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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2015-02-24 Parks & Recreation Summary MinutesApproved 1 2 3 4 MINUTES 5 PARKS & RECREATION COMMISSION 6 REGULAR MEETING 7 February 24, 2015 8 CITY HALL 9 250 Hamilton Avenue 10 Palo Alto, California 11 12 Commissioners Present: Stacey Ashlund, Deirdre Crommie, Jennifer Hetterly, Abbie 13 Knopper, Ed Lauing, Pat Markevitch, Keith Reckdahl 14 Commissioners Absent: 15 Others Present: Council Liaison Eric Filseth 16 Staff Present: John Aikin, Daren Anderson, Catherine Bourquin, Rob de Geus, Peter 17 Jensen, Matthew Krupp 18 I. ROLL CALL CONDUCTED BY: Catherine Bourquin 19 20 II. AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, and DELETIONS: 21 22 None. 23 24 III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS: 25 26 Chair Reckdahl: I have one card for David Carnahan. David, you have two minutes. 27 28 David Carnahan: Thank you, Chair Reckdahl and Commissioners. David Carnahan, 29 Deputy City Clerk, here to talk to you about commission recruitment. Currently the city 30 is looking to fill terms on the Human Relations Commission, three terms on the HRC, 31 three terms on the Public Art Commission, and two terms on the Utilities Advisory 32 Commission. Terms on all three commissions run for three years, from May 1st of this 33 year through April 30, 2018. The deadline to apply is March 3rd. I'm coming to all the 34 boards and commissions in hopes that commission members know people that they could 35 refer for application, as well as members of the public that attend meetings and watch 36 from home may be interested. These are great opportunities for members of the 37 community to give back to their community and help shape the future of Palo Alto. 38 Draft Minutes 1 Approved There are a few specific requirements for each board and commission. For HRC, the 39 Human Relations Commission, you need to be a Palo Alto resident. For the Utilities 40 Advisory Commission, each member needs to be a Utilities customer or a representative 41 of a Utilities customer. Did you guys hear any of that? Okay, good. For Public Art, it's 42 a bit of a mouthful. There's really no concise way to say this, so I'm just going to read it 43 to you. The requirements to be on the Public Art Commission: members shall either be 44 members of the Architectural Review Board or shall be professional visual artists, visual 45 arts educators, professional visual arts scholars, or visual arts collectors whose authorities 46 and skills are known and respected in the community and whenever feasible who have 47 demonstrated an interest in and have participated in the arts program of the city. You 48 also do not need to be a Palo Alto resident to serve on the Public Art Commission. 49 Again, applications for all three commissions are due on March 3rd. We have 50 applications at the back of the chambers. They're also available online. If there are any 51 questions, please contact the Clerk's office. Does the Commission have any questions? 52 All right. Thank you very much. 53 54 IV. BUSINESS: 55 56 Chair Reckdahl: Before we move on to new business, this probably should be an 57 announcement at the end, but I'm going to move it up. Congratulations to our liaison, 58 Rob de Geus, on his new position. He is now head of Community Services. We 59 appreciate that. 60 61 Rob de Geus: Thank you very much. Much appreciated. It's an honor and a privilege. 62 Thank you. 63 64 Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. 65 66 1. Approval of Draft Minutes from the Regular Meeting of January 27, 2015. 67 68 Approval of the draft January 27, 2015 Minutes was moved by Vice Chair Markevitch 69 and seconded by Commissioner Hetterly. Passed 6-0 Ashlund abstaining 70 71 2. Information Report on the Conceptual Plans for the Re-Building of the Palo 72 Alto Junior Museum and Zoo. 73 74 Rob de Geus: We'll invite John Aikin up here, and team. Let me just introduce John. 75 John's the Director of the Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo. I have to say one of the 76 great things about becoming Director of the Department is I get to be involved in some 77 areas where I haven't been involved as much recently. The Junior Museum and Zoo is an 78 example of that. It's such a great program. When is the last time the Commissioners 79 have been to the Junior Museum and Zoo? Pretty recently? You've got to go back. John 80 Draft Minutes 2 Approved and team are doing a great job there. It's fantastic. It's a treasure of a place for the 81 community, and it's bursting at the seams, and it has been for some time. I'm excited to 82 have John here to talk about what could be in the future for this wonderful program. 83 With that, let me pass it on to John. 84 85 John Aikin: Thank you, Rob, for that wonderful introduction. Commissioners, I'm 86 pleased to be here to bring you up to speed with something that we've been planning for a 87 couple of years. The Friends of the Junior Museum and Zoo have been fundraising and 88 helping the city come up with concepts for what this could be, but it didn't become an 89 official city project until a letter of intent was authorized by the Council, I guess, at the 90 end of the last fiscal year. This is our first opportunity to really come to you formally and 91 bring this project forward. I'm very excited to do it. I'd like to introduce the members of 92 the team here. Sarah Vaccaro from Cody Anderson Wasney Architects here in Palo Alto. 93 Peter Jensen, I think you know our landscape architect. I'm going to let Peter set the 94 context for this in terms of the Master Plan. 95 96 Peter Jensen: In association with the Junior Museum and Zoo Project, this was an aspect 97 of the Rinconada Long Range Plan, which you haven't heard about in a little while as far 98 as the expanding footprint of the Junior Museum and Zoo building and Zoo itself that 99 was shown in the Long Range Plan. The Rinconada Long Range Plan is a joint, I guess, 100 venture with the Junior Museum and Zoo as far as getting its environmental work done. 101 The recommendations that were part of the Long Range Plan are basically now being 102 reviewed as far as environmental review. That's how these two projects are joined 103 together. The Long Range Plan did show the expanded footprint of the Junior Museum 104 and Zoo. It was shown at several community meetings and discussed about the future 105 expansion of the Junior Museum and Zoo. No public opposition came to light from those 106 meetings, and I don't image that they will. As Rob said, it is a cherished item in Palo 107 Alto. The Junior Museum and Zoo is really beloved, the building and the Zoo. That's 108 how it connects to the Long Range Plan. Those two things in their environmental work 109 are going along together. Without further ado, I'll turn it back to John and the consultant 110 to talk more about the Junior Museum and Zoo. 111 112 Mr. Aikin: If you'll turn to your screens, our mission is to engage a child's curiosity in 113 science, to encourage exploration, and to build a foundation for understanding and a 114 lifelong respect for nature. We chose those wisely, because it's really about their 115 curiosity that they bring. Science is a process, and nature is the phenomenon that we 116 want to engage them in. We've been here a long time. We're celebrating our 80th year 117 for the Museum, and the 40th year for the Zoo. We are a hybrid institution that is part 118 school, part zoo, part museum, but very much part of the community. I think part of that 119 is that we are in a residential neighborhood. We've been free for a long time for people to 120 stop by. It is has really meshed us well in the community. We have about 150,000 visits 121 a year. That's not really visitors; that's number of visits. We don't collect admission, and 122 Draft Minutes 3 Approved so this is an estimate based on nose counts throughout the year. All of them are local. 123 Many of them are repeat visitors, and they're all children 0-9 years of age and their 124 caretakers. We have a second demographic that we serve. We have probably one of the 125 greatest outreach programs that I’m aware of. In this outreach program, we provide 126 science education in our local elementary schools, and we're touching 100 percent of the 127 local elementary schools. We have robust contracts with at least 70 percent where we're 128 doing every grade, every child, every science curriculum. These are amazing programs. 129 Lots of hours with the students. Many students served. The Friends support at-risk 130 neighborhood schools pro bono, so they raise the funds and deploy city staff to teach 131 those classes in East Palo Alto and now in Mountain View. When people stop by, this is 132 all about play for a young child, but we've staged that play thoughtfully with exhibits that 133 engage them in scientific phenomena and use their whole bodies and get them to observe, 134 question, and open their minds to exploration. From there, it's the school work or it's 135 coming back and taking classes to learn more. That stage is all set in the institution. 136 We've been there for a long time. This building was built in 1941, and it no longer really 137 reflects the scale of our audience nor our storage needs or staff needs. I'll go through a 138 few of the issues. Parking conditions are pretty challenging. Let me get back to that. 139 This is actually our relationship with the park which, I think, could be much better. I 140 think there could be an entrance to that part that's more inviting. The Zoo has turned its 141 back on the park with a USDA-required fence. I think we can do a much better job of 142 having a presence in the park. The parking lot is laid out in a confusing manner that is 143 dangerous. I cringe as I see moms walk kids across that every day. We're crowded on 144 busy days, to the point that on rainy days we take cell phone numbers to call moms 145 waiting in their cars, because we don't have enough room in the institution. We're chock 146 full of storage places and we have great people that take wonderful care of our animals, 147 but we can do much more if we build new facilities that reflect modern husbandry 148 practices and modern zoo conditions. We have about 4,000 objects in our collections, 149 and we've been Palo Alto's attic for a long time. We've got a lot of interesting things. 150 Some of them meet our mission very well and are important to our teaching. Some of 151 them don't, and we're in the process of cataloging those, but they need to be housed in 152 accordance with standards established by the American Alliance for Museums. This 153 rebuild should allow us to do that. Those outreach programs that are so phenomenal are 154 ultimately limited by storage space and our ability to deploy teachers. This is the mother 155 ship that allows all that to occur. I'm going to turn it over to Sarah Vaccaro now, who'll 156 walk you through the current plans. 157 158 Sarah Vaccaro: Hello, Commissioners. Thank you for having us here tonight. Peter, 159 thank you for setting the stage in terms of the Long Range Plan. John, thank you for 160 setting the stage of what this treasured amenity is in the City of Palo Alto as well as the 161 facility needs in order to grow and make this program able to reach more in the 162 community. I want to set the stage with the existing facilities to begin with. This is the 163 existing site plan. The existing Museum building is shown in the dark gray. The existing 164 Draft Minutes 4 Approved Zoo footprint is shown in the light gray. This overlays the Rinconada Park boundaries. 165 Rinconada Park along with Lucie Stern and the Junior Museum and Zoo sit in one large 166 public facility parcel. A part of this parcel is zoned as parkland, the Rinconada Park. 167 The current Zoo sits mostly within parkland, so the zoological program is an approved 168 existing use within Rinconada Park. We'll circle back on that in a few minutes. This 169 diagram shows the existing Heritage Trees and special trees around the Junior Museum 170 and Zoo. The red trees are Heritage redwoods. The dark blue are Heritage oak trees. 171 There are two special trees that are highlighted with a green graphic. One is the dawn 172 redwood tree which is a special deciduous redwood tree, and then a large pecan that 173 outdates most of the buildings on this site. All of the Heritage trees will be protected 174 with this proposed expansion as well as the two specimen trees will be highlighted as 175 features in the proposed plan. As John mentioned earlier, the existing vehicular 176 circulation in the parking lot is confusing as these arrows indicate, and there are a lot of 177 collision opportunities between pedestrians and vehicles in this current organization. Part 178 of the Long Range Plan as well as working with our team, we're trying to reorganize the 179 parking lot to be much safer and clearer as well as provide additional parking spots. This 180 diagram in the dark blue or purple color shows the proposed expanded building footprint 181 for the new Museum. It is about 5,000 square feet larger than the existing footprint. That 182 is for the reasons that John outlined before of providing expanded storage capacity as 183 well as education spaces and visitor amenity spaces. The blue outline here shows the 184 proposed expanded Zoo footprint. As I mentioned, it is entirely in parkland in line with 185 providing only zoological program in the parkland which is in line with the existing zoo 186 program currently in park. The proposed expanded footprint is about 11,000 square feet 187 further into the park than the existing Zoo footprint. As Peter mentioned before, the 188 expanded Museum and Zoo footprint have both been identified in the Long Range Master 189 Plan and coordinated with the overall design of this end of the park, coordinated with the 190 other amenities that are located here. This diagram shows some of the immediate trees 191 that will be affected with this proposed expansion in the orange color. There are about 192 10-12 trees in the area immediately surrounding the existing building and Zoo that will be 193 affected and need to be removed. This is in the context of the entire larger Long Range 194 Plan. There's over 300 trees on the site. These few trees around the JMZ as well as other 195 trees on the site have been identified—there's about 50—to be removed, and then close to 196 78 trees are proposed to be planted in the Long Range Master Plan. This is the proposed 197 site plan. The darker blue color shows the proposed building location. We have the 198 Museum building on the lower side of the screen. It circles around that dawn redwood 199 tree creating an educational courtyard and a nice entrance plaza off of the drop-off zone 200 in the parking lot. This site plan shows the proposed reconfigured parking lot, which has 201 been developed in coordination with Peter and his team. The light blue shows the 202 proposed outdoor Zoo enclosure. This will be a netted enclosed area, so it will be a 203 loose-in-the-zoo concept where birds and animals will be able to roam freely as well as 204 other animals that will be in enclosed exhibits. There is a small proposed zoo support 205 building that is located in the park. This will provide support such as animal care and 206 Draft Minutes 5 Approved feeding rooms and other quarantine-type spaces to allow for proper husbandry care for 207 the animals. The lightest blue is the back-of-house support area for the Zoo as well. One 208 thing to note in this plan is that we are proposing a public restroom on the park side of the 209 proposed Zoo building, and this will be accessed from the park and serve as a public 210 amenity on this end of Rinconada Park as there's currently no public restrooms. That's it 211 for this time. 212 213 Mr. Aikin: We have a few other drawings here we could ask questions, but we wanted to 214 target this informational session to you with issues that we thought were pertinent to park 215 planning and not get into zoo and museum design and things like that. If you have 216 questions, we have a few more slides we can get to. Thank you. 217 218 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioners, comments or questions? Commissioner Knopper. 219 220 Commissioner Knopper: Thank you for your presentation. Could you just explain, you 221 have the proposed Zoo footprint and then the proposed Zoo building and then there's a 222 gray area that sits underneath that. I can't point. 223 224 Ms. Vaccaro: This area? 225 226 Commissioner Knopper: Yes. What is that? 227 228 Ms. Vaccaro: It's an exterior zoo support area. There will be some cages for animals that 229 need to be moved in and out of the main exhibit spaces as well as a lay-down area for 230 materials and support. It's an exterior support area for the Zoo. 231 232 Commissioner Knopper: Thank you. 233 234 Chair Reckdahl: You mentioned that the new Zoo's going to take up 11,000 more square 235 feet of parkland. Can you compare both the outside Zoo area now and then and also the 236 building areas now and then. 237 238 Ms. Vaccaro: The existing Museum building footprint is approximately 8,500 square 239 feet. The proposed Museum building footprint is approximately 13,600 square feet. 240 That's an expansion of about 5,100 square feet. The exterior Zoo enclosure, the area 241 where all the exhibits and people are able to access the existing Zoo, is 10,600 square 242 feet. We're proposing to grow it to 13,000 square feet. That's a difference of about 243 2,400. The Zoo support building, currently there is no Zoo support building, so that's 244 zero for the existing. We're proposing a 2,900 square foot building. The exterior Zoo 245 support yard that we were just speaking of currently is about 2,400 square feet, and we're 246 proposing an expanded area of 3,900 square feet. A difference of 1,500. 247 248 Draft Minutes 6 Approved Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. 249 250 Vice Chair Markevitch: I agree that the Museum and the Zoo are fantastic. They're 251 great. I'm looking at this, and I'm very concerned that Rinconada Park is getting chipped 252 away. Walter Hays took a big part of it, and now the Zoo is proposing to take a large 253 part. Earlier in your presentation, you said we want to be able to have a more welcoming 254 aspect into the Zoo from the park. Then in this later screen shot, you have a building 255 there, which is not a welcoming thing to me. All it is is a public bathroom facing into the 256 park, and then this is a working building where the animals are going to be taken care of. 257 That doesn't match up with what you had said earlier. Also, was a two-story building 258 considered, so you would take up less of a footprint and you would roll out less of the 259 Zoo into the park? That's really a sticking point with me. I just feel very strongly that 260 this park needs to stay the size it is, because it is such a wonderful park. Is this also 261 coordinating with the Rinconada Master Plan that we worked so hard on? It looks like 262 the play area and the tot lot have rolled closer to Hopkins. Does that mean that the bar-263 be-que area is now gone from there? It seems everything's getting pushed, and then some 264 stuff is just going away. I didn't see the bar-be-que area on here. That's all my questions 265 and statements for now. 266 267 Mr. Aikin: Peter, do you want to answer the question about the Master Plan? Then I'll 268 address the questions about the building. 269 270 Mr. Jensen: The playground does get pushed closer to Hopkins to make more room for 271 the Zoo building and the Zoo itself. In that corner of the park, there is nothing that really 272 takes place there. It's not like it's a high-use zone of the park. It looks like the back of 273 someone's yard, because of the fence area there. I think that the land that's being given 274 up by the park is being better utilized in this sense. If you just walk around through that 275 space, this area again is not programmed at all. It's not used at all. It's mostly full of 276 asphalt and is the back of the school. The walkway and the entry into the park with the 277 connection to the parking lot is much improved with the design, even with the larger Zoo 278 and Zoo building there. The proposed bathroom in the Zoo building is something that 279 was a high priority for the Long Range Plan of getting a bathroom down closer to the 280 playgrounds. Either way, the back of the Zoo building or the back of a restroom facility 281 aesthetically can be made to look a lot better than what is there now, as far as the wood 282 fence. Nothing as far as the amenities in the park is being lost. The playgrounds are 283 shifted closer to Hopkins, but the actual playground expands because the tot lot by the 284 tennis court is moved into this area so you have a joint playground use. The existing 285 picnic area there is reconfigured, but it actually gets larger and more amenities, such as a 286 fire pit that was requested by the Girl Scouts. In the final design of the Long Range Plan, 287 a lot more elements are being incorporated into that area than are there now, which I 288 think works very well in conjunction with the Junior Museum and Zoo and in close 289 proximity to the school that you have this node of activity where people are gathering. In 290 Draft Minutes 7 Approved the overall sense, no park amenities are being lost in any way in that location. The 291 location being taken up by the Zoo, like I said, is kind of a dead zone or dead space in the 292 park. It's not really being utilized for anything, mostly composed of asphalt right now. 293 The footprint shown was in the Long Range Plan discussed with the community. 294 295 Mr. Aikin: I'd love to address the issue of the building and the back-of-house building in 296 the Zoo. We do have buildings in the Zoo today, but they're scattered, small CMU 297 buildings, and really don't reflect modern husbandry practices. What we are designing—298 we'll show you here—is a two-story building so that we can have public access on the 299 roof deck which is a butterfly garden. It's essentially a greenhouse on the second floor. 300 Down on the first floor is back-of-house animal care as well as underground exhibits for 301 kids to go underground and underwater to see animals. It's really a stacked zoo with a 302 back-of-house connected to it. This is the view from the park. The building is sunk—I 303 think it's 4 feet—underground so that the first roof layer—I think it's about 7-9 feet—304 pitches down. It's got a green roof on it. Then you can see the netting on top there above 305 the greenhouse structure. I think that it should be pleasing but, yes, it is a structure. 306 307 Vice Chair Markevitch: I had two more questions regarding the parking lot. One of 308 them was, you've closed off an entrance. Are you adding parking spaces? When you 309 have a performance that comes out of the Main Stage, everybody leaves at the same time, 310 and it can be chaotic. The other one is, I noticed alongside the garden area of Lucie Stern 311 where there's two 15-minute green striped parking spaces. It looks like you're redoing the 312 brick there. I want to be sure that what you're doing is historic to the building, because 313 it's important. I know right now it's just red brick and it's cobbled and people trip on it 314 and fall. I want some thought put into that design. 315 316 Mr. Jensen: The red brick is historic. It's actually going to be restored along that 317 walkway. Up to this point here, the existing walkway will remain not exactly like it is 318 today. It's going to be repaired within the next few months. That's using a lot of the 319 existing brick, but that will be maintained the same in the language of Lucie Stern. That 320 walkway that connects through the walk does exist through here. This portion is new 321 along with a new entry court there. That does connect you fully through the park over to 322 Lucie Stern, making a better connection to the amenities that are all there. We are aware 323 there is an elimination of a driveway into that parking lot, which currently exists in this 324 location. In the overall design, it was felt the safety and having a clear destination and 325 drop-off for the Junior Museum and Zoo was a key aspect of that design because of the 326 user group, mostly small children. Making that clear designation of having a drop-off 327 and not having the main entry pathway coming directly in front of that was a big bonus to 328 that design. The parking lot—I'm not aware of the number—20 more parking spaces in 329 the parking lot than is there now. That is accomplished by the restriping of the parking 330 lot and the expansion of the parking lot into this area here. We are in the environmental 331 review, looking at the intersection there and what can be done to ease traffic congestion 332 Draft Minutes 8 Approved in that area as well as the ease of crossing the street at that location as part of the upgrade 333 for the parking lot. 334 335 Commissioner Lauing: Thanks for your presentation. I went to the public meeting about 336 this that you presented, so I had a lot more detail which was helpful. The overall 337 question is obviously going to be the intrusion on the park as existing. Just to pick up on 338 what Commissioner Markevitch has said, it's almost doubling the intrusion there. That 339 night when I saw it in the public meeting and I see it here in the document, I guess the 340 question is, if you had to scale back, how would you prioritize what you would take out 341 to fit it in? If we do remodels, we don't get to buy the land next door. We just have to fit 342 it on the site. When I go through here and I see things like storage or maintenance or 343 exterior animal cages, interior stroller parking, not just exterior but interior stroller 344 parking, offices, I can't prioritize those. If we're giving up square footage of parkland for 345 people to have better offices and storage, maybe offsite storage could be helpful, and 346 2,000 of the 4,000 specimens could be offsite. Obviously it has to be in the right kind of 347 conditions. The general question is, how would you prioritize to make it smaller? 