HomeMy WebLinkAbout2015-04-28 Parks & Recreation Summary MinutesAPPROVED
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MINUTES 5
PARKS & RECREATION COMMISSION 6
SPECIAL MEETING 7
April 28, 2015 8
DOWNTOWN LIBRARY 9 270 Forest 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: Daren Anderson, Catherine Bourquin, Rob de Geus, Peter Jensen 17
I. ROLL CALL CONDUCTED BY: Catherine Bourquin 18
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II. AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, and DELETIONS: 20
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Chair Reckdahl: Does anyone have any modifications they want to make? 22
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Commissioner Hetterly: I do. 24
25 Chair Reckdahl: Okay. 26 27 Chair Reckdahl: This is for the agenda. 28
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Commissioner Hetterly: Oh, I don't have agenda changes. Sorry. 30
31 III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS: 32 33
None. 34
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IV. BUSINESS: 36
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1. Approval of Draft Minutes from the Special Retreat March 20, 2015 Meeting. 38
39 MOTION: Commissioner Lauing moved, seconded by Commissioner Hetterly to 40
approve the draft Special Retreat March 20, 2015 Minutes as amended. 41 42
MOTION PASSED: 6-0, Crommie absent 43
44 2. Approval of Draft Minutes from the Regular Meeting March 24, 2015 45 Meeting. 46 47 MOTION: Vice Chair Markevitch moved, seconded by Commissioner Hetterly to 48
approve the draft Regular Meeting March 24, 2015 Minutes as amended. 49
50 MOTION PASSED: 6-0, Crommie absent 51 52 3. Study Session on the Parks, Trails, Open Space and Recreation Facilities 53
Master Plan to Include: Recreation Program Data Analysis Report, Survey 54 Summary Report and Matrix of Public Outreach and Data Collected with 55 Draft Findings. 56 57
Peter Jensen: Good evening, Commissioners. Thank you very much for coming earlier 58
this evening. We do have a few things to get through tonight. Our Master Planning 59
project and connecting the data to the eventual recommendations that will be made. 60
Tonight we are going to discuss the matrix that's set up, which is a tool that we put 61
together to help cross-reference some of the data and to gather that in one location that's 62
easier to reference back to. From the review that we've had over the last week, I feel that 63
this tool is a good tool to use. It makes it a lot clearer for us to understand the analysis 64
that has been done, the data that's been collected. It will definitely help in our next phase 65
of prioritization. This tool, of course, is not the end or making any final 66
recommendations at all. It is a tool to help us cross-reference that data to those 67
recommendations that are going to be made and then to eventually help us prioritize and 68
make recommendations that will go into the Master Plan. We're going to go through that 69
matrix. Of course, tonight we have our team from MIG here, the consultants. Lauren, 70
Ryan, and Ellie will be discussing different aspects of the matrix. There was some data 71
given to you last week with your package. That is items for your binder of mostly 72 analysis and data items that are centered around the matrix and information that have 73
been put into the matrix. I'm hoping that you have had a little bit of time to look at some 74
of that stuff, because it will come up in some of the conversations with the matrix itself. I 75
think our goal here is to review the matrix, feel good about how it's going, and this line of 76
thinking along to get to this summary of the data that will then prepare and propel us to 77
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the next phase, which is the prioritization and recommendation phase. I'll let Rob say a 78
few words as well, and then we'll dive right into it. 79
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Rob de Geus: Thank you, Peter, for all the heavy lifting you've been doing. I'm 81
straddling two jobs here with Greg Betts gone and putting the department budget together 82
and other things and getting up to speed there. I've had to lean even more on Peter and 83 Daren and some of the other staff, so I thank them for that. I'd also thank the 84
Commission. You helped us create this matrix. This is new, you helped design it. What 85
you'll see this evening is still a work in progress, but this is an important meeting as we 86
work through the different elements of the matrix and start to look at the needs that have 87
been identified by MIG and the rationale that they've gone through to define those needs 88
which is a really fascinating discussion. I've had a chance to look at the matrix over these 89
last three days, and I definitely have some questions here and there. I think the logic is 90
really good. It's sound. I'm looking forward to this evening's discussion. Let's get into it. 91
I'll pass it on to MIG. 92
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Ellie Fiore: I'm going to kick us off just briefly. Again, thank you for carving out some 94
extra time from your evening to be here today to devote some resources to this effort. As 95
Rob and Peter mentioned, our primary goal for the evening is to review and discuss the 96
Summary of Needs that we put together in this matrix. I think you folks saw the 97
framework a couple of months ago. It was an empty shell, but our initial thinking on how 98
do we draw that connective thread from the data, whether it's demographic data or data 99
from community survey or other community outreach efforts, how do we use that 100
information to come up with what we're calling a Summary of Needs. I think this is a 101
tool that, now that we've gone through and combed through all that information that's in 102 your binder and pulled it up to the surface, that we think we have hopefully outlined a 103 linear and logical path of those Summary of Needs. We want to spend some time tonight 104 getting you comfortable with the contents and the organization of the matrix. We have 105
until about 8:30. One of my jobs tonight is going to be keep us moving and keep us on 106
track as much as possible, because we do want to make sure that we devote time to each 107
of the three elements as we've structured the matrix, programs as well as recreation 108
facilities as well as parks, trails and open spaces. One process point, Ryan does need to 109
leave early tonight. He needs to leave at about 7:30, so if you see him leave the room, 110
don't be alarmed. We knew that was going to happen. Again, we want to talk about what 111
the data tells us and how that will be used when we get comfortable and start moving 112
forward. The data is not equivalent to recommendations, and it's not directive. It doesn't 113
tell us what the Plan will eventually say; it tells us what we've learned to date. I also 114
want to draw your attention to one thing in your data and needs summary. On page 2 is a 115
little graphic that outlines nicely what the major phases of this effort are. We are 116
essentially now in the second bubble, the second of two bubbles, so about half way 117
through the process, where we've paused to regroup and outline the data and needs 118
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summary. With that, I'll turn it over to Lauren, who will give a bigger picture overview 119
of how this all fits together and where we go from here. 120
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Lauren Schmitt: As Ellie pointed out, we're really about half way through. You 122
challenged us a couple of months, saying "Whoa. Look at this stack of information. 123
How can we as a Commission digest all of this and understand the way things are and 124 what the needs are in this community, so we can move forward and get behind 125
recommendations?" The last time I was here, I really tried to temper my expectations 126
about how connected those threads could be. Once we started doing it, I was surprised at 127
how many threads we could find. We talked about smoking guns and what those are, 128
