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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2015-03-24 Parks & Recreation Summary MinutesAPPROVED 1 2 3 4 MINUTES 5 PARKS & RECREATION COMMISSION 6 REGULAR MEETING 7 March 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: Catherine Bourquin, Rob de Geus, Peter Jensen 17 I. ROLL CALL CONDUCTED BY: Catherine Bourquin 18 19 II. AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, and DELETIONS: 20 21 None. 22 23 III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS: 24 25 None. 26 27 IV. BUSINESS: 28 29 1. Approval of Draft Minutes from the Regular Meeting of February 24, 2015. 30 31 Approval of the draft February 24, 2015 Minutes was moved by Vice Chair Markevitch 32 and seconded by Commissioner Hetterly. Passed 7-0 33 34 Approved Minutes 1 APPROVED 2. Parks, Trails, Open Space and Recreation Facilities Master Plan to Include a 35 Review of the Community Survey Summary and Park Existing Conditions 36 Maps. 37 38 Chair Reckdahl: We have the MIG consultants. Thank you for coming down. This is a 39 two-hour chunk of time, so hopefully it will be very productive. You can start with your 40 presentation. 41 42 Rob de Geus: Just a quick comment. We don't have to take two hours if we get through 43 more quickly. It is actually pretty rich information in this survey. Most of all, the 44 Commission did a great deal of work in helping prepare the survey and get it ready for 45 public consumption. I don't know if you remember, but we spent a whole afternoon 46 reworking the survey, making sure that it had the questions that we really needed and 47 wanted. That was well worth it, because we had over 1,000 respondents. Pretty 48 interesting information that we're going to discuss tonight. We do have a presentation. 49 We welcome back Ryan and Ellie from MIG. We'll have them start off. Thank you. 50 51 Ryan Mottau: Thank you again for having me here, Chair Reckdahl and all of you 52 members of the Parks and Rec Commission. We wanted to reserve a chunk of time here, 53 because I know that this is an important topic for you all and there's a lot of information 54 provided. I want to start off with a quick explanation of what you're seeing in front of 55 you. It's been a little while, and we've taken this step back to pull a bunch of data 56 together. You've got your binders in hand now that include a lot of background 57 information organized more specifically by reference numbers and sections as explained 58 in the first sheet there. This is already inserted into your binders from the retreat, so you 59 have that information. The summary is in front of you for the survey at this point. We're 60 calling it Initial Summary because it is the first of two steps of digging into this 61 information. We wanted to make sure to get a chance to talk with you all about what 62 information might need some further clarification. We've talked about from the start of 63 this process, this survey effort was going to involve getting as many responses as we 64 could, but then also doing a breakdown of those responses to rebalance for 65 representativeness across the population. We're going to talk about that a little bit at the 66 end of this presentation. What I really want to do is go over a few points that stood out to 67 us as we went through this process of breaking down all of these results; and also ask you 68 all if there are things, either from the points that I’m going to bring up this evening or the 69 charts that I'm going to bring up or from any of the other questions, that you would like to 70 discuss with us while we're here and set you off on a path to review this a little more. We 71 will dig into that last little bit about the quota-based analysis. As Rob said, this survey 72 was a joint effort. We administered it per the scope request with the web service that the 73 City has subscribed to as part of our original plan from the start. We got a chance to 74 really dig in both with your ad hoc committee and with the full PRC to make sure the 75 questions addressed the topics that were close to your priorities and making sure that we 76 Approved Minutes 2 APPROVED got to the response we wanted and also to give you guys some time to provide feedback 77 about how to get the word about that. I want to say, echoing again what Rob said, that 78 we really feel like that was a big success; 1,164 responses once we had culled the limited 79 number of duplicates that inevitably happen, people hitting submit twice, that kind of 80 thing. We did not see any evidence in our review of quality control of any people who 81 had taken this survey lots of times or tried to load down a particular answer. I have no 82 concerns about the quality of this information as we move forward. Just to give a quick 83 profile of who responded. This is the entire set of responses. What you'll see here are 84 percentages all based on that 1,164 number with a couple of very limited exceptions that 85 are really representing out of the number of people who responded to this survey overall 86 is how we can look at these percentages. Overall the general respondent profile was 87 primarily people identifying as living in Palo Alto. We have the racial and ethnic 88 breakdown compared against the American Community Survey. If you aren't familiar 89 with that, between decennial census they do the estimates and updates for updated 90 information. This is the most current census information aligned here with that 91 breakdown for the entire survey count. Also looking at a couple of key questions, which 92 were very important to you all, making sure that we were including those parents with 93 children in the household or youth in the household. We had asked that question on our 94 survey in detail, what age groups do you have children in. We also aggregated that so 95 that we could do a quick comparison to what the ACS shows the overall community 96 breakdown is. Where we came out on that point is that we actually got a little bit 97 stronger response from the households with children. It actually flip flopped that overall 98 demographic in terms of what the ACS shows. We had 35 percent of households in Palo 99 Alto with children, 66 percent of our overall survey respondents have children of any age 100 in their household. Just to point out here, the math on the upper table here, which I'm 101 assuming you guys are seeing on your screens as well. On the upper table here, just to 102 note that these people were allowed to answer for multiple categories, and so the math on 103 the county column will not add up to 100, but the math on the percentage column will 104 also not because of the basis on the 1,164 responses. There is a double counting in that, 105 but not in the lower set there. Moving on to the meat of this. The summary presents 106 upfront, after the profile of what this survey is, a breakdown of some, as we called them, 107 themes and key findings. The two categories of what we really drew out of these results 108 overall. Themes being things that we saw across a wide set of questions. We tried to pin 109 those down so that you could see where those themes were being drawn out of, 110 referencing specifically to the different graphs that addressed those questions. In a 111 second section within that, what we labeled as strong findings on some key issues. So 112 drawing out from the topics that you have pointed out, that Staff has pointed out, the 113 community has pointed out are very important, starting to find those particularly strong 114 results. By strong I mean really looking at the things that look overwhelmingly 115 supportive . We are not trying to split hairs here, it's not 50 percent versus 51 percent. 116 We are looking at things that are more like overall 75 percent of people were supportive. 117 We are looking at things that overall 75 percent of people were supportive. Thinking 118 Approved Minutes 3 APPROVED about those, one of the topics that hit, and this chart covers a couple of different points. 119 You also have a handout. I will note that it goes through all of these graphs with a little 120 bit more detail. They have the raw numbers of responses in each category. Looking at 121 this graph, there were a couple of these strong findings that we identified. The topic of 122 water conservation as part of the overall sustainability questions that we asked really did 123 garner a lot of support. There were many strongly supporting responses to things like 124 expanding the use of recycled water and reducing the turf grass where it is not needed for 125 sports use. On a related note, on that same graph there are a couple of questions related 126 to the choice of using or not using artificial turf on athletic fields. It has some 127 sustainability implications on both sides. Artificial turf fields as noted in the question can 128 reduce the watering needs compared to a natural turf fields, but the support overall in the 129 community was stronger for avoiding artificial turf fields in favor of natural grass which 130 also allowed for drainage and reduces the need for the plastics and rubbers and things in 131 that environment. Overall we were seeing in this context of sustainability and water 132 conservation not as much support for artificial turf. Onto Graph 6. This question was 133 really tying into improvements to parks generally across the system to make those visits 134 more comfortable and convenient. This captured a variety of topics including one that 135 has been a perennial favorite here, which is the restroom topic, adding restrooms into 136 some of your park facilities. What we heard overall really was a pretty overwhelming 137 response. Over 80 percent of the people responding to this survey said that it was either a 138 4 or a 5, with 5 being very important, 1 being not important on our rating scale. This 139 came in with a group of amenities that we were actually hearing a lot about in other 140 venues as well. Restrooms come up in a lot of our meetings and our public forums as did 141 seating and shade, which both polled well here and really got the kind of support. I'll 142 note in addition to the blues on the charts, we're also looking at the red and the orange 143 which are very small in a lot of those areas. There's a fairly good chunk of people who 144 are a little bit more undecided, but there's a very strong voice in support and a very small 145 voice that says it wouldn't be appropriate. These are feeling like the kinds of findings 146 that we could take action based on and really put some support behind. The next graph is 147 Graph 8, if you're following along elsewhere on the summary. Thinking about the ways 148 to address dogs within parks; another topic that we know has been very important. With 149 all of the responses considered, the strong responses really came on the positive side from 150 improving where you have existing dog parks and the strong negative, or the strong not 151 appropriate, response came on the off-leash answer in non-fenced areas. We specifically 152 asked it and made the clarifying point, which gets cut off on this caption, that it would 153 require a change to our current City policy around this if that was to be a solution. 154 There's a lot more people saying that that would not be an appropriate solution from the 155 overall set. We have done a little bit of preliminary breaking down of this for dog owner 156 versus non-dog owner, which seems the logical next step of looking at this question. 157 Predictably what we see on the how parts of this question, the second, third and fourth 158 answers, you really see almost a complete flip-flop, that dog owners are more in support 159 of all of the above options with no one clear frontrunner. Non-dog owners basically 160 Approved Minutes 4 APPROVED saying none of those seem as appropriate as improving existing dog parks. The one thing 161 I will say is that both agreed in general and across the board, looking in the specific 162 categories, that doing nothing, the no additional dog parks answer, was inappropriate for 163 both dog owners and non-dog owners. That was a useful finding. While it doesn't 164 necessarily clarify from the population as a whole what should be our immediate 165 solution, it does provide some guidance about what did not test well. These were 166 questions about some recreation programming options that are based on the categories of 167 programming options that are offered and match up to general categories that we've used 168 in other situations to capture the range of common recreation programs. Thinking about 169 the enhancement or addition of the following programs, this is not a question about the 170 quality of the existing program or whether it should exist, but should we be adding to it, 171 should we be improving it. The top testing items here with the most importance 172 attributed to them were gym-based sports and then in no particular order fitness classes, 173 social events and spaces, and clubs and classes organized around interests. The general 174 interest classes with lesser support, less importance placed on martial arts and fitness 175 equipment or weight room spaces. In parallel, thinking about the services and activities 176 that are provided by the various providers and spaces at Cubberley Community Center, 177 we see a parallel in that the importance placed on outdoor sports and indoor sports and 178 health programs at that facility with closely following some reflection of the unique role 179 that building or that facility plays in the system. The senior wellness, stroke and 180 cardiovascular programs as well as the rooms for rent for other activities, all of those 181 tenants that have provided the variety of services across the board. Across all these 182 categories there really is quite a bit of importance placed on each of the things. The 183 categories being based on the groupings of things that are currently being offered there as 184 well, thinking about the long-term future of that facility. Jumping back a little bit to 185 some of the broader patterns and some of the broader themes, I had a couple more points 186 that I wanted to draw out. One is the overall importance placed on the ways and methods 187 to connect people with nature, to bring nature and sustainable practices into our park 188 system. The natural paths and nature play both tested very positively when asked about 189 the ways to bring some of these features closer to people. That's a finding that we can 190 use. Thinking about overall additions and improvements to achieve health and well being 191 in community members across Palo Alto, a lot of options here. This topic overall 192 resonated very strongly with people, but some of the specific ones reflect national, 193 California, local trends around the self-directed activities. Bicycling, walking and 194 jogging in a park, going and enjoying a park in a quiet or more contemplative or 195 connected to nature kind of way, and those nature activities. All of those things really do 196 match up to national and regional trends around what people are using their park systems 197 for. One of our big questions that we wanted to get a little bit of preliminary 198 prioritization and ranking around. In Graph 16, this question asked folks to rank this list 199 of options in order. The color coding here is a little bit different than the other questions. 