348 Maybe you can't answer that tonight, but at some point I think that the various 349 commissions should see an alternative that's smaller so that they can judge what you'd 350 have to give up. That's kind of the driver. Another question in that regard is, since you're 351 basically taking down the building and starting over because it's so magnificent, was 352 there any consideration given to just finding a different location? It's already so jammed 353 with the school and the parking lot and the community center and the park itself, maybe 354 we should just look at a different location for it entirely. You touched on it, but at some 355 point you'll have the opportunity to go into more detail. You're now going to draw more 356 visitors in, and you're already doing some outreach to Mountain View and East Palo Alto, 357 and this is going to be spectacular. Plus or minus 20 car spaces may not be enough. At 358 some point, the city has to come up with the tough decision that parking spaces are going 359 to have to go underground as expensive as they are, because we're planning for the next 360 50 years. Maybe something as radial and as expensive as that has to be tossed into the 361 mix. I think that's the fundamental issue, the relative size, what you give up and the 362 increased folks that are coming through here that would have to come in to see this new 363 magnificent spot, where we are going to put them as well. 364 365 Mr. Aikin: If I could just quickly mention what that footprint in the park does versus 366 what the footprint in the non-park area where the Museum sits now. It's primarily animal 367 enclosures and animal back-of-house. I say primarily because there's one office for the 368 Zoo Director who sits in the Zoo today. The back-of-house is really needed to operate a 369 zoo according to the accreditation standards of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. 370 The animal collection is pretty much the animal collection that we have today with a 371 couple of additions, the butterfly house and a meerkat exhibit. They're scaled to meet 372 those accreditation standards, and so the reality is the Zoo today has exhibits that are too 373 small. If we get criticisms, it's usually about "Gosh, couldn't these animals have a little 374 Draft Minutes 9 Approved bit more room?" I think we are pushed up against Walter Hays on one side, a parking lot 375 on another, a park on the other side, and there's only so much room . We did look at 376 other sites before we ventured in on this. The conclusion that we came to is that the 377 relationship with the community for this location and this institution was a great deal 378 of—a big part of the equity of this institution and the relationship with the community 379 was the ease of transport to get here. The other site that we looked at was off a freeway, 380 but it required everybody to get into a car and not ride a bike or take a Palo Alto shuttle 381 or walk. As we solve the transportation issues, I hope that we're going to be able to do it 382 in a multimodal way so that not everybody has to get here by car. We will take all this 383 into consideration and come back with some priorities. 384 385 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Hetterly. 386 387 Commissioner Hetterly: I agree with all the comments that have come before. I also 388 wanted to ask about the entry plaza. As I looked at that overview with the layout of the 389 proposed building and Zoo area, it looked like the entrance plaza is as big as the 390 encroachment into the park. I wonder if there's not some way to create a better balance 391 there to reduce the impact on the park. 392 393 Mr. Aikin: I'll probably turn this to Peter to talk a little bit about that entry plaza. What 394 I'll mention is from the Museum's standpoint and our ability to throw public events and 395 have a space to really engage the public in meaningful ways outside and have gathering 396 areas, that's one of the things that we are limited now. We would love some outdoor 397 plaza space. Peter, do you have any comments about that entry plaza? 398 399 Mr. Jensen: The entry plaza, as far as the Long Range Plan goes, is proposed as a way to 400 properly link the parking lot to the park. If you've visited the park, which I'm sure you 401 have, you walk past the dumpsters and that's the way to get into the park. It doesn't really 402 have a formalized entry or connection to the parking lot. In look or what they could be 403 has not been decided yet. It's more of a placeholder in the Long Range Plan that we 404 would have some type of connection point that would lead from the parking lot. That 405 could be studied more, and we could look at the Zoo encroaching more into that space. 406 That is made more difficult by the trees that are located there, the large oak tree and the 407 large pecan tree. The encroachment into the root zone of those areas would have some 408 impact on those trees. The space that you're gaining is nominal, if any, as far as the entry 409 plaza goes in trying to add some of the space to the Zoo. I think it goes to note again that 410 the restroom facility on the backside of the Zoo was a popular amenity to the community 411 as far as its proximity to the playgrounds. That space would become, if the Zoo wasn't 412 there, a restroom facility as well and would take up the majority of that space. I think it's 413 a fair tradeoff. As you can see down at the bottom image, the Zoo then expands out into 414 this area right here. Like I said, it's the asphalt, meandering walkway that's next to the 415 school and a small portion of the larger turf area, not overly used in that respect as a main 416 Draft Minutes 10 Approved feature of the main turf area. I think the usability, the benefit that the community gets 417 from having the expanded Zoo, the beneficial impact that it has on the animals to have 418 the proper care area for them, I think those are all good reasons to look at that space as 419 being dedicated to the Zoo than to the park. 420 421 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Ashlund. 422 423 Commissioner Ashlund: I have a couple of questions. Can you go to the last diagram in 424 your presentation. The first question, in the redesign of the parking lot, are these two 425 parking lots that are shown in this diagram, are they connected? Once you're in the main 426 one, can you drive to that second portion? So they would become connected. Okay. 427 Where does the main driveway go? You said the main driveway that's currently coming 428 into the JMZ is removed. Is it now the main driveway into Lucie Stern and then you 429 would take the right into the Zoo? Yes, okay. The public restroom access, I wasn't clear. 430 Is that only once you're in the Museum and Zoo that you can access the public restroom 431 or is there an external access from the park side as well? 432 433 Ms. Vaccaro: There's an external access from the park side. Anyone using the 434 playground areas or the picnic areas would be able to come over and access the restroom 435 right off the park pathways. 436 437 Commissioner Ashlund: I applaud the addition of the Girl Scout fire pit. We've been 438 sharing the Boy Scout fire pit for many years, so I appreciate the addition of that. The 439 main question about the redesign, is the existing foundation being reused or is this a total 440 teardown and do over? 441 442 Ms. Vaccaro: We're proposing to remove the existing building. It's an older building 443 type, and it would not be easily renovated or expanded to this newer building type. It 444 would be costly. 445 446 Commissioner Ashlund: So the foundation would be redone as well? 447 448 Ms. Vaccaro: Correct. 449 450 Commissioner Ashlund: Have you given any thought to rotating the placement? I agree 451 with Commissioners' comments about the welcoming aspect of the Museum and Zoo into 452 the park. Right now it feels like the welcoming direction is still the direction that it 453 currently is. If we're redoing the whole foundation anyway, did you do any proposals 454 that looked at rotating it so that the entry plaza was more adjacent to the parkland rather 455 than the Zoo building for equipment? 456 457 Draft Minutes 11 Approved Ms. Vaccaro: We have studied numerous layouts for the entire footprint. The goal is 458 really to try and keep the Museum portion out of parkland as it's not currently a use in the 459 park, and only put Zoo programs in the park. That limited us to this area of the site here. 460 We are currently developing the design right now to really strengthen the views and the 461 connection from the park entrance plaza and from these areas of the park to the main 462 entrance so that there really is a strong view corridor. One item that I failed to mention 463 earlier is that this wall that encloses the Zoo is going to be themed as an educational 464 component, so that it actually lends itself as kind of a guiding or wayfinding mechanism 465 that leads people from the park around the Zoo enclosure and then to the entry point of 466 the Museum and Zoo. 467 468 Commissioner Ashlund: The final question I had is regarding the cost of this proposal 469 and the fundraising efforts for that as far as considering the underground parking as an 470 option because it would buy back space, it would preserve parkland. Has that option 471 been looked at? 472 473 Mr. Aikin: The option really has not been studied. I think there was a proposal early on 474 the table, conceptually, that "Gosh, would the city consider underground parking?" I 475 think that question was bigger than we could answer. I think I would leave that to the 476 Commission and the city to grapple with. Are you ready for underground parking in 477 Rinconada Park? It probably could be designed. It would be very expensive and 478 disruptive to build. Is this the time and is that where we want to go? It's a tough choice. 479 480 Commissioner Ashlund: Thank you. 481 482 Commissioner Crommie: Hi, there. Thank you for the presentation. This reminds of 483 building the megaplex, potentially, of soccer fields in the Baylands and creating a 484 regional draw. I think our Zoo is an amazing resource for our community, but I'm just 485 wondering is the goal here to make it more of a regional draw? Because you're using the 486 word locally without really defining what you mean by local. You're not speaking in 487 terms of Palo Alto residents. You're calling local from here down to San Jose and up to 488 San Francisco? I'm just a little bit confused. What are the forces that want this regional 489 draw? No matter what you're saying, this clearly has a huge impact on Rinconada Park. 490 It's really a question of priorities. Do you want to give up parkland to have a bigger Zoo? 491 My family has used this Zoo a lot every since my kids were little. We continue to go 492 there now. My kid now helps in the CIT program there now as a teenager, so she's been a 493 user of this Zoo from age 1 to now age 14, and she's not done yet. I'm a huge supporter 494 of it, and I've always seen it as a program that's incredibly valuable. The staff is 495 incredible. That's what makes it; the quality of the people who run this is just out of this 496 world, which makes it a huge resource for residents in terms of camps and training and 497 leadership opportunities for teenagers. It looks like it's worked really well. I know over 498 time we do have to update things, but I'm really always dubious about regional draws 499 Draft Minutes 12 Approved especially because it's just plopped down in the middle of a neighborhood. It's not like 500 the Exploratorium in San Jose that is in the middle of the city. I have a couple more 501 questions, but can you go over the forces that are leading to this regional program and 502 why you want meerkats for instance? 503 504 Mr. Aikin: Thank you for asking that question, because I don't think I was very clear 505 about the audience that we're building this for. We are trying to right size the project for 506 our existing audience. To prepare for that, we did years of surveys of our visitors to find 507 out where they come from, who they are, and who is using this space and what the 508 limitations are that keep them from coming. Our goal is not to make this a regional 509 facility. Our goal is to make this a great example of a local facility that does amazing 510 work with its elementary schools and its community. What we know about our audience 511 today is about 25 percent of our visitors are from Palo Alto, and the rest of our visitors 512 are primarily from about 15 miles in radius around us. What limits them is the age of our 513 audience, which is a young enough age that they can only spend so much time in the car. 514 There's a fair amount of stuff that comes with them, and then they need nap time and they 515 need food and they go home. I'm also glad that you gave the example of your children 516 following other opportunities within the Junior Museum. That is our core audience, 517 preschool and early elementary school-age children and that is going to stay our core 518 audience. What we plan to do is follow kids into middle school and high school as 519 opportunities to help us mentor young kids. At a programmatic level, this facility allows 520 us to stage their involvement in the institution. It's really not about trying to get people to 521 drive from south San Jose or central San Jose here. It really is about right sizing it. One 522 of the things that will allow us to control that to a certain degree is that we are looking at 523 an admission charge in the new facility, and that admission charge with a membership 524 program could help us make this much more available to local people versus one-time 525 visitors. People that go to destinations tend to do it two or three times a year, so there's a 526 price point and a strategy around dealing with that. We're investigating all of that now. I 527 can't answer fully how that's going to work, but we are looking at it. I just want to let you 528 know that we're as concerned about that as you are. Our goal from the very beginning is 529 to right size this for the existing audience. 530 531 Commissioner Crommie: Can you answer the rationale behind the meerkat exhibit? 532 533 Mr. Aikin: Yes, absolutely. We have an audience of very young children, and we have 534 sleeping bobcats right now which they spend maybe a minute in front of when they're 535 active. Children need more active animals, diurnal animals that are busy in the daytime. 536 We're trying to find some new exhibits that really engage them and that are appropriate 537 for that age. Butterflies and meerkats are two of the species that do it. We didn't want to 538 throw out our existing animals, because they're all rescues and we're caring for them. We 539 wanted to provide places for them. I think that's part of that prioritization that we talked 540 Draft Minutes 13 Approved about earlier, that we could come back if we had to make choices about what would have 541 to go. 542 543 Commissioner Crommie: Thank you. As far as square feet go, can you tell me how 544 much green, open turf space is lost during this expansion? You're saying it's not really 545 using area that's useful, which I sort of take exception with. When you reorganize the 546 young play area with the big play area, you're densifying the space that the children are in 547 for their play as far as I can tell. When I look at this picture, it looks to me like there's 548 less green, open turf. Can you tell me what it's diminished by? Now compared to if this 549 plan were enacted. 550 551 Mr. Jensen: I don't have the numbers of what the turf is to what it would be with the 552 Museum. We would have to come back to you with that number. 553 554 Commissioner Crommie: I'd like that. Thank you. I've tried to add up all the numbers 555 but it seems hopeless. Can you give me a clean number on the footprint square footage 556 now versus the total footprint square footage with your plan? Just so we can tell the full 557 magnitude difference. Just the entire footprint of everything now versus everything 558 according to this plan. 559 560 Ms. Vaccaro: Sure. The existing footprint of the Museum building and the Zoo areas is 561 21,500 square feet. The proposed is 33,450 square feet. The delta is 11,950 square feet. 562 563 Commissioner Crommie: What's the delta? Can you give a percent increase on the 564 delta? Percent expansion. 565 566 Ms. Vaccaro: I can't do that math off the top of my head. 567 568 Commissioner Crommie: Okay. 50 percent bigger? 569 570 Ms. Vaccaro: Yeah, about 50 percent larger. 571 572 Commissioner Crommie: It's not twofold bigger; it's a half-fold bigger? 573 574 Ms. Vaccaro: Correct. 575 576 Commissioner Crommie: Since it's clearly a big resource for Walter Hays school, have 577 you thought about cutting a deal with them where they give up some of their land and 578 produce a two-story building? They have all these one-story buildings on their school. If 579 they consolidated into a two-story building, would they be willing to give up any land for 580 the storage space? Just because they tend to use that facility probably more than any 581 Draft Minutes 14 Approved other school in the city. First of all, do they use that facility more than any other school 582 in the city? 583 584 Mr. Aikin: Walter Hays has the most robust contract with us, yes. We serve their 585 students probably with more capacity than any other individual school because they are 586 next door. We met with them very early on to make sure that what we were planning 587 would meet their needs. They said, "We'd love to help you stay off our land." They also 588 have a capital project that they're planning now to expand the school and get rid of the 589 temporary structures out there. They're also feeling squeezed for space. I think we have 590 a very cordial relationship with them, but we can't really do a land grab. 591 592 Commissioner Crommie: You call it a land grab, but I don't know how that works. Is 593 there anyone in the city, like the City Manager, who controls those types of discussions? 594 I think it should be on the table. 595 596 Mr. de Geus: It's something that the city and school district can certainly talk about. I 597 would think maybe the City/School Liaison Committee might want to discuss that. That 598 would be the place to do it. 599 600 Commissioner Crommie: Almost done. How many years would this project go on and 601 where would the animals be and where would the exhibits be for this whole group of 602 children that are born during this period? 603 604 Mr. Aikin: I think several of you probably mentioned the value of the staff there. It's the 605 staff that make this work. Our intention is to keep the staff intact during construction, 606 which is about a two-year period. We're looking at temporary facilities for both the 607 animals, because there aren't places to place them. They're all rescues; they didn't have 608 homes in the first place. In an ideal location, we will have a pop-up museum so we can 609 prototype exhibits for the new Museum, but we'll also need to keep the education 610 programs intact. I've been meeting with the site counselors to assure them that our 611 contracts with the schools will continue, that the teachers they know and love will 612 continue to come and bring animals and objects and scientific equipment to the schools 613 and keep that all going. We intend to move offsite during the construction and then come 614 back in. 615 616 Commissioner Crommie: Would that include offsite for summer camps? You have a 617 really large summer camp program there. 618 619 Mr. Aikin: It would. The biggest impact would be Zoo Camp. We offer nine summer 620 camps every summer. The others could take place in other locations easily. It's the Zoo 621 Camp piece that would be the most difficult. 622 623 Draft Minutes 15 Approved Commissioner Crommie: You wouldn't try to do a truncated Zoo Camp? You might 624 have to take it offline? 625 626 Mr. Aikin: Depends on the site. 627 628 Commissioner Crommie: I'd put a big plug in to keep it going in some way. Seems like 629 you just did the bobcat habitat renewal. When did that take place? I lose track of time. 630 How many years ago was it? 631 632 Mr. Aikin: It's about four years ago, and it's protected on the site and reused for bobcats 633 and raccoons right next to it. We are going to salvage that and not have to spend that 634 money twice. 635 636 Commissioner Crommie: Okay, great. What is the feedback from the public meeting? 637 In general, we usually get that attached to a report, and we didn't get that tonight. I'm 638 wondering when we're going to get the public feedback summary from your community 639 outreach meeting. 640 641 Mr. Aikin: I can get that to you. I'm sorry for not including it. We had about 12 642 members of the public come to our open house community meeting. Their questions 643 were many of the same questions that you had, but were all in general in support of the 644 project. It was really more curiosity about how we're going to do this and what we're 645 going to do, and really no concerns that they brought up. 646 647 Commissioner Crommie: Okay, great. If you can just send us that, that'd be great. 648 Thank you very much. 649 650 Chair Reckdahl: We're about 20 minutes behind schedule, so I'll keep this short. In 651 addition to that feedback at the public meeting, it'd also be nice if this presentation, we 652 were not delivered an electronic version of that, so if you can also send us that. The 653 PowerPoint that you're showing upon the screen, we did not receive that. We received a 654 four-page text, staff report. 655 656 Commissioner Hetterly: (inaudible) 657 658 Chair Reckdahl: Is it on the site now? 659 660 Commissioner Markevitch: (inaudible) 661 662 Mr. Aikin: It's been on the site. 663 664 Draft Minutes 16 Approved Chair Reckdahl: It was not in our packet. Okay, thank you. One question. On the top of 665 this four-page text, the top of page 2, it says "[d]ue to inadequate storage and support 666 space, accreditation options for both the Museum and Zoo are unobtainable." What does 667 that mean? 668 669 Mr. Aikin: There are two accrediting bodies for the Museum and the Zoo. One, the 670 American Alliance for Museums. The other, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. 671 We don't meet zoo standards for both the size of some of our exhibits and the fact that we 672 have kitchen and animal prep facilities alongside animal enclosures, which those need to 673 be separated. Also, the animals that go out to schools have to be separated from the 674 collection that stays there permanently. Part of the back-of-house building is to house 675 those animals that go to schools separately from the rest of the zoo animals, because it's a 676 requirement of accreditation. The American Alliance of Museums, the primary standard 677 that we don't meet is how we house our artifacts and collections. We've been in this 678 community so long, we have some very rare objects that are priceless. They need to be 679 under lock and key and in climate-controlled facilities. This old building just doesn't 680 provide us either with the room to organize that or the HVAC systems to do it properly. 681 682 Chair Reckdahl: I also would like to echo what other people have said here. The Zoo is 683 wonderful, but I really would like to see a smaller encroachment into the park, whether 684 that's digging a basement or going to a second story. If you could shrink the building, I 685 think you could pull the whole Zoo back and you would have less encroachment. I do 686 like the idea, like Peter said, about the bathroom really is servicing the park. I like that, 687 but I would like to have that back another 20 feet. I think that'd be a much better design. 688 Everyone is short of space. Parks are short of space. Their square feet, right now, per 689 capita is not in our target, and it's only going to get worse as the population grows. I hate 690 to give up any park space that we haven't tried really hard to keep. I don't think we've 691 tried hard. This is a single-story building. I'd like to go down or go up and squish it 692 together so we don't go into the park nearly as much. That is it. Any other questions? 693 Rob. 694 695 Mr. de Geus: I'll make a couple of comments here, listening to the feedback. The 696 feedback's very interesting and helpful for the staff and the team that's working on this. 697 As I looked at this, I wondered about the parkland and how the Zoo is larger and using 698 more parkland. I suspect that's going to be the big conversation with the community, is 699 that really worth it. For me, as I thought about the value that the Junior Museum and Zoo 700 brings, that's also an important part of the equation. One, the Zoo is already on parkland. 701 If the Zoo expands, it's not necessarily thought about as giving up parkland. It's using 702 parkland differently. Does that make sense given what is being designed and built here 703 for the community? As I think about it that way, it has helped me to become more 704 excited about the possibility of the expanded Zoo. I bring that up because I've thought 705 about it quite a bit. The other thing I would mention is about Rinconada Park generally. 