maybe focus on those. We feel really good about where this ended up, but I want to point 129
out that this is an important step, right here in the middle. We have a lot of work ahead 130
of us still to do together, with staff, with you. to develop the recommendations. Once we 131
understand the needs, it's really getting our heads around what we want to do about them 132
and what the highest priorities are moving forward. This is a very, very critical step 133
tonight. We're really eager to hear your thoughts. Now, we're going to start with Ryan 134
reorienting you to the matrix, which we are now going to review again. Then we can 135
start digging in. As Ellie mentioned, as we broadly hit on each section tonight, we can go 136
as fast or slow as you want. This is really critical for you. 137
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Mr. Jensen: Can you either (crosstalk). If you want your own, you can have your own. 139
At the end of the night, everyone should take one of these. I'm going to tend to the extra 140
ones. If you want one right now, you can have one. If not, at the end of the meeting 141
make sure that you take one home. I printed it out bigger so it's easier to read and look 142
at, but it is still a large matrix to look at. That's why we're not looking at it directly on the 143 screen. 144 145 Ms. Fiore: We might have to have Ryan walk through what the structure of this was and 146
then hit some of the highlights that jumped out at us as we analyzed it. Then we'll walk 147
you through what that logical, step-by-step process was in developing it and then talk 148
about the Summary of Needs. We obviously won't be able to get to every cell in every 149
line and that's not our goal. We do want you to get comfortable with what the contents 150
are, where they came from, and how it's being used. 151
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Ryan Mottau: The updated file that you all got no longer says concept. It was asked of 153
me by a couple of the Commissioners, that being able to understand where the changes 154
were would be a helpful thing. We can pass along a redline copy of that, if that's useful 155
to you. We'll try to make sure that it's clearer as we're intending to update and replace 156
pieces in your binders. This one is a replacement. The earlier one was really a proof of 157
concept document so that we could show you what we were thinking. This one is what 158
we actually used as we were filling the document. If you remember, the first part of this 159
hasn't changed dramatically. We talked a little bit about the process and this goes 160
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through and explains the elements, which are the three largest divisions of the overall 161
system. You'll see those divided on the matrix there. The top one being parks, trails and 162
open space. The middle one being recreation facilities, and the bottom one being 163
programming. We're calling those elements mostly to keep them straight. It's not 164
necessarily a scientific term. It's more a useful term for us to differentiate between those 165
and the one more level of detail that we felt was appropriate for this system-wide Master 166 Planning effort. Those we are calling components. Each of the rows essentially is a 167
component as you talk about the different pieces of the overall puzzle that we have 168
assembled here. I want to emphasize one other thing up front as we're looking at this and 169
getting oriented to it. One of the things that we heard across the process from you, from 170
staff, from the community as a whole, is that the focus here should really be primarily on 171
local needs, that we understand we are part of a region, that we have a connection to the 172
region, but that we are planning essentially for the park system in Palo Alto. If we were 173
to decide we were going to serve a larger audience than just the residents of Palo Alto 174
intentionally, then that really does change some of the end-of-the-day picture here. Just 175
to run you through really quick again. The rows, as I said, are the components broken 176
down between each of the elements. Across the column headings here are a whole series 177
of topics essentially that are tied to data points and data sources which are listed there in 178
the second row. Each of those references as well as the individual references that are 179
listed within cells are all keyed to your overall binder. The front of your binder has a 180
document that's just a couple of pages that has the sources that are in there. It describes 181
which document is which. When we say Document 5, this is what the full title of it is. 182
We'll try to stay consistent with that, because we really want between this matrix and this 183
binder and one additional source to be able to pin back. Where did we hear this 184
information? How do we backtrack it through the levels of summarization? As Lauren 185 said, you challenged us to make sure that we could show our work. This is what we're 186 trying to do here: give you guys access to the highest level of summary in this matrix, 187 the main level of summarization and analysis, which is the information that's represented 188
in your binder, as well as one more of level of detail. For those who are really, really 189
interested, we've also provided the raw data in a number of cases. On the project website 190
now, there are at least two of the main sources of raw data that were essentially more 191
paper than we would have ever wanted to produce for each of you for the binders, but 192
things like the program data export that we summarized and analyzed in the summaries 193
that you've been provided. Raw data behind the survey open-ended results, I believe, was 194
available. One final piece was additional appendices on the demographic report which 195
included the school district's latest update of their demographics overall, so the entire 196
report behind that which is another 40 pages or so, providing you the opportunity, if you 197
really want to dig down through our sources. Those were some key ones that we wanted 198
to make sure were available. For each of these columns, what we're essentially doing is 199
trying to provide you the bite of information, the most relevant piece of information or a 200
rating scale that gives us a sense of how intense this particular element or component 201
rated in terms of those topic areas, the level of control, geographic distribution, etc. For 202
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each of those columns, there is a set of rating criteria in this document. I want to point 203
you to those, because we had a lot of discussion when we presented this concept about 204
the high, medium and low as a scale, the below, at, over. What do these mean in the 205
context of this matrix? Each of those is described. We tried as best we could where the 206
information existed to tie those to data points. We could use the natural breaks in that 207
data to really show why did this say this was high versus medium or why did we say this 208 medium versus low. When we started digging into the program data, one of the things 209
that we wanted to make sure we understood, where we have that real hard number 210
information, was where are we saying we are below, at or over capacity. Each of one of 211
those corresponds to, in the program analysis Part 2 you'll see references to that 212
throughout that section of the matrix, the tables that summarize the program data by 213
program area and really looking at do we have classes that are not meeting minimums, 214
are we over a third of the classes that we're offering not meeting the minimum 215
enrollments, which was one of the critical data thresholds that the staff has been using to 216
evaluate that program data. Also looking at the classes that were indicated as full or 217
waitlisted as the other side of that criteria. We're using a mix of those and hard cutoffs. 218
If it was 34 percent, then it falls into the next category. We're really trying to keep it at 219
that point, that those are not arbitrary numbers. Where we use those specific numbers, 220