200 Starting from the left, the blues represent the highest rankings. That scale is backwards, I 201 apologize. Oh, the color reversed. I'm sorry. In my PowerPoint, the color reversed from 202 Approved Minutes 5 APPROVED what it is on the actual chart. I'm looking at one and reading off the other. The bars are 203 actually correct. From left to right, we are seeing ranked 1, ranked 2, ranked 3, ranked 4, 204 ranked 5. The legend that is showing on the PowerPoint is incorrect. I apologize about 205 that. The overall highest ranking item, to cut to the chase, was to invest in enhancing and 206 improving neighborhood parks across the City, really distributing that benefit across. I'm 207 losing my space here. 208 209 Commissioner Crommie: Ryan, we can follow it on our sheets. That's fine. 210 211 Mr. Mottau: I'm sorry. I'm trying to track on my laptop which is not matching what I'm 212 seeing. Looking at some other options popping up in this. This brings us to a point that 213 I’m sure will come up in some of your minds about other questions, other responses to 214 some of these other questions. One of the things I want to note is that in almost all cases, 215 except for where we just asked an open-ended question, where people could write in their 216 thoughts and comments which is the final chart in your summary, these other responses, 217 while they often rank highly, are based on a relatively smaller number of responses. I 218 don't want you to necessarily line those up in your mind because you've got a percentage 219 of people saying that this other choice is 30 percent of the people ranking it number 1. 220 That represents a pretty broad range of responses and that 30 percent is a smaller number 221 than 30 percent of the people who ranked the overall question. When thinking about 222 percentages on those open-ended other questions, let's not give them quite the same 223 influence as your other results. 224 225 Chair Reckdahl: Would it be possible to see these results? I'm talking about Graph 16. 226 227 Mr. Mottau: The other answers? 228 229 Chair Reckdahl: Not so much that. The problem is that if you ranked other number 1, 230 then your number 2 has less influence on the top five. 231 232 Mr. Mottau: I see what you mean. Removing other as an option to get a sense of the 233 other questions. 234 235 Chair Reckdahl: The people who put other for number 1 ranked their number 2 as a 236 number 1. Now we can see not so much their views over all issues, but just an apples to 237 apples comparison. 238 239 Mr. Mottau: Zero it down into the defined choices. 240 241 Chair Reckdahl: Exactly. 242 243 Mr. Mottau: Okay. That's a good clarification. I appreciate that. 244 Approved Minutes 6 APPROVED 245 Chair Reckdahl: That's possible to do? 246 247 Mr. Mottau: Yes, yes. That shouldn't be a problem at all. We will take note of that. 248 249 Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. 250 251 Commissioner Crommie: On this graph number 16, there are 85 people that ranked 252 something other number 1. Did they coalesce? 253 254 Mr. Mottau: A pattern in those? No. 255 256 Commissioner Crommie: A pattern. 257 258 Mr. Mottau: No. There was a pretty wide range of responses here. It echoed a lot of the 259 things which we will talk about on the final point. My observation of surveying in 260 general and of the results in this survey was that when people had the opportunity to write 261 things in, the patterns that we saw were basically the same question to question to 262 question. If they were passionate about dog parks, they were writing in dog parks all the 263 way across the board. If they were passionate about getting more sports fields on the 264 ground, that was what we were seeing written in across the board. The patterns are best 265 represented when you're looking at your overall set of charts, the last chart in the packet. 266 It's not the last chart in this packet. I have the last chart in this set that is the overall 267 open-ended responses. It's the last chart in your summary. It's on the last page of your 268 overall summary. What this shows across all of the open-ended responses is what the 269 patterns really were for people responding. The way that we dug into that was we looked 270 through all 500-plus open-ended responses and started tagging them with individual 271 markers for topics. As we started doing that for all of them, we aggregated those into 272 some groups. These are the groups that resulted from that. In answer to your question, 273 Commissioner Crommie, this pattern followed in the other open-ended questions, but we 274 can provide the open-ended ideas much like we did for that final question on the 275 summary. 276 277 Commissioner Hetterly: Did you do the same thing with the open-ended response from 278 the Mapita? 279 280 Mr. Mottau: We did. I'm trying to remember. 281 282 Commissioner Hetterly: We have a huge list that's broken down (crosstalk). 283 284 Mr. Mottau: There were a lot of different open-ended questions in that effort. I'd have to 285 go back and look. Specifically, we did have a general, overall comment. I believe that 286 Approved Minutes 7 APPROVED we did do a summary of what we heard in that. Otherwise, a lot of the open-ended 287 comments were designated specifically to a park. The way that we illustrated those was 288 around the park. I can go back and check that. 289 290 Commissioner Hetterly: If you have it, I think it would be helpful to see. I thought this 291 was useful. 292 293 Mr. Mottau: Yeah, sure. 294 295 Commissioner Crommie: If you calculate the percentage of people that didn't rank one of 296 the things that we gave them as number 1, it gives you a sense of the confidence people 297 have in the survey, that we're hitting upon something they care about. Just a rough 298 calculation, 10 percent or so might not have thought that we hit it right for something 299 they really care about. It'd be good to notice that kind of breakdown. 300 301 Mr. Mottau: Okay. We'll take a look at that with those couple of comments in mind. 302 Like I said, this is the initial version. We want to bring you back a little bit further 303 analysis on this set. That's helpful information for us. Let me just run through one or 304 two more graphs here. The question around the Baylands property, this is Graph 17 if 305 you're looking at your set. Asking again the appropriateness of different options as we go 306 through this. A strong response to mainly two different responses which were the 307 additional sports fields or expanding essentially the function of that site now. The other 308 one, which was an idea that surfaced in other ways, was a natural area for hiking or bird 309 watching which really expands on the theme of the golf course redevelopment. I do 310 believe that between those two not only is there a good indication of some ideas, but also 311 things that are very compatible with that site based on our information so far. I think that 312 that's a useful finding. I have the opportunity here for more comments about things that 313 you found interesting. I would like to ask you all if you would like to talk about the 314 quota sampling process first or point out other things that you found interesting through 315 your review of this survey so far that we could use as we're refining and revising. Let me 316 give a quick run. This is not a long section. I tried to keep this presentation short, 317 because I really do want to field any questions you have and then go from there. The 318 basic premise, as you probably noticed, is when we look at the overall results, out of our 319 1,164 people who responded to this survey, the demographic characteristics don't match 320 very closely. They match fairly closely but not exactly to the census information that we 321 provided. One of the questions that we've been asked a couple of times, and we've asked 322 but now have the process in hand for you with our data, is how do we use these responses 323 with some confidence that we are seeing a representative group of our population. The 324 overall methodology is around taking that large sample and breaking it down, using a 325 research method known as quota sampling, to take a sample out of that population 326 randomly that matches certain characteristics that are known about the overall population. 327 The characteristics that are best known about the overall population based on census data 328 Approved Minutes 8 APPROVED that seem most relevant to this overall survey are that race and ethnicity breakdown and 329 the children in the household. Those were the ones that I chose to present about this. I 330 think that the questions that we have heard, the concerns that we've all expressed about 331 let's make sure that we get as representative an answer as we can, center on are we talking 332 about people who have kids, people who don't have kids, are we capturing a 333 representative view of the population as a whole. What we propose to do here and what 334 we wanted to get your buy-in on before we went down this path was that we take from 335 this larger sample a sample of about 400 responses that are randomly balanced for these 336 demographic criteria. Essentially working to, as I said, rebalance or negate any over-337 representation of different demographic groups that were over-represented in the larger 338 sample. This will bring us to a very close match to the overall demographics. The 339 difference between these would give us a sense of do these overall results really vary 340 from what we would see if we had managed to sample the entire population and we were 341 matched up to that census population. That inevitably raises some questions as we start 342 getting into this. What we would like to know overall is if you have specific questions 343 about that method or if there are other criteria or if there are criteria that you're curious 344 but seem more relevant or these may be just work as we go forward. This is a proposal to 345 you. It's one of the things that we promised as part of the original scope, to come back 346 through and do some post-sampling analysis on this to rebalance. Our process and 347 method would be to randomly select based on these criteria. I wanted to put that question 348 out there. Of course, I'm happy to field any other questions about survey findings, 349 especially if there are ones that you would like to call out as particularly interesting or 350 relevant to your discussions. 351 352 Chair Reckdahl: I have one question about this. If you added one more criteria, what 353 would be the next when you look at correlations. 354 355 Mr. Mottau: If we were to add one more? 356 357 Chair Reckdahl: Yeah. 358 359 Mr. Mottau: In terms of the demographics that we asked, I would probably ... 360 361 Chair Reckdahl: We don’t have income? That was not asked? 362 363 Mr. Mottau: We don't have income. We intentionally did not ask income. It's a question 364 that tends to bump people out of the survey. They don't like to answer it. Especially 365 when we were asking so many questions, we didn't want to ask anything that was going 366 to make people uncomfortable about finishing the questionnaire. We don't have income. 367 We do have one other option that I would consider, some basic breakdown of the overall 368 population around the City. We did ask where people live by neighborhood. In the 369 summary you'll see that we broke that down preliminarily based on the breakdown that 370 Approved Minutes 9 APPROVED we most commonly heard in the community and have seen overall, which is that 371 north/south along the Oregon Expressway. We took all of the neighborhoods in the north 372 and all the neighborhoods in the south and provided a summary overall of that. I would 373 say that an either/or separation like that would be possible. The only challenge to that is I 374 don't have currently, because the census won't break this down for me, a solid population 375 known number for the population north of Oregon Expressway versus south. I wouldn't 376 want to run this process with all pretty well established and known data and not the other. 377 378 Chair Reckdahl: Before we go to Commission questions, we have one public speaker. 379 Shani Kleinhaus. After she completes, then we'll have questions from the 380 Commissioners. 381 382 Commissioner Lauing: We may want to decide if we want to deal with this question first 383 or the survey comments first and then this question. 384 385 Chair Reckdahl: Okay. Shani, you have two minutes. 386 387 Shani Kleinhaus: Good evening, Commission, staff and consultants. Wonderful. So 388 many people responded. It's unbelievable. These things don't happen. What it does tell 389 me is that anyone in Palo Alto who wanted to respond knew about it. You don't need to 390 go that way. You have all the responses. You have enough people who participated, and 391 it doesn't look like anybody who wanted to voice their opinion did not have a chance. If 392 you had 200 responses, that would make sense. When you have over 1,000, it doesn't. 393 You don't need to go to that scope, my opinion. I did take a lot of statistics when I was 394 doing my Ph.D. The other thing I wanted to say is a few comments on some of the 395 results. One thing is that I'm very happy to see all the support for nature in natural areas 396 as well as in the City. This is something that we are always saying to people, but there is 397 no data to support that. I've seen that recently in Cupertino when the city completely, 398 overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to create something that they didn't like in a park. 399 We see that generally, and thank you to the community. I'm extremely impressed with 400 that. There are two things that won a lot of points here. I wanted to just say one little 401 thing about loop trails and nature play. Those things are really important, if you don't 402 stick them where they don't belong. Nature play really belongs in urban parks, not in 403 nature. In nature, they can play in nature; you don't need to build something for it. This 404 came really strongly in Cupertino when their proposal to create nature play in natural 405 areas, and the community just said, "No way. Why do that? We can have nature there. 406 We don't need to create and build something for that." The other one is the loop trails. 407 They're really good and they're really important, but you have to be careful that the 408 people walking around don't see each other. They see nature. If the loop trail is such that 409 it's too close, instead of seeing the animals and birds or whatever else is there the people 410 just see each other. That's what you do downtown where you look at people and not at 411 nature. Just pay attention to the location as it moves forward. I'll help you with that as 412 Approved Minutes 10 APPROVED well. Thank you. This is a wonderful document, and I'm very, very happy to see it. 413 Thanks. 