706 Draft Minutes 17 Approved It's probably the best park that we have in Palo Alto, partly because there's so much to do 707 there. It's an excellent destination with the Art Center and the Children's Library, the 708 Children's Theatre. We've got the park and, of course, the pool and tennis courts, and 709 then the Junior Museum as well right there. It's an amazing destination. That's partly 710 why it works as opposed to maybe another location. Thank you. 711 712 Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. 713 714 3. Parks, Trails, Open Space and Recreation Facilities Master Plan. 715 716 Chair Reckdahl: We do have one public comment for the Master Plan. Shani Kleinhaus, 717 you have two minutes. Oh, is she here? 718 719 Shani Kleinhaus: Good evening. I'm Shani Kleinhaus with Santa Clara Valley Audubon 720 Society and a resident of Palo Alto. Somebody asked me to tell you all that I’m an 721 employee of Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society, and I represent the members of our 722 organization in this city and others. In Palo Alto, we have several hundred members. I 723 think it's more than 400, and they care about nature and birds and having those species of 724 birds and animals and habitats stay in the city. The Parks and Recreation Master Plan, I 725 have attended several of the meetings, and I've seen many of you there. I've several times 726 asked for the word nature to be part of the title. There's some kind of process where the 727 word nature is not there. I guess it assumes that open space takes care of that, but I've 728 seen the word open space being used for a lot of other uses that are not necessarily 729 natural and thought it would be good to specify it. If we specify trails, why not nature? 730 It's interesting to me when I look now, in Palo Alto I think nature has an intrinsic value 731 for people. They don't just want to have nature because they want access to nature. They 732 actually want to have nature for nature itself. That is not being measured, and it's hard to 733 measure it. All the criteria that we have here don't measure it. The value of the nature 734 that we have in the city, that is not measured by how many people are actually using it in 735 some way and just having it around. It's mentioned; many, many people mentioned it in 736 different meetings, but there's got to be a more specific address of the word nature and all 737 the species and all the ecosystems and all the habitats that come with it. I have another 738 specific comment to the ... 739 740 Chair Reckdahl: Ten seconds, please wrap it up. 741 742 Ms. Kleinhaus: I'm sorry. The recommended criteria, including sea level rise and 743 making that a criteria excludes from high priority a lot of areas in south Palo Alto, like 744 Ramos Park, excludes a lot of the Baylands and parts of Byxbee. It's a problem when 745 you come to areas such as ... 746 747 Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. 748 Draft Minutes 18 Approved 749 Ms. Kleinhaus: ... Lucy Evans which is one of the most valued places for education and 750 for recreation. Thank you. 751 752 Chair Reckdahl: We'll move onto the presentation. Rob de Geus and Peter Jensen and 753 consultants. 754 755 Rob de Geus: Good evening again, Commissioners. We have Lauren Schmitt here and 756 Ellie Fiore from MIG and of course Peter Jensen, Landscape Architect, who's been 757 working really hard on the Parks Master Plan. Just wanted to mention that last month's 758 meeting was a challenging one on this topic. I had real trouble sleeping after that 759 meeting, I have to say, but it was good though, actually. It was needed, I think, for us 760 and for you, of course. We've done quite a bit of work this past month to sort of reset a 761 little bit. In some ways, just hit the pause button and take stock of where we are. The 762 feedback that we're receiving and how we're collecting that data and how we're sharing 763 that data and really sort of think through a structure and a framework for how that will be 764 used to define needs and then ultimately priorities and recommendations for the Master 765 Plan. I appreciate the feedback. It was important. I think we've come a long way this 766 month and am looking forward to the conversation tonight and hearing your feedback 767 about where we are today. With that, I'll pass it onto Lauren or Ellie. Lauren. 768 769 Lauren Schmitt: Thanks for having us here tonight. You received in your packet a 770 memo of a concept that we want to go over with you tonight as a way to help start sorting 771 through what is a phonebook of data, which I know is kind of overwhelming. One of the 772 things that Peter has done is started to put together in one place so you have a resource 773 for the remainder of this planning process but also in the future for all of this analysis, all 774 of the public input, pulling that together as a resource. We want to share with you a 775 concept for an evaluation matrix and some of the criteria, so that we can start talking with 776 you about how we move towards recommendations and a plan. Before we get into the 777 matrix though, I just wanted to share some thoughts with you about how that's going to 778 work. I think your park system is so complex. The programming that you do, the 779 facilities that you offer, I think the presentation we just heard is a real illustration of that 780 and the balancing that you need to do. It's not like there's a bunch of this analysis and 781 then all of a sudden we're going to presto, come out with a plan. There's a lot of steps, 782 and we need you and we need the staff involved in making decisions, evaluating things 783 along the way. We just wanted to emphasize that we've had this data collection and 784 analysis. Now we need to summarize that and say, "What does it all mean?" and start 785 thinking about what might we do in the future. To do that, first we need to understand 786 supply, understand demand. We need to define Palo Alto's role in meeting demand 787 across the whole system, not just what are we doing for sports fields, what are we doing 788 for museums. That will then allow us to define the needs. We can then think about what 789 are the options for meeting those needs, because you may not opt to meet all needs. You 790 Draft Minutes 19 Approved may not be able to do everything within the constrained land base that you have, so you 791 have to balance. Then and only then can we start laying out the directions. We've got a 792 ways to go, and I think it's important to pause and really think about those steps that are 793 ahead of us. Just thinking about where we're going, there's a lot of different tools. The 794 directions that we eventually get to setting out as the right directions for this community, 795 there's a lot of tools that will be in the plan. They're not just necessarily site specific 796 recommendations, but also policies, potentially standards, things like that. We'll evaluate 797 all those things as we go forward. I wanted to talk a little bit about the task at hand right 798 now, which is around defining need, supply, demand. I know one of the questions that 799 has come up is, "Well, can't we just simply say what's the percent capacity? Are we low? 800 Are we high? Will it be good into the future? Put the demand over the supply and see 801 where we're at." My answer to that is, "Yes, we can do that, but there's a number of 802 assumptions." I just want to lay those out on the table, some of the questions that we 803 need to all be considering. We're not going to answer those tonight, but we do want to be 804 thinking about those as we think about the complexity that is this park system. To start 805 out with supply, there's been lots of work in this process and previously looking at 806 supply. We know what the counts of things are, where they're located. We know what 807 programs you offer. There are still other issues. How much of the day should we be 808 counting? There's peak use times. There's times that are very popular. If you go out to a 809 certain site at 5:00 in the morning, it may not be used. Do we count that time in supply or 810 should we be looking at those times that are customary use times? Defining capacity. 811 Some sites and some programs, we know that you can put 20 people in this class or the 812 building has this capacity. Something like a playground, what is the capacity? We need 813 to be clear what that is. To some people, 25 kids on that playground would be way too 814 crowded. To others, you could just keep packing them in. The other thing that Palo Alto 815 does well is temporal use. You do a lot of sharing, not just your own facilities but other 816 facilities. How do we account for the supply of a room like this one at Lucie Stern that 817 sometimes is an exercise room and at other times is an event space? Where does that 818 count in the supply? Even though we have a good idea of what's out there, there's some 819 things we need to think about how we count that. On the demand side, we've had tons 820 and tons of data, not just from the systems here and the registration system, but much of 821 the public involvement data is really talking about demand. One of the key questions is, 822 who are you trying to serve? That issue came up earlier. Are we serving a regional 823 audience? Are we serving a local audience? Something that you wrestled with in the 824 Field Use Policy. That's a policy I've been impressed with when I studied it. I've told 825 Peter it's something we've recommended other agencies look at, because you were very 826 deliberate about who you were serving, how you were going to evaluate those things. 827 One thing I also want to point about who you're trying to serve, there's today's users, 828 there's the people who you're reaching today. Because this is a Long Range Plan, we also 829 want to think about who tomorrow's users might be and what are the new activities that 830 are going to be generated and provide some space and thinking about needs to 831 accommodate those new, cool things that are going to happen in recreation in the coming 832 Draft Minutes 20 Approved years. The other thing on the demand side is setting parameters. That's something you 833 did really well in the Field Use Policy, where you had a standard about what's a 834 reasonable amount of practice games, tournaments that a local group could be allowed. If 835 you don't do that, somebody could just come in and say, "I want to do this every day." 836 As a public entity, is that as valid as something that's a bit more metered? You do that 837 with your pool right now, how you allocate lap swim time and other things. A really 838 important question is the whole peak demand versus non-peak or average demand. If you 839 build your park system or you build a set of gyms for 7:00 p.m. on a weeknight, you're 840 going to have a whole lot of gyms and not much of anything else. It's kind of like 841 building your parking lot at the mall for December 24th. We just need to think about 842 what level of demand we want to do or do we want to be looking at that season when a 843 whole bunch of things overlap or the prime Saturday, the nicest day of the year? The 844 other thing that's an issue in demand is certain types of facilities, certain types of spaces 845 attract more demand and sometimes generate more. If you have a really nice dance 846 room, all of a sudden you're going to start getting classes that work really in a really nice 847 dance room. People are going to start gravitating to that. Sometimes you can even create 848 demand. We found through the outreach, for example, that certain configurations of 849 tennis courts were attracting more use and more demand than others. We need to be 850 deliberate about how we factor those things in. We need to have our team, the staff team, 851 and all of you be on the same page around the assumptions so that you feel confident and 852 the community feels confident that as we're stepping through and making decisions and 853 what we're saying about the need, we're all on the same page so that we can do that math 854 that you're looking for to determine the capacity and where you're at. With that 855 overview, I'm going to turn it over to Ellie to talk a little bit about this matrix concept. 856 We want to get your feedback on that to see if you think it's a tool that will work to help 857 connect the dots and parse all of that data. 858 859 Peter Jensen: Ellie, I'm just going to say that passing around right now is a binder. The 860 binder is a sample of what you're going to be getting soon. It relates back to this 861 information that Ellie's going to be talking about. It's the matrix that we have. It 862 references back to the binder. Information, data, those types of things can be referenced 863 back to where they come from and easily found within the binder. You will be getting 864 the binder in the next couple of days. We'll figure out how to get that to you, but I did 865 want to send around the sample. The package of papers that we have now in there you 866 can see is very dense. That's what we're hoping the matrix that Ellie's going to start to 867 describe here pretty soon starts to summarize a little bit and get you to a more direct path 868 of where to find that information, that data that's in there. 869 870 Ellie Fiore: Thank you, Peter. We wanted to come back this month and start to try to 871 answer some of the questions that you all raised last month, which is not just what do you 872 know. I know that there was some concern and some fear that we were going to jump to 873 recommendations and that that logical and analytical path wasn't clear on what those are 874 Draft Minutes 21 Approved based on. We are taking this moment to pause and kind of reframe and start to lay out 875 more explicitly what we know and how we know it. The tool we're proposing to use for 876 that is what we're calling the Data and Needs Summary Matrix which was in your packet. 877 I want to take this opportunity to orient you to that tool, and then we want to get a sense 878 tonight from you of whether this is a concept that makes sense, whether it does start to 879 answer some of those questions. If so, we'll move forward with populating that. The 880 idea here again, as Peter implied, is that this is kind of a rollup of all of the data that's 881 going to be in your binders. Those are all things you've seen before for the most part, but 882 we know they've been arriving bit by bit and piecemeal. This is our attempt to reframe 883 and pull everything together and frame it for you. What you got in your packet were two 884 things. One is the matrix, the big Excel sheet with the green header. The other was the 885 Data and Needs Summary concept, which is the narrative description of the matrix. I'll 886 just walk through what the matrix consists of. Down Column B, what we have in 887 categories are the elements of your park system. We've got three overarching categories: 888 parks, trails, and open spaces; recreation facilities; and programs. You'll see this is not an 889 exhaustive list, for example, of every type of program, but they're rolled up into 890 categories that we think make good sense and that we've worked over with staff as an 891 organizing structure, again to kind of present that higher layer of data. Working across 892 the elements in the columns. These are evaluation measures that we consider, that we're 893 going to base our summary of needs of recommendations on. I'll walk you through each 894 of those. In the narrative packet is a description of the data sources. This again keys 895 back to the list of data sources that'll be in your binder. For each we've developed, where 896 appropriate, a rating scale and then criteria for rating that. We'll walk through those now. 897 The first set is Columns C and D, which are the current service/inventory and then level 898 of control. This is basically a summary of what's on the ground, what is being 899 programmed currently, and then how much control does the city have over that looking 900 into the future. That includes ownership, lease and, also as mentioned, sea level rise. 901 Moving in Column E, this is our measure of capacity. As Lauren just mentioned, there's 902 a lot of different dynamics that can be considered here. What our attempt at the criteria 903 here is to do is to give an indication of whether it's below, at, or over capacity, again 904 putting some parameters around those criteria. Column F is geographic analysis. What 905 we're presenting here is summary statements, because there are several data points 906 leading into this. Some are qualitative; some are quantitative. We wanted to pull out 907 some key findings and summary statements here. Columns G and H are two sides of the 908 same coin. This perception of quality as we've heard it expressed by the community and 909 based on our own site observations, and then also expressed need. Quality is, are there 910 improvements needed or are there deficiencies that were noted? Express need is, was 911 there demand for more or expanded services? Column I is a quick summary of the 912 demographic trends. The analysis of which I know we wanted to resurface for you. You 913 mentioned it briefly last time. What we've done is tried to roll it up and say, "Based on 914 the demographic analysis that we did with the census and the school district data and our 915 knowledge of recreation trends, do we expect that the demand is going to grow, be stable, 916 Draft Minutes 22 Approved or decline?" Columns J and K are what we're calling barriers to access and projected 917 demand. This is physical or institutional or other barriers that have been expressed, why 918 people can't physically or have trouble getting to places or why they can't access 919 programs. Is it oversubscribed? Is it a time of day that's inconvenient? What are those 920 things that we've heard articulated or observed in our analysis of the programs? The 921 project demand is a summary of, are there opportunities for new activities for growth in a 922 certain area? This is a summation of not just the demographic trends but the recreational 923 trans and our professional judgment based on experience and planning in other 924 communities. What that all rolls into hopefully in a logical manner is what we're calling 925 the Summary of Need. What we've done in this matrix that you received is flesh out as 926 examples four rows, a couple within each category area. The Summary of Need is our 927 high level observations at this point based on everything that came before it. This is what 928 we would discuss with you, discuss with staff. Did we get it right? Do you agree? If so, 929 then that becomes the foundation for talking possible projects and possible 930 recommendations. We want to go through this exercise first to make sure we have all the 931 information we need to get to there, and that it's clearly articulated. I think the question 932 is, whether this helps clarify the process, the work done to date, the structure we're using 933 to fill in some of the holes, to gather a little bit more data, and then does this fill in that 934 middle piece of the scope of work and the middle piece of the process that I think we felt 935 was missing last time we met? 936 937 Chair Reckdahl: Can you comment about the data sources in the top? 938 939 Ms. Fiore: Yes. Our intent was to get you these binders tonight, but there was a little 940 production hiccup. The list of data sources is keyed in Row 2. For example, Number 2 is 941 the data in each summary. Number 4 was the sustainability review. All of the inputs into 942 each of those columns reflects back, so it's essentially a table of contents for your binder 943 as well as a data source list. 944 945 Chair Reckdahl: Is that going to be multiple rows or how are you going to get that 946 information in Row 2? It'd be nice to have an example of what's going to be the content 947 in Row Number 2. 948 949 Commissioner Lauing: It's just numerical, isn't it? 950 951 Ms. Fiore: Yeah, that is the content. It references back to the sources that we used to 952 generate what's in each column. 953 954 Commissioner Lauing: You might have six numbers in there, one, three, seven, nine, ten. 955 956 Ms. Fiore: Yeah, exactly. For demographic trends, you see one number, seven, because 957 that references back to the demographic trends piece. For the column previous to that, 958 Draft Minutes 23 Approved expressed need, there's five items, many of which were the several different community 959 input elements. What's going to be in the matrix is those numbers, and they reference 960 back to the summary of products and the work products. 961 962 Chair Reckdahl: Okay. The concern we would have is if on Row 2 you list seven 963 sources, then when I'm looking down on Row 17, I have to go through those seven 964 sources in order to figure out where that number came from. It would be nice if for each 965 number that you list, each content, you would say, "That comes from Page 13 of 966 Reference 3," and reference that for each row as opposed to up top. Otherwise, we're 967 stuck just looking for the needle in the haystack. 968 969 Ms. Schmitt: I think it's going to be very difficult what you're asking. The reason is 970 there's not a smoking gun around each of these things in each source. The question in the 971 summary from Mapita, for example. There might be a whole bunch of comments in there 972 that are in an appendix. It's pages and pages and pages of comments. This is a huge 973 amount of content. Along the way, we've been taking it in, we've been assessing, and 974 we've been overlaying and looking for patterns, and then checking as we come back. For 975 each and every one of these things, there's not "here's the quotation or the figure that says 976 ... ." For some of them, there probably is, but I don't think we'll be able to map page 17, 977 this figure, or page 19, that figure. I don't want to over-promise that. I understand what 978 you're saying. It's like, "Well, if I have to look through the whole summary ... ." 979 980 Chair Reckdahl: There has to be some rationale of how we score these things. What I'd 981 like to see is a separate document that lists the rationale for each one of these. Otherwise, 982 we have no way of verifying what that demand is. 983 984 Ms. Schmitt: That's one of the reasons why we try to establish some criteria. In some 985 cases, those are more numerically based. The perception of quality is one with certain 986 Mapita score ranges, because we can pull that data and say, "Okay, we can evaluate these 987 things." There's also noted issues around certain parks. We are trying to use the criteria 988 to provide what you're asking for, so that it works across all of these sources of data and 989 what all of those inputs are. If you're feeling like these criteria aren't doing that, my 990 question to you would be, do you feel like we could dial those in further? I really don't 991 think we can reference each and everything, because I can't tell you how many cells that 992 would be. I'm just thinking about how many times somebody has commented on tennis 993 or community gardens or whatever. There's a lot. 994 995 Chair Reckdahl: Yeah, but when you were filling out this spreadsheet, you have to 996 evaluate each of these cells. You're not putting random numbers in it. You actually are 997 looking at, "Okay, I'm looking at community gardens. How did I determine the 998 demand?" You must count something. There must be some way that you're quantifying 999 Draft Minutes 24 Approved the demand for community gardens, and there's some way that you're quantifying the 1000 supply of community gardens. 1001 1002 Ms. Schmitt: Yeah, yep. 1003 1004 Chair Reckdahl: Since you're the one who's doing that, we're just asking you to show 1005 your work. 1006 1007 Ms. Schmitt: Yeah, so that's what we're trying to do with this matrix. Let me explain the 1008 thought process around community gardens, since you chose that particular one. We 1009 look at the supply; you have three sites. You have a high level of control over those sites, 1010 because you own the sites where they're located. It's not like a Cubberley situation. You 1011 can be confident they're going to be there. We know from your capacity and bookings 1012 that you get more requests than you have plots. That's why that is rated over. It relates to 1013 the criteria in there. You're getting more requests than you have supply so it's over 1014 capacity. The geographic analysis showed—you can see the commentary in there—your 1015 community gardens are clustered in the northern end of Palo Alto. You have a number of 1016 plots that are arrayed across those three sites. All of those sites are in the north end of 1017 town, and there aren't other options for community garden sites. In some communities, 1018 there's churches or other providers that have them. The southern part of the community 1019 doesn't have them. When we step into the perception of quality, what we heard through 1020 all of the public workshops is people love the community gardens that you have. They 1021 think they work very well. We also heard that there is a need for more sites, more plots. 