we really used the data to tell us where should these cutoffs be, where do these make 221
sense based on what we're seeing overall, so that we can divide these into meaningful 222
categories. That's one of the things I wanted to point out. In some cases, because the 223
data varied by element, we had a couple of different criteria that would float into there 224
depending on where we were at. We tried to keep it as clear and simple as we could to 225
define these. The final piece on that overall orientation, I want to emphasize that high, 226
medium and low does not mean good, okay and bad. This is high, medium and low as 227 defined in these criteria. Probably the most important one to look at, because it pops out 228 visually as you're reading across this, is the second to last column which is projected 229 demand, Column K. These tend to have a high, medium and low with no sources. This 230
column is largely about our professional judgment and our tracking of what's going on. 231
We've talked that there would be some of that going on in this. It's an important part of 232
this overall process. High, medium and low here does not mean that this is a high need or 233
a medium need or a low need. This means exactly what it says here. High means that 234
there is a lot of opportunity in the future to see new user groups or populations to expand 235
those services, to expand that area. Medium means there is some opportunity, some new 236
user groups. Low is that we didn't see much opportunity to serve new user groups. This 237
is not saying, if there is a low projected demand, that you should stop doing this right 238
now. We're not making those value judgments at this stage. What we're saying is line-239
by-line do we see in the future opportunity to grow this area. That was a good example 240
of both how the high, medium and low works as well as how we want this information to 241
be read at this stage. We're really looking at the needs overall. 242
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Commissioner Hetterly: By opportunities to grow, this is really more about projected 244
opportunities to grow as opposed to demand. It's not related to demand at all. Or are you 245
talking about capacity of the system to add on in that area? Are you talking about 246
expected changes in user groups that will make the demand greater in the future? 247
248
Mr. Mottau: Yes, the last. 249 250
Commissioner Lauing: (inaudible) 251
252
Chair Reckdahl: Say that again. 253
254
Commissioner Lauing: It's (crosstalk). 255
256
Mr. Mottau: The projected demand column is about the changes in the overall 257
environment, the way that things are going, that we see the potential to increase the 258
overall user base if additional opportunities were offered as it evolves. I'm sorry I'm 259
tripping over that. Overall the concept is that there is going to be in the future an 260
opportunity you could serve more people with more activities in this area. 261
262
Commissioner Hetterly: You're not saying you expect a greater demand in these areas 263
that have an H there in the future? 264
265
Ms. Schmitt: Yes, we are. There's either a recreation trend that's happening or there's a 266
population segment ... 267
268 Commissioner Hetterly: The first one is an expectation of greater demand. That would 269 get a high if there are also opportunities to expand usage of that particular element. 270 271
Mr. Mottau: There's also the capacity column which is essentially addressing the first 272
part of your point there, which is that there is room within the system as it exists today to 273
... 274
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Commissioner Hetterly: This Column K is only about demand. 276
277
Mr. Mottau: Yes. 278
279
Commissioner Hetterly: It's not about capacity to grow. 280
281
Mr. Mottau: Yes. 282
283
Commissioner Hetterly: Thank you. 284
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Council Member Filseth: Let me see if I can try it. What you're saying is that if it's high, 286
that means you see a lot of potential for demand in the future. If it's low, you don't see 287
potential for a lot more demand than there is today. That doesn't mean you should stop 288
doing it, because it might be fully utilized today. 289
290
Mr. Mottau: Yes. 291 292
Commissioner Lauing: It is demand, because we were talking originally about what all 293
these opportunities might bring us and why do we care about the opportunities if there's 294
not much demand. 295
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Mr. Mottau: It is demand. It is demand looking forward. It's not a realized demand at 297
this point. Because we aren't offering them now or we aren't offering them at a scale, we 298
need to be able to look beyond what we have the data for. Your Chair pointed this out. If 299
we only look at the things that we can measure right now, how are we ever going to know 300
what the next thing is, how are we ever going to know how to look beyond that. It is 301
demand, but it's a perspective demand. 302
303
Commissioner Lauing: On the same point, I didn't quite get how you said it was 304
quantified. There was a cutoff between low, medium and high based on ... 305
306
Mr. Mottau: On this one, there is not. This one is pretty much purely a professional 307
judgment call. On other columns, there are specific quantifications such as the capacity 308
of talking about the program data. If you look at Column F, where below capacity would 309
equal 33 percent of the classes in that area are not meeting their minimum enrollment 310 which means, according to the overall structure of pricing and enrollment setting, they're 311 not meeting their cost recovery goals. 312 313
Commissioner Lauing: When you get over to G, sorry, yeah, the G Column (inaudible) 314
walkability and that's H and the next one's N. You're saying that is quantitative? 315
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Mr. Mottau: In Column G, there are some parts of that that we were looking specifically 317
at quantitative data that was provided in the Mapita input. When we were looking at the 318
overall quality of parks, we were using the scores that people gave for those parks 319
overall. There's also an element of that that is about the number of times that it was 320
referenced. If there were deficiencies noted over and over again, then the process is 321
working its way down that rating. 322
323
Ms. Fiore: The data and needs summary beginning on page 5 with the description of the 324
criteria and wherever possible based on the available information and data, we set some 325
quantitative boundaries to those or parameters for having been (inaudible) impossible for 326
every single element and every single component. When you get to Column K, it's our 327
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roll up of all of the things that came before overlaid with our professional judgment to 328
come up with the high, medium, low. The next column is the narrative summary 329
providing a little more detail of what that means. 330
331
Mr. Mottau: What we feel the need overall is stated at. The final column there is 332
ultimately the summation of how we read these data points, where that thread led us as 333 we worked through the information. 334
335
Chair Reckdahl: When you measured demand back on Column K, you're measuring this 336
in the users, you're not measuring this in dollars or demand for money to maintain. When 337
Rob and I were walking through this earlier, the special (inaudible) in the departments. 338
Lucy Evans I'm thinking of now in the Baylands, that's not as useable as we would like it. 339
There's a big public demand to bring that to what it used to be. Even though we wouldn't 340
be adding facilities, it would take a significant amount of money to bring that up to what 341
the community wants it to be. When you're talking about demand in that case, are you 342
talking about demand for money to be allocated to these rows or is it just the gross 343
number of people that are going to be going in? 344
345
Ms. Schmitt: This is definitely the people side, looking at what people want to do. The 346
