're going to get, I do agree 2888 that it's pretty short. We won't have as much public comment as they did. 2889 2890 Commissioner Crommie: I was also interested in getting someone to report to us on the 2891 Measure E parcel, where it stands. It could be pushed out, but it'd be nice to hear back. 2892 There were a lot of decisions that were made on that in the last couple of months. 2893 2894 Mr. de Geus: We have someone ready to come. We'll put it on the list for February or 2895 March. 2896 2897 Commissioner Crommie: It is affecting parkland. 2898 2899 Chair Reckdahl: Is that it or do you have any more? 2900 2901 Mr. de Geus: No. Just back to announcements. I did want to mention that we'll be going 2902 to Council February 9th to ask them for additional funds to continue to operate the golf 2903 course. We still don't have permits. We're inching along, making progress. Mostly it's 2904 in the hands of Senior Engineer Joe Teresi working with the regulatory agencies. We 2905 don't have them in hand yet, and we had budgeted to fund the golf course until the end of 2906 February. We need funds through the end of the fiscal year in the event that the permits 2907 don't come through. There'll be an updated staff report on the golf course and the status 2908 going to Council. I'll make sure you all receive that as well. I'm sure you're interested. 2909 2910 Mr. Jensen: Magical Bridge is getting closer to completion. If you would like to see the 2911 site, I do go out there almost every day. If you email me, you can probably meet me out 2912 there. It's looking like a playground now. You can really see what it looks like. We're 2913 looking at the first of March to open the playground. 2914 2915 Chair Reckdahl: It looks very nice. I can't wait to play on some of that stuff. 2916 2917 VII. ADJOURNMENT 2918 2919 Meeting adjourned on motion by Commissioner Hetterly and second by Commissioner 2920 Knopper at 11:20 p.m. 2921 Draft Minutes 70