1022 That jives with what we know, that you don't have any in the south end of town and that 1023 the plots are oversubscribed. The public is also saying that. In terms of the demographic 1024 trends, we know that older adults favor gardening, and your results show that. You've 1025 got a high population of older adults, and that's projected to increase. Therefore, the 1026 participation trend for that one, we project the demand is going to increase. You're 1027 already oversubscribed; you're probably going to have more interest in that activity in the 1028 future. That takes us to the next column. There are barriers for participation, and the 1029 barriers are that there's not enough plots and they're all in one end of town. Looking at all 1030 of that, we see there being high projected demand. Community gardening is one of those 1031 activities that's been increasing across the nation and regionally. That's why that's rated 1032 high. We have all of this local data, and so the summary we would say around that 1033 preliminarily is there's a need for overall more plots whether they're at the existing sites 1034 or elsewhere. 1035 1036 Chair Reckdahl: One of the problems I have is that right now we're doing the high, 1037 medium, low. That's too coarse. It doesn't make it actionable for us. For example, if you 1038 say it's oversubscribed, so it gets an H. We have no idea if it's oversubscribed by 10 1039 percent or 300 percent. Does that mean that we have to find three more plots in the city 1040 or 300 more plots? We have no idea. When you keep it very qualitative, we can't action 1041 Draft Minutes 25 Approved on that. We need to say the demand right now is 120 percent of the supply and, using 1042 projections, we think it's going to be 150 percent of the supply in ten years. 1043 1044 Ms. Schmitt: I think we can get to that number, but I want to come back to what I talked 1045 about in the beginning. There's a lot of assumptions. I could do that math, and I could 1046 give you a number. You might feel comfortable that it's a number, but if we're not on the 1047 same page about the assumptions, then it's a garbage number. If I make the assumption 1048 that we're in a community where all plots have to be 20x20. We had a shortage of plots, 1049 but that size plot was too large for a lot of people to handle. Yeah, it was oversubscribed. 1050 Yet, when you looked at did people actually follow through and garden, there was a 1051 number of underutilized sites. That's the trick of that number that you're looking for, 1052 which is why we try to stick with criteria. Is it generally over? Is it generally under? We 1053 can get to that number, but we have to have a broader discussion about what goes into 1054 that number. Also, keep in mind that I think community gardening is one that's easier to 1055 predict. Just because something is undersubscribed now doesn't mean that there's not a 1056 demand for that activity or that there wouldn't be in the future. It could be an emerging 1057 activity. It could be that you haven't reached the population. There's populations we've 1058 heard that you would like to be serving or that you think would be important to serve in 1059 this community. Right now, you're not serving some of those populations. If we are only 1060 looking at the things that you're doing now, we're going to not account for the needs of 1061 these folks that many of you and many of the community members think is really 1062 important to reach out to. We also want to make sure we leave space as we're looking at 1063 these needs to account for that. I don't want to seem like I’m ducking this, but this is 1064 really complicated. You as a city particularly have a very complicated system, and you 1065 have a very sophisticated layering of services that you're providing. It's not like you're a 1066 green field community and you're expanding out and you're stamping out the same 1067 neighborhood park in every subdivision. It's very nuanced. 1068 1069 Commissioner Lauing: Just to add one point to what you're saying. You're talking about 1070 percentages, but I'm actually even more interested in sample size. If 4,000 dog owners 1071 said that we need more dog space—I'm making all these up—versus 4 community 1072 gardeners said we need more space, those are both very interesting points to know. One 1073 we need to take some pretty severe action on. The other one maybe we don't have to take 1074 any action on in the next five years, and we look at it in 15 years. We're going to keep 1075 asking for this, quantitative data. Quantitative data. Not that you heard at a community 1076 outreach that two people wanted X, Y or Z, but that in surveys and in face-to-face votes, 1077 people said X, Y or Z. 1078 1079 Ms. Schmitt: I get that. I think Ellie gets that too. One of the reasons why we like to do 1080 the type of outreach and that you guys have embraced is doing a lot of different types of 1081 outreach and different layers of outreach for that reason that you're getting at. You don't 1082 want just some organized group to come and cook the result. Again we tried to get at 1083 Draft Minutes 26 Approved your concern with criteria. Express need, we ranked it high if across multiple channels—1084 three, four, five different activities—or through results that you'll see in the next month, 1085 through survey results from Mapita, through some of the things that got really big 1086 numbers, if it came up again and again and again, then we're ranking that as high. If it's 1087 mixed, like tennis was one of those that's mixed where a certain percentage of your 1088 population plays tennis. When you look at the overall community results, people are like, 1089 "Eh, I think we're good on tennis." If you ask the tennis players, they're the ones that 1090 have real specific needs around the facilities. Is it lighted? Is it grouped together? When 1091 we hear from them, what they're saying is, "You know, there are some needs here." In 1092 that case, it's mixed from these different sources, so we ranked it as medium because 1093 there's some evidence that there is a need there, but it's mixed. Low, there are just certain 1094 things that just really didn't come up or, when you look across multiple channels, it was 1095 just, "Eh." A couple of the things that it was very clear there was a high expressed need 1096 for. It's not reflected in this table at this point, but restrooms came up again and again 1097 across multiple channels as something that was really a critical part of enjoying the park 1098 system. Community gardens was one of those. Having seating and great resting places 1099 in parks supporting people spending time, lingering, talking to their friends, that came up 1100 again and again. It came up at the workshops. It came up in intercepts. Things like that. 1101 We're trying to use those criteria, so that as you start to layer that you start to see those 1102 patterns emerge. The land here and the facilities that you have are just way too precious 1103 not to take all of that in and make the best decision because you're going to have to make 1104 hard choices. Again, I think the presentation earlier tonight made that very clear to me 1105 about the kind of choices that you guys are going to be wrestling with in the next 20 1106 years. We want to make sure you have a tool in this plan that helps you make the best 1107 decision for the community, because it will be difficult every single time. 1108 1109 Chair Reckdahl: We've used up 35 minutes, and we've allocated 45 so we still have a 1110 little time left. We can run over if we need to. The first priority is to do it right, but also 1111 I don't want to waste time. Rob, what do you think? What's your priority? Do you want 1112 to hear comments from here or do you have things that you want to ask the consultants? 1113 How do you want to work this? 1114 1115 Mr. de Geus: I appreciate the work that the consultants have done and taken the time to 1116 work with us. We've met numerous times over this last month to think about this data 1117 question. I'm particularly interested in hearing from the rest of the Commissioners. I 1118 don't want to move forward with our process until we get to a general comfort level. This 1119 is a framework that has a lot of value and could really help us with the Master Plan, 1120 particularly defining the need. The next and more important step is then looking at those 1121 needs through a filter that is most important to the community to start making priorities 1122 and recommendations. I actually think it's a pretty good framework but again, before we 1123 start populating this matrix and having the consultant spend a lot of time on that, I want 1124 Draft Minutes 27 Approved to be sure the Commission feels comfortable with this approach, this methodology for 1125 how we will use the data for coming up with some findings. 1126 1127 Chair Reckdahl: Comments, questions? Commissioner Knopper. 1128 1129 Commissioner Knopper: Thank you. I'm echoing what Ed had said with regard to 1130 quantifying the high, medium, low. I totally understand why you need to consolidate all 1131 of the information. If there's nine passionate people about community gardens in Palo 1132 Alto and there's 500 dog owners, at some point in the process we just have to know that 1133 piece of information so we can then rank what should be priorities. Not to beat a dead 1134 horse, but I think it's really important to be clear on that particular point. I appreciate that 1135 we're regrouping and clarifying in a more strategic way all of this giant information dump 1136 and the way that we can cross-reference it. That binder is great. It's obviously 1137 overwhelming, and I'm really looking forward to having it in my house with all the other 1138 paper that we get. Any time that you think, "Gosh, maybe we need to break it down and 1139 really cross-reference and give them statistics and this is how many people answered this 1140 particular question and this is a really high priority;" any time you think, "You know 1141 what? They want even more quantitative data," I would love for you to assume that we 1142 would. Thank you. 1143 1144 Commissioner Hetterly: I just have a couple of comments. I do think that this matrix 1145 would be a useful tool for discussion once it's populated and being able to see what you 1146 see as the core documents for whichever column we're talking about. I do think it would 1147 be much more useful if, to the extent possible, you could make notations within the cells 1148 when there is a smoking gun or a key report that was most telling in certain areas. 1149 Otherwise, you have seven of us duplicating all the work that you've just done and 1150 coming to our own separate conclusions. I don't think that's very productive. As I look 1151 through the binder, it's basically the reports that you have presented to us, it appears. I 1152 know we had a lot of comments on most of them. I wonder if these have been updated 1153 since they first came to us in draft form or if we're going to reread what we saw before. 1154 1155 Ms. Fiore: Most of them are as you've seen them before. We have captured those 1156 comments on all of the documents. Some of those comments on the documents were 1157 addressed in the form of memos to you, which will also be in the binder. For example, 1158 the ones that we heard last month, I have documented but we have not gone back and re-1159 edited those documents because we wanted to keep moving forward. Those comments 1160 have all been memorialized somewhere, but we are not necessarily taking the time to 1161 update those documents. They are recorded, and they will be fed forward. For example, 1162 the program analysis which we dug into pretty deeply last time, that document is still 1163 very much in draft, so that one will be updated. Most of the rest of them are in a semi-1164 final state, as I like to call it, so we're just keeping the record of your comments and then 1165 moving on. 1166 Draft Minutes 28 Approved 1167 Ms. Schmitt: Just as a process point, the intent on these is they're a platform for moving 1168 forward. Your plan is not going to be a compendium of the demographic trends analysis 1169 and this and that. When we craft that document and the language that goes into that, any 1170 comments that you've made that are around, if we're taking a section of text out of 1171 something, all of that will appear in the final document. To Ellie's point, none of that is 1172 lost. By the time you've received some of the documents and some of the comments that 1173 you're making, they roll into the next piece of analysis that we’re doing. In some ways 1174 by the time things get to you—this is one of the challenges—we've been continuing to 1175 move forward on certain other aspects of the project, so we can then give you the next 1176 round of analysis. 1177 1178 Commissioner Hetterly: Thank you. We shouldn’t look at the sustainability report and 1179 say, "Why doesn't this reflect that we had this discussion?" I just want to get that on the 1180 table, that these are not final versions. They don't incorporate necessarily our comments. 1181 1182 Ms. Fiore: Correct. 1183 1184 Commissioner Hetterly: A piece of data that seems to be missing from the binder—and 1185 I'm not sure how it can be represented—is your discussions with staff about field use. 1186 What's going on with field use? Who is using it when and how? Or the capacity 1187 bookings information. You come to conclusions about capacity booking, but it doesn't 1188 look like there's anything in the contents here that would provide the backup data for how 1189 you reached that conclusion. 1190 1191 Ms. Schmitt: Yeah. Capacity bookings is actually one that we don't have the data yet. 1192 We're working on that now. We've been crunching the program and booking data. That's 1193 one that does not exist yet. It's still in processing form. Eventually that will become the 1194 program analysis Part 2 that's really about capacity and needs. 1195 1196 Mr. de Geus: Just to add to that, Commissioner Hetterly, is that the binder will continue 1197 to grow as we get more data. The survey data is not in there yet. You make a good point 1198 about staff analysis and staff interviews that have been happening, capturing that data. 1199 It's actually pretty rich data. These are staff that are working in the field with these users 1200 every day. Capturing that and including that and referencing it in the matrix is important. 1201 In addition to that—we've discussed this internally—as we discover certain trends, as the 1202 data is starting to suggest that we need more of something, then do additional research or 1203 outreach to that particular group of users to understand more of what they need. That 1204 would then also add to this matrix and to the folder of data. Does that help? 1205 1206 Commissioner Hetterly: Yes. 1207 1208 Draft Minutes 29 Approved Ms. Schmitt: A forthcoming thing, I think, that will also document some of the staff 1209 discussions around the physical facilities which I believe you'll be getting next month, is 1210 Item 9 on the data list which are the existing conditions maps. Those are detailed of 1211 every single site. It's giving some of the history. It's giving some of the noted issues and 1212 deficiencies. Daren has been heavily involved with that, and other staff, in documenting 1213 the things that are there. This is again one of these other pieces that the documentation is 1214 happening. It's on its way to you, but you don't have it yet. That's one of the other 1215 challenging things for you as a body; things are not yet in your hands but we're starting to 1216 formulate ideas about them. 1217 1218 Mr. de Geus: I know that we have other Commissioners that need to speak, but this may 1219 help as well. If we think about the next step on this, if we agree this is a good 1220 methodology and we move forward and start populating this and start defining the high, 1221 low, medium or whatever rating that we decide is the one that really works. An 1222 important next step that we would like to do is have a special retreat on the Master Plan 1223 and spend several hours on the matrix with MIG and staff and actually walk through 1224 these line items and talk about them. "Here are the Summary of Needs. How did you 1225 come up with that?" It'll be in a narrative form in the Summary of Needs. We'll have the 1226 binders and all of the data, and we'll have a really rich discussion about each of these. 1227 There will be different interpretations, and we'll discuss that. Then we'll tweak the 1228 Summary of Needs during that meeting. Hopefully at the end of that, we'll have a pretty 1229 good picture of the Summary of Needs. 1230 1231 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Crommie. 1232 1233 Commissioner Crommie: Thank you. I think this is really helpful, to see this. It's 1234 moving in the right direction. I would like to ditto what other Commissioners have said. 1235 When you list your sources, if you can just letter them and then reference back to those 1236 sources for the key points, it's really going to be helpful. Something like when you say 1237 demographics show that we're increasing the number of school children, can you cite that 1238 report? That's a very global issue. Something as big as that, I think it's worth citing the 1239 document. A couple of points here. When you were listing the elements on page 3 of the 1240 report, they go onto page 4, I like seeing this kind of granularity. I appreciate this. I like 1241 that you have experience nature, but I also think we need something about the 1242 preservation of nature. The reason that's important is because of the wildlife, because of 1243 the ecosystems. When we go to experience nature, it's predicated on having nature there 1244 to begin with. If you can add that in, I'd really appreciate it. On this list, again, where 1245 you have all these bullet points that I'm referring to—one of them is experience of 1246 nature—should dogs be fitting into one of these bullet points? I couldn't find it there. 1247 1248 Ms. Schmitt: It's under recreational facilities, off-leash dog areas. We were thinking 1249 about it more on the facilities side. For some of these, it's how you slice it. We put 1250 Draft Minutes 30 Approved restrooms with parks, open space and trails because it came up cutting across all use of 1251 the system. 1252 1253 Commissioner Crommie: Yeah. I just find that one can go into a couple of different 1254 places, but I know you're thinking about it. It seemed like population density wasn't 1255 encapsulated. That's really important for planning, knowing where the population density 1256 is. That's going to impact the kinds of gaps that we have. Again I was thinking that 1257 could be a bullet point, just in the big picture. I'd add that land preservation has to do 1258 with ecosystems, and then also population density. Another part of the big picture to me 1259 when we're looking at supply and demand is where our schools are located in the city. So 1260 many cities are just very integrated with their schools, and the schools provide these 1261 major resources. Look at the community of Los Altos, one of our neighboring 1262 communities. It's completely integrated, because they really don't have nearly enough 1263 parks, and they really rely on their schools. I'd like to see some meta analysis of where 1264 our schools are relative to where the population is. The schools provide a green space for 1265 populations. I know in the south of Palo Alto, especially in my neighborhood, we're not 1266 near a school at all. We have a lower amount of parks, and we're not near a school. 1267 Somehow the locations of schools can compound gaps. Is there a way you've done that 1268 in the past, where you bring that in? 1269 1270 Ms. Schmitt: Yes. One of the things that we're trying to retrofit with this approach is 1271 most of these planning efforts will have a needs assessment. They'll address things like 1272 that. Both of those points that you brought up around population density and looking at 1273 that as an overlay as well as where the schools are located, I think we need to give a little 1274 bit more thought exactly how that works. They either fit within that geographic analysis 1275 or they become their own column around it. Yeah, I think those are good ones. They are 1276 really important in actually the demand side. More people equals more demand. On the 1277 supply side, because they provide an alternative, the schools do. 1278 1279 Commissioner Crommie: I'm about halfway done. Those are some big ideas. Getting 1280 into a little bit more lower level stuff. I'm not seeing the gyms really differentiated like I 1281 would like to see them. What I know goes in gyms is volleyball and badminton. If you 1282 look at our demographics of having an increasing Asian component, that's a really 1283 popular sport among the Asian cultures, south Asian and Asian. I'd like to see that 1284 differentiated. I don't know how it came back in the polling. I just want to have a 1285 column for it if you need to talk about it. 1286 1287 Ms. Schmitt: Okay. If you look down in Column B in recreation facilities, we did 1288 actually call out gymnasiums. The facilities we called out are off-leash dog areas, 1289 community gardens, basketball courts, tennis courts, rectangle sports fields ... 1290 1291 Commissioner Crommie: Can you reference pages please? 1292 Draft Minutes 31 Approved 1293 Ms. Schmitt: Sure. It's on the matrix, and it's Line 22. Row 22 is gymnasiums. It 1294 actually has its own row. For the reasons that you said, it's come up a lot. We're looking 1295 at the need for gymnasiums. 1296 1297 Commissioner Crommie: When you talk about resources and unmet needs, so many 1298 things are parsed out here. You represent a lot of things, but I don't see volleyball. I 1299 don't see badminton as far as it being called out when everything else is. I don't see a lot 1300 of omissions, so my list is not long. It's just a few things. You've listed so many things, 1301 you might as well list them all. 1302 1303 Ms. Schmitt: Here's the thing. The gymnasium is the recreation facility that contains 1304 those activities that you're talking about. If you were to build an indoor gym, you would 1305 program it in different ways. Sometimes you might have basketball where there's ten 1306 people, five on a side, playing each other. Sometimes you might put a couple of 1307 volleyball ... 1308 1309 Commissioner Crommie: Excuse me. I understand that. If we're talking about gaps, 1310 aren't you within a gym going to specify any of these activities? I don't see where they're 1311 going to be cited. 1312 1313 Ms. Schmitt: So then we're looking at the programming in the programming section. 1314 The grouping that we use within the programming—if this isn't right, we want to talk 1315 about it in a different way. We use the groupings that the city already uses for how it 1316 thinks about programs. These categories of adult aquatics, adult special interest classes 1317 are the way you look at data now in these groupings of types of classes. Within those 1318 would be the specific activities that you're talking about. We'd certainly be open to 1319 looking at it in a different way. I'd like Rob's feedback for sure. 1320 1321 Commissioner Crommie: Let me specify a little more. I don't know right now if we have 1322 badminton as a program. 1323 1324 Mr. de Geus: We don't. 1325 1326 Commissioner Crommie: That's an example of we don't have it, yet people might want it. 1327 How does it show up on this matrix? 1328 1329 Mr. de Geus: How I think it would show up, and we don't have it yet here. With respect 1330 to badminton for adults, for instance, it would show up in the Needs Summary. I would 1331 expect it would be in the narrative there specific to programs. It's under adult sports, so 1332 within that particular need there may be multiple sports that emerges as being needs. 1333 Draft Minutes 32 Approved Under several outreach efforts, it came up that badminton was a need or an interest. so it 1334 would be defined there. Hopefully if this ... 1335 1336 Commissioner Crommie: Can you give me the line where it would be? 1337 1338 Mr. de Geus: That would be Line 32 on the matrix, adult sports, other programs. 1339 1340 Commissioner Crommie: Could it come up under youth as well? 1341 1342 Mr. de Geus: It could. 1343 1344 Commissioner Crommie: Okay, okay. 1345 1346 Mr. de Geus: There's a youth sports or a youth and teen programs. 1347 1348 Commissioner Crommie: These will get filled in over time, and then we'll assess ... 1349 1350 Mr. de Geus: Right, right. 1351 1352 Commissioner Crommie: ... what we want. As far as on Line 8 when you have essential 1353 activity access, it's sort of a bigger idea. You might want the word "hit." You have 1354 throw, catch, shoot, kick. I think hit is for lacrosse, anything with a stick. That also 1355 relates to badminton; although, you don't do that outside as much as lacrosse. That's just 1356 an idea. I really wanted to comment on now the Columns E, H and I on the spreadsheet. 1357 I actually think this relates to a question that Chair Reckdahl was bringing up with the 1358 community gardens. I think community gardens is a good example. You said maybe we 1359 are overbooked, so Column E would come up as over. You could also have a situation 1360 where something is not overbooked, but you have H as an expressed need. An example 1361 with community gardens is very illustrative, because you can have all these people who 1362 live midtown south who aren't anywhere near a community garden; therefore, they 1363 haven't even bothered to put their name on a list. I think those columns are very 1364 important. In fact, I'd even say you might want to push E over near H and I. Those are 1365 very independent kinds of things, and they're all equally important. I like that you're 1366 doing it that way. When you're doing projections of need, like community garden you 1367 brought that up with the elderly. It's a different kind of data-driven need. Our other 1368 Commissioners were all very interested in you tying this into your data. You're going to 1369 have to have some kind of data projected trends. It's going to help parse apart where the 1370 data is coming from. Right now you might rate something as a very high need based on 1371 projections of the aging population. I just hope there's a way you can cite that. It'll make 1372 the argument stronger if you can do that. It comes up to this idea of is it just nine people 1373 out there asking for community gardens. That's one component. You can give a number 1374 and say within your outreach how many people did you encounter. What would 1375 Draft Minutes 33 Approved strengthen something like that is in your projection. All those things have to fit together. 