next step in terms of criteria and prioritization is where we start to bring in decision-347
making criteria, like what is the capital cost, what is the long-term operating costs. You 348
are going to help us set criteria because you may have different financial criteria. 349
350
Chair Reckdahl: I just want to clarify that this is just users. It has nothing to do with 351
money or anything like that. 352 353 Ms. Schmitt: Yes, yes. 354 355
Mr. Mottau: Those other criteria is the next layer of information that we're going to 356
adding over the top of this. 357
358
Chair Reckdahl: It would be useful for me if you would walk through some of these 359
columns. Some of these columns aren't clear exactly what they're measuring. 360
361
Mr. Mottau: Okay. 362
363
Ms. Schmitt: One of the things that we are planning on doing is actually walking across 364
on these shaded ones, because they're really illustrative. I guess a process question for 365
you is do you want some time to just sit back and soak this in for a couple of minutes 366
before we start on that or are you ready to dive in. 367
368
Commissioner Lauing: I think the specific of examples as we're asking about them. 369
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370
Mr. Mottau: Great, great. I'm going to following along on my own copy here, because I 371
want to be able to read it a little bit. One of the places that we wanted to start overall was 372
a message that you've heard us talk about as we've gone through different analyses, 373
different summaries, the first of the rows that is highlighted in your matrix. It's Row 11, 374
experience nature as a component of the overall system. I'm going to walk you across the 375 columns here, with one or so examples of each of the pieces. We're going to walk 376
through this experience nature as a starting point to explain where we're at and where our 377
thinking is. The first couple of columns are just identifying it. You've got the component 378
name. As you get to Column C, what we're trying to identify is what's in the inventory. 379
Let's just get strictly facts. What's the volume of what's in our system currently? The 380
next column is level of control. What we're measuring here is really how much authority 381
or ability does the City have to change things or to influence how things will change on 382
that site. There's two big factors in this that we use primarily based on the information 383
we have available. I'm going to stop repeating that over and over again, because I'm just 384
going to make that a blanket statement. All of this is based on the information we have 385
available. We're happy to hear about other sources you think might be relevant. Level of 386
control is primarily based on two major factors. One is ownership of property, whether 387
or not the City owns that property or has control through a contractual obligation. The 388
other that we wanted to acknowledge and recognize was sea level rise, because there are 389
changes that will be beyond our control at some of our sites as a result of sea level rise. 390
It's a relatively small part of the overall sites, but it was something that was definitely part 391
of our analysis. A high level of control would indicate that the City can basically choose 392
what it is that we want to do. There are, of course, policy and legal limits and everything 393
like that, but overall we can decide. If we want to have programming, this is what it's 394 going to be. The next column, E, is geographic analysis. What this is really looking at is 395 the spread of features across the City. We did a couple of different ways of looking at 396 that. You'll see Source 9 listed here. Source 9, if you go back to your handy dandy 397
reference from your binders, is the site-by-site analysis and existing conditions maps. 398
We've got a map in your binder for each of the individual sites. We've also done, as you 399
all know, a set of maps that are referenced in other places that are about the geographic 400
analysis, a kind of breakdown of how far different parts of the system are from the 401
average residents across the City. That's another piece that falls into that geographic 402
analysis column. Capacity and bookings for this item is not available. We know that 403
ultimately there probably is some capacity, but we have no way to measure it. There's an 404
n/a in this column for experience nature. You'll see as we get down into some of the 405
more measureables that that is an important column. The next column is perception of 406
quality. We did not make a decision about absolute quality; we aren't going to make that 407
judgment. What we are measuring here is what people told us about how they see the 408
quality of these sites. In this case, we have a mix. The median is a mixed result 409
essentially. One of the things that is referenced here, specifically where we tried to 410
reference things, was where we heard something that really felt like it pointed in the 411
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direction. It's not necessarily the be-all and end-all of our decision, but it was something 412
that was the most clear point on it. In this case, it was Source 13 which is the workshop 413
summary. We heard a lot of things back-and-forth about the desire as well as the mixed 414
availability and opportunity to experience nature in the park system especially outside of 415
the preserves. Looking at expressed need, again this actually goes back to some of the 416
same sources. Sorry, 13, yeah, 13 was the workshop summary. In expressed need, what 417 we're talking about here is not how good it is, but how much do we need it, how much do 418
we need more of it. The criteria there were set up around are we hearing this message, 419
are we hearing that we need more of this particular component in the system across 420
multiple modes of input, across multiple different forms of communicating with the 421
community. 422
423
Chair Reckdahl: Expressed need relative to the current capacity. 424
425
Mr. Mottau: Yes. Not "we love it and we want it to stay." It's "we want more of it. We 426
need more opportunities." Dog parks is a great example of this. We heard over and over 427
again in different forums across the community, "We need more. We need more." We 428
need more of something. Here we're referencing particularly the survey and, I believe, 429
the ... 430
431
Commissioner Hetterly: Stakeholder summaries. 432
433
Mr. Mottau: Stakeholder summaries, okay. Continuing on then, that's an important 434
column. That's one that draws in survey results. It draws in Mapita results. It draws in 435
the individual interviews that we held with folks which are summarized in one of the 436 documents you were provided today as part of your update. The next column, Column I, 437 is about demographic trends. This is really about how we see the trends impacting the 438 overall demand. Thinking about is there based on population growth, based on shifts in 439
the way that people are using parks and recreation across the country, can we see an 440
expectation that demand will be growing as a result of those trends. Or is it going to be 441
basically stable or it's going to be in decline. Overall, because of population growth, 442
we're really seeing most things to either be in a stable situation, essentially growing with 443
population growth, or overall in a growth mode. There really weren't any that we were 444
identifying that were really in decline. I think that what you're seeing there ultimately is 445
that those that have been in decline are essentially getting squeezed out of the system in 446
the first place. It's a natural selection process. 447
448
Chair Reckdahl: If we look at Column I on this experience nature one, we're citing 449
Source 7 that we have growth. Can you explain why we have growth in that one and 450
maybe on Line 6 we're stable for play for children? 451
452
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Mr. Mottau: Source 7 is going to be the primary source for this because that's our 453
document on demographics and trends. In that document on pages 10 to 11, we describe 454