414 415 Chair Reckdahl: Thanks. Since this is on the board, let's tackle this right now and then 416 we'll move onto general questions. Do we have any comments or questions about the 417 quota sampling? 418 419 Commissioner Lauing: I could put a question back to them. With this breakdown, it's 420 not clear to me what you get. Make sure it's literally up there. With the possible 421 exception of the children, the first four bullet points, do we care if we need fields or if we 422 want somebody that's out enjoying nature or kicking a ball or those other things? I'm not 423 sure what we get, what the outcome is. 424 425 Mr. Mottau: The outcome basically is an exactly identical set of charts unless there is a 426 substantial difference that is hidden by the fact that our overall survey responses are more 427 like 75 percent Caucasian instead of more closely representing the result. I think the 428 opportunity here is to provide that check against overrepresentation. 429 430 Chair Reckdahl: That first chart that you put up that talked about the big findings, have 431 you broken that down by race and see if that changes from race? 432 433 Mr. Mottau: We did some preliminary looks just at cross-tabulating them, just putting 434 them in one column versus the other, the overall results versus non-Caucasian results, for 435 example. Because those were the smaller group, we wanted to make sure that we weren't 436 seeing big result differences. We didn't identify any big result differences in that initial 437 review, which doesn't indicate to me that once we go through this process, we're going to 438 see some big shift in any given response essentially. I'm happy to go through the process 439 to make sure and to be able to present that and say that we did that. That was part of our 440 original promise. Based on what I've seen in terms of our initial breakdowns, I don't see 441 anything swinging widely based on taking this subsample. 442 443 Chair Reckdahl: From your experience, what's your opinion on self-selection? If people 444 don't answer, does that mean they really don't care or does that mean that they care but 445 they didn't get out there and answer the question? 446 447 Mr. Mottau: In terms of self-selecting to answer the survey overall, we just don't have 448 them in our sample. I think that has less to do with not caring than about the time and 449 interference that interferes with any given activity. I'm sure that we are seeing a slightly 450 higher population of park and recreation users in this group. They are self-selecting in 451 terms of choosing, but those folks that are already connected also got the direct emails, 452 the extra reminders and that kind of thing. There's no argument that there's going to be 453 more people who are already connected to parks and recreation in this sample. I don't 454 Approved Minutes 11 APPROVED think that that has changed the response to surveys that we have run in parallel. Self-455 selecting web versions, totally random digit dial phone surveys, when we've done that in 456 parallel we've seen basically the same patterns across both surveys. I can't speak for this 457 one because I don't have a parallel survey to hold up and say, "This is the definitive 458 proof." Overall I don't see big differences in how people respond to these kind of 459 questions. 460 461 Chair Reckdahl: Deirdre. 462 463 Commissioner Crommie: I'm leaning against doing this. I want to understand it a bit 464 better. Are you getting at trying to weight this data to compensate for a population that's 465 missing? Is that what it's all about? 466 467 Mr. Mottau: It's similar; it's not weighting though. The difference between weighting 468 and sub-sampling is that instead of giving, for example, Hispanic responses more credit 469 for the answers that they gave, we are reducing the overall answers down. It's a reductive 470 rather than an additive process. Both processes would be for the same purpose, to 471 balance that representation. Rather than giving one answer more credit than 15 or 10 472 answers, it's really reducing the overall sample in a random way. 473 474 Commissioner Crommie: I'm against that, because I don't think these criteria are 475 significant enough to do that. Maybe, if you presented us with other criteria. I don't 476 think we need to weight this. I'm calling it weighting even though you're saying it's a 477 little bit different. I don't think we need to weight this by race particularly. I don't think 478 that gives us more information. I think there are other, probably more important criteria 479 going on. If our Commission was interested, if you can cross-correlate and say, "This 480 group of Asians felt this was really important." That would be more significant. Again, 481 I'm not sure I want to do that quite frankly. 482 483 Mr. Mottau: One alternative, that is a possibility and we've done a little bit of as I 484 mentioned, is taking some of these results and comparing them against the overall result 485 to see if there are big differences. I would be reluctant to do that with small subgroups 486 for all the appropriate reasons. If we don't have 180 or 200 responses, I don't want to talk 487 about responses from a group that small. 488 489 Commissioner Crommie: I agree with that. 490 491 Mr. Mottau: I'm open to suggestions about things you would like to see broken out as 492 opposed to going through this process. Like I said, we've done a little bit of that already 493 in terms of dog owners and non-dog owners and thinking about the cross-tabulation of 494 that. If there are other criteria that you would like to look at, that's certainly an 495 alternative. 496 Approved Minutes 12 APPROVED 497 Commissioner Lauing: I can answer that, but Commissioner Hetterly hasn't spoken yet. 498 499 Commissioner Hetterly: I agree. I don't think it's useful to do a sampling based on 500 ethnicity. I'm not sure that's going to tell us anything new or different. I am interested 501 though in understanding more about the breakdown between households with children, 502 households without children, seniors, and the north/south distribution. What I'm really 503 interested in is how did the answer choices by them break down rather than a sampling. 504 I'm not a statistics person, so I'm not sure what extra we gain from doing a sampling 505 process. I would, by those categories, be very interested in knowing out of these 451 506 people who rated this, how did that break down. Do we know how supportive our seniors 507 are of playing fields as opposed to natural spaces? That's something that might be 508 interesting to me. 509 510 Mr. Mottau: One of the things that would help us to zero in on that and to get you both 511 quickly and cost-effectively those answers is if there are specific questions that it feels 512 like I really want to know what families with children versus families without children 513 had to say about this particular answer choice. Each of these answer choices ends up 514 amounting to an entire question unto itself, because of the way we asked it; is it 515 appropriate. It's really helpful for us to be able to zero in on those specific ones. We've 516 done the general scan and didn't see a lot of big swings in one direction or another. If 517 there were specific ones, it would certainly keep it from becoming a phone book of cross-518 tabulations and things. If you have suggestions as you go through, we'd love to hear 519 those. 520 521 Commissioner Hetterly: In the packet you suggested that rather than doing an age 522 breakdown, you were going to do some follow-up focus groups with youth. I think that's 523 still important to do regardless of what you (crosstalk). 524 525 Mr. Mottau: We have started that process. We had a meeting last night with the Youth 526 Commission which went really well. We got some good ideas to supplement some of the 527 ideas that were here. We had a chance to bounce a few ideas off of them that we'd heard, 528 getting a sense of if that resonates with them as representatives of that population, 529 understanding that they don't speak for and about all of them. Getting some opportunity 530 there where we had it with the experts representing youth here in Palo Alto. 531 532 Commissioner Lauing: My comments were close to Commissioner Hetterly's, but just a 533 little bit additional. There's still a lot of things that have to be decided here. For 534 example, the dogs, the fields, etc. To her other point, we still have some other questions 535 that aren't even covered here, what are senior needs. We didn't ask a question about it. 536 What might specific Hispanic needs be? That still has to be done somewhere somehow. 537 Speaking to the first one, this one on dog parks, there's so much stuff that's important 538 Approved Minutes 13 APPROVED there. For one thing, you have a complete numerical breakdown, and you see exactly 539 who's in which camp. I don't mean that they're necessarily feuding camps. When you 540 look at the data, the verbiage says only 30 percent of non-dog owners indicated off-leash 541 areas are appropriate or very appropriate. If you look at that, that's really significant in 542 another way. It's all in how you read statistics. There's no benefit to a non-dog owner to 543 have off-leash dogs. None whatsoever. In fact, some would say it's a detriment. 30 544 percent say, "This is a great idea. Let's do this." That's the kind of data that we can take 545 some action on, when you have the dog owner thing. We don't have that, for example, in 546 any of the responses on fields. If we had that and we knew that it was in the age group of 547 6-12, which is most of the younger kids that are the dominant players on the fields, that 548 would be interesting. I don't want to be quoted out of context in the newspaper. There's 549 still an ignorance factor there, because parents don't necessarily know what field 550 availability is. It would be good to see if the perception is that those parents think we're 551 fighting for fields all the time. There's some sub-segments that you could do that would 552 be much more helpful than the one you proposed here. It's around some of these 553 substantive questions that we're going to spend tens of millions of dollars on, if we say go 554 or not, if we say it doesn't need doing for ten years but we'll look at it in the second ten 555 years. That's well worth investing in. 556 557 Mr. Mottau: I'm hearing from you that if I could interpret the breakdowns of questions 558 relating to the implementation of different options for field use or field investments by 559 households with children, households without children to understand that same kind of 560 dynamic that we were seeing with the breakdown that we did run on the dog owners and 561 the answers to the dog parks. 562 563 Commissioner Lauing: Right. 564 565 Mr. Mottau: That's exactly the kind of detail that I was saying would be useful. Places 566 where you see that connection between a demographic switch that we can pull one way 567 or the other and a specific set of answer choices that you'd like to know those details 568 about. That's a great one. 569 570 Commissioner Lauing: Similarly there was quite a bit of interest in a second pool. It's 571 obvious to do that geographically and see if 90 percent of the folks are in the area where 572 the pool is not. Nothing good or bad about that; it's just the fact that it would be helpful 573 to know. 574 575 Commissioner Ashlund: When I first read this, I interpreted it as MIG recommends 576 addressing youth focus as well. On second reading, it actually doesn't say youth; it says 577 under age 35 for your recommendation here. Do you see where I'm referring to in the 578 MIG recommendation? It has no page number. It's the back of the very first page. The 579 back of the memo, yes, the cover memo. 580 Approved Minutes 14 APPROVED 581 Mr. Mottau: The cover memo. Yeah. 582 583 Commissioner Ashlund: It says due to the low number of respondents in age groups 584 under 35, MIG recommends addressing the age representation separately with a 585 combination of additional focus group-based outreach to younger residents. By merely 586 saying below 35 is the under-represented portion, are we talking the 14-18 year olds who 587 are enrolled in school and living at home with their parents? Are we talking the 18 to 588 mid-20s who are maybe taking part-time classes or are we talking young professionals 589 who are working in Silicon Valley who may not have time or interest in going to the 590 parks? It's unclear if they're under-represented because they don't use the parks and they 591 have no interest or time or if they're under-represented and there's validity there. 592 593 Mr. Mottau: It's an interesting point. What we were speaking to primarily was the 594 number of people who responded in those particular age categories and seeing that our 595 response profile fell off in the age groups under 35. A number of the follow-up 596 conversations that we have been having are starting to touch on both younger adults and 597 youth. That's one of the targets that we would like to hit as we're doing this follow-up 598 conversation effort. In response to some of the other points, we've also talked pretty 599 extensively with Avenidas and some of their staff about the trends and issues they're 600 seeing around seniors. The groups that I met with today that represented some of the 601 field users and the middle school athletics groups were trying to find ways, it's not 602 directly asking those populations but we're trying to find ways to get information out of 603 interests that are connected to those age groups. It's less than perfect. It would be great 604 to say, "Well, I can now go out and get another couple hundred responses from people 605 who are under 35." I don't think that is practical. A chunk of that population is just very 606 difficult to reach in this method. We're open to ideas. We've been continuing to generate 607 with staff some ideas about how to supplement this information, which is one piece of the 608 larger picture we're trying to assemble about the overall input. I'm open to other 609 suggestions, but we are trying to fill in everything under that. 610 611 Commissioner Crommie: On this point, at the intercept on California Street, we saw a lot 612 of people in that demographic group, between 20 and 35. Did we take any demographics 613 when we doing that? 614 615 Ellie Fiore: We did take some, but not consistently. We put it in people's hands as an 616 option. If it got busy, there might not have been time for that. We got some 617 demographic data, but not with the rigor we have here. 618 619 Mr. Mottau: It is one of the reasons why we specifically do those kinds of events, to 620 expand beyond the people who are going to fill out a survey or come to a workshop. We 621 can catch those people. The fact that we don't have a count of them is unfortunate. The 622 Approved Minutes 15 APPROVED reality, as you're noting, is that your experience was we did actually talk to a number of 623 those folks. They've been incorporated as part of this process. That's important to us. 624 625 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Ashlund. 