1376 When you can do it, it would be very helpful. 1377 1378 Chair Reckdahl: We hit the one hour, so if you can keep it crisp. 1379 1380 Commissioner Crommie: Okay. I just want to make sure I brought up everything. I 1381 think I hit the major points. Can we email you if we think of other things? Okay. 1382 1383 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Ashlund. 1384 1385 Commissioner Ashlund: There were three more specific things. My high level question 1386 is, the binders contain a lot of the communication that we've received and commented on 1387 and discussed already as a Commission, how do you want us to use that binder? Other 1388 than when we're looking at the matrix, if we have questions or we think things are not 1389 reflected as they should be, we would refer back to it. But how, other than that, do you 1390 want us to use that? 1391 1392 Ms. Fiore: What you described is one of the major uses. It's also a historical record. I 1393 know you weren't here last month, but there were some questions about "Oh, yeah, we 1394 received that demographic analysis a couple of months ago, but it would be great if we 1395 could look at it now that we're talking about needs." We wanted you to just have 1396 everything at your fingertips. 1397 1398 Commissioner Ashlund: Great, thank you. I thought that this was going to be our major 1399 topic of the March 20th retreat, so I'm glad that you said you think this will be a whole 1400 separate retreat that we would have to discuss the Master Plan. 1401 1402 Mr. de Geus: Yeah, it could be the March 20th retreat. Depending on how far we get 1403 this evening and if we can populate this matrix by then, we might choose to do that on 1404 March 20th. I've been discussing this with Chair Reckdahl, which one should come first. 1405 He definitely would like to have a retreat where we talk about the year generally and all 1406 the other areas of work that we have. Given that the Master Plan is the most important 1407 project of the year, if we're ready to have a deeper discussion on that, I have an interest in 1408 moving forward on it and working on that on the 20th. 1409 1410 Commissioner Ashlund: You just mentioned that we as a Commission would discuss and 1411 populate the matrix together. I was under the impression ... 1412 1413 Mr. de Geus: No. 1414 1415 Commissioner Ashlund: ... that MIG would. 1416 1417 Draft Minutes 34 Approved Mr. de Geus: MIG would, but we would discuss their findings and how they populated it 1418 and what conclusions they came to. 1419 1420 Commissioner Ashlund: All right. The three things on page 4 of the narrative that are 1421 the elements, the Parks, Trails and Open Space elements. You talked about that some 1422 points cut across categories, restrooms for example. I would encourage you to add 1423 accessibility as a separate bullet point in that list. Walkability is number 1 which is great 1424 for the mobile, but not necessarily great for the blind and visually impaired or mobility 1425 impaired. I would include that particularly because walkability is not necessarily the 1426 point of access that many people can use. Sometimes parking is essential for people that 1427 won't be walking there or public transportation as well. That is the page 4 comment. 1428 Page 5, under the elements for recreation programs, I see that the bullet says 1429 "intervention/special needs." I'm not clear on the use of the word intervention in that use. 1430 I'm very familiar with this area, so I'm wondering did you mean early intervention, 1431 therapeutic intervention? Did you mean inclusion or is there some other use of that? 1432 1433 Mr. de Geus: That really refers to some of our at-risk youth programs. 1434 1435 Commissioner Ashlund: I'm sorry? 1436 1437 Mr. de Geus: It refers to our at-risk youth programs. 1438 1439 Commissioner Ashlund: Oh, okay, great. Thank you. That definitely helps clarify that 1440 for me. When special needs is listed as part of that or even as a separate bullet, I just 1441 want to make sure we're capturing both special needs programs as well as support for 1442 inclusion programs. 1443 1444 Mr. de Geus: Within that particular cost center and the way the budget is structured 1445 within the city, there's three areas within intervention and special needs and that is senior 1446 programs, therapeutic recreation programs and at-risk youth programs. 1447 1448 Commissioner Ashlund: That's budget-wise as separate specialized programs for special 1449 needs. How does one get further budget support for inclusion in the broad programming 1450 sense? 1451 1452 Mr. de Geus: I think to get budget support we could potentially look at this Master Plan 1453 when it's populated, particularly if there is a need that's been identified across different 1454 platforms related to this line item around access or special needs, in one of those 1455 categories. We could use that as a tool, and I think the Council will be looking at it as 1456 well for where to invest more versus less. 1457 1458 Draft Minutes 35 Approved Commissioner Ashlund: Okay, great. My last quick question on page 6 was actually 1459 related to the sea level rise question. When I was reading this, I also had the same 1460 thought. Are we automatically going to be excluding something like the Baylands? I 1461 want to be careful just because something is adjacent to the Bay that it doesn't 1462 automatically get excluded as a high priority for major investment if it's of value to the 1463 Palo Alto community and could have 20, 30 years of use. 1464 1465 Ms. Fiore: Yeah, absolutely. What we're trying to convey here, what the high, medium 1466 and low refers to is the city's level of control over that site, what level of control does the 1467 city have over the 50-year time span. Sea level rise being an impact we can expect to 1468 occur in that timeframe. It's not saying if sea level rise is going to impact that site, it 1469 becomes a low priority. It factors into the level of control the city has over the site. Does 1470 that make sense? The high, medium, low here is not the priority assignment. It's high 1471 level of control, medium level of control or low level of control. One of those factors 1472 that factors into that rating is sea level rise. The others are ownership and management. 1473 1474 Commissioner Ashlund: I understand the ownership. That's a lot more clear of course. 1475 What time span are we looking at when we say a 50-year sea level rise might be much 1476 more significant than what's happening in 20 years? 1477 1478 Ms. Schmitt: This is supposed to be a 20-year plan. Sea level rise is an issue that's come 1479 up. One of the things it's made clear, you guys want to be able to make rich decisions, so 1480 we decided to include sea level rise in addition with ownership because you should just 1481 be aware when later on you're going on and you're weighing, like you said, investments at 1482 one site versus another, you may make a strategic decision that investing in a site with 1483 sea level rise is the right thing to do because of the need or because of the timeframe of 1484 the improvement. You should know going into it that that's an impact. The same thing if 1485 you were to invest in a site that you didn't have long-term control of the property, if you 1486 didn't own it or have a long-term lease. 1487 1488 Commissioner Ashlund: Thank you. That's all my questions. 1489 1490 Chair Reckdahl: Council Member Filseth. 1491 1492 Council Member Filseth: If I can ask a gear head question here. On one of the early 1493 slides, there was a line that said the Master Plan called for 3 acres of park space per 1,000 1494 residents. 1495 1496 Ms. Schmitt: No, that was just to be an example of a standard. The Master Plan is not 1497 calling for anything. We have to do the needs assessment and make that determination 1498 about the right level for Palo Alto. There are for setting Quimby Act fees. There's a 1499 Draft Minutes 36 Approved minimum and a maximum threshold that the State says, and 3 acres is the minimum. 1500 That's why I just pulled that number as an example of a numerical standard. 1501 1502 Council Member Filseth: There's a State guideline? 1503 1504 Ms. Schmitt: For setting Quimby fees. 1505 1506 Council Member Filseth: Quimby fees, okay. All right. Thanks very much. 1507 1508 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Markevitch. 1509 1510 Vice Chair Markevitch: I had a question regarding the collection of data. You're using 1511 census and you're also using school district numbers with regards to children, but we also 1512 have a fair amount of private schools in Palo Alto that the kids might not necessarily live 1513 in Palo Alto but they're here during the day and they may be using park facilities. Has 1514 that been taken into account, and homeschooling kids as well? 1515 1516 Ms. Fiore: I don't believe it's explicitly been taken into account, but we have identified 1517 youth outreach as a focus area we want to do more of, in part because we didn't capture a 1518 lot of middle high school students in our survey. We're working with Rob and his staff to 1519 identify who the best contacts into that population are. We're going to do a focus group 1520 style event. That's a great point that we should consider those populations. 1521 1522 Chair Reckdahl: To answer Rob's question, I do think this spreadsheet is a good start. 1523 I'm worried about the high, medium and low. That's just too coarse to make any 1524 actionable decisions. We're on the road, but I want to see more quantitative analysis. 1525 Give me numbers. Thank you. 1526 1527 4. Discussion of Temporary Batting Cages at the Former PASCO Site Next to 1528 the Baylands Athletic Center. 1529 1530 Chair Reckdahl: We have two speakers. Shani Kleinhaus is first. Shani, are you going 1531 to speak? 1532 1533 Shani Kleinhaus: (inaudible) 1534 1535 Chair Reckdahl: Okay. Then we'll move on to Craig Yanagisawa, sorry. 1536 1537 Craig Yanagisawa: Yanagisawa. Thank you. I'm a board member of Palo Alto Little 1538 League. We're supporting the construction of the cages at the Baylands, as currently Palo 1539 Alto Little League is the sole supplier of batting cages in Palo Alto, and we service over 1540 1,000 kids with our facility which includes only four cages. Our league consists of kids 1541 Draft Minutes 37 Approved up to 12 years old. Beyond 12 years old and up to high school, there is no current facility 1542 for batting cages. Palo Alto Little League is not connected to Palo Alto Babe Ruth. We 1543 serve different ages. The two high schools, which have batting cages, are only dedicated 1544 to their sports teams. We're just supporting Palo Alto Babe Ruth in construction of new 1545 cages. Thank you. 1546 1547 Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. Daren Anderson, Parks and Rec, is up now. 1548 1549 Daren Anderson: Good evening. I'm Daren Anderson. I'm with Open Space, Parks and 1550 Golf. With me tonight is Park Supervisor Miguel Chacon and Chris Lillios who's a board 1551 member with Palo Alto Babe Ruth little league. We're here tonight to get the 1552 Commission's feedback about this project and how we can improve it. Let me start by 1553 giving you the background on this site, and it being proposed as the location for this pilot 1554 batting cage project. The city entered into a lease with Palo Alto Sanitation Company in 1555 1958 for garbage collection, and we leased them this land on this site. That entire area in 1556 the blue and the green was leased to PASCO, as they're called. One acre of that land 1557 became parkland, and that's the little triangle in blue. Miguel can highlight that for you 1558 with the mouse, so you can make that out. Eventually the city moved onto a new 1559 provider. Instead of PASCO, they went with GreenWaste, and GreenWaste didn't need 1560 that piece of land. It became unused; it was just a paved parking lot that PASCO had 1561 used for parking vehicles and some storage. Eventually Public Works removed the 1562 asphalt, and it's just a base rock. A little triangle about 1 acre in size. The city at that 1563 time, around 2009-2010, explored options to see if we could fit soccer fields or some sort 1564 of playing field on there. Because of the size and the configuration, we could not fit any 1565 fields on that. It's a challenging site because you've got an existing PG&E power pole 1566 right in the middle of the wide section. You've got about five or six utility gas 1567 infrastructure boxes that are at grade or above grade. Then you've got a PG&E gas and 1568 power line easement that I'll get into a little bit more detail about, that prohibits any 1569 structures on that facility. I want to show you what the site looks like right now. This is 1570 one of the angles looking towards that power pole in the center. Again, this is the base 1571 rock. A little closer view on that power pole. Again, all developed, there's a few pieces 1572 of weeds, weed patches here or there, but not much vegetation; no trees. Again you can 1573 see the fence line existing that separates GreenWaste's facility from the rest of this former 1574 PASCO site. There's an example of one of those little utilities that's covered with an A-1575 frame barricade that's above ground. I mentioned the PG&E easements. This slide here 1576 is not in your packet, but I'd like you to look up just for a second to the screen. You can 1577 see about a 95-foot buffer between these two easements. There's three easements 1578 actually. There's two power pole easements and a gas line easement. The two yellow 1579 lines on this sheet show you where those power lines run through the property. The gas 1580 line runs right between them. The red lines show that boundary where you cannot build a 1581 structure. That definitely makes it a challenge, definitely limits what's possible. We took 1582 the plans that you see in the packet tonight to PG&E, and met with them a number of 1583 Draft Minutes 38 Approved times to see if we could adjust our plans, and we did. They indeed approved the plans 1584 that are in your packet. In May 2014 Babe Ruth baseball league approached staff with 1585 this concept of building batting cages and funding them completely at the Baylands 1586 Athletic Center. In light of the Master Plan which is underway and again scheduled to be 1587 completed in November 2015, Babe Ruth proposed doing a pilot program for this batting 1588 cage project. Under the pilot program, there'd be two batting cages placed on this former 1589 PASCO site. They'd be situated outside the PG&E easements and would be designed and 1590 constructed to be temporary. They could be moved or eliminated when and if the Master 1591 Plan or golf course reconfiguration planning determines a better use for that site. The 1592 other aspects to the project include converting one parking stall. To the upper left—1593 you've got it in your packet too—you can see a blue area that indicates a normal parking 1594 stall would need to be converted to a handicapped stall and then a small pathway that will 1595 connect to the existing one. It's comprised of base rock; we just need to clean it up. It 1596 would connect to an existing gate to that parcel. No new infrastructure would need to be 1597 added. It's just cleaning up that site. At this point, I'd like to turn it over to Chris, and he 1598 can give us a little bit of detail on why there's a need for batting cages at this site. 1599 1600 Chris Lillios: Yes, I see three main driving forces toward this batting cage project. One 1601 is utilization of the Baylands baseball field. A quarter to maybe a third of any baseball 1602 practice is spent doing batting. I've seen countless number of teams spending time on 1603 this beautiful large diamond, one coach hitting a ball to 12-15 kids one at a time. It's a 1604 very inefficient process, and it's a very poor use of a beautiful field which is primarily 1605 used for games, base running, fielding practice. The batting portion of any practice is far 1606 better executed in a batting cage where you can get far more repetitions at hitting the ball. 1607 The retrieval time is minimized, and it would offload the use of the main baseball field 1608 for better use of it. In other words, having full on scrimmages and so forth, and not using 1609 up a whole field just for one person hitting a ball to a number of players on the field. In 1610 addition, having the cages would extend the use of that area, because the field is closed 1611 for four months out of the year, November, December, January, February when no 1612 baseball activities could happen, or softball at all. Having a batting cage facility would 1613 extend the utility of that area by allowing year-round training opportunities for not only 1614 Babe Ruth but, as Craig had mentioned, Little League and Palo Alto Girls Softball. The 1615 Oaks also play there. American Legion plays there, and countless numbers of moms and 1616 dads with their kids are out there just wanting to hit the ball. We'd love to have batting 1617 cages. Currently people go to facilities that they have to pay for to get this kind of 1618 batting in. There's a big business around batting cages, and I'd like to have an 1619 opportunity for these 12-year-old kids and above to do batting, not using Palo Alto Little 1620 League's facilities which are already oversubscribed with not only the kids in their 1621 program, but also older kids like high school-age and middle school-age kids which I 1622 think would be better served in a facility that we're proposing here at Baylands. 1623 1624 Draft Minutes 39 Approved Mr. Anderson: Thank you, Chris. I should also point out that in 2004, City Council 1625 approved a park improvement ordinance to add a batting cage at the Baylands Athletic 1626 Center. It's unclear exactly why that didn't end up happening. It was part of a CIP where 1627 they carried out some improvements. That was slated to be one, but for some reason it 1628 wasn't included. In that staff report associated with that park improvement ordinance, it 1629 was noted that most baseball and softball facilities of the same size and caliber as the 1630 Baylands Athletic Center do have batting cages. It demonstrates that this need has 1631 existed for a long time. It was once approved by Council and, for some reason, it didn't 1632 happen. I want to highlight some of the advantages that I see regarding this project. One 1633 is it's fully funded by Babe Ruth. The second is that it could provide some useful 1634 information to the Master Plan. Batting cages is one of the things that was originally 1635 thrown out by staff as something to look at when they started the Master Plan process. 1636 This could provide a lot of information of is it really useful, is it heavily used. If we were 1637 to put in a pilot program, is this the right site? Guidance on the preferred design in terms 1638 of durability and security, what it would need to make this successful. There's some up-1639 sides in terms of the fit for Palo Alto especially in this area. Another advantage is once 1640 it's established and up and running, as Chris had pointed out, it would become part of the 1641 Baylands Athletic Center facility. That would benefit other groups; little league, softball, 1642 private teams, and camps. Another part is this is an undesirable spot to invest money in 1643 before we've got a finished Master Plan or before we've made decisions on what's going 1644 to happen to the golf course reconfiguration. This is not a place we'd probably want to 1645 invest money just now. When we have an opportunity to have an outside group fund it 1646 with the understanding that it's temporary and will pend the results of a Master Plan that's 1647 coming, it's definitely something that could be advantageous to the city. Lastly, this is a 1648 flexible project. It's designed to be temporary, so it can be moved. There's no foundation 1649 set into there. You don't have to dig into the ground at all. We can eliminate the cages 1650 when that Master Plan or golf course reconfiguration planning determines that there is a 1651 better use for that site. This is a highlight on the accessibility page where you can see 1652 that parking lot path that would lead into the parcel. These are some cage types. I 1653 mentioned in the staff report they're still deliberating on two different types. We've got 1654 the open frame and then the enclosed. We just need some more time to analyze both the 1655 investment and the benefits of those two options. Again, synthetic turf would be 1656 underneath the facility. If this project is successful—I'm defining successful as well 1657 used, a safe facility, vandalism is kept to a minimum, and access is equally distributed. If 1658 we have those things, the pilot would continue until the Master Plan is complete and we 1659 have an identified use from the Master Plan for this site. If the Master Plan were to 1660 recommend this location for batting cages and there's the demonstrated need, staff would 1661 return to the Commission to discuss the option of a Phase 2 for this project. The Phase 2 1662 could include two additional batting cages, a warm-up area, a walkway and a storage 1663 shed. I believe it's in your packet, but there's a visual demonstration of what that Phase 2 1664 would look like. Again, that would pend completion of the Master Plan. This final slide 1665 again illustrates what we're talking about, which is just the two batting cages and the 1666 Draft Minutes 40 Approved accessible parking lot conversion. That concludes the staff presentation. We welcome 1667 your questions and comments. 1668 1669 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Knopper: 1670 1671 Commissioner Knopper: I think it's great. In my opinion, there's absolutely no reason 1672 not to do it. I literally did a double take when I saw October 2004. I'm like, "Wow, that's 1673 11 years. That's a long time to wait for a batting cage." I would put it up tomorrow if I 1674 could. 1675 1676 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Crommie. 1677 1678 Commissioner Crommie: Hi there. Thank you for your presentation. I know batting 1679 cages are really important. It seems like it does increase the efficiency of practice, 1680 especially during the youth practice sessions. Are they used during the games or just 1681 during the practices? 1682 1683 Mr. Lillios: If there's a game going on and there's another pair of teams coming before 1684 their game, they will use the batting cages to warm up and do some practice swings. Yes, 1685 it will be utilized to help prepare the teams that are coming on for a subsequent game. 1686 1687 Commissioner Crommie: As we stand now, all the other locations where baseball is 1688 done, are there batting cages and are they at the schools as well? 1689 1690 Mr. Lillios: The cages that I'm aware of, there are four cages at Little League. They're 1691 highly utilized. They are on Palo Alto Little League private land, so they have been kind 1692 enough to let the public meander in and out. Other than that, there's a couple of cages at 1693 Cubberley that Palo Alto Girls Softball has. They're small and not well known and, I 1694 think, under lock and key, so there's not much access there. Of course, all of the high 1695 schools will have two to four cages minimum, but again those are under lock and key by 1696 the high schools. Other than that in the City of Palo Alto, I have no knowledge of any 1697 other batting cages open to the public. 1698 1699 Commissioner Crommie: Babe Ruth is a private club kind of baseball. It's a try-out 1700 system to get into Babe Ruth, right? It's a high level activity. I'm little bit confused if 1701 this is only for Babe Ruth players or if other people who are playing recreationally can 1702 use it. 1703 1704 Mr. Lillios: This project is being spearheaded by Babe Ruth because we have a strong 1705 desire to have a baseball facility, not just for ourselves. Our charter is to serve the 1706 baseball playing youth, whether they're Babe Ruth or Little League or not in any league. 1707 They could be recreational softball players. They just want to go out there and take some 1708 Draft Minutes 41 Approved hacks. The Malibu Fun Center used to be the place where you could go and take some 1709 hacks. There just aren't places like that, where people can just take some swings. 1710 Although, we're spearheading it and we have obviously a vested interest because we have 1711 pretty high utilization of that Baylands field. There are plenty of other organizations. 