the overall trend which is a very large push nationwide right now to increase the access to 455
nature for youth and families and adults and everybody else, because of disconnection. 456
There is a very strong push in that that is beyond just a growth with population change. I 457
would say that play for children as an access point is going to grow as the population of 458 children grows, which is fairly stable based on the school-age demographics and 459
everything else. We're seeing an increase in the push, so more of those kids and more of 460
those adults are going to be involved in experiencing nature as a result of this overall 461
push across the country right now. 462
463
Chair Reckdahl: On page 10 we're talking about this core plan. They're saying they're 464
spending more and more time with electronic media, and they shouldn't be. They should 465
be playing more with nature. Are you saying that they should be playing? Is that how 466
you get growth here or that we actually have seen that children ... 467
468
Mr. Mottau: We are seeing a trend shift. We're seeing the upward swing of that, but 469
we're also expecting a greater upward swing overall. It is again a little bit perspective. 470
Overall we are both seeing and expecting a larger shift towards this. Much like we've 471
seen in the last five to ten years in the obesity epidemic, we could have said five or ten 472
years ago everybody's getting fatter. The reality is that through concerted efforts and 473
national attention we have actually stabilized that trend and shifted it in a lot of places. I 474
think that it's a very similar and a parallel reasoning. 475
476
Chair Reckdahl: I look at the data, and it doesn't seem to support the conclusion. The 477 conclusion certainly from adult standpoints could well be true. It's just the data that 478 you're citing doesn't seem to support the claim. 479 480
Mr. Mottau: Okay. That's part of the push back that we're totally open to here, Keith. I 481
want to make sure that you don't take this as the honest Gospel truth here. We are trying 482
to interpret data, and we're trying to summarize it at a level that will work. 483
484
Chair Reckdahl: I'm not saying you need to change your conclusion. What I'm saying is 485
in this section I would want some explanation why you would expect growth. If you add 486
another paragraph in here saying we expect more growth because of X, Y, Z, I think that 487
would back up your statement in the matrix. That's the point I'm giving. 488
489
Mr. Mottau: I appreciate that. I do. It's a good point. I think that we do want those 490
connections to be visible. 491
492
Ms. Schmitt: There's also a lot of this external industry research about what the different 493
age segments want to do. Things like bird watching, hiking, you're seeing that increasing 494
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rapidly in the older adult population, which also happens to be the population that is 495
increasing rapidly here. That's also one of the other factors in that. 496
497
Chair Reckdahl: That's a good point. 498
499
Ms. Schmitt: That is one of the other factors there. Bird watching is an activity. When 500 you look at national participation data and California specific participation data, it's gone 501
woo, like that. It has really tracked with the population. Now, at some point it's going to 502
plateau unless you're building new bird watchers or whatever. Trying to be attuned to 503
some of those things that happen in more of a natural setting, some of that tracks with 504
your population segments that are projected to grow most rapidly. I think the two that 505
you brought up, the play for children is more stable because your child population is 506
more stable. Older adults, the trajectory seems to be more like that. In addition to the 507
push for the more natural experiences for kids, there's this overall potential growth in 508
those types of activities. That may be better suited to Column K. 509
510
Mr. Mottau: Just to round out the discussion of this particular row here, I want to point 511
out the barriers to participation. In most of the top element here in the parks and 512
recreation element, the barriers to participation are really about access. They're really 513
about do we have the places to experience this near the people who are living there. In 514
this case, we cite Source 10 which are those geographic analysis maps. I just want to 515
point out we're actually reading it a little bit in inverse. It's the map that shows where the 516
opportunities to experience, relax, and enjoy the outdoor environment are. One of the 517
things that we noted in reading those maps overall is where most of the opportunities to 518
experience nature are. We saw this in our side-by-side evaluation as well. It exists 519 around that periphery and is difficult to access on foot or by bike. There are barriers to 520 people just getting there. That's Column J. Column K, as I said, is a little bit of a 521 summary, a little bit of professional judgment. As Lauren is saying, there's definitely the 522
two big demographic segments of the youth and the elderly or the active adults where 523
we're seeing potential for growth in that area. There's a lot of audience that could be 524
served but is not yet being served. Our summary overall of the need for that area then 525
reflects that. It's really talking about needing additional spaces to relax and enjoy the 526
outdoors. This citing is critical. Oh, right, I'm looking at the wrong one. Sorry. The 527
integration and natural process is in features in parks and potential to support this. Parks 528
with tree fringe are an interesting opportunity. As explored in the visual preference 529
survey across the workshops, the opportunity to integrate natural features and experiences 530
into the more urban parks was something that is an expressed need as well as a need that 531
we think is borne out by the overall data set. 532
533
Chair Reckdahl: There's a park in Los Altos where there's a creek flowing through it and 534
the kids can actually go down and play in the creek. 535
536
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Mr. Mottau: Touch the creek, yeah. 537
538
Chair Reckdahl: I've had a lot of the people comment saying, "I wish Palo Alto had 539
something like that." Unfortunately, most of the creeks in Palo Alto are concrete, so it 540
makes it much harder. I would concur, but there seems to be a (inaudible). 541
542 Mr. Mottau: Yeah. 543
544
Commissioner Ashlund: Bol Park has creek access. 545
546
Commissioner Lauing: Clarification on this Column J. I'm just trying to stay with a 547
specific example so we can understand conceptually what you're doing. You've got J as 548
being high and your reference there was because the nature areas, I presume that means 549
that you identified in C, are on the outer rim of the City. I'm going to ask the quantitative 550
question then. Is there some sort of mileage number that you have in there? Let me 551
explain why I asked that. You've taken out 30 parks for this description, because you 552
want only natural parks. You've taken out most of the inventory of the City, because you 553
say there's difficult access. On the other hand, if somebody really wants to get into 554
nature, then maybe a 10-minute drive to get to Foothills Park is not so tough. I'm just 555
trying to figure out how you're making these quantifications here. 556
557
Mr. Mottau: In terms of the first part of your question, in terms of there being a specific 558
mileage, no. What we were analyzing is really how people were responding. There were 559
a variety of points here. People saying, "W know that this stuff exists out there, but we're 560
not able to get to it." There's an assimilation of a variety of points that are feeding into 561 that. The second point really of how do we define what that experience of nature looks 562 like, why do we rule out 30 parks, is a very valid one and a difficult one to pin down. 563 Specifically, we heard overall that the people of Palo Alto do not believe that their typical 564
park experience in the City parks represents that natural experience. 565
566