626 627 Commissioner Ashlund: I just wanted to follow up. Is your MIG recommendation that 628 we pursue, when it says under 35, it's in that 14-18 range? That's a captive population. 629 They attend school; they live with their parents. They're certainly easier to target in some 630 ways than if they're over 18 and independent and not in secondary education. Are you 631 recommending either or both? 632 633 Mr. Mottau: I would like to supplement everything under 35. We are faced with those 634 practical limitations as well. Our hope would be to capture more of that perspective all 635 the way up to 35 if possible. 636 637 Commissioner Ashlund: Great. I didn't see this in the demographics. I thought we had 638 this on the survey, but maybe we didn't ask it at all. We asked age, so we know whether 639 they're checking the senior box versus not. Did we ask disability as a demographic? 640 641 Mr. Mottau: No, we did not. 642 643 Commissioner Ashlund: Okay. My caution is if we're approaching the Youth Council 644 for that youth voice, the under-represented populations are under-represented 645 consistently. If you have your high achieving non-disabled youth on a youth panel, 646 you're not hearing from the kids who aren't able to be on youth panel. I would just 647 caution against using that narrow selection of voices. 648 649 Mr. Mottau: Thank you. 650 651 Chair Reckdahl: This is page 3 of the memo that you gave us. There is some, for 652 example, Asians. We only got 15 percent of the people taking the survey were Asian, 26 653 in the population. That's almost a factor of 2. That's 180 people. I do wonder if there 654 would be a difference in answers. It would be useful to look at a few select answers and 655 look at the difference between whites and Asians. That would be a test. Whites and non-656 whites if you want to lump them together. I suspect it would be better to be white and 657 Asian. The other was male/female. We have 63 percent of the people in the survey were 658 female. That is not 50 percent; that's significant. 659 660 Mr. Mottau: That is a big shift. It is not an uncommon shift in all surveying efforts. You 661 will see that in every single surveying methodology. You will see a 10 point or more 662 spread from the actual population, skewed towards females. Research indicates that they 663 are more willing to participate in research. I don't know if that research was also skewed 664 Approved Minutes 16 APPROVED towards females or not. It is pretty much a universal finding in survey research. There's 665 not a lot I can do about that. We can rebalance for gender. I don't think it would change 666 a lot of the responses. 667 668 Chair Reckdahl: If you look at the youth in household, 35 percent of the people in Palo 669 Alto have kids in the household; 66, almost double, answered the survey. That would be 670 interesting to see do the answers change significantly. I suspect that they would. I 671 wouldn't say you need to that on the whole survey. I would look at some of the big 672 questions that we want and examine the difference between those. 673 674 Mr. Mottau: Would it be useful to examine these ones that we were calling out 675 specifically as these strong findings against some of these demographics? I know that not 676 all of them feel like they are a direct match. I'm just trying to think of the best way to 677 attack. We don't need to do all of them, so which subset should we look at specifically? 678 It does seem like these strong findings that we identified are ones that we are most likely 679 to recommend action based on this tool as opposed to the larger mix of tools. That would 680 be a place to start certainly, those specific findings that we call out in that section. 681 There's a couple others that Commissioners have pointed out that they would like, 682 specifically field-related questions. I'm happy to add that into it. Does that seem like a 683 place to start? 684 685 Commissioner Lauing: I don't think you'd have to go after all of them. For example, 686 expanded use of recycled water or items like that. A lot of those were predictable and 687 common sense and that's good. There's some actionable data here, if we want to go into 688 any of more that. Nobody wants any food service. That was very good information, 689 because there was a lot of anecdotal perception that that was something that would be in 690 demand. 691 692 Mr. Mottau: It also came up with the teams the other day. They do want food service. 693 694 Commissioner Lauing: They always want food. 695 696 Mr. Mottau: I agree. That's an interesting finding. 697 698 Commissioner Crommie: When you start to drill down to teens wanting food service, 699 then you have to drill down to where are teens hanging out. None of this information is 700 useful unless it's linked to other behavioral patterns of teens. We don't know that those 701 teens aren't going to certain quadrants of the City. They tend to hang out near food more 702 often. They like it; that's why they're hanging out near food. Does that mean we have to 703 put food in open spaces? Standing by itself, it's not that meaningful. 704 705 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Markevitch. 706 Approved Minutes 17 APPROVED 707 Vice Chair Markevitch: When we were doing the outreach for the Rinconada Master 708 Plan, there was an interest in reopening the snack shack in that park. It's in place. Is 709 there any method to look at that data versus the data that was in the survey? 710 711 Mr. Mottau: We can definitely pull that forward. As we've been saying, the past efforts 712 are definitely one of our research sources for all of this. Pulling that issue forward is 713 something that we could definitely look at. I don't know that it will be directly 714 comparable necessarily, but it's something that we can use as another source. 715 716 Chair Reckdahl: Let's move on to general questions on the survey. The action for you is 717 to go and look at an isolated set of questions and see how they differ on these various 718 characteristics and see if they're there and see if it's something that we should pursue or 719 not. 720 721 Mr. Mottau: Great. Thank you. 722 723 Chair Reckdahl: General questions on the survey. Questions or comments, either one. 724 725 Commissioner Ashlund: I had a follow-up question on the under 35 outreach. Is that 726 something that's already happened? Who on staff is handling that and when is 727 (crosstalk). 728 729 Mr. Mottau: It's something that we've started. We're still working up ways to continue to 730 expand on that. The meetings will be given you as we did for this update that you were 731 handed this evening. On the back page is an update log of other meetings that we've been 732 having with experts in your community. In the next round, you'll be seeing the report of 733 the meetings that I've added onto this trip. I've been meeting basically straight since 734 yesterday morning with various stakeholders in your community on a variety of topics 735 that were identified by staff as being particularly interesting to follow-up on. We're 736 tapping into some expert knowledge, both in the community as well as on staff. Some of 737 that will definitely address that demographic gap, and some of it will address other topics. 738 It is in process and not yet complete. 739 740 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Hetterly. 741 742 Commissioner Hetterly: On the survey memo, I thought the key findings provided a 743 really good summary. It was really interesting information. I was pleasantly surprised 744 how much of it felt like it gave us actionable guidance about where we should head. For 745 instance, the top aquatic improvement was for less competitive, more recreational sports. 746 That's really helpful to us. Commissioner Markevitch is going to spearhead an effort to 747 figure out how to provide more of that. This is a good backup for that. The concession 748 Approved Minutes 18 APPROVED stand stood out. Supporting wildlife habitat and corridors was borne out by the bike 749 bridge decision this last week. Also, it's actionable in the short-term by us as we consider 750 the Byxbee Park loop trails. There's a direct connection there that we've talked about 751 before, and this helps us move forward with that. Outdoor sports at Cubberley showed 752 very strongly. Some loss of those fields in the mid-term future is very likely. Maybe that 753 means we should think more about the 10.5 acres. There's a lot of informative stuff in 754 here. That was great, and I was really happy with the survey results as well as your 755 presentation of it. I do have some questions about a couple of them. On the restrooms, 756 that was a really solid, strong response. I'm curious if we can drill down just a little 757 further to understand is that a general desire, we want restrooms at every park or parks of 758 a certain size, parts in a certain area that are underserved with restrooms, types of users. 759 Is this just at parks where we have a high young kid population? Maybe that's where we 760 put restrooms. That kind of detail could help us prioritize where to invest. The pros and 761 cons for prioritizing youth over adults was really interesting. That was something that we 762 hadn't heard before. Maybe it suggests an unmet demand for adult use of certain 763 facilities, if we could flesh out that question. That raises more questions to me than I 764 thought existed. Finally, in terms of the comfort and convenience items, we didn't 765 include lighting in that list on the survey. It seemed clear from the open-ended response 766 here as well as in the Mapita survey that there are sizable concerns about safety, security, 767 and desire for lighting. Of course, keeping in mind dark sky interests, we ought to 768 consider lighting and ask the question where is it appropriate in neighborhood parks to 769 have lighting, where is it not appropriate. We can work with our stakeholders on that too 770 to figure out where is the best place. This helps us get to that next step. Finally, I had a 771 data question. On page 8, you say something about the open-ended comments being not 772 numerous enough to set direction, but they are very similar to the kinds of open-ended 773 comments we got through Mapita and through intercepts and the community meetings. I 774 wonder if there's not a way to combine all that input in a way that is significant enough to 775 help us set direction, altogether instead of separately. That's all I have. Thank you. 776 777 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Lauing. 778 779 Commissioner Lauing: Just a few things. One, we've got 1,164 responses. That's 780 terrific; we all agree on that relative to this type of survey. It was contrasted in your 781 cover memo by only 400 responses that wouldn't have covered as many topics. Totally 782 true. That's a different kind of survey. From my own limited work with market research 783 and statistics, that would be truly random and, therefore, a bit more projectable. We don't 784 want to lose track of that and put all our weight on these 1,164 people, which is barely 1 785 percent of the population of Palo Alto. A bit of a data question on your graph, in terms of 786 integrity. Maybe there's some errors here or maybe I'm not reading it right. On page 2, 787 the graph says live in Palo Alto 86. Up at the top, it said 84. You also said nearly all 788 respondents as opposed to saying nearly 84 percent of respondents. For your own, 789 candidly, credibility, I just want to make sure it's being presented correctly. 790 Approved Minutes 19 APPROVED 791 Mr. Mottau: I see the discrepancy there. I will double check that. I appreciate and 792 certainly respect that point. I'm trying to remember. I did manipulate to get to that chart, 793 because Table 1 is another one where people could choose multiple answers. There's a 794 possibility that in my adjustment, it should have been noted if I did, of aggregating some 795 of those that had indicated multiple responses that it would shift the percentage overall. I 796 will clarify that, so that it doesn't present that apparent or possibly real difference. 797 798 Commissioner Lauing: I just wanted to point that out. One of the things I thought was 799 really interesting from this data coming back is that our residents are saying, "Hey, things 800 are pretty good here. Things are pretty doggone good." They didn't say we have to re-801 imagine this whole thing or change half the things. Let's make some tweaks here; get a 802 little bit better. We keep that in mind as we go forward. As I said, some things are 803 definitive. I've already mentioned that. Some where we need to drill down a little bit 804 more on some of these factors. I think that's it. Thank you. 805 806 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Crommie. 807 808 Commissioner Crommie: Hi. I was really pleased by the respect for nature in this 809 survey. It doesn't surprise me. Our population really holds that dear. I'm glad it was 810 reflected in this. There was a wide distribution of the survey, so I'm trusting that it 811 covered people of all different persuasions and that it rose to the top, even people who 812 have an emphasis on being at athletic fields, using other forms of recreation. I'm really 813 pleased to see that. I did want to echo something that we did here in the public 814 comments. That has to do about the conflict sometimes between the preservation of 815 wildlife and loop trails. Those are asked in two separate questions. That's the kind of 816 thing where the general public doesn't understand that loop trails have a very high impact 817 on wildlife. As you walk by wildlife, if there's not a lot of natural area for the wildlife to 818 go to, they get flushed out as people walk by. We do have to look at that as we review 819 the Byxbee Park plans. Commissioner Reckdahl and I have worked on that a lot, to look 820 at the trail system in there and try to keep it in balance with nature. At least that was my 821 feeling about it. I just want to make sure that we keep that perspective that not everyone 822 who wants a loop trail really understands. On one hand, they might want the loop trail 823 and on one hand they might want the wildlife. Sometimes they're not compatible. I also 824 like to see that there is a great emphasis on dirt trails, to lower impact trails. I saw under 825 the sustainability graph that people really did feel that community gardening was a 826 sustainable practice, and that ranked very high. In some ways I was a little disappointed 827 that that question was hidden in sustainability. We never asked our public, "Would you 828 be willing to give away park space for a community garden?" We didn't get that kind of 829 granularity. Within the context that the question was asked, I was happy to see that 830 getting rated as high as it did. Also, quiet areas in parks really stood out, so that is a wish 831 for a lower impact. One theme in this sampling of the residents is lower impact. Even 832 Approved Minutes 20 APPROVED when we got to the graph where it's asking do you want artificial turf versus natural turf, 833 that came up. I wish I could find that page quickly. Do you remember what graph that 834 is? 835 836 Mr. Mottau: It's Graph 4. 