1712 Like I said, there's the Oaks, there's summer camps throughout the summer that could use 1713 something like this. There's private organizations. Most of these are very Palo Alto 1714 centric amazingly. There's more beyond Palo Alto, but I think this could serve a large 1715 fraction of Palo Alto need as I see it. 1716 1717 Commissioner Crommie: That's good. It seems like an acre is an awful lot of space for 1718 batting cages. I know they are used on much smaller footprints, probably in all the 1719 locations where they're used. I know this is only temporary, but I really believe in having 1720 batting cages there. I would support having batting cages, but the rub for me is there is 1721 an acre of land there. I just want to make sure that we envision the use of that acre 1722 openly and fully without presuming this Phase 2 process. I really am sympathetic to the 1723 need for the batting cages, and it has been put off for way too long. We're going to be 1724 done with our Master Plan in about a year's time, so the timing's a little bit odd right now. 1725 You've waited already 11 years, and now we're about to come to this huge final product 1726 of the Master Plan. I hate to say it, but do you think we should wait one more year? Can 1727 you just give me a little bit more of an argument for why now? 1728 1729 Mr. Anderson: My assessment is there are advantages to doing it now. You're right 1730 there's a lot of things up in the air as to what the best use of that's going to be. You're 1731 absolutely right that the Master Plan is the document to give us those answers, and it 1732 won't come until November. I also know that implementing that Master Plan will not be 1733 overnight. It's a very long-term process. They're going to identify priorities that are 1734 really unknown at this point. I'll give you a good example. Scott Park was one example 1735 where we had a CIP, and it took two years to implement a very simple CIP at Scott Park. 1736 My point there is only to say that when you have a plan that covers the entire city, to wait 1737 on something like this for fear that maybe there will be something come November 1st 1738 that should go right there is really unlikely. If you couple that with the benefit of this 1739 being so mobile, so flexible. It can be pulled out really in about a day and a half, I'm 1740 imaging since there's no foundation work. It's disassembling some pipes. I think the 1741 down side is very, very small for the city. I've had a really frank conversation with Babe 1742 Ruth to say there are going to be serious implications if we add 10 acres of recreation 1743 where the golf course is giving up that section, which would theoretically add who knows 1744 what. There's lots of different options. There may be need for that 1 acre. I don't know 1745 exactly how that will shake out. They understand that going into that, and they feel it's a 1746 worthwhile investment. Again, the things I highlighted, the benefits of what you can 1747 learn in that interim period will be valuable for us as we say, "Okay, if we don't have a 1748 batting cage accessible to anybody in Palo Alto except for these private groups where 1749 they're under lock and key and we do need one, which may come out in the Master Plan, 1750 Draft Minutes 42 Approved may not, then where are we going to put it and what should it be like?" This is our 1751 opportunity to get a free learning lesson on what those answers are. 1752 1753 Commissioner Crommie: That makes a lot of sense to me. To summarize, I support 1754 batting cages. I think it's needed for safety and efficiency for the sport. They're located 1755 in all other sites, and they need it here as well. I'm concerned about using the full acre for 1756 this whole complex program without vetting it a lot more thoroughly. I think the 1757 footprint of the batting cages is pretty small. Lastly, I always get a little bit concerned 1758 when I hear that things are under lock and key at the schools and why we don't have 1759 better relationships with figuring out how to have more of a shared use. I don't know that 1760 much about how the baseball works. Club soccer does sometimes get use of schools. In 1761 fact, schools seem to make money off of it sometimes. I just wish we could understand 1762 that better on our Commission. It's been a long-term concern of mine. 1763 1764 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Hetterly. 1765 1766 Commissioner Hetterly: I think it's a great idea to have batting cages that can support the 1767 baseball field and softball field at Baylands Athletic Center. I'm a little uneasy about this 1768 particularly because it almost feels like that acres is like the 7 acres at Foothill Park that 1769 we've never talked about before. We've never talked about any other use for it before. 1770 As far as I can tell, there's been no public outreach on this pilot proposal. I understand 1771 that it's temporary. I generally like the idea of pilots. I think that's a great way to go; 1772 however, just as we've talked about with the dog park pilot, often once you start a pilot 1773 it's hard to end it. I'm glad that it's temporary. I do think it makes sense, before 1774 promoting a PIO, to have at least one public outreach meeting to talk about the location 1775 and whether this is an appropriate location. It seems to be a different location than the 1776 2004 PIO. I don't know why there was a change and whose preference changed to make 1777 that location different. As Commissioner Crommie suggested, it's an acre of contiguous 1778 property and if you throw us a batting cage, though it's small, that precludes any other use 1779 of that space for other functions. I have no idea if there are other functions that would be 1780 beneficial there, never having thought about it before I saw this agenda item. If it were to 1781 move onto Phase 2, the other problem with building the batting cages in order to 1782 determine whether there is demonstrated need, that seemed a little strange to me. It 1783 sounds like you're saying you have a need, Babe Ruth has a need, Little League seems to 1784 have a need. I'm not sure what more we're going to learn from a pilot about that need, 1785 except that maybe if you build it, they will come and we'll have more and more people 1786 wanting to use it who maybe didn't before or maybe aren't from Palo Alto-based groups. 1787 That's something that can affect policy deliberations along the way. I have one more 1788 point. The Phase 2, adding a whole nother acre to the baseball/softball complex at 1789 Baylands Athletic Center seems to me an awful lot of space for a single dedicated use. 1790 We don't have any other use like that across the city where we have that much acreage 1791 dedicated to just one use. Even our synthetic turf fields are used for soccer, football, 1792 Draft Minutes 43 Approved lacrosse. That's not to say we shouldn't have it, but I think it's something that we should 1793 be thinking about. I think public discussion is a worthwhile pursuit. 1794 1795 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Lauing. 1796 1797 Commissioner Lauing: Yes, thanks. As most of my colleagues know, I was on the Babe 1798 Ruth board for five years before I came here. The batting cages were on the docket then. 1799 It's probably in the minutes somewhere of the meetings, but it's my recollection that it 1800 became very cost prohibitive when Babe Ruth looked at it because we got a lot of 1801 feedback from the city on the flood plains that we're still getting feedback from a lot of 1802 people on. It might not have been only the city, because of the kind of commentary that's 1803 coming back on the golf course. Which is why it became too cost prohibitive to do—I 1804 don't know if you had to have them 6 feet high or whatever it was—but that was the 1805 reason for that. There's no question there's a demonstrated need. To your point, I don't 1806 think we even need a pilot because there just aren't any. A lot of times Babe Ruth teams 1807 would go over to the Little League fields or, if they could get space on the weekends at 1808 the high school particularly Paly, they would go over there before games to warm-up in 1809 the batting cages. It's completely inconvenient. It's too bad that this isn't getting in in 1810 time for this season, but maybe it'll make the tournaments. Just a couple of questions. 1811 As this thing was getting back up, was there any debate about should we go back to first-1812 base line or is it just because this land was available here? As you look at Phase 2, if that 1813 were to happen notwithstanding comments of my colleague, the easements seem to be 1814 right smack in the middle of that so I don't know how you're going to be able to do that 1815 anyway. 1816 1817 Mr. Anderson: The first question you asked of why not the first place that was identified 1818 in 2004. It pertains to the JPA project where that levee adjacent to the batting cage in 1819 that diagram will be pushed up very, very close to that area, pinching it off so much so 1820 that the walkway is almost compromised. It's very tight there in the plans. It seemed to 1821 make sense to look at another option. That's why. 1822 1823 Commissioner Lauing: That's my guess. 1824 1825 Mr. Anderson: Your second question, could you repeat that one more time, the Phase 2? 1826 1827 Commissioner Lauing: If you were to look at Phase 2, how can you because it looks like 1828 it's right in the middle of the easements? 1829 1830 Mr. Anderson: We met with PG&E, showed them Phase 1 and Phase 2 to say, "Would 1831 you have a problem with this?" I guess it's predominantly because it's not anchored in the 1832 ground, it could be moved and would not interfere with their direct access to those things. 1833 They gave us the okay, and I have it in writing. 1834 Draft Minutes 44 Approved 1835 Commissioner Lauing: Okay. To your question, Commissioner Crommie, the answer 1836 why you can't use the high schools is because the high school coaches are czars. They're 1837 totally in charge, and there's one key and that person has it. You can call it cultural, but 1838 they do use it an awful lot. Thanks. Very good presentation and preparation. 1839 1840 Commissioner Hetterly: I have one more quick question. 1841 1842 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Hetterly. 1843 1844 Commissioner Hetterly: Do you anticipate when you're using the batting cage that it will 1845 be the same folks who are using the field at the same time as part of your practice or 1846 would you expect that you would have an increase in usership because you may have 1847 teams practicing on the field and other folks using the batting cages simultaneously? 1848 Would you anticipate that being an issue for parking? 1849 1850 Mr. Lillios: Yes, when word gets out that there's a batting cage, there will be 1851 independent groups going just for batting practice. The teams that I've been involved 1852 with, we have two or three practices a week, and one of them is dedicated to just batting 1853 alone. We will either go to the cage facility up in Belmont, or there's other facilities you 1854 can rent out for a pretty penny. I can see this would be a perfect place for those kind of 1855 activities to happen. Generally people drop off their kids and take off. They don't sit 1856 around to watch batting practice, because it's not much of a spectator sport for the 1857 parents. There will be a little bit, but I don't expect it to be substantial. 1858 1859 Commissioner Hetterly: Thank you. 1860 1861 Commissioner Crommie: It just occurred to me as far as environmental impact, is it 1862 going to disturb birds in the area if there's just a constant popping of the bat against the 1863 ball? Have you talked to any groups about that, environmental groups, about impact? 1864 1865 Mr. Anderson: We have not. I think the use would be in keeping with the baseball that's 1866 happening there. It would be programmed by the same gentleman, Adam Howard from 1867 Recreation, who programs the field use. We have control over it, so it's not as if it would 1868 be 24/7. It's not open where you can check in at midnight and start swatting. It's unlit, so 1869 we don't have to worry about light impacts. Our belief is it's going to be in keeping with 1870 the use there and not a dramatic change. It's also in an area where there's no vegetation. 1871 We can certainly do more exploring to see if there are any concerns about that, but it's not 1872 one staff has right now. 1873 1874 Commissioner Crommie: Okay. Normally we vet with different stakeholders when we 1875 set up a new recreational facility. I was looking at it simplistically that it's the same kids 1876 Draft Minutes 45 Approved that are there that then just use the batting practice. When you start to talk about a 1877 regional draw, I actually do get quite concerned about the density of use. I don't know 1878 what to do about that. I don't know if we're making it known that we're concerned about 1879 that. Can you give us some kind of follow-up and let us know how that's going? 1880 1881 Mr. Anderson: Yes, in advance of that, at the next time we bring this back to you. Again 1882 it'll be in keeping with how we manage the existing fields. That baseball field at the 1883 Athletic Center is not just "come help yourself," "come play as many league games as 1884 you want," "come in from all the surrounding communities." It's all brokered and 1885 managed by our recreation team. We don't suffer that problem with the fields, and I don't 1886 anticipate suffering that same problem with the batting cages because it'll be managed the 1887 same way. 1888 1889 Commissioner Crommie: Okay. I'm very familiar with our field use for soccer, but I’m 1890 really not that familiar with looking at that policy for that facility. Maybe one day you 1891 can educate us on that. 1892 1893 Mr. Anderson: I'd be glad to bring a draft policy for the batting cages that's proposed. 1894 We've already got a draft going. It needs to be vetted a little more fully. We'll be glad to 1895 bring that back when we bring this issue to you again. 1896 1897 Chair Reckdahl: Like Ed, my son plays Babe Ruth, so we've spent many hours in a 1898 batting cage. Never down in the Baylands, but before games we'll go over to the Little 1899 League field and throw batting practice there and then drive over to the Baylands. It'll be 1900 nice to have that in one location, to be able to do batting practice before the games right 1901 at the place where the game is. On the far left of the picture, of the blue triangle, there 1902 right now is a fence. If we open that fence up, we would be connected over to the skin 1903 field that has Little League and also has Girls Softball. I would like to see that 1904 considered. Just say, "Can we put a gate in there?" Have the same lock on the gate as we 1905 have on the other gate, so that if 5070 plays their little league down there or the girls 1906 softball want to use that, they can access that directly instead of having to go all the way 1907 around. Certainly it's not that far to walk around, but it would be a much shorter shot to 1908 go through that little gate right at the far left. I would like to see that considered. After 1909 the golf course is reconfigured, knock on wood, there's a lot of decisions to be made. 1910 One question is the GreenWaste lease. Do you know the duration of that? Is that area 1911 going to be open for reconfiguration also or are we going to have to move around that? 1912 1913 Mr. Anderson: I don't have the answer to that, but I'd be glad to research it. 1914 1915 Chair Reckdahl: That I find irrelevant right now. This lot is going to be sitting empty for 1916 the next two or three years, because we're not going to put anything permanent on there 1917 while the golf course is being reconfigured. Either we can have a temporary batting cage 1918 Draft Minutes 46 Approved on there for the next two or three years or we have it sit empty for the next two or three 1919 years. I view this as a no-risk proposition. That is it. Any other questions? Do you 1920 know the path forward now or do you still have to do some work in figuring out what you 1921 want to do? 1922 1923 Mr. Anderson: An option for moving forward, I'd like to think about it and perhaps 1924 consult with my director. An option is hold a public meeting, come back with a PIO 1925 based on feedback we've gotten and with a design and see if the Commission approves 1926 and then go to Council afterward. 1927 1928 Chair Reckdahl: Typically if you were to schedule a public meeting, how much lead time 1929 do you want to have for that? Is that a couple of weeks? 1930 1931 Mr. Anderson: Yeah, 2 1/2. 1932 1933 Chair Reckdahl: Okay. Thank you. 1934 1935 5. Information Report on the Organics Facilities Plan and Use of the Measure E 1936 Site. 1937 1938 Chair Reckdahl: We do have one public speaker. Emily Renzel is going to be talking 1939 about the Measure E site. 1940 1941 Emily Renzel: At the risk of keeping poor Matt Krupp here for another 3 minutes. The 1942 Measure E has been studied quite a lot. I think with the last request for proposal that 1943 went out, staff had pretty much decided that much of the 10-acre site would not be 1944 excavated and used for composting, just the 3.8 acres of the 10 acres. There are basically 1945 two portions of the 10-acre site with greater and lesser likelihood of being used in the 1946 next six years or so, seven years, before 2021. I just want to be sure that you're planning 1947 for the Byxbee Hills Park, not working around that 10 acres in illogical ways. In other 1948 words, not necessarily putting anything on it, but looking at your trail systems and 1949 everything else to make them logical in the event that we can rededicate this land. The 1950 Measure E prevents the Council from rededicating the land, but Council could at some 1951 point, once it's determined that the site would not be used, put it to the voters sooner. 1952 That's always a possibility. I'm not advocating that at this point. I'm just suggesting that 1953 in your planning, you should look at the whole site, at least the part that doesn't include 1954 the flatter 3.8 acres, and do your best to have a forward idea of what will happen there. I 1955 just can't resist commenting that I think use of the 1-acre triangle for batting cages is 1956 great. It's reclaiming this parkland that's been parkland since 1965. It was allowed to be 1957 used by the garbage company, and they were supposed to restore it to baseball field when 1958 it was done. PASCO sold to Waste Management and then we went to GreenWaste, so it 1959 never happened. The triangle has been parkland since 1965. The GreenWaste acre was 1960 Draft Minutes 47 Approved exempted from the park dedication. Whoever asked the question about use of it, it 1961 wouldn't necessarily not be available for park should it be decided at some point. It is not 1962 currently park dedicated. Thank you. 1963 1964 Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. Matthew Krupp, you're talking about the Measure E area. 1965 Thank you. 1966 1967 Matthew Krupp: Hi, good evening, Commissioners. Matthew Krupp with Public Works 1968 Zero Waste. I'm Environmental Programs Manager for the Zero Waste Group. If you 1969 have any questions about recycling or composting later, I'll be happy to answer those as 1970 well. The reason I'm here today is to talk to you about the Measure E parcel and the 1971 RFPs, the process that came out of that. I was the project manager on both the Energy 1972 Compost Facility request for proposal and the subsequent Compost Facility request for 1973 proposal. I don't know if I can go off script, but I actually can answer a question that 1974 came from the last presentation from Commissioner Reckdahl about that parcel that 1975 GreenWaste uses right now. The GreenWaste and Palo Alto contract currently goes until 1976 2017. Staff is going to present to the Finance Committee just next week a proposal to 1977 extend the contract to 2021. Part of that contract extension is also looking at an 1978 opportunity for GreenWaste to locate its short-term corporation yard, which is what they 1979 use that facility as, in a location outside of Palo Alto. We currently require them to have 1980 a facility within Palo Alto, but a new contract amendment would allow them to have a 1981 facility outside of Palo Alto. Of course we have to look at the needs of servicing our 1982 refuse customers, the garbage and getting all the different carts out there. Again, that's 1983 something that we're looking at the opportunity to change should the use be desired to be 1984 changed by you guys and the Council. I wanted to address that question while I was 1985 here. Daren didn't have to come back and ask me later. 1986 1987 Chair Reckdahl: The purpose of having that site, is that for drop off? 1988 1989 Mr. Krupp: That site is the office for the local staff. We have the managers and the route 1990 supervisors who are located over there. Also our outreach staff is located there as well. 1991 We also have carts and bins for our residential and commercial customers that are located 1992 there, so we can provide very fast service. Let's say one of you called up and said, "Hey, 1993 my garbage cart is broken" or something like that. We can get it out to you a lot of times 1994 the same day if not the next day, which is a service that many other garbage companies 1995 can't provide. We are able to provide very speedy service. The larger GreenWaste 1996 corporation yard, where all the trucks are located, is actually in Santa Clara off of 1997 Lafayette Street. We can't get there quite as quickly ... 1998 1999 Chair Reckdahl: If we do not require them to have that local, would they want that 1 acre 2000 still? 2001 2002 Draft Minutes 48 Approved Mr. Krupp: That's something that we would have to work out with GreenWaste. About 2003 two years ago there was a question about whether that site was going to be needed for 2004 other park uses. GreenWaste investigated other sites around the community and found 2005 that there were basically none that could service them within the boundary of Palo Alto. 2006 That's why we looked at providing GreenWaste the opportunity to have a site that was 2007 located outside of the boundaries of Palo Alto. 2008 2009 Chair Reckdahl: Just from the last presentation, that little triangle is very hard to use 2010 with that 1 acre blocking it. When we look at the reconfiguration, it'd give us a lot more 2011 flexibility if we could convert that into parkland, even if that means moving that to 2012 somewhere else. 2013 2014 Mr. Krupp: Sure, sure. I think that's a good question. I haven't been involved in the 2015 Master Plan that was talked about earlier today. I would imagine that that parcel would 2016 be considered as part of a Master Plan parcel. I don't want to speak on something that I 2017 don't know enough about. As Emily Renzel said, it was parkland that's being used for 2018 another use right now. 2019 2020 Chair Reckdahl: Okay, thank you. 2021 2022 Mr. Krupp: Sorry to go off script there. Let's get back onto the story of the former Palo 2023 Alto landfill and garbage and wastewater. You'll all be experts by the end of this 2024 presentation I hope. We did have a lot of people helping with this whole project, and 2025 they're listed over there. Consultants ARI, CH2M Hill, and Jim Bender Consulting. This 2026 project was—at least the first part of it—the Energy Compost Facility was a joint project 2027 that was with the Zero Waste Group and Public Works and also the Regional Water 2028 Quality Control Plant, another division within Public Works. Before I go into the 2029 specifics of Measure E and that parcel, I want to talk to you about some of the goals that 2030 staff had in order to define the best possible project. We needed to do a number of things 2031 from the wastewater perspective and from the solid waste perspective. The most 2032 important thing actually is on the wastewater side, decommissioning our sewage sludge 2033 incinerator which is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions within the 2034 city. There are only two sewage sludge incinerators that operate within the Bay area. We 2035 are one of them. It was a Council priority to decommission and turnoff that incinerator. 2036 That's one of the priorities that we are looking to do from the wastewater side. On the 2037 solid waste side, we are looking at two things. The first thing was to find a new home for 2038 a composting operation. You might remember not that long ago we composted yard 2039 trimmings, your yard trimmings, over on top of the landfill. Once the landfill was closed 2040 and needed to be closed, that operation needed to stop. We had to end that operation. It 2041 was not compatible with the use of Byxbee Park to have a composting operation on top of 2042 it. That operation closed back a few years ago. We wanted to look at a new place to put 2043 composting and compost the yard trimmings. We also wanted to identify if there was an 2044 Draft Minutes 49 Approved opportunity to take our commercial food scraps, food that's not eaten at restaurants, and 2045 also residential food scraps and harness the energy in that material. We're trying to find 2046 all of that stuff. By doing all that, we would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and be 2047 able to handle all three of these wastes. Now one of the ideas that came out in the 2048 proposal in the Measure E ballot initiative, is that perhaps there's a technology that can do 2049 all these things together, can handle the biosolids, the sewage sludge, the yard trimmings 2050 and the food scraps together in one combined technology. That was a premise that was 2051 based early on. We are looking at all of these things to try to see if we can do them. 2052 Were we successful? The short answer is no, we weren't. I'll get to the rest of it in a 2053 second. How did we get to the point where we're at right now? We did a feasibility 2054 study back in 2011 to see if it even made sense to pursue this further. We looked at a 2055 number of different technologies including dry anaerobic digestion. That was the 2056 original technology that was proposed by the Palo Altans for Green Energy, the people 2057 who put together the Measure E initiative. We looked at that, and it proved that it could 2058 be feasible. A feasibility study is only the first step. What happened from there is that 2059 Council elected to put the Measure E item on the ballot. It was on the ballot in 2060 November 2011, passed with a two-thirds majority. A couple of things that are 2061 interesting about the Measure E ballot initiative. One is that it called for staff to 2062 investigate the opportunity for putting an Energy Compost Facility on this 10-acre 2063 Measure E site, which I'll talk about in a second. It also undedicated the 10 acres of 2064 Byxbee Park Hills until 2021. What Emily Renzel was saying is that after 2021, Council 2065 could elect to return that back into parkland. Until such time, it was available for use. It 2066 didn't mandate that the use had to be there, but it called for the investigation and the 2067 opportunity to put that Energy Compose Facility there. I just want to make that 2068 distinction quickly for you. In 2013 we released an RFP for an Energy Compost Facility, 2069 that called for a technology to handle all of these feed stocks, the three that we talked 2070 about before, biosolids, food scraps and yard trimmings, either in one facility or perhaps 2071 in multiple facilities with the opportunity to use an acre within the wastewater treatment 2072 plant and the 10 acres of the Measure E site. We did that. What we found is that nothing 2073 really worked the way we had hoped. We didn't get a proposal that would satisfy the 2074 needs of both our solid waste needs and our wastewater needs. What it did clarify though 2075 was that there was a certain technology that was appropriate for the wastewater side of 2076 the shop. I'll get to that in a second. That RFP was canceled. The Council elected to 2077 reject all the proposals at that point. They said, at that point, "Well, we don't want to use 2078 the entire Measure E site. 10 acres is not appropriate to build on, so we're going to 2079 restrict you to 3.8 acres."