Ms. Schmitt: The reason that first column says you can experience nature at four park 567
sites as well as the preserves is really about is it a manicured setting. Your parks are 568
lovely, but mostly every piece of ground has been developed as a landscape. There are a 569
few parks where it's more of what was there before and it's more of a wild (crosstalk). 570
571
Commissioner Lauing: I think we get the differences, and I think that's a fair statement. 572
I'm just saying how hard is it to do a 10-minute drive to get to nature. I look at it the 573
other way. Imagine this goes to Council and they say, "We're really pleased that what 574
our citizens want to do most is experience nature." But the source says that's really hard 575
to do. What we have to do now is put in some more. We're trying to do that to please 576
them. (crosstalk) It's a moot point. 577
578
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Ms. Schmitt: Here's the thing. This is where we're getting to on the priority setting. You 579
can decide how to respond to that. You can say, "You know what? What we've heard 580
from the community is it's really most important to get out in real nature." It might take a 581
little longer, but you can have a couple hour experience and it's a great experience. That's 582
okay. You might decide, based on what we heard, to reintegrate, as we suggested as a 583
need, some natural spaces into appropriate developed parks, so people have something a 584 little closer to home. There could be a big expense if you wanted to monkey around with 585
a creek, but there could also be some benefit. The point here is to try to give some data 586
points on which you can make those decisions as we develop criteria together. Some of 587
those are going to be cost-benefit and what the return on investment is. Yeah, they're not 588
exactly the crux of the problem, but the crux of what we need to do next together. 589
590
Commissioner Ashlund: What were the four sites that ... 591
592
Mr. Mottau: I have a file that specifies, and I believe that what we came down to was El 593
Palo Alto Park, which while small is a much more natural experience. There were, I'm 594
trying to remember. 595
596
Commissioner Crommie: Probably Bol Park. 597
598
Mr. Mottau: Yeah. It was a mix of the inventory and the individual site analyses. I have 599
this list, and I'm trying to remember what they are off the top of my head and I don't 600
remember them off the top of my head. Basically there were four sites that were called 601
out as a result of our site visits and the inventory work that basically were highlighted 602
there. 603 604 Commissioner Ashlund: When you're saying (video break) the existing condition maps 605 and all the maps are here, so there's no indication in the binder of what four sites you're 606
referring to? 607
608
Mr. Mottau: That is a real possibility actually. I know that we had made references to 609
specific ones in the existing condition maps and that's not referenced which is a good 610
point. Where it's not all of the preserves or all of the parks, getting those numbers 611
clarified would be a good clarification for us. We've got that backup. We thought we 612
were referencing something that may have been more in our collective minds than on 613
paper. 614
615
Mr. de Geus: What I found to be helpful with the matrix and trying to understand the 616
thinking, one of the things in particular was to take out this sheet for the data needs 617
summary report and keep reminding myself how is that defined and then reread that and 618
then look at this and then look at the data. I was able to make the connection a little 619
easier. Ed had a couple of questions here about a number of these headings and these are 620
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just headings, the way they're described and what does high really mean and low really 621
mean in this context is helpful to me. There's so many data sources, it's helpful to be 622
reminded by having this with you as go. That's what I found helpful. 623
624
Ms. Fiore: Two points. One, I just want to remind you this is a working draft, so this is 625
an evolving document. We're going to refine it based on what we hear tonight, and we're 626 going to refine it based on questions you come back to us with. Don't think this is a static 627
be-all end-all document by any means. Please give us those questions. The other point is 628
on the time and process. We've got about 10 more minutes before I'm going to shift to 629
the programs element particularly while we still have Ryan here. Would it be helpful to 630
walk through another example that we highlighted in this section? Was that a useful 631
exercise? 632
633
Chair Reckdahl: I think that would be (crosstalk) another row (crosstalk). 634
635
Mr. Mottau: Sure, sure. I'll do this one a little bit quicker. We've got a few of the 636
questions starting to sort out a little bit here as we go. Let's go down to Row 14. 637
638
Mr. Jensen: I think we need to change the tape. 639
640
Mr. Mottau: Okay, we'll pause for a moment while we change the tape. We're on. I'm 641
going to zip through real quick one that I know is near and dear to everyone's heart which 642
is the availability of restrooms, Row 14. This one was particularly called out because it is 643
an absolutely essential function of parks in some settings. I'm not trying to make a value 644
judgment that you should have a restroom in every single park and every single place in 645 the community. That is the component that more people commented on, that more 646 people noted in terms of quality, in terms of everything else. It is high in people's minds 647 in terms of park usage. Working across here, inventory. This one is a little bit more 648
explicit. It's called straight out in the inventory, where they exist, where they do not. The 649
level of control, these are all in sites pretty much that the City owns. We can decide 650
whether or not there are restrooms in those sites. There are of course caveats to that. The 651
geographic analysis, while we did not run a map-based analysis of it, we definitely made 652
an observation here essentially that what we heard overall was that there was a 653
dissatisfaction with the availability of restrooms across the system. The capacity in both 654
observation of the site as well as overall from the input, we're really saying that the 655
existing facilities are over their capacity to support the overall system. That is not 656
necessarily true at individual levels. Thinking about the system as a whole here, we felt 657
that it was. Perception of quality overall, this was something that ... 658
659
Chair Reckdahl: I have a question. Over means we have more capacity than need. 660
661
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Mr. Mottau: No. Over is over capacity essentially. There's not enough capacity to 662
support the need. 663
664
Chair Reckdahl: If you go down to community gardens, which is four lines lower, we 665
have a big waitlist on community gardens and there you say below. 666
667 Mr. Mottau: We actually don't have a wait list on community gardens any more. 668
669
Chair Reckdahl: We don't? 670
671
Mr. Mottau: No. This year there are available community garden plots currently, 672
according to the data that we were given two months ago. We were talking with the 673
gardeners. They've cut down the size of plots; that was a functional decision not a 674
capacity decision. The demand has fluctuated a bit, but currently we are actually below 675
the overall capacity. 676
677
Chair Reckdahl: Over means that we have a shortage? 678
679
Mr. Mottau: Yes. 680
681
Chair Reckdahl: At the top of the column it says capacity divided by bookings. 682
683
Mr. Mottau: No, it's capacity or bookings. I would say that it's because we don't have 684
bookings data specifically for all points. We wanted to talk about capacity or bookings. 685
686 Chair Reckdahl: It would be nice if someone could put a key up there that said over 687 means shortage or something like that. It wasn't obvious to me that over means that we 688 have a shortage. 689
690