837 838 Commissioner Crommie: Graph 4. If you look at Graph 4, I was interested in that. 839 More people would actually prefer not to have artificial turf. The rankings for natural 840 turf came up higher than artificial turf. That was interesting to me. I don't know where it 841 comes from, but in part it might be that craving to have more natural connections. When 842 you have the natural turf, you can potentially use it for more purposes. It's just like a 843 teaser really. Where do we go with that? Do you have any comments on where you put 844 that question and how far we could take those results? 845 846 Mr. Mottau: We looked at this pretty directly in this question. The reason it's inserted 847 into this question is the environmental sustainability aspects of turf. You'll notice that 848 there's actually three questions about turf in this question overall. The third one being 849 removing turf where it's not needed for sports to reduce the overall water usage. There's 850 an ongoing discussion/debate throughout the State of California and the United States 851 around artificial turf as water-saving versus artificial turf as introducing a synthetic 852 environment essentially. That's part of what you're getting at there. People have pretty 853 strong reactions to those two things. In fact, there is a current moratorium on building 854 additional artificial turf fields based on some ongoing research at the Assembly right 855 now, just working out how to evaluate that very question. Is it more appropriate or 856 sustainable overall to create a synthetic environment that uses less water or to use the 857 water but not have the synthetic environment? Plus there are other concerns around the 858 use of recycled rubber and various other things in those artificial turf fields. It's a lively 859 debate currently. In certain environments, heavy, heavy play environments and also in 860 very, very water-starved environments which we may be approaching or in for the 861 foreseeable future, that equation is not as simple as it may appear. This is informative in 862 terms of how people see it. It is placed in the context of water conservation and 863 sustainability. That's an appropriate place for thinking about this. I don't know that it 864 gives a broad direction, but it definitely expresses an overall preference. That's an 865 important finding overall. As you said, people flip flopped around that artificial turf. If 866 you look at those responses, they're almost a mirror of each other. 867 868 Chair Reckdahl: I do want to add about the artificial turf. I don't want this taken out of 869 context. All the new fields that we've put in, none of them use recycled rubber. I don't 870 want the public to think that we're putting fields in with recycled rubber. 871 872 Approved Minutes 21 APPROVED Mr. Mottau: No. This moratorium is very recent. This is current research and debate 873 going on right now that is not definitive. It is only a hold on moving forward with certain 874 types of materials, but looking at the research around it right now. 875 876 Chair Reckdahl: This would be a good question to break down. If we had soccer users 877 versus non-soccer users. When they put the fields in over at Page Mill, I thought, "Why 878 would you put in gross artificial turf?" If you talk to the adult players, they want the turf. 879 For them, it is an important feature. 880 881 Mr. Mottau: We heard this again today with field users. Soccer, because it is so high 882 impact, I talk about where the environment warrants that artificial turf in a lot of cases is 883 where those fields get torn up from heavy, heavy use. Regardless of how important it is 884 to have the green and natural environment, you can't maintain green and natural. What 885 you get is brown and muddy in certain play environments. As the Chair is noting, soccer 886 is one of those that we do hear for the intensity of use, for being able to play on it all year 887 round, that is their preference in a lot of situations. 888 889 Commissioner Crommie: I was just going to finish up. 890 891 Chair Reckdahl: Quick question. Do we have any insight who's a soccer player and 892 who's not? The questions don't specify a specific sport? 893 894 Mr. Mottau: Not specifically. We could poll a proxy for that. The vast majority of 895 soccer-interested folks are families with children in the household. While there are vocal 896 adult soccer players, it's a relatively small population in the grand scheme of things 897 compared to the number of youth soccer players in the overall population. 898 899 Chair Reckdahl: At least currently, artificial turf is primarily used for adult games, and 900 the youth soccer is natural turf. It's a very small sample that wants that turf, but they 901 think it's a very important feature. I think we need to be careful you don't throw the baby 902 out with the bath water. 903 904 Mr. Mottau: That's a good point. 905 906 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Crommie. 907 908 Commissioner Crommie: Just to finish up. That's a place where we have the conflict 909 between sustainability and desire to have the sports outlet, the ability to get onto a field. 910 Most people using artificial turf in the adult population for certain is aware that you can 911 get higher impact on that field. That's governing their feelings about that, and they're not 912 thinking about sustainability at that moment. Both of those things are very real. Lastly, I 913 thought I'd comment on Graph 15. I thought it was interesting. How well do you think 914 Approved Minutes 22 APPROVED the following would work to enhance the park system in Palo Alto given the geography 915 constraints? It was nice to see that the thing that rated the highest was enhance the 916 walking and biking experience. What that calls out to me is that this was a very active 917 group that responded to our survey. They were recreationally minded. We're not missing 918 that group of people; yet, we have a group of people that are recreationally minded but 919 still support nature. I'm really happy to see that borne out by this survey. Thank you. 920 921 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Markevitch. 922 923 Vice Chair Markevitch: One comment and it's not regarding the survey. It's tied into 924 Cubberley and what Commissioner Lauing said early. We may need a pool. I know they 925 filled in the Cubberley one. If in long-term that possibly gets opened as a high school, 926 they need to think about putting that pool back, because it is a graduation requirement in 927 this City, that you have to be able to swim. I want that noted somewhere that that may be 928 a possibility in the future. 929 930 Chair Reckdahl: Stacey, do you have any questions? 931 932 Commissioner Ashlund: I'm not sure how to phrase it as a question, but I'll try. The key 933 findings under meeting community needs on page 20 includes the importance of 934 universal accessibility and the percentage of responses regarding that. Without looking 935 back at the question, if somebody were reading this key finding, it reads a little bit like 936 accessibility is referring to facilities only. Whereas, the actual question that it came from 937 in the survey referenced both facilities and programming. I'm not on a graph. I'm on 938 page 20 under the importance of universal accessibility. That it mentioned facilities and 939 programming. We didn't call those out as a question. We put them together as a 940 question. In the key findings, it's important that it not look just like facilities. Frequently 941 that is referred to only with regard to facilities. 942 943 Mr. Mottau: I appreciate what you're saying. It's not that it's stated here that this is only 944 facilities, but that's where people's brains go to. Making that clarification is important. I 945 agree. I remember talking about that, and we structured that question intentionally to ask 946 about both topics. The universal perspective really is about all things. That's a good 947 clarification point for us. Thank you. 948 949 Commissioner Ashlund: Thank you. 950 951 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Crommie. 952 953 Commissioner Crommie: I don't want to take time from other people's comments, but if 954 we're slowing down I want to spend a little bit more time on the dog questions. We are in 955 Approved Minutes 23 APPROVED an active phase of needing to establish policy. Before we get back to that, were there 956 other comments? I've already spoken. 957 958 Commissioner Knopper: Everything I was thinking was already discussed, so I chose 959 just for briefness not to chat. What Commissioner Hetterly said and Commissioner 960 Lauing, I concur whenever we can drill down so we can have actionable points. There's a 961 lot of information here that's really great. If you want to talk about dog parks. 962 963 Commissioner Crommie: Yeah, I wanted to talk a little bit more. 964 965 Chair Reckdahl: I've one more comment. 966 967 Commissioner Crommie: Okay. And bathrooms, I also want to comment on. 968 969 Chair Reckdahl: One thing that caught my eye was on page 18, Graph 14, talking about 970 open longer hours through additional lighting. We've heard complaints over the years 971 about lights, but we've also heard a lot of sports people saying they want that. It'd be 972 really interesting seeing that very last bar graph broken down between field users and not. 973 I'm not sure if we can do that. 974 975 Mr. Mottau: Not directly. 976 977 Chair Reckdahl: I'm not sure if we can do it by age. 978 979 Mr. Mottau: We'll take a look at that and see if there's a way that we can pin that down. 980 981 Chair Reckdahl: See if there's any interesting demographics that break that down or if 982 that's uniform. If that's uniform, that's a big finding, because that has been a source of 983 friction sometimes. 984 985 Mr. Mottau: I'm not going to speak for Palo Alto, because I've not spoken to the 986 neighbors around existing fields here. Our experience across the board has been that the 987 primary objections to that are very proximate. They're very much about the immediate 988 neighbors. That is a very tough call for all communities. Lighting can be a big impact, 989 and that's an understandable concern. The number of people that it's impacting is usually 990 relatively small. When you look at it in this context of a large sample looking across the 991 whole community, not a lot of the community is necessarily directly impacted by that. 992 For those who are, it's high. 993 994 Commissioner Hetterly: There are also a lot of wildlife concerns about lighting. 995 996 Approved Minutes 24 APPROVED Chair Reckdahl: At El Camino Park we're putting the visors on the lights, and it'd also be 997 interesting to see how that changes things. Maybe it's just that the newer lights will have 998 less impact and people will have less complaints about that. 999 1000 Mr. Mottau: That is also true. There's been a lot of work that's gone into modern lighting 1001 to reduce both the light pollution issues as well as the habitat concerns. 1002 1003 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Crommie. 1004 1005 Commissioner Crommie: I was just going to comment on the same graph, number 14. 1006 There's not a lot of support for allowing more access for competitive teams. If we had a 1007 lot of field users weighing in on this, which it does seem from other questions that we 1008 really did capture field users, that is a significant finding, that particular graph. On the 1009 bar graphs, 50 percent are saying they don't support it. We don't see that on many other 1010 graphs. That's a very, very significant finding. I wanted to talk a little bit about dog 1011 parks, but maybe the bathrooms will be quicker. When I was talking about these 1012 conflicts of interest, it's probably no surprise to any of us who have served for any length 1013 of time on this Commission that people overall want bathrooms at the parks. We 1014 encounter what I call a "not in my backyard" response. When you start to do the outreach 1015 meetings at the neighborhood surrounding that park where they think they might bring in 1016 more transients to use the bathrooms, then we get the push back and that's where we have 1017 to have really strong policy to work that through. Sometimes it's a larger issue at stake. 1018 It's a very hard struggle that we faced. We might feel it's quite important to have a 1019 bathroom there, but yet how do we balance that. With a lot of these issues, we come up 1020 against that. As far as the dogs go, if we could all turn to that particular graph. I forget 1021 now which one it is. 1022 1023 Mr. Mottau: I brought it up. 1024 1025 Commissioner Crommie: I have this sense we're winding down; I don't know if that's 1026 true or not. It's really important before we adjourn to get everything we needed from this. 1027 What we have in the works is some kind of community outreach meeting from ad hoc 1028 committee. This is just one phase of data, and then we're going to have other sources of 1029 data. Did everyone feel like they got enough out of this? Did you write out in the text 1030 how this breaks down between people who own dogs and don't own dogs. 1031 1032 Mr. Mottau: We did. 1033 1034 Commissioner Crommie: What page is that on? Do you have any graphics on that? 1035 1036 Mr. Mottau: We didn't include graphs on that. It is something that we broke down in 1037 detail. The pages are 11 and 12. This overall Graph 8 is on page 12. The text, sorry, it's 1038 Approved Minutes 25 APPROVED not 11; it's farther back than that. It's page 9 and 10 that talk about dog parks. At the 1039 bottom of page 9, we talk about the breakdown of the 662 non-dog owners and 421 dog 1040 owners indicated in the survey. Overall the split, which I tried to quickly summarize, 1041 amounts to dog owners were universally more supportive of all three alternatives to the 1042 existing dog parks than non-dog owners, which is not a huge surprise given their specific 1043 interests. Overall one of the important findings and probably the most useful overall was 1044 that it appeared to us based on the people who said it was not appropriate to essentially 1045 do nothing. The non-action, no additional dog parks answer was equally not appropriate 1046 to both dog owners and non-dog owners. 1047 1048 Commissioner Crommie: To do nothing. 