—I'll show you that in a second—"3.8 acres of that site which is 2080 fairly flat, and we want you to look at it right away to see if it's possible to put a 2081 Composting Facility to compost yard trimmings and possibly residential food scraps 2082 together on this 3.8-acre site." Right away we quickly turned around in, I would say, 2083 record speed for government a new RFP which was looking at just composting on that 2084 Measure E site. What did we find? Well, the Measure E site is complicated. Building 2085 something there was very expensive, much more expensive than composting outside. At 2086 Draft Minutes 50 Approved that point in time when we get to December just last year, a few months ago, Council 2087 said, "You know what? Maybe this isn't quite ready for prime time. We're going to hold 2088 off on this project, and we're going to continue essentially with the status quo." That's the 2089 lead. I want to give you a little bit more background about the site here. Now you know 2090 the ending, that nothing is happening over there for at least a little while. I want to talk 2091 about the site itself so you have some perspective. I know all of you spend a lot of time 2092 out on Byxbee Park. Daren gives me full reports back when he sees you all out there. 2093 Here's the park over here. Of course, we're going to be opening up a large portion of the 2094 last phase over in Earth Day. That'll be very exciting. We're going to be presenting next 2095 month to you about the Byxbee Park Hills concepts and the trails and all the great stuff 2096 we're doing over there. Right now if we look at the Measure E site, you can see this site 2097 is in blue. That's about 10 acres. The dark blue, over here, this is what we call the 2098 relatively flat area, the 3.8-acre area that was part of the Compost Facility RFP. Then the 2099 treatment plant is over here in yellow. One of the reasons that we weren't able to do 2100 anything right away on the Measure E site, and especially that 3.8-acre site, is that it has a 2101 number of constraints on the site. There is a habitat corridor, a set of trees pretty well 2102 established, that was serving as a barrier between the landfill and the waste water 2103 treatment plant right over here. That connects the Bay, over here, with Renzel Marsh. 2104 There's a lot of really great habitat in there, foxes and some other bunch of critters that 2105 are too numerous to name. Building on that site would involve the potential dislocation 2106 of that particular habitat corridor. That's one challenge. The second challenge is building 2107 anywhere on the Baylands is no easy feat. Underneath all that land is Bay mud, not 2108 really the most conducive neighborhood to build stuff in. In addition to that, right over 2109 here is a landfill, so you're building next to a landfill which is also not the easiest thing to 2110 build on. Add on to that a number of pipes that go underneath the site, real challenge. 2111 All of that drove up the cost and just made building even a simple compost facility very 2112 expensive. The last piece of making it expensive, you're like, "Why is it so expensive to 2113 build a compost facility? They seem like they should be pretty cheap." Well, you guys 2114 all have noses, right? Okay. Compost is smelly; it can be anyway. Because the use of 2115 Byxbee Park Hills is a park and people would be right here taking nice strolls and going 2116 by. They would smell what was coming off this facility, so we required the highest level 2117 of odor protection possible for that facility so that it would not smell offsite at all. Some 2118 people like the smell of compost. Me personally not so much. To have full odor control 2119 on that site again drove costs up. In turn, that is why we don't have a facility located on 2120 that site. What are we actually going to do? I'll try to wrap this up quickly for you. As 2121 part of the recommendation back in May 2014, we broke up our plans for dealing with 2122 organics, those three different organic streams, yard trimmings, food scraps and biosolids 2123 into four components. The first component, Number 1, is addressing biosolids 2124 specifically. That allows us to decommission the incinerator, so we can take those 2125 biosolids and send them off to either the Central Valley or over to the East Bay Municipal 2126 Utility District in Oakland to be processed there. That's a new truck offloading facility as 2127 part of Component 1. That project is underway right now. The first two components, by 2128 Draft Minutes 51 Approved the way, are inside the treatment plant. Keep that in mind. Component 2 is anaerobic 2129 digestion. That's wet anaerobic digestion, building giant tanks that essentially eat the 2130 biosolids, the sewage sludge. That would also be located within the treatment plant. Part 2131 of that facility would be sending food scraps to those digesters, and that would all 2132 generate energy. All that energy would more than satisfy the energy needs of the 2133 wastewater treatment plant, which is one of the largest energy users in the entire city. It's 2134 a very green and sustainable effort. Essentially energy that you guys create through your 2135 trips to the bathroom—I apologize for being blunt—and the food that you eat or don't eat 2136 in this case. That's Components 1, 2 and 3. All of that would be located within the 2137 treatment plant's footprint. Component 4, that was what we were looking at with the 2138 Compost Facility RFP. That's the piece that we are currently, for lack of a better word, 2139 on hold and sending our organics outside of the community. I thought I had another slide 2140 at the end of there, but that's okay. My apologies. Here we are. Bear with me for one 2141 second here. We're experiencing technical difficulties. There we are. What happens? 2142 Again, we talked about in December 2014 the decision to go with the lower cost option, 2143 to use composting facilities for our yard trimmings and food scraps outside of Palo Alto. 2144 We are currently looking at a facility that's not very far, about 15 miles from our current 2145 location, in north San Jose, to do that. We're going to provide annual updates every 2146 December on the status of the composting technology to see if there are lower cost 2147 options to use on the Measure E site. Again, this site can be considered for 2148 energy/compost uses until 2021. At that time, in 2021 and beyond, the Council can elect 2149 to return it back to parkland. That is the close of my presentation. Thank you for 2150 listening. I'm happy to answer any questions. 2151 2152 Chair Reckdahl: Before we start the questions, can you give one clarification? 2153 Dedicated parkland versus undedicated, what's the ramifications of that? If something is 2154 undedicated, does that mean it can't be touched by the city or that the city can develop it 2155 just like you would any parkland? 2156 2157 Mr. Krupp: From my understanding, that parcel is not considered part of the park 2158 system. Those 10 acres are not parkland. Now the city can elect to do something else 2159 with it. 2160 2161 Chair Reckdahl: For example, making trails on it, finishing off the Byxbee Hills Park. 2162 Could they treat it just like they would any other parkland? By development I mean 2163 making trails or finishing off the park, make plantings, that type of thing. 2164 2165 Mr. Krupp: What I can do is I can address how we handled the 10 acres within the 2166 interim park concepts, which we're going to talk about next month. We didn't put any 2167 trails through there, because we didn't know what that use would be. We didn't want to 2168 put a trail in there and have to remove the trail that people were getting used to service. 2169 We have to cap that part of the landfill, so it has to be finished. It will be planted the 2170 Draft Minutes 52 Approved same way as the rest of the landfill, so it won't look necessarily different from the rest of 2171 Byxbee Park Hills. At this point at time, until we're directed otherwise, we're not 2172 planning to put any trails through there. On the other hand, we're also not planning to 2173 fence it off. Daren, I don't know if you want to add anything to that. 2174 2175 Daren Anderson: No, I think you covered it. 2176 2177 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Crommie. 2178 2179 Commissioner Crommie: I want to thank you so much for this presentation. It's really 2180 important for our Commission to stay aware of what's going on with this acreage. So 2181 much has been happening, and you gave a really great timeline. I really appreciate your 2182 presentation. What's important to me is that we acknowledge that what was expected to 2183 happen with Measure E has not happened. The vote was shall 10 acres of existing 2184 parkland in Byxbee Park be undedicated for the exclusive purpose of building a 2185 processing facility for yard trimmings, food waste and other organic material. The idea 2186 behind this was to get green energy from anaerobic digestion. It's anaerobic digestion 2187 which is going to give us that green energy. You updated us quite well on the findings 2188 that so far that hasn't happened. The proponents of Measure E were very hopeful that it 2189 would. The opponents said, "We don't think the technology is there." We have six more 2190 years to figure it out. Because it's not looking like it is there, I'm just hoping that 2191 somehow our Commission can over time, through some kind of direction between staff 2192 helping us figure out how to do this, not lose sight of that parkland. This is to support 2193 what Emily Renzel said, that we have a lot of development going on in Byxbee Park. 2194 There's a lot of interest in our community to get those trails figured out, to make it a rich 2195 place for people to be. We've waited a long time. As we plan that, I think it's our 2196 responsibility on the Commission to not lose sight of that parkland. If you carve out the 2197 3.8 out of the 10, that's still leaving 6.2 acres to think about. I try to keep track of all this 2198 and I read a lot of the reports. Can you just say once again what that 3.8 would be carved 2199 out for provisionally? I know nothing is set, but can you just give a one sentence on that? 2200 2201 Mr. Krupp: Yeah, sure. The reason the 3.8 acres was carved out from the whole was that 2202 there was no fill underneath. There's no actual garbage underneath those 3.8 acres, and 2203 we wouldn't have to excavate the garbage and build a retaining wall, which was 2204 originally the possibility with using all the 10 acres. The 3.8 acres was what we always 2205 called "the relatively flat" portion of that land. 2206 2207 Commissioner Crommie: Now I understand. Should anything go there, the idea is it 2208 should really only go on the 3.8 if anything goes there at all. That is more of a rationale 2209 for us to really keep our eye on the 6.2 acres. I think that land is a really important 2210 gateway to Byxbee Park. When you look at the map, it just sits right there as people are 2211 going to enter the park. I just think we don't want to lose sight of that. I also want to 2212 Draft Minutes 53 Approved make a point that when this vote went forth, the idea was that 10 acres was to be used 2213 independently for the production of green energy. If we can't do that, I personally think 2214 we have to be very careful about setting that site up as some kind of support land for the 2215 processing plant. Just because it happens to be next to it doesn't mean that we have no 2216 mandate whatsoever to have this undedicated parkland to somehow be some auxiliary 2217 space to support what's going on at the regional—what did we call that? The sewage 2218 treatment center. I really would like us to separate this as we study this on the 2219 Commission. I really hope that you'll continue to come back to us. I also want to say I 2220 think the city is doing very good work totally independent of Measure E. I know it was a 2221 goal of the city to get rid of the incinerator. That's huge. I want to congratulate the 2222 powers behind that. To push forward with all of these incredibly sensible things that 2223 needed to take place which have really no bearing on our parkland and are going to 2224 proceed independently of that. Thank you. 2225 2226 Chair Reckdahl: Other questions. Nope. Thank you. 2227 2228 6. Council Recommendation on Next Steps for the 7.7 Acres at Foothills Park. 2229 2230 Chair Reckdahl: We do have one speaker, Jerry Hearn. 2231 2232 Jerry Hearn: Thank you very much. Members of the Commission, Jerry Hearn, resident 2233 of Portola Valley. In the interests of disclosure, I've been involved with the Acterra 2234 nursery and with Acterra both since their inception; however, tonight I'm speaking as a 2235 private citizen in regards to the recommendation in front of you tonight. There are three 2236 elements to it. I want to comment individually on each one of them. The first one 2237 regarding the hydrologic study, I think that's an excellent idea. It's in line with the natural 2238 environment element of the general plan. In my experience working with the Master 2239 Plan process for the parks, there's seems to be a great interest for water features, and this 2240 could turn out to be an interesting water feature. Thirdly, as mentioned in there, there is 2241 some potential for steelhead trout that do exist in the downstream end of Los Trancos 2242 Creek which this empties into. I think that's a good idea, and I fully support that. The 2243 second item is about the closure of the park temporarily until the hydrologic study is 2244 done. I think that makes perfect sense. If you've been out there, you know what the area 2245 looks like. The flat area, which is the only really accessible area, is pretty uninteresting 2246 at this point. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of interest to go out there; however, 2247 you might think about making it available for tours every once in a while as was done 2248 before, although those were not very well attended. It's not a bad idea if people want to 2249 go out there and take a look at it. The third part, which as to do with the nursery lease. 2250 When I first read about the idea of having it be on an annual basis, that kind of set me 2251 back a little bit because I thought back to when we were trying to find a place for the 2252 nursery, how long it took us to find it, how long it took us to put all the pieces together. 2253 The idea that in a year's time or half a year's time, depending on whatever happened, we 2254 Draft Minutes 54 Approved could be looking for a new place. That would be a real challenge. However, with the 2255 option that it's a four-year renewable lease with both parties agreeing to it and given the 2256 excellent relationship that we have established with staff over the many years, I think that 2257 we would be able to work with that. I'm sure that it would not be a surprise sprung on us, 2258 so we would have plenty of time to make a change if we needed to. In general, I just 2259 want to say that I support the recommendation. I appreciate all the work that staff has put 2260 into thinking about this. I look forward to seeing that 7.7 acres put to better use than it 2261 has been in the past with the exception, of course, of the Acterra nursery which is a 2262 fabulous use. Thank you very much. 2263 2264 Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. Daren, it's yours. 2265 2266 Daren Anderson: Good evening. I’m here tonight seeking your recommendation to 2267 Council on how to proceed with that 7.7-acre parcel of parkland at Foothills Park. A 2268 quick summary of where we left off. The Council had dedicated this land in August 2014 2269 and directed staff to work with the Commission to figure out the best use for the land. 2270 After the ranger-led tours and the public meeting, staff brought the issue to the 2271 Commission to discuss it on January 27th, last month. At the meeting, there was general 2272 consensus on how to move forward. The first general agreement was to fund and 2273 implement the hydrology study for Buckeye Creek. There was note that this should be 2274 completed before making any recommendations whatsoever on how to use the land for 2275 any other purpose. The second was to renew that Acterra nursery lease for a short-term 2276 basis so the city has flexibility to act on those recommendations that would come about 2277 through some hydrology study. I've recommended a year-to-year lease, as you saw in the 2278 staff report, with the option to renew for four additional years pending that mutual 2279 agreement and the city's approval. The third consensus was to keep that parcel closed to 2280 the public, which is status quo, until the hydrology study is complete. I would like to 2281 thank the Commission and the ad hoc committee for excellent guidance, really clear 2282 directions, and assistance with this process. That concludes my presentation. I'm 2283 available for any questions or comments. 2284 2285 Chair Reckdahl: Okay. Questions? 2286 2287 Chair Lauing: Do the ad hoc committee members want to add anything different or 2288 additional from last month? 2289 2290 Chair Reckdahl: Go ahead, Commissioner Hetterly. 2291 2292 Commissioner Hetterly: I was going to go ahead and move that we approve the 2293 recommendation. 2294 2295 Chair Reckdahl: Do we have a second? 2296 Draft Minutes 55 Approved 2297 Commissioner Lauing: Second. 2298 2299 Commissioner Knopper: Second. Oh, sorry. 2300 2301 STAFF RECOMMENDATION MOVED BY COMMISSIONER HETTERLY AND 2302 SECONDED BY COMMISSIONER LAUING. 2303 2304 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Crommie. 2305 2306 Commissioner Crommie: I just had a question. Am I allowed to ask that? 2307 2308 Commissioner Hetterly: (inaudible) 2309 2310 Commissioner Lauing: Motion's on the table. 2311 2312 Commissioner Crommie: Thank you, Daren, for all your hard work on this as well as 2313 thank you to our ad hoc committee. I think this was a really good proposal. I wanted a 2314 sense of what you're thinking in terms of timeframe. The reason I'm asking this question 2315 is I know part of the proposal is to keep this land out of reach to the public. Any time we 2316 do have parkland, I think as a Commission we have to be very mindful of that. I take that 2317 very seriously as far as cutting off access. I know that in the past a couple of Council 2318 Members have asked if, while we're figuring this all out, we can have access. We've 2319 bantered that about. I think there are some good arguments in this proposal for why we 2320 cannot do that considering cost and safety, just to mention two of them. Can you just 2321 speak to this issue a little bit? We've been waiting decades for this, and I would just hate 2322 for it to go on and on. Can you give me some sense of what you're thinking in terms of 2323 the timeline? 2324 2325 Mr. Anderson: My hope for the timeline is that the capital improvement project is 2326 approved, and we are able to have access to the funds come July 1st. Once the funds are 2327 available, jump on this immediately. Go out to bid, see if we can find a good consultant 2328 to take on the hydrology study. The part of the timeframe that I’m uncertain about is how 2329 long it'll take to get the hydrology study completed. It would really be part of that pre-2330 bid proposal, where I'm hearing from consultants if they need to see it through a full rain 2331 cycle. In some preliminary outreach, we know that there are some contractors who have 2332 studied the hydrology in the general area. They might have a good enough understanding 2333 that could truncate that process a little bit, rather than having to see it over an extended 2334 period of time. That's an unknown at this point. I need more details to come through the 2335 outreach to these contractors and the people who study hydrology. That said, I could not 2336 foresee it going beyond a year. 2337 2338 Draft Minutes 56 Approved Commissioner Crommie: Just as far as how this is phrased here. It says, "Keep the 7.7-2339 acre parcel closed until after the hydrology study is completed." We know that once a 2340 study is completed, then we have to study the findings of the study, figure out where we 2341 want to go with that. I might try to make a friendly amendment to this or I wonder if we 2342 can have some kind of clarification about that. I wanted, I guess, more clarification on 2343 this statement. 2344 2345 Mr. Anderson: I understand what you mean. I think it bears elaboration. I think the 2346 right thing is after that study is complete, it comes back to the Commission and then we 2347 can look at all those options we vetted. Somewhere in there it could open early, because 2348 now you've got an understanding of the implications of the hydrology. It could remain 2349 closed. The reason I left it partially open is we know what the process will be after the 2350 hydrology study is complete. Somewhere in there it could open and maybe not. It would 2351 really be at the Commission's recommendation, which is what Council asked of you. We 2352 could add language or if you think that suffices, leave it as is. 2353 2354 Commissioner Crommie: As a Commission, I'd like a chance when it's on the table. It 2355 sounds like it's already on the table. I don't know the logistics of when I bring that up for 2356 discussion. I would like some guidance on having our Commission talk about the 2357 wording of Number 2. Is this the proper time to do that? I want to know if anyone else 2358 on the Commission ... 2359 2360 Commissioner Hetterly: Do you have a proposal for what (inaudible)? 2361 2362 Commissioner Crommie: What would I propose? 2363 2364 Commissioner Hetterly: Do you have a suggestion for what you would like? Do you 2365 have wording to propose? 2366 2367 Commissioner Crommie: Let me think a minute. Keep it closed until it's completed. 2368 Once it's completed, bring it back in a timely manner so we can reevaluate that. I don't 2369 know quite how to word that. I feel like it's just a little bit too open-ended. Does anyone 2370 else share my concern? 2371 2372 Commissioner Knopper: Actually no. It's not only with regard to the hydrologic study. 2373 Obviously you mentioned the safety issue with regard to the parcel. There's also a 2374 private residence, if you recall, that has three open sides. From a public-private 2375 perspective, we can't just open it to the public because then they'll end up trespassing. 2376 The other issue I want to bring up is after the hydrologic study and the conclusion of the 2377 Master Plan, having all of that data as well as the creek information, like structurally the 2378 creek issue, folding all that data together and then being able to systematically make 2379 decisions that are formed based on what this—because it's really 2.1 acres as we talked 2380 Draft Minutes 57 Approved about that's buildable potentially. I think that's very clear. Keep the parcel closed until 2381 after the study and then we can deal with it at that point. I think the study is only one 2382 piece of it, because it's also about the Master Plan. 2383 2384 Chair Reckdahl: My concern would be that you could infer that first sentence says that 2385 once the study is complete, we will open it. That'd be my only concern about 2386 misinterpretation. If we want to say, "Shall remain closed at least until after the 2387 hydrology study is complete," that would say that we don't have any obligation to open it 2388 once the hydrological study is complete. 