Mr. Mottau: I agree that it's a little awkward language-wise. I think we can try to clarify 691
that, maybe choose some different language. The perception of quality overall, these 692
were out of, double checking my guess here, out of the intercepts. The availability as 693
well as the overall quality of the facilities, we were seeing people often comment on these 694
as low quality. I don't think that that is an absolute statement. Because of the sources of 695
this information, it is probably commenting more again on the availability of the facility 696
than the actual cleanliness on any given day; although, people are wont to comment on 697
that as well. I want to just point that out. Expressed need, this is one where we have not 698
only multiple sources listed. In our previous conversations about this matrix and trying 699
to identify data points that really do feel like a smoking gun, we have a survey result 700
specifically about the desire for restrooms. It's cited here. Citywide it was listed as one 701
of the highest supported features to overall support the usage of parks. We have a very 702
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strong result there as well as supporting results from multiple inputs. Again we heard a 703
consistent message across lots of different input points. Demographic trends ... 704
705
Commissioner Hetterly: I have a question. 706
707
Mr. Mottau: Oh, sorry. Please. 708 709
Commissioner Hetterly: That's one in particular that I think if you drill down further you 710
might come to a different conclusion. While overall across the whole system there is 711
high demand, high expressed need for bathrooms. On a site-by-site basis, there's very 712
mixed and inconsistent opinion about whether any particular park should have a 713
bathroom or not. That may be helpful to capture in some way. 714
715
Ms. Schmitt: I think we can get some of that possibly through Mapita. I think what it 716
gives you a counterpoint to is when you do a site-specific Master Plan, the folks who tend 717
to come out are going to live right nearby and they're going to have their own particular 718
opinions based on "I live right next door." It's really hard to capture is there a need or 719
not. I think this helps give you a picture of where that priority is across the City and 720
might help you set policy based on a level of park use or we want to do this, we don't 721
want to do this, here's one we do. That might help you go into design processes later on 722
with some better foundation and grounding. 723
724
Mr. Mottau: In the demographic trends for this, we decided ultimately we were not going 725
to make a statement about demographic trends, because it felt as though it was a universal 726
point. It pretty much changes with population. Barriers to participation again, most of 727 these lines reference back to the overall availability. Because of the type of facilities 728 we're talking about here, the type of amenity that we're talking about here, it's a little bit 729 less differentiated in terms of the way that those points play out. We definitely have, as 730
I've said here, more times where we're citing the availability of the restroom as the issue. 731
Overall I think that this one as a whole rests largely on where they are distributed and the 732
overall expressed need across multiple inputs. 733
734
Chair Reckdahl: I'm still confused about the barriers to participation for public 735
bathrooms. 736
737
Mr. Mottau: If it is not ... 738
739
Chair Reckdahl: Does this reflect the current design or is this inherent in public 740
bathrooms? 741
742
Mr. Mottau: I would say that barriers to participation across the board is reflective of the 743
current situation. 744
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745
Mr. de Geus: How many bathrooms are available (crosstalk). 746
747
Mr. Mottau: Are they where we want them to be? 748
749
Chair Reckdahl: Isn't that capacity as opposed to barrier to participation? 750 751
Mr. de Geus: You can look at it that way too. They both talk to one another. In this 752
case, if there's a park and it doesn't have a bathroom, it's a big barrier. 753
754
Mr. de Geus: There's a lot of parks that don't have bathrooms; therefore, the barrier is 755
going to be high. I think that's what you ... 756
757
Mr. Mottau: Yeah. That's generally the thinking here. One other thing that I would add 758
which isn't cited specifically here, it actually creates a barrier to participation in other 759
things. For example, the sports users made a very big point of it is almost impossible for 760
them to use a park that has no restroom, because they're going to be onsite with a whole 761
bunch of very small children for an extended period of time. It really does create a 762
barrier to using that site. I have personal experience as well as a lot of anecdotes about 763
the barrier that it presents for parents of very small children in general to use their 764
neighborhood park without a restroom available. That's not really how we intended that 765
category to be applied globally, but it is something that relates specifically to this element 766
or this component. Overall we see that projected demand, there's a lot of potential to 767
serve a larger set of the population. Ultimately the summary of our need there, restrooms 768
at more sites potentially provided as a standard feature at Palo Alto parks. I know that is 769 potentially a controversial statement. We want to emphasize again that this is not the 770 recommendation. We think, based on everything we've heard, it probably should be 771 considered as a standard feature. That's where we came out with the summary on that 772
point. We're a little bit over our desired time to make sure that we get into the programs, 773
but I do want to make sure that any other final comments got captured here. 774
775
Commissioner Crommie: I'm sorry I came late. I just wanted to capture a comment. I 776
know that people really want more experience of nature in parks. I think by putting in an 777
artificial creek in a park, in my view, that meets that less well than preserving (inaudible) 778
in the park. I just wanted to make that comment. 779
780
Mr. Mottau: It's a lower quality obviously of experience. It could even be detrimental in 781
some situations where it's not related. 782
783
Commissioner Crommie: Right. I would just put an emphasis on conservation and 784
protection of what we have. I think it feeds that desire more adequately. 785
786
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Mr. Mottau: Yeah, please. 787
788
Commissioner Ashlund: Can I ask one more clarification about these barriers. I'm 789
talking physical barriers. Capacity is capacity. Is it redundant to that? When we have 790
high barriers for swimming pools, for example, does that mean that we have some ... 791
792 Mr. Mottau: I think that's an interesting point, a good point to focus on. I would say the 793
difference between capacity and barriers there, the capacity would be I got to the pool 794
and I couldn't get in because they had no more room in that pool for me to swim or no 795
more life guards or whatever. A barrier would be I cannot get to that pool because it's on 796
the other side of town and I don't have transportation. 797
798
Ms. Schmitt: Or it costs too much. 799
800
Mr. Mottau: Or it costs too much, yeah. They are related, of course, but I think they are 801
worth considering separate if possible. 802
803
Ms. Schmitt: As Rob pointed out, definitely refer back to the criteria, because the 804
barriers to access and participation say these could include costs, location, physical 805
accessibility. Around park sites we heard feedback from people for transportation 806
availability and to the specific facilities maybe less so with your system than with some 807
places where "Our recreation centers are open from 9:00 to 3:00 Monday through Friday. 808
Isn't that convenient?" That could be a barrier. Here this is reported, and it's a lot of 809
different sources. In using Mapita people could actually report specific barriers to 810