1049 1050 Mr. Mottau: Yeah. 1051 1052 Commissioner Crommie: That's what Commissioner Lauing pointed out. That means 1053 that people who do not own dogs are sympathetic toward the plight of those who do. I 1054 agree with Commissioner Lauing that that's important information. Again, this balancing 1055 act. We only have so much money to put into dog parks. It takes a lot of resources to 1056 work with our existing dog parks. When we go into the community outreach, it might be 1057 really interesting to understand what improvements people think they need. I don't tend 1058 to use the Palo Alto dog parks with my dog. I don't enjoy the dog park at Mitchell, 1059 because it's all dirt. I ironically go to an artificial turf dog park that's on the border of 1060 Palo Alto and Mountain View. That's a choice I make. I'm just giving this anecdotal 1061 information. I don't know how much money it's going to take to improve Mitchell Park. 1062 Sitting on this Commission, I hear that's it's a bottomless pit of resources to try to grow 1063 the grass there. I would opt out of going to that one; I have another one I can go to. I 1064 would support the pot of money going to a new one. What are we going to do to improve 1065 these existing parks? It comes up very strongly in the survey. We really need to 1066 understand what people want. That's the first point I would bring up. What is our data to 1067 support that people want additional dog parks? Can we go back to that? We know a lot 1068 of people want to improve. 1069 1070 Mr. Mottau: The point that I was making is less about people assertively saying they 1071 want more dog parks. It's more that they were saying it was inappropriate to have no 1072 additional dog parks. They were refuting the negative more than they were affirming the 1073 positive. That answer was fairly clear and also fairly consistent between dog owners and 1074 non-dog owners. 1075 1076 Commissioner Crommie: What we see showing up in Graph 8, if we look at the very 1077 appropriate, I see how it is split between these three different categories in the middle of 1078 the graph. I guess we have a little bit more people leaning toward the second bar, 1079 designated times when dogs can be off-leash in parks and partially are non-fenced. When 1080 Approved Minutes 26 APPROVED I observe what Palo Altans are doing, they're doing just that. We have Palo Altans all 1081 over this City congregating in parks with their dogs off-leash. The reason I was 1082 interested in that question making it onto the survey is because that's what people are 1083 doing. The greatest response on the bar number 2 is that that is not appropriate. The very 1084 thing that people feel is most inappropriate is the thing that is most being done in this 1085 City. That's the dilemma that we face. I'm not sure what to do about that. There might 1086 be nothing to be done about it. 1087 1088 Chair Reckdahl: The dog park people will talk more about it next month. They have 1089 looked into this more. If we had a small dog park at every park, would there be as much 1090 off-leash activity? Even if we had a convenient dog park, people would still want the off-1091 leash, unfenced activity. I don't know. 1092 1093 Commissioner Crommie: I'm sorry to be so anecdotal here. I live next to Monroe Park, 1094 and our tiny Monroe Park in the last year has turned into a dog park. It's phenomenal. 1095 It's all dogs. Anyone can stop by there an hour before sunset, and you'll just see it full of 1096 dogs. It's a tiny park. We have a dog park that's a 10-minute walk from our 1097 neighborhood. Ten-minute walk. I don't really understand it. As a Park Commissioner, I 1098 do not bring my dog to go off-leash inappropriately in the Monroe dog park, yet most of 1099 my neighbors are doing that. I don't know ... 1100 1101 Chair Reckdahl: Is there a specific request or are you frustrated? 1102 1103 Commissioner Crommie: I'm not frustrated at all. I don't like to see my tiny park turned 1104 into a dog park, because it's using all the existing turf. With a really tiny park, when it all 1105 becomes a dog park, that's very high impact. I support having policy that allows dogs 1106 off-leash in parks. Personally I support that, because that's what I see everyone doing. 1107 It's a very complicated issue. People don't like to go very far away to dog parks. That's 1108 my observation, but I don't know. I wonder if we can figure this out more. 1109 1110 Commissioner Hetterly: There are a lot of issues that are going to be in the Master Plan 1111 that are going to require that kind of noodling around to figure out how do we get to the 1112 right policy. What we're here tonight to talk about is the survey. I wonder if you can tie 1113 your comments back to the survey. Are you suggesting that there's some more 1114 information that we might want to seek to be able to support those policies? 1115 1116 Commissioner Crommie: I'll go back to my statement that the very thing that people say 1117 in this survey is inappropriate is what people are doing. Okay. For that particular bar 1118 graph, which is the second bar down, maybe it would be good to break that out between 1119 dog owners and non-dog owners. It would be very interesting if all the people saying it's 1120 not appropriate are all the non-dog owners. 1121 1122 Approved Minutes 27 APPROVED Mr. Mottau: It primarily is. 1123 1124 Commissioner Crommie: It is, okay. 1125 1126 Mr. Mottau: It primarily is. As I remember, that one in particular was a really big 1127 polarization, that particular answer. What I think you're seeing there overall is the 1128 tension between the 662 versus the 421. If you look at that proportionally, you're close to 1129 that. You're basically seeing dog owners saying it's almost universally appropriate, and 1130 non-dog owners saying it's almost universally inappropriate. You're seeing the 1131 proportion of dog owners versus non-dog owners in those second and third bars for the 1132 most part. 1133 1134 Commissioner Crommie: In some ways that's not surprising. Non-dog owners draw the 1135 line in the sand probably right there. It'd be interesting to understand why. The people 1136 that I've spoken to, it might be because of safety issues and dog poop issues. If you don't 1137 own a dog, you're a lot less likely to be understanding about such a thing. That's 1138 interesting information. All the people with the strong bar to improve existing dog parks, 1139 on the very first bar graph, we have a lot of people weighing in as very appropriate. How 1140 does that break down between dog owners and non-dog owners? Do you know right 1141 now? 1142 1143 Mr. Mottau: I would have to double check that. What I'm hearing overall in terms of our 1144 next step of analysis, this one is one that you need to see the side-by-side on that topic 1145 much like we talked about with some of the others. For other demographic breakdowns, 1146 this is a critical one to get you the side-by-side comparison. I can't recall on that one 1147 specifically. My recollection is that it was pretty heavily by both. In order to get to this 1148 aggregate response, it would have to be supported by both. I believe it was similar in 1149 both dog owners and non-dog owners. 1150 1151 Commissioner Crommie: Would you recommend that we go on to do any pointed survey 1152 in the future? When we hold future meetings with stakeholders, is this tool useful for us? 1153 1154 Mr. Mottau: This tool being the set of questions that we broke out here? 1155 1156 Commissioner Crommie: No, future questions that drill down more. Would this be a 1157 technique that we as a Commission should consider using? Just based on your 1158 recommendation. 1159 1160 Mr. Mottau: Our recommendation overall would be to take this support for what it is. 1161 There is support for dog parks out of this response. The how is unclear from this survey 1162 response, but we can also bring best practices from across the country. Every park 1163 agency in the country is struggling with same question or has recently. There are 1164 Approved Minutes 28 APPROVED established and emerging best practices around the how of this. Those are not solutions 1165 that apply to every community. There is a shortlist of options. You're getting close to 1166 that shortlist of options in this question. The reality is that nobody on the ground in Palo 1167 Alto has seen the other options actually working. They've seen it happening. They've 1168 seen people having their dogs off-leash in an area, but it has always been illegal. There is 1169 a different behavior pattern that's observable when you are already forcing people to 1170 break the rules by having their dog off-leash in the park. They are not behaving the way 1171 that they would if there were rules in place that allowed them to not be rule breakers to 1172 start with. We've seen that in a lot of places. Once the rules are established, then people 1173 start self-policing a little bit more. People also say, "You know what? I can avoid that 1174 park from this hour to this hour when it's an off-leash dog area. That's not a big deal for 1175 me." It might sound like a big deal written down here in this question, but it turns out I'm 1176 okay with it or I'm not. Right now people don't have any actual experience to base their 1177 answers to 2 through 4 on, except for the rule breaking experience. That is skewing how 1178 people here are experiencing that right now. 1179 1180 Commissioner Crommie: Can you provide us with a list of best practices across the 1181 nation? Can we get data on best practices that are emerging in different cities across 1182 California? 1183 1184 Mr. Mottau: Yes. 1185 1186 Commissioner Crommie: Thank you. 1187 1188 Chair Reckdahl: Your point was that if you allow off-leash, unfenced dog activity, you'll 1189 have more compliance? 1190 1191 Mr. Mottau: If you establish a set of rules. We're going back to anecdotes a little bit. 1192 I've seen this in my neighborhood where we do have a number of parks that have areas 1193 designated at certain times as off-leash dog areas. They are open, unfenced areas. The 1194 difference that we have seen between the dog behavior, the dog conflicts, the dog 1195 problems, even complaints about people not picking up after their dogs, since that rule 1196 allowed those things to be happening but said, "IF you're going to be here, you're going to 1197 be here between 4:00 and 6:00 p.m. You're going to be here and you're going to clean up 1198 after your dog and you're going to keep them in this part of the park." All of those things 1199 were followed better than the original rule of don't bring your dog here. They were 1200 running into more problems with the dogs that were in the park. It's a very strange ... 1201 1202 Chair Reckdahl: I'm skeptical about that. My experience, again anecdotal. I lived next 1203 to Hoover Park for a year. The kids would go out every night and play in Hoover Park 1204 and every night they'd come back with dog poo on their shoes. Every night. The people 1205 who live there have the same experience. It's effectively an off-leash dog area, but there's 1206 Approved Minutes 29 APPROVED a dog park there. Granted it's not a very good one. Most dog owners are very 1207 responsible. There is a dog population that is not responsible. They either don't care that 1208 the dog is pooping or they're so busy talking to their friends that they don't know it 1209 happened. 1210 1211 Mr. Mottau: I agree that that happens. The observation of having rules in place changed 1212 a lot of opinions in Portland. One of the things that I would add into that dynamic is that 1213 there is a self-policing dynamic that does not happen when everybody is breaking the 1214 same rule. Nobody else has the incentive to make sure that that area does stay cleaned up 1215 if everybody is breaking the same rule. If we all start breaking the rules that we've laid 1216 out, that there's a time and you have to clean up and everything else, then that dog area 1217 may go away, that legal dog area may go away. That was how it was rolled out. It was 1218 rolled out as a pilot project. It stuck after the first year. I wouldn't say it has answered 1219 the problems, but it has improved the situation. We've heard that same story in other 1220 communities. 1221 1222 Chair Reckdahl: Any other questions or comments? If the public wants to speak, they 1223 have to fill out a card please. Howard, why don't you speak first and fill out the card 1224 afterwards. 1225 1226 Howard Hoffman: Okay, thank you. 1227 1228 Chair Reckdahl: In general we don't allow this, but since we did talk about dog parks and 1229 Howard Hoffman is the dog association president, we'll make an exception. 1230 1231 Mr. Hoffman: Thank you, Commissioner. Howard Hoffman, founder of Palo Alto Dog 1232 Owners. I'm one of those people that is illegally off-leash at Hoover Park. I can tell you 1233 why some people stay in the legally fenced area and why some people don't. Most 1234 people do want to follow the rules. Most people don't want to be subject to getting a fine. 1235 Most people would rather that their dogs don't have an opportunity to run off. As a dog 1236 owner who has well-trained dogs, I still would rather have a fence than not have a fence 1237 personally. I would say that's true of most dog owners. The problem is that the dog run 1238 there is pathetic. You have the question posed to the soccer players, what surface better 1239 meets your needs? With dogs, we've got basically three possibilities: decomposed 1240 granite or nicer dirt, grass, and artificial turf. Most dog owners would rather have real 1241 grass. They would settle for a small park with artificial turf, as you said. Dirt is totally 1242 unsuitable. It's good for allowing dog poop and urine to be there and not have to worry 1243 as much. It's much better if we have real grass and people cleaning up. Most of the 1244 people are self-policing. For the privilege of having it made legal and having proper 1245 boundaries and a fence, most people are going to clean up. It goes beyond self-policing. 1246 Dog owners actually police each other. The first time that another dog owner looked at 1247 me like, "Oh, your dog pooped over there." At first, I'm like "Oh." Then I realize this is 1248 Approved Minutes 30 APPROVED great. This is the way it should be. I should be paying attention, but if I missed that my 1249 dog made a mess, I want somebody to tell me. I want to clean up after my dogs. Most of 1250 us go beyond that. If we see dog poop on the grass, even if it's cold and it happened 1251 yesterday, I'm going to clean it up. Most of the other dog owners feel the same way. We 1252 don't want to have dog poop there. We don't want people saying that we're a problem. If 1253 we had decent facilities, you'd have compliance gladly. Better to have it fenced however 1254 that's done, than not fenced. Better to have rules. Better to have it that everybody 1255 understands what the rules are. If people do understand what the rules are, not only do 1256 they police themselves, but they police each other. Is that fair enough? 