2389 2390 Commissioner Crommie: Okay. That's possible. Commissioner Knopper just said two 2391 things that I am not sure I personally agree with. I don't think it's really been established 2392 that only 2.1 acres of that are usable. We don't know that for certain. There are ways to 2393 build trails on—it's all predicated on flatness. We know that you can build trails in areas 2394 that are not flat. I don't agree with that. 2395 2396 Commissioner Lauing: What's wrong with leaving it open as it is? It seemed to me that 2397 the language you added didn't change the facts here, which is it's going to stay closed 2398 until the hydrologic study is complete. I'm not sure what your language does. It doesn't 2399 say it's going to open. It's just an extra sentence, just as I heard it anyway. All we're 2400 saying with the way it's written is that it's going to stay closed, if we approve this 2401 recommendation, until we get the results of the hydrologic study. After that we could 2402 make new recommendations the next day, I guess, technically the way this is written. 2403 2404 Commissioner Crommie: If that's the interpretation, that's fine with me. I like the idea 2405 once it's complete that it can come back to us immediately and we can try to open it. I 2406 wouldn't vote for something that's going to be closed indefinitely. I think the safety 2407 measures are workable. I personally believe that you can overcome that and open this up. 2408 There are ways to mitigate the dangers to the public. I think eventually our Commission 2409 is going to have to deal with this question of what we're doing next. I interpret this the 2410 way that, I guess, Commissioner Lauing just stated it; that as soon as it's complete, at any 2411 point it can come back to us and we can say we can open it. 2412 2413 Mr. Anderson: Would it be at all helpful if I added text to the staff report that goes to 2414 Council to just make that abundantly clear that this is the process that the Commission 2415 and staff intend to follow? Everything we just enumerated. That after this is done, 2416 immediately after, staff will bring this back to the Commission. One of the things that 2417 may result is opening it sooner rather than later, but we'll have the full breadth of 2418 information from the Master Plan and the hydrology study. We'll combine it to take the 2419 most prudent process forward. 2420 2421 Draft Minutes 58 Approved Commissioner Crommie: I like that personally, because I’m not believing that it's 2422 impossible to open this land up. I actually believe it is possible, but I think the hydrology 2423 study takes precedence in my mind. That's why I would vote in favor of this. I do think 2424 it's possible to open up this land while we're studying it further. 2425 2426 Chair Reckdahl: Without an amendment, we go back to the Motion. We have a Motion 2427 and a second. All in favor say aye. Opposed. It passes. Thank you, Daren. 2428 2429 MOTION PASSES: 7-0 2430 2431 7. Other Ad Hoc Committee and Liaison Updates. 2432 2433 Chair Reckdahl: Are there any ad hocs that have updates? 2434 2435 Commissioner Ashlund: Yeah. Commissioner Crommie and I met regarding the Lucy 2436 Evans Baylands Interpretive Center. We met with Daren Anderson regarding the site, 2437 and then with John Aikin to discuss the site and the CIPs that are available as well as 2438 future steps regarding programming. The three CIPs that are currently in process are a 2439 feasibility study to determine how to repair and replace the boardwalk. That RFP I 2440 assume went out; it was to go out last month. This study will complete in the fall and 2441 design can begin soon after pending Council approval. Cost of construction for the 2442 boardwalk will be determined during the study and further refined in the design stage. 2443 The second is the project for general improvements to the Interpretive Center. The scope 2444 of this project is decking, railing, structural framing as needed, exterior wood siding, 2445 flooring, cabinetry, and doors. That is interior as well as exterior, because the floor is 2446 continuous on the exterior of the building as well as inside. There's $100,000 budgeted 2447 for design in the current fiscal year and $405,000 scheduled for construction in fiscal year 2448 2016. This RFP did go out in January and design will begin this spring. Public Works 2449 had slated to do public input in the fall. We added that we should have Parks and Rec 2450 feedback prior to the public input phase on that process. The third one is improvements 2451 to the Interpretive Center exhibits, but this also includes the outdoor signage. That 2452 project is funded at $56,000 scheduled for fiscal year 2017. We discussed that that was 2453 insufficient budget for exhibits, but it's the starting point. We'll be going back after that. 2454 That is the current status. Commissioner Crommie, did you have anything to add? 2455 2456 Commissioner Crommie: Yes, thank you. The next step in this is to bring John Aikin to 2457 present to us on these CIPs with the main focus on the third one that Commissioner 2458 Ashlund just mentioned, which is the Interpretive Center exhibits. What we brought up 2459 in our meeting with John Aikin is that we're very interested in discussing programming 2460 and making sure that the facility is sustaining future programming. When we asked 2461 about that, he said that he thinks that the second CIP that Commissioner Ashlund 2462 mentioned will probably cover needs for reconfiguration, if any, in the interior space for 2463 Draft Minutes 59 Approved programming. What was not covered is this concept of the exhibits. That's where John 2464 Aikin sees a deficit. He felt that we could actually be useful in examining that as a 2465 Commission. He said it broadly pertains to exhibits across the Baylands Open Space 2466 Preserve, if we want to look at this as an integrated endeavor. There's a lot of food for 2467 thought that he brought up in our meeting. I think our Commission would have some 2468 good input on that. Because we have members of our Commission that get involved in 2469 the CIP process, it'd be nice for us to get some of this information through a presentation 2470 and then decide if we want to try for any advocacy within the CIP process on this topic. 2471 The outcome of our meeting is I'm really hoping that we will bring this to the 2472 Commission as an agenda item. 2473 2474 Rob de Geus: That all makes sense to me. The sequencing of when to look at the exhibit 2475 CIP, I've talked to John Aikin about this as well. The boardwalk and knowing whether 2476 we're going to have a boardwalk or not or if it's going to change in some way and the 2477 facility and the walls and other things related to the second CIP that you spoke about, 2478 both of those will inform what we might do with the exhibit program. I want to be sure 2479 we get those going first and then integrate the exhibit CIP at the appropriate time. I agree 2480 that $56,000 is not enough really for what we would want to do there. To the point about 2481 exhibits, if you've been out there recently, there are four exhibits on the exterior but 2482 they're sitting on railing that's pretty old and falling apart. All the rails are rusted. Those 2483 things need to be understood in terms of what needs to be fixed before we can really 2484 design exhibits and how they might be installed as an example. 2485 2486 Commissioner Crommie: In that big picture concept, we'd want him to cover everything. 2487 2488 Mr. de Geus: Right, right, correct. 2489 2490 Chair Reckdahl: Any Lucy Evans improvements, is that all going to be funded through 2491 CIPs or could it be external funds? 2492 2493 Mr. de Geus: It could be external funds. These three CIPs are all within the CIP budget 2494 and the Infrastructure Reserve. We don't have any external funding. 2495 2496 Chair Reckdahl: Is there a Friends of the Baylands or is it just Friends of Parks? 2497 2498 Mr. de Geus: We don't have a Friends of the Baylands. 2499 2500 Commissioner Ashlund: We talked about the need for something like that too. There's 2501 not a Friends group associated with that facility at this point. 2502 2503 Mr. de Geus: Not specifically. We have Friends of Palo Alto Parks and we have the 2504 environmental volunteers of course that are out there. 2505 Draft Minutes 60 Approved 2506 Chair Reckdahl: Let's talk offline and bring this up in a future meeting. 2507 2508 Commissioner Crommie: This has a lot of visibility right now, which is very important. 2509 Commissioner Ashlund and I, in talking to John Aikin, agreed that we need to act now 2510 with a vision because of the visibility and the momentum. This is the time to do it if we 2511 want to advocate for any kind of global envisioning, when it comes to something like 2512 exhibits. 2513 2514 Chair Reckdahl: Any other ad hocs? Okay. 2515 2516 V. COMMENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS 2517 2518 Chair Reckdahl: Rob, did you have any announcements? 2519 2520 Rob de Geus: It's late so I'll be quick. We do have our summer camp and aquatics 2521 registration coming up. We did have a fair over the weekend at Mitchell Park, which was 2522 a lot of fun. A lot of parents and children attended that and met some of the staff. By 2523 5:00 p.m. this Friday, submissions need to be in so we can process the summer camp 2524 program. I wanted to give an update on the CIP program. Generally the Commission 2525 worked with staff in defining priorities. That's moving through the process. We still 2526 have Buckeye Creek, of course a high priority, Bol Park. The Baylands Comprehensive 2527 Conservation Plan is in there as well. Hopefully that will get approved, which actually 2528 could inform exhibits. Also Cubberley is also now coming into play, because we have an 2529 agreement with the school district that defines specific funding to support the Cubberley 2530 campus. There's a few things that I'd love to see fixed there; the tennis courts as an 2531 example. They're really in bad shape. There's a number of other things that we'd just like 2532 to get fixed up at Cubberley as well as starting the Master Planning process for the future 2533 of Cubberley. 2534 2535 Commissioner Lauing: What about that fire hazard at Foothills? Was that put in the 2536 CIPs from a different group? 2537 2538 Mr. de Geus: No. That's an interesting question. It was requested that it wouldn't be put 2539 in the capital budget, but rather be put forward as an operating budget request between 2540 Public Works, Community Services and Fire. We're submitting it that way. It's in the 2541 mix, so we'll see if it gets approved. That's it. 2542 2543 Chair Reckdahl: What's the status on El Camino Park? 2544 2545 Mr. de Geus: The status on El Camino Park is it's moving forward. I believe something 2546 had begun on site. I don't know that they had a specific groundbreaking, that I’m aware 2547 Draft Minutes 61 Approved of at least. We've been moving forward and hope to have it completed by the end of the 2548 calendar year with an open facility. A long time coming. 2549 2550 Chair Reckdahl: How about the Mayfield turf? I think we'd said that we were looking at 2551 a February timeframe to start the turf. I think that's been pushed back. 2552 2553 Mr. de Geus: I think it's on schedule. We're a bit behind, I should say first of all. The 2554 most recent schedule, we're sticking with that. Both fields need to be replaced in terms of 2555 the turf. 2556 2557 Chair Reckdahl: They're doing it sequentially, so we only lose one field at a time? 2558 2559 Mr. de Geus: That's correct. 2560 2561 Commissioner Ashlund: Can I request an update on Magical Bridge next time if 2562 possible? I know there's been a lot of progress there, so any word you have on the 2563 opening. 2564 2565 Mr. de Geus: Yeah, that'll be good timing. By the end of March I think it's intended to 2566 be open if all goes according to plan. 2567 2568 Chair Reckdahl: How about Scott Park? 2569 2570 Mr. de Geus: I'll have to get back to you on Scott Park. I'm not sure what the status is on 2571 that. 2572 2573 VI. TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR MARCH 24, 2015 MEETING 2574 2575 Chair Reckdahl: Maybe you should talk about the retreat first. 2576 2577 Rob de Geus: The retreat we have scheduled for March 20th from noon to 3:00 at 2578 Mitchell Park Community Center. 2579 2580 Chair Reckdahl: We're not doing Foothills. 2581 2582 Mr. de Geus: Not this time. Was it not available or we just went with Mitchell? 2583 2584 Catherine Bourquin: Sorry, it was more convenient for me to reserve Mitchell this time. 2585 2586 Mr. de Geus: It was more convenience for Catherine, so we're at Mitchell. 2587 2588 Draft Minutes 62 Approved Commissioner Knopper: Are we in the library or are we actually in the Community 2589 Center? 2590 2591 Vice Chair Markevitch: Probably the community center. 2592 2593 Mr. de Geus: If there's a desire for the Commission to be somewhere else, we can do 2594 that. Mitchell's a nice change. 2595 2596 Chair Reckdahl: It's a new facility. In some ways it's nice to use the new facility. 2597 2598 Mr. de Geus: Yeah, I agree. 2599 2600 Chair Reckdahl: If anything's wrong with it, we can complain. 2601 2602 Mr. de Geus: It keeps Catherine happy too, so that's always good. The question will be, 2603 what do we do at that retreat? I think there's two possibilities. One is a typical retreat 2604 that we do, where we take some time to really reflect on the year past and the year ahead 2605 and try to plan out the year in priorities and see if we can set the agenda to some degree 2606 for the next several months. The alternative is to focus on the Parks Master Plan. That 2607 really depends on how far MIG can get with staff in preparing the matrix and the data and 2608 the binders, so that we can have a productive meeting. We'll have to see. We have a 2609 little bit of time; I guess about a month to prepare for that. I suspect we're not going to be 2610 ready by March 20th to do that deep dive in the matrix and the Summary of Needs, 2611 because there's just so much information. I don't want to go forward with it unless it's 2612 really ready and well thought through. 2613 2614 Chair Reckdahl: I am concerned that if we wait too long and they fill it out the wrong 2615 way too much, then they'll say, "Well, we put so much into this, you can't change it now." 2616 2617 Mr. de Geus: That's a fair point too. That's something that perhaps we can talk about 2618 over the next month to see where things are at. We can also talk with MIG and make the 2619 call as we get a little closer. Everybody's got it on their calendar? Either way it'll be ... 2620 2621 Chair Reckdahl: We will have a retreat on the 20th. We will set the content, and then 2622 Rob will send something out by email depending on what the content is. We'll prepare 2623 for the regular retreat. I think the highest priority is Master Plan. If we're anywhere close 2624 to having something, we should do the Master Plan. 2625 2626 Commissioner Lauing: If that happens, then we're going to put the retreat content into 2627 one of our subsequent meetings, correct? As opposed to setting another retreat to do the 2628 real retreat. 2629 2630 Draft Minutes 63 Approved Chair Reckdahl: I guess we can talk about that at the retreat. 2631 2632 Commissioner Lauing: Unless the retreat is the 20th, right? 2633 2634 Chair Reckdahl: Yes. On the 20th, if we're discussing the Master Plan, then as part of 2635 that we can talk about when we want the regular retreat content. 2636 2637 Commissioner Lauing: Right, but it's not going to be on the 20th if that happens. We 2638 can't squeeze in both the retreat agenda and essentially a study session on the Master 2639 Plan. 2640 2641 Mr. de Geus: We can add that to the agenda. Assuming the Master Plan is ready, we can 2642 add to the agenda on the 24th of March what we want to do with a future retreat, I 2643 suppose. 2644 2645 Chair Reckdahl: Or even on the 20th too we could talk about it. Either way. 2646 2647 Commissioner Lauing: You're going to have two agendas ready for the 20th? Like two 2648 game plans and then whatever one ... 2649 2650 Chair Reckdahl: Yeah. Pat and I will get input from people on the path forward for the 2651 Commission. We'll put that on the shelf if the Master Plan comes in. Does that seem 2652 reasonable? 2653 2654 Commissioner Lauing: Yeah. 2655 2656 Commissioner Hetterly: In terms of putting things on the table for the retreat if it were to 2657 be the planning the year retreat on the 20th, I'm not sure how the Brown Act weighs in on 2658 that. If more than two Commissioners have thoughts about it, then they need to send it to 2659 you not to ... 2660 2661 Mr. de Geus: Send it to staff, yeah. 2662 2663 Commissioner Hetterly: Everybody should do that, send your comments or suggestions 2664 for the retreat to Rob and not to Keith. 2665 2666 Commissioner Crommie: Can you frame that a little bit more when you say suggestions? 2667 What do you mean exactly? Are we going to base it on past retreats? I'm a little 2668 confused. 2669 2670 Chair Reckdahl: Yeah. In past retreats, we've talked about what ad hocs we would have 2671 and what priorities we would have. If there's other paths forward or any guidance that 2672 Draft Minutes 64 Approved you want to give, that you want to talk about, give it to Rob or come prepared to talk 2673 about it. If it's just your two cents, you can give that at the retreat. 2674 2675 Commissioner Crommie: Right. I've thought that when we're actually at the retreat, we 2676 discuss quite a few things as a group as far as we traditionally form subcommittees. 2677 We'll decide which ones to carry forward and whether we need any more. 2678 2679 Chair Reckdahl: I think the only exception is if it's anything where Rob has to gather 2680 data or one of us has to gather data. We want to know about that before the meeting, so 2681 we can get any supporting material. 2682 2683 Commissioner Crommie: Can you just give an example of what you mean? 2684 2685 Chair Reckdahl: If we're talking about, say, summer camps, and you want some 2686 information about the summer camps so that we can talk about making different types of 2687 summer camps or marketing them better, then you would want some information from 2688 Rob about how well the summer camps went this year, how the sign-ups went, what was 2689 popular, what was not popular. If we get over to Mitchell Park and we're inside and you 2690 want to talk about the summer camps, then we don't have the data. The only reason that 2691 you would want to send stuff to Rob is if some preparation has to go into that before the 2692 retreat. 2693 2694 Mr. de Geus: I think that's fair; although, I would add that we don't really want to work 2695 any issue at the retreat necessarily. We're trying to put things on the table that 2696 Commissioners or staff think have a policy implication of some type that we might weigh 2697 in on as a Commission and to advise Council on. If you have those kinds of ... 2698 2699 Commissioner Lauing: Or if someone has format changes compared to the default of 2700 previous years, that would be fair game to also forward to you. 2701 2702 Mr. de Geus: Absolutely, sure. 2703 2704 Commissioner Lauing: I think, Commissioner Crommie, what we're saying is that we 2705 would just go with the normal default as we've usually done unless someone has a great 2706 idea that the Chair and the Vice decide we should make this shift. 2707 2708 Commissioner Crommie: Right. I was just hoping people could bring those great ideas 2709 up right now at our meeting. That's traditionally what we've done. I guess I’m a little bit 2710 confused in this outsourcing proposal. I feel like this is the time for people to bring up 2711 ideas. 2712 2713 Draft Minutes 65 Approved Commissioner Hetterly: Sorry. I think I complicated the issue by raising it. We don't 2714 have it on the agenda today to discuss the retreat. We don't even know when we're going 2715 hold the retreat. Since we're in this Plan A/Plan B scenario for the 20th, I just wanted to 2716 remind everyone that if we do end up having the retreat on the 20th, be cautious of the 2717 Brown Act. 2718 2719 Commissioner Crommie: Now I understand where you're coming from. Just to clarify, I 2720 thought we had a date and a time. Is that not true? 2721 2722 Mr. de Geus: Yeah, we do. March 20th, noon to 3:00. We'll provide lunch. 2723 2724 Chair Reckdahl: March 20th, we will have a retreat. The only issue is the content of the 2725 retreat. Is it the traditional content or is it just the Master Plan? We might do 3 hours on 2726 the Master Plan. 2727 2728 Commissioner Crommie: We're going to have to notice this? 2729 2730 Mr. de Geus: Oh, yeah. 2731 2732 Chair Reckdahl: Oh, yeah. 2733 2734 Commissioner Crommie: Maybe we've just neglected to put it on the agenda. In the past 2735 we've often discussed it at our meeting prior to the retreat. 2736 2737 Mr. de Geus: I think we have. I think that's right. 2738 2739 Commissioner Crommie: I was just a little bit ... 2740 2741 Mr. de Geus: Retreat planning I think, yeah. 2742 2743 Commissioner Crommie: Right. That's okay. 2744 2745 Chair Reckdahl: Agenda items for next month, for the 24th. 2746 2747 Mr. de Geus: We have a Byxbee Park plan. 2748 2749 Commissioner Crommie: I just wanted to comment that Daren is working very hard on 2750 that. We have an ad hoc subcommittee that needs to meet before we present that. We 2751 were almost ready to meet. Now we're probably going to meet really soon. That's 2752 Commissioner Reckdahl and myself. 2753 2754 Chair Reckdahl: He has the feedback from the consultant now, so we can talk about it. 2755 Draft Minutes 66 Approved 2756 Commissioner Crommie: Right. I think we're ready to set our meeting. He's ready. 2757 2758 Chair Reckdahl: I assume Master Plan is going to come up. 2759 2760 Mr. de Geus: Yeah, Parks Master Plan will be back. 2761 2762 Commissioner Crommie: Can we invite John Aikin to come and speak about the 2763 Baylands CIP? If we have room in the meeting. 2764 2765 Mr. de Geus: I don't think he'll have a whole lot of information by next month, is my 2766 sense. This is related to the exhibits specifically? 2767 2768 Commissioner Crommie: Yeah. When Commissioner Ashlund and I spoke with him, he 2769 made it sound like he was ready to come as soon we were able to have him. 2770 2771 Mr. de Geus: Okay, I'll check with him. 2772 2773 Commissioner Crommie: If you could just talk to him about that. 2774 2775 Mr. de Geus: Okay. 2776 2777 Chair Reckdahl: What is the schedule for determining CIPs? 2778 2779 Mr. de Geus: We're in the process of getting the new five-year plan approved. We run 2780 on a fiscal year from July 1 to June 30th. Now we're doing the 2016-2020 five-year plan 2781 and trying to get the first year, 2016, the actual budget approved. The other four years 2782 are just a plan. 2783 2784 Chair Reckdahl: We submitted a bunch for this coming fiscal year. 2785 2786 Mr. de Geus: Right. We're still in the process of getting those approved. 2787 2788 Chair Reckdahl: That goes up one level, and then they throw some out and keep some. 2789 Then they submit that to a higher level, to the Council. 2790 2791 Mr. de Geus: Right. It goes up several levels. So far all of our priorities remain in there, 2792 which is good news. 2793 2794 Chair Reckdahl: It's made it through the first cut, and now it's going to Council. 2795 2796 Draft Minutes 67 Approved Mr. de Geus: Correct. After July 1, after the budget has been approved, we can start 2797 over in evaluating the next round. 2798 2799 Chair Reckdahl: What is the date for the Council to approve it? 2800 2801 Mr. de Geus: I saw the schedule this week. I'll have to send it out. I know the 2802 Community Services budget is scheduled to go to the Finance Committee—are you on 2803 the Finance Committee, Council Member? Yeah. I think it's May 5th for the CSD 2804 operating budget. The capital budget goes on a different schedule. I'll have to send that 2805 calendar out to you all. 2806 2807 Chair Reckdahl: So we will not have any news about CIPs next month? 2808 2809 Mr. de Geus: No. 2810 2811 Vice Chair Markevitch: We only have two agenda items so far for next month. 2812 2813 Mr. de Geus: I'll have to check with Daren and with Peter to see if there are any park 2814 projects that need to come forward. 2815 2816 Chair Reckdahl: The other option is if the agenda's looking thin next month, we could do 2817 the Master Plan that evening on the 24th at our regular meeting or have a two-hour chunk 2818 out of it, some big chunk of the evening meeting. Then just have a retreat on the 20th, 2819 our normal retreat. 2820 2821 Mr. de Geus: We could do that. It feels to me like that's a really big discussion, and 2822 something that might lend itself to not being in this format and not going late into the 2823 evening. 2824 2825 Commissioner Crommie: When do we get the revenue report? Is that part of the Master 2826 Plan? That's an important piece that we haven't seen yet. 2827 2828 Mr. de Geus: The cost and prices. I haven't seen that either. I think they're working on 2829 that. We received today the survey results, a summary of the survey results. I haven't 2830 read it yet. That's the latest I've gotten from MIG. 2831 2832 Commissioner Crommie: As far as the next time we talk about the Master Plan, do we 2833 have a topic that we're expecting to talk about? Would we be talking about those survey 2834 results? That's a pretty meaty topic. 2835 2836 Mr. de Geus: On the 24th? 2837 2838 Draft Minutes 68 Approved Commissioner Crommie: Yeah. 2839 2840 Mr. de Geus: The survey results would be in there. That alone could be enough of a 2841 topic for the Master Plan. 2842 2843 Chair Reckdahl: Do you have any more comments? Okay. 2844 2845 VII. ADJOURNMENT 2846 2847 Meeting adjourned on motion by Commissioner Hetterly and second by Commissioner 2848 Ashlund at 10:52 p.m. 2849 Draft Minutes 69