1257 1258 Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. Okay, one minute. 1259 1260 Ms. Kleinhaus: The City of Mountain View is doing this experiment. They have dog 1261 parks that are a certain time people can go off-leash with the dogs. I've been taking my 1262 dog to Mountain View for a long time now. I don't necessarily want the area to be 1263 fenced. In our neighborhood, everybody goes to Ramos Park in the afternoon to socialize 1264 with each other. Everybody knows the dogs' names. Everybody knows each other. This 1265 is a huge social value to our community. Thank you. 1266 1267 Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. Rob, do you want to wrap up? Is there anything you want 1268 to add? 1269 1270 Mr. de Geus: This is really good progress. We've done some good work. These guys in 1271 particular have done some good work with this survey and the analysis. Very interesting 1272 data. As it fits in with all of the other data that we're gathering, I'm starting to feel a little 1273 more hopeful than maybe a month or two ago when we were struggling about some of 1274 this data. We're not there yet; I get that. The binder has helped as well. Important 1275 progress. Thank you for reviewing it and for your feedback. 1276 1277 3. Debrief the March 20, 2015 Commission Retreat. 1278 1279 Chair Reckdahl: I won't go through all the details of what we walked through, but I'll 1280 give you the highlights. We did wrap up some topics. The Master Plan Survey ad hoc 1281 has been disbanded since we completed it. There also was a park communications ad hoc 1282 that completed its tasks. Those are the two ad hocs that we closed for this year. We also 1283 had some other PIOs, we had about half a dozen PIOs that were passed. Some of them 1284 are under construction. Some are completed. A PIO is a Park Improvement Ordinance. 1285 We also passed the feeding wildlife ordinance. The field use was an outstanding issue 1286 that is being addressed by the Master Plan. That is taken off our list for now. We kept 1287 the remaining ad hocs. I won't run through the existing ad hocs, but we did add some ad 1288 hocs. We have two ad hocs of one, Commissioner Lauing, Arastradero Preserve, 1289 particularly the parking there. Can we work out a way of improving the parking situation 1290 Approved Minutes 31 APPROVED there? Also the crossing at Kellogg and Middlefield, which is near the Junior Zoo and 1291 Museum. We also had two ad hocs of one. Commissioner Markevitch will coordinate 1292 with high schools to have open play time. This would be kids can go on the field and 1293 play. Nothing organized, not competitive, just time for the kids to go out and get their 1294 energy out and socialize. Also the Lefkowitz Tunnel, reopening it. It's been a big 1295 improvement. Elizabeth Ames has work on this to scrunch down the time that the tunnel 1296 is closed. Right now it's been closed for quite a while, and it would be nice to have that 1297 open. Commissioner Markevitch is going to be heading up the coordination with City 1298 staff on that. Finally, Commissioner Ashlund will be the new Project Safety Net liaison. 1299 We want some type of interaction with Project Safety Net. Stacey has done other actions 1300 with Project Safety Net. We have some items that we're following. These aren't ad hocs; 1301 these are just items that we are concerned about. The cost of services study tells us the 1302 cost of what we charge and what we get back. That is going to Council for a study 1303 session April 6th. We're following that. The rental spaces, whether we have to change 1304 rental space, change the pricing to improve the revenue flow for the rental spaces. We 1305 will consider that after the cost of services study session. The Baylands satellite parking, 1306 we're just monitoring Council activity. That's not an active matter right now, unless the 1307 Council acts on that. We also want to investigate EIR training with the City. If the City 1308 is going to hold some internal EIR training, it would be very good. This is 1309 Environmental Impact Report. That would be a good experience for us, so we want to 1310 coordinate with City staff to see if we can get a training offered. Finally, the QPR 1311 gatekeeper training, that is just for anyone in stress, to help identify and assist them. We 1312 said we would not have a coordinated effort, but we encouraged all individuals to get that 1313 training. We also added about a half dozen new items of interest. Just the Master Plan 1314 content and delivery, that's a big item. We're all working on that. We're not having a 1315 separate ad hoc for that obviously. Water conservation is something Commissioner 1316 Knopper brought up. After some discussion, for every park improvement we want to 1317 have water conservation as an aspect of the PIO. We are watching the Baylands 1318 Comprehensive Conservation Plan. That will be done fiscal year 2017. That's still a year 1319 and a half off. Baylands Boardwalk Feasibility Study will be performed late this year. 1320 We want to follow that. There's been a lot of interest from the public about the Baylands 1321 boardwalk, and we want to see what the feasibility says. Whether we can repair it; 1322 whether it has to be completely replaced. We also talked about the interpretive center 1323 exhibits, both at Arastradero and Foothills Park. This came out of a discussion about the 1324 Baylands Interpretive Center. All three of those interpretive centers, we want to evaluate 1325 the exhibits on that. There currently is a CIP for the Baylands Interpretive Center 1326 exhibits, but not for the other two. Finally, outreach to seniors and teens. We think that 1327 quite often they're overlooked in the planning. None of us are teens. Some of us are 1328 getting close to seniors. We want to make sure that all the demographics in the City 1329 properly give input into the parks. Was there any other comments? Did I miss anything? 1330 1331 Approved Minutes 32 APPROVED Commissioner Ashlund: I have a question. Because an ad hoc can be an ad hoc of one, 1332 we talked about that. For example, on Project Safety Net, I signed up for that and the 1333 open playing field space at the high schools. Commissioner Markevitch signed up for 1334 that. One thing I realized after our retreat that didn't come up, was the liaison to the 1335 City/School Liaison Committee. I believe that's its name. We don't currently have any of 1336 us designated to be following that. I'd love to go and I try, but I miss them a lot because 1337 of scheduling conflicts. 1338 1339 Chair Reckdahl: What's the title? 1340 1341 Commissioner Hetterly: School liaison. 1342 1343 Chair Reckdahl: Is that something where we could have two people? If you're interested 1344 in it. 1345 1346 Commissioner Ashlund: I'm interested, but I don't have as much time and availability to 1347 attend it as I'd like. I'd be happy if another person would be willing to be interested. 1348 1349 Vice Chair Markevitch: Is that appropriate? The City/School Committee is usually 1350 School Board Members and City Council Members. Is this somebody who would go to 1351 that meeting and observe it? You don't really have a seat at the table. 1352 1353 Rob de Geus: You don't really have a seat at the table, but you do go to observe. 1354 Oftentimes it is a discussion that's relevant to our department, Community Services and 1355 not infrequently parks and recreation. In fact, the next meeting is April 2nd and it's at the 1356 School District. One of the topics is Project Safety Net. That'll be a discussion. Also 1357 interestingly, the committee has largely been an information sharing committee. The 1358 School District shares with the City about things that they're doing. Maybe Council 1359 Member Filseth can add to this. There's been some Council Members that would like to 1360 see that committee be a little more action oriented, if that's the right word. Problem solve 1361 some issues that both agencies are facing and help work through the solutions a little bit 1362 more than just sharing information. Things like Cubberley, as an example, where there's 1363 obviously interest from both parties. Project Safety Net is another good example. Traffic 1364 and Safe Routes to School is another good example. There's several. There was an 1365 interest from some Council Members that that be more of a working committee than just 1366 sharing of information. That was an interesting development. They're going to be 1367 discussing that on April 2nd. Council Member. 1368 1369 Council Member Filseth: There was some dialog on that at the last City/School meeting. 1370 It remains to be seen where it's going to end up. 1371 1372 Chair Reckdahl: Any other comments or questions? 1373 Approved Minutes 33 APPROVED 1374 Commissioner Ashlund: It was originally on our list a couple of years ago, when I first 1375 came on the Commission. I wondered if it had intentionally come off our list or if it was 1376 just lack of interest or time. I'm fine with it either way. 1377 1378 Chair Reckdahl: I looked at last year's list; I did not compare it to the year before to see 1379 if anything else had fallen off last year. 1380 1381 4. Other Ad Hoc Committee and Liaison Updates. 1382 1383 Chair Reckdahl: I'll start off with one. Byxbee Park will be coming next month. 1384 Commissioner Crommie and I spent a lot of time with Daren working on that. I think 1385 they've improved it a lot. There's less trails up on Byxbee, but they're better laid out. If 1386 you're up there, sometimes it gets a little disorienting because there's so many 1387 crisscrossing trails. When you get to an intersection, you don't know exactly where 1388 you're at. It is a bit of a maze. The new layout is much simpler and will still be 1389 sufficiently dense to give people options as opposed to just one loop around the outside. 1390 There's some crisscrossing. It's a better design. One thing that we had talked about is 1391 this node. I mentioned this to you, Rob. Maybe we should bring this up. 1392 1393 Commissioner Crommie: I think it is worthwhile discussing. 1394 1395 Chair Reckdahl: I'm not sure if everyone's been to Byxbee. There's one particular spot in 1396 the new area; the spot closer to the freeway. This is the new stuff that was just opened up 1397 last year. There's a very good point with a good lookout where trails crisscross. At that 1398 node, they wanted to make a very large gathering spot. This would be crushed granite 1399 packed down so it'd be firm to walk on. This would be a meeting spot for people. The 1400 size would be 50 feet in diameter. Our first instinct was, "Wow, that's big." That's half 1401 the size of a basketball court. That would be in the middle of the wilderness. We 1402 thought, "Why do you need that much?" If we look at ranger's groups, that's more than 1403 enough size for any type of ranger group that we would have. Any social activities up 1404 there, we didn't think we'd need as many people. The landscape architect wanted 1405 personal space, 8 feet diameter per person, and they sized it that way. We thought that 1406 was a little excessive. After doing some numbers, we squished that down to 35 feet 1407 diameter. That's still a rather large size. For example, if you had a ranger group and 1408 you're listening to the ranger, you're not going to be any further away than 3 feet from the 1409 person next to you. You still could have over 100 people there, and even more if you 1410 wanted to squish it even further. If you had something like a social event, maybe a 4-foot 1411 diameter and you could still have 60 people around there. We thought that 35 feet was 1412 more than enough. After talking to Rob, Rob was saying, "Well, do we want to shrink it 1413 or not? Do we want to oversize it?" Commissioner Crommie. 1414 1415 Approved Minutes 34 APPROVED Commissioner Crommie: I stand by shrinking it down to 35. I walked it also with 1416 Commissioner Hetterly. It's a place that we saw at the crossroads. It just seems out of 1417 scale. When you are gathering, you're gathering at the crossroads of four paths. You're 1418 in the center and you can also go into those paths a little bit. That provides a lot of extra 1419 space. It wasn't like you walk on a meandering trail up to a place and then you have this 1420 big space. It's this crossroads, so it really adds scale to it. That's where it just felt so 1421 extra big. 1422 1423 Chair Reckdahl: Commissioner Hetterly, do you have a comment? 1424 1425 Rob de Geus: This is not really a topic for discussion today. You can give an update, but 1426 this isn't on the agenda. We're going to discuss this at the next meeting. This is a good 1427 teaser. 1428 1429 Chair Reckdahl: A teaser for next week. 1430 1431 Commissioner Crommie: People can go see it. It's a really great walk up there. 1432 1433 Mr. de Geus: Yeah, we should do it. 1434 1435 Commissioner Crommie: I recommend it. All Commissioners who are interested. You 1436 could even text Commissioner Reckdahl and I, and we would join you out there, if 1437 anyone's interested. 1438 1439 Chair Reckdahl: In general, if people have comments, email Daren about this. He's 1440 working this. He's working on the PIO for next month. If you do have comments, you 1441 should get them in now, so he can reflect it for the PIO. 1442 1443 Commissioner Hetterly: Is it the PIO coming next month or a discussion? 1444 1445 Mr. de Geus: I think it's discussion actually. I'll double check with him. It's come to the 1446 Commission once before. Given that there is fairly substantive changes that the whole 1447 Commission hasn't seen, I'd be surprised if he's bringing the PIO this time. 1448 1449 Chair Reckdahl: That would make more sense. Any other ad hocs? 1450 1451 Commissioner Knopper: Yes. I have a dog update. On Monday, March 16th, we had a 1452 stakeholders meeting with field users at Daren Anderson's office. Representatives from 1453 Palo Alto Little League, Babe Ruth league and the Mountain View football club or 1454 Mountain View soccer. 1455 1456 Commissioner Hetterly: PSV Union soccer. 1457 Approved Minutes 35 APPROVED 1458 Commissioner Knopper: Thank you. I can never get the letters. We presented the three 1459 proposed areas that the Commission has discussed, Greer Park, Baylands, and Hoover 1460 Park for the possible off-leash pilot program. We had a very passionate discussion 1461 specifically from Palo Alto Little League. It didn't impact soccer fields at all. The net of 1462 the meeting was that in Hoover Park we were discussing two areas. One area would be 1463 where the actual baseball diamond and the outfield was. Then there's an outer perimeter 1464 with a partial fence that we would complete. Palo Alto Little League and Babe Ruth 1465 deferred that if we were to present to our public meeting, which is the next step, utilizing 1466 the outside perimeter, they discussed with us the difficulty of grooming the dirt versus 1467 grass, for baseball diamonds and how expensive and time-consuming it is. That is not 1468 optimal at all. They would be open to having off-leash dogs in that outside perimeter of 1469 Hoover Park, wouldn't you say? 1470 1471 Commissioner Hetterly: Yeah. We thought we would change the options for the public 1472 meeting to favor that outside area. 1473 1474 Commissioner Knopper: Right. 1475 1476 Chair Reckdahl: You'd have some fence around the infield? 1477 1478 Commissioner Hetterly: There's the outfield fence that's in the middle of the turf area. 1479 We're talking about doing the shared use dog area outside of that fence, between the 1480 apartment building, the church, and the outfield fence. It would require more fencing. 1481 1482 Commissioner Knopper: It's like a boomerang. Pardon me for interrupting. It's like a 1483 weird triangular shape that's a little more than an acre. 1484 1485 Chair Reckdahl: It would be fenced? 1486 1487 Commissioner Hetterly: Yes. 1488 1489 Commissioner Knopper: Yes, fenced. 1490 1491 Commissioner Crommie: Is it grass or dirt? 1492 1493 Commissioner Knopper: Grass. 1494 1495 Commissioner Hetterly: It's grass. 1496 1497 Vice Chair Markevitch: Give an update. Aren't we going to talk about dogs next month? 1498 1499 Approved Minutes 36 APPROVED Commissioner Knopper: That was the update. 1500 1501 Vice Chair Markevitch: (crosstalk) start discussing it. 1502 1503 Commissioner Knopper: No. I was answering. 1504 1505 Commissioner Crommie: Does asking a question fall under discussion or not? 1506 1507 Vice Chair Markevitch: It leads to a discussion. 1508 1509 Commissioner Hetterly: I just wanted to clarify. The ad hoc group has really been only 1510 looking at this shared use pilot program option. We have not been digging into where we 1511 should put a dedicated park, what size it should it be. It may be that this public meeting 1512 on the shared use option is a good opportunity to raise some key questions to get input 1513 from the public. It might be helpful for us to meet or talk with you all with your expertise 1514 from other communities what are the key issues that we should explore further. If you're 1515 open to that, that would be helpful before doing the public outreach meeting. 1516 1517 Commissioner Crommie: Does the ad hoc have a date set for the public outreach? 1518 1519 Commissioner Knopper: No. 1520 1521 Commissioner Crommie: Where do you stand on that? Are you coming back to us 1522 before you do the outreach or are you doing the outreach before? 1523 1524 Commissioner Knopper: We're going to have the public meeting, and then we'll come 1525 back with the results of that. 1526 1527 Commissioner Crommie: Can you please publicize the public meeting to the 1528 Commission, so those of us who might be interested. 1529 1530 Commissioner Knopper: Sure, of course. 1531 1532 Commissioner Crommie: It's always informative to be there while things are being 1533 discussed. 1534 1535 Commissioner Hetterly: If there's a strong feeling on the Commission that you want to 1536 discuss public outreach before we go out, that might be worthwhile, to get your thoughts 1537 about issues that we should explore at that meeting. Maybe it would make sense to put it 1538 on the Agenda in the interim. 1539 1540 Commissioner Crommie: If we have the time, that'd be good. 1541 Approved Minutes 37 APPROVED 1542 Chair Reckdahl: It doesn't have to be extended. 1543 1544 Commissioner Hetterly: Just a short, 15-minute discussion. 1545 1546 Chair Reckdahl: It would be useful to have a short discussion about that. We've waited 1547 long enough between the last update. It would be good just to chew on that. 1548 1549 Commissioner Crommie: Are you thinking the public outreach meeting might be months 1550 away? It's open-ended right now? 1551 1552 Commissioner Knopper: Hopefully. 1553 1554 Commissioner Hetterly: Hopefully not months. Hopefully in the next couple of months 1555 we'll be able to do that. 1556 1557 Commissioner Crommie: In that case, yeah. It might be nice to come back briefly. 1558 1559 Chair Reckdahl: Should we put that on the agenda for next month? 1560 1561 Commissioner Hetterly: Yeah. 1562 1563 Chair Reckdahl: Any other ad hocs? Otherwise, we'll move on. 1564 1565 V. COMMENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS 1566 1567 Chair Reckdahl: The one thing I do want to say is the Form 700 is due April 1st. Get it 1568 in if you have not filed it. That is always fun. Rob, did you have any other (crosstalk). 1569 1570 Rob de Geus: You mentioned the cost of services study. Hopefully you have that on 1571 your calendar. There's an event, an all-day event, on May 30th. That's a ways out, but I 1572 thought I'd let you know if you haven't heard about it already. It's called the Summit, and 1573 it's about the Comp Plan for the City. The Commission cares a lot about that. It's an all-1574 day event. You can learn about the current thinking on the Comp Plan and some of the 1575 results from the Our Palo Alto outreach effort that's been happening over the last several 1576 months. You can put that on your calendar. I believe it's a Saturday. Some things that 1577 are happening a little closer than that. We have a youth forum happening this Friday that 1578 the Mitchell Park Community Center teen staff have been working on with the Palo Alto 1579 Youth Council. It's 5:30 to 9:00. It includes a couple of different things. There's a 1580 dialog circle time happening for teens specifically. There are six different topics that the 1581 teens talk about with some facilitators related to those topics. There's a parent workshop 1582 at the same time. Everyone comes back together at the end, so there's a sharing of what 1583 Approved Minutes 38 APPROVED the teens discussed with their facilitators. There's an empathy hour after that where 1584 there's going to be some food and some fun activities for the adults and teens that are 1585 there. That's happening this Friday. 1586 1587 Chair Reckdahl: What is the target age? All teens? 1588 1589 Mr. de Geus: High school teens. It's on the heels of some tragic suicides. That's heavy 1590 on the minds and hearts of everyone including the students. That's certainly part of the 1591 topics that'll be discussed on Friday evening. That's at Mitchell Park Community Center 1592 if you're interested in participating. April 18th, hopefully you've got this on your 1593 calendars. Does everyone know what that is? The Magical Bridge Grand Opening. 1594 Right, Peter? Here's the guy that's helped make it happen. Of course, Olenka and many 1595 others in the community that have fundraised to help build that really awesome 1596 playground. That's going to be a lot of fun. Hopefully, that's on your calendar. 1597 1598 Commissioner Crommie: I know that's all day, but can you remind us what time the 1599 actual presentation is? 1600 1601 Peter Jensen: It's at 10:00 a.m. It's scheduled to go 30-45 minutes, the opening 1602 ceremonies. It's starting at 10:00. Daren and I met with the contractors on Scott Park 1603 yesterday. They are starting the renovation work there. I believe Monday is the actual 1604 day they're going to be working out there. It's a couple-month process to do the park. 1605 That's on its way. 1606 1607 Chair Reckdahl: Bocce is almost here. 1608 1609 Mr. de Geus: Daren had something he needed to be at tonight, so he couldn't be here. He 1610 did let me know that Hopkins Park is completed, that CIP. He was happy to say it's done. 1611 1612 Chair Reckdahl: That came up after you left on Friday. He was quite happy. 1613 1614 VI. TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR APRIL 28, 2015 MEETING 1615 1616 Chair Reckdahl: We're going to have the dog park. A discussion about the public 1617 meeting. 1618 1619 Commissioner Hetterly: And Byxbee trails. 1620 1621 Rob de Geus: And Byxbee trails. I had a suggestion here. You may have talked about it 1622 at retreat after I left. We were trying to put together a second retreat or workshop around 1623 the Parks Master Plan and the matrix we looked at a little while back. We think by the 1624 end of April we'll have the matrix ready for a first hard look and have it completed 1625 Approved Minutes 39 APPROVED including some of the summary of needs that would be generated from the data that's 1626 been collected. By April 28th, that's the next meeting, we think we would be ready for 1627 that. One thing we were thinking might be an option is rather than having a separate day 1628 for a workshop, to start a little earlier and do it that evening. We could provide some 1629 food and so on if that would be of interest to the Commission to avoid having another 1630 meeting day. Start at 5:30 or 6:00, and have a couple or three hours on the Parks Master 1631 Plan and the matrix. Have a couple of items after that and still be done reasonably early. 1632 If the Commission would rather have another day, certainly we can do that. 1633 1634 Chair Reckdahl: What is the general feel? Would you rather have a longer meeting one 1635 night as opposed to having a separate day? 1636 1637 Vice Chair Markevitch: Mm-hmm. 1638 1639 Chair Reckdahl: Abbie? 1640 1641 Commissioner Knopper: Yeah (inaudible). 1642 1643 Commissioner Crommie: I like it. 1644 1645 Peter Jensen: For the Parks Master Plan portion of it, we were discussing it in another 1646 room, perhaps the one on the corner, so we can sit around a round table. 1647 1648 Chair Reckdahl: It would be good to be at a table. If you have stuff to look at, it's nicer 1649 to gather as opposed to being spread out. Meeting times, what can people make? 6:00, 1650 5:30? What's too early? 1651 1652 Commissioner Crommie: 6:00 is better for me. 5:30 is too early for me. 1653 1654 Chair Reckdahl: Eric, do you have a preference? 1655 1656 Commissioner Crommie: I vote for no earlier than 6:00. 1657 1658 Chair Reckdahl: Let's go with 6:00, and maybe target 6:00 to 8:00 and then have the 1659 Commission meeting start at 8:00. Is that reasonable? 8:30? 1660 1661 Mr. de Geus: It might be good to have the food arrive at 5:30, and then people can come 1662 and eat for that half hour. If you can't get there until 6:00, it's fine. Have your food as we 1663 get started. 1664 1665 Approved Minutes 40 APPROVED Chair Reckdahl: 5:30 dinner and we're going to target 6:00 to 8:00? What's the ending 1666 time? Let's target 8:30. It always seems like it's a gas that expands to fill all available 1667 space. 1668 1669 Mr. de Geus: That's what the team thinks as well. It's probably in the end going to be 1670 three hours. There's a lot to go over there. It's an important topic. Let's aim for 8:30. 1671 1672 Chair Reckdahl: We would just come into here when we would start the regular 1673 meetings or we'd have the regular meeting in there? 1674 1675 Catherine Bourquin: It's in the new, it's finished. That's what we were scheduled for to 1676 begin with. At the Chambers this year. 1677 1678 Mr. de Geus: Our regular meeting is scheduled in that room already. 1679 1680 Chair Reckdahl: That's convenient then. The entire meeting will be there. That gives us 1681 more flexibility. We may be there until midnight if that's the case. Any other agenda 1682 items? 1683 1684 Commissioner Ashlund: Trying to clarify the schedule. The next stakeholder meeting 1685 for the Master Plan, do we have a target date for that? 1686 1687 Mr. de Geus: I don't think so. We haven't scheduled it, because we put the brakes on the 1688 next stakeholder meeting to ensure that we were comfortable with the data gathering 1689 portion. That's where we develop the matrix. If everything goes well this next month as 1690 we develop the matrix and then we have our workshop, essentially study session, on the 1691 28th, we'll evaluate it at that time. If things are looking good then, we will try and have 1692 the stakeholder meeting fairly soon after that. Probably late May at the earliest. 1693 1694 Commissioner Ashlund: Are there more sub-stakeholder meetings such as the 1695 community gardens meeting that was today? 1696 1697 Mr. de Geus: There probably will be, particularly as we dive deeper into the survey 1698 results and we start to see certain trends or patterns. It's particularly helpful to have those 1699 conversations. We know we haven't hit all of them. You mentioned one, the younger 1700 generation up to 35. There's still more work that we need to do there in terms of some 1701 smaller focus groups. Every time the consultants are here, we try and fill their time so 1702 they can speak with residents about what we're learning or partner organizations, field 1703 users, that sort of thing. 1704 1705 Commissioner Crommie: If you want to go back to the farmers market, that was great. I 1706 saw so many young people there. It was striking that there were young people with 1707 Approved Minutes 41 APPROVED children and singles, that demographic. That's really that under 35 group. They're either 1708 going to be married with their first kids or still single. 1709 1710 Chair Reckdahl: A farmers market is just a random set of people. Does that buy us value 1711 now? 1712 1713 Ryan Mottau: The reason that worked so well early on is a defined short set of questions 1714 that we were able to ask without having to grab a lot of people's time. I think that's right 1715 in the demographic, as Deirdre was saying, that we're looking to add some more 1716 perspective from. Unfortunately, that method of going out and intercepting people is 1717 going to be harder to get a more detailed view which is what we're trying to get to at this 1718 stage in the process. We'll definitely be thinking about some other alternatives. You're 1719 right, that's a great place to catch that demographic, and we did catch that the last time 1720 around. I'm happy to hear any other ideas. We're also following some leads with the 1721 director at the YMCA who has a variety of connections in other parts of the community 1722 and would have some of those same age groups involved there. We're going to see what 1723 we can track down over the next week or two. 1724 1725 Chair Reckdahl: If we're going after teens, do we want to visit high schools at all? 1726 1727 Vice Chair Markevitch: That's not really appropriate. Their instructional day is so full 1728 already that I can't even imagine trying to pull that one off. There's enough stress going 1729 on at the schools especially this time of year with college acceptances and rejections. I 1730 wouldn't do that. 1731 1732 Chair Reckdahl: I'm thinking about if you hung out at Town and Country at lunch, but 1733 that would be such a zoo that you'd probably be overwhelmed. 1734 1735 Vice Chair Markevitch: They have a very short lunch time, and you're only getting one 1736 high school at that point. There's got to be a better way than going to do that. Also 1737 getting onto the campus has a whole other set of problems. I just don't think that's a good 1738 fit. There has to be a different way. 1739 1740 VII. ADJOURNMENT 1741 1742 Meeting adjourned on motion by Commissioner Hetterly and second by Commissioner 1743 Knopper at 10:10 p.m. Passed 7-0 1744 Approved Minutes 42