movement. In some cases, those are what is cited. In other cases at public meetings, 811 people talked about physical accessibility or perceived costs or transportation barriers. 812 The sources are pretty important there, because it's a real mixed bag because there's a lot 813 of different types of barriers. 814
815
Chair Reckdahl: I'm still trying to wrap my brain around this. On one hand, if you have 816
something like golf that takes a long time to learn and it's expensive, that would be a 817
barrier to participation. Even though we might look at it and say we're considering 818
expanding the golf course, you'd say is this something that we should spend our money 819
and then say well there's barriers to participation that the people in the City don't know 820
how to play golf. It'll be hard for them to take advantage of this, so it makes it less 821
attractive for us to (crosstalk). 822
823
Mr. Mottau: I would clarify that I don't think that the length of time to learn and the cost 824
could be a barrier. I think you might address that in either programmatic or budgetary 825
decisions about that course. I understand the thought exercise, and I'm having a hard 826
time jumping back to where would we put another golf course or expanding the golf 827
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course. I think the barriers would be an influencing factor to how or why you would 828
enhance ... 829
830
Ms. Schmitt: In the way that barriers are defined here though, the fact that it takes a long 831
time or you need a lot of equipment, that's really not factored in. The fact that your golf 832
course is one side of town and you have to go across a number of streets to get there, it 833 may be that somebody cited particular barriers along the way. We couldn't really 834
measure people's opinion on every single activity, like is it too much of a barrier for you 835
to learn how to play golf. That's really a programmatic decision of the golf course 836
operator about how to encourage play. We're not talking about barriers in that particular 837
way. 838
839
Chair Reckdahl: I see a high barrier. Does that mean it's more attractive to add that 840
facility or less attractive to add that facility? 841
842
Ms. Fiore: It's not a one-to-one. I think that's (crosstalk). 843
844
Ms. Schmitt: In some cases it's difficult to get to certain facilities. If you jump up to line 845
9 that activity aspect of gathering together, there's low barriers to participation because 846
you provide it in a lot of places. There's a lot of places throughout the City to do that. 847
People didn't report that they had a hard time going someplace to do that activity. That 848
got low; whereas, if you have fewer facilities or their location is something that people 849
reported as problematic in getting to or the facilities don't exist. According to Daren, his 850
staff sees the issue about not having restrooms at certain parks, because if little kids have 851
to go, their parents are sending them in the bushes. They either don't go to the park or ... 852 853 Chair Reckdahl: The barriers to participation, how am I going to use that in park 854 planning? We already have a column over here that talks about capacity. If you look at 855
the restroom one, the fact that we don't have enough restrooms has already been reflected 856
in Column F. What is Column J telling me that I don't already know? 857
858
Ms. Schmitt: Maybe restrooms would make sense to say n/a, because it's addressed 859
enough in capacity. In terms of many of these columns though, there's a lot of policy 860
decisions that affect how people might take advantage of your system and services that 861
you're providing. I think that is where it's really going to help you, as we get into the 862
policies around fees and charges and where you locate facilities, where you do 863
programming, where you encourage certain types of activities and where you allow 864
bookings of certain types of activities. They will be an input that will help you think 865
about how those policies play out (crosstalk). 866
867
Chair Reckdahl: I don't want to (inaudible) so let's move on to the recreation programs. 868
869
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Mr. Mottau: We're going to jump down to Programs. Part of that is accommodating me, 870
and I your appreciate willingness to do that. We're going to jump into that because I have 871
a lot of the accumulated knowledge and thinking of this in my head. I'm going to have to 872
depart in 15 minutes. I want to give you guys an orientation to this. I want to emphasize 873
two of the pieces that you received that went into your binders today that really played 874
heavily in this one. The first one is Part 2 of the recreation analysis. We heard very 875 strongly from you all that you wanted to get more detail about how the current 876
programming is rolling out, what are the stats showing, what is the data behind this. This 877
Part 2 which is meant to be added behind the first part, which talked about generally what 878
programs are offered by who, what kind of barriers might we be facing. This one is very 879
specifically about the recreation registration data across the City of Palo Alto. This one 880
goes into each of the program areas that are listed here on the matrix. There is a table 881
that shows the number of classes, the number of participants, the participants per class, 882
etc. The number of classes that have waitlists, I want to emphasize that one because it is 883
the number of classes that have waitlists, not the number of people on waitlists. That is 884
an important distinction, because sometimes there is one extremely popular scenario. For 885
example, there's one swimming slot that obviously is the perfect swimming slot for the 886
entire City of Palo Alto, because there's like 400 people on the waitlist. That was a total 887
outlier in most cases. We counted them by the number of individual sessions that had 888
waitlists, not by the number of people on that waitlist. 889
890
chair Reckdahl: If you go to page 29, I don't understand how we get more than 100 891
percent (crosstalk). 892
893
Mr. Mottau: That's a good point. We didn't use that in a hard sense. Basically using the 894 data that we have, classes that were indicated as full could also have been indicated as 895 having a waitlist. The final column was the percentage of classes that were indicated 896 either as full or with a waitlist. Basically what we were doing was intentionally giving a 897
little bit of a double count to the classes that had a waitlist. Because it's 100 percent and 898
the other one is 150 percent, it's not meant to be that one's better than the other. It was 899
mean to acknowledge the fact that you have classes that fill and you have classes that 900
have standing waitlists. 901
902
Chair Reckdahl: Do you have two columns and have percentage of classes full and 903
percentage of how long approximately the waitlist is? 904
905
Mr. Mottau: We didn't break that down. 906
907
Commissioner Crommie: I agree with that. Does that relate back to the criteria that you 908
set on page 22? I had a comment on the last criteria. You have four bullets on page 22. 909
Do you know what page I'm talking about? I think it relates to this over 100 percent. Is 910
it this bullet point here? 911
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912
Chair Reckdahl: Yes. 913
914
Commissioner Crommie: I'd like to comment on that bullet point. Is this the time to do 915
it? 916
917 Mr. Mottau: Sure. 918
919
Commissioner Crommie: I agree with Commissioner Reckdahl. We are not well served 920
by seeing something that's over 100 percent, because it doesn't give us a granular 921
(inaudible). 922
923
Commissioner Hetterly: If you have the number of classes and the number of classes 924
with waitlists listed separately, I actually liked the double count because it stands out 925
more. 926
927
Mr. Mottau: It gave us a simple metric. I agree that percentages over 100 make people 928
antsy. I get that; I do. Maybe it's the fact that it's a percentage ... 929
930
Ms. Schmitt: It got extra credit. 931
932
Mr. Mottau: It skews it because you're naturally trained to not want it to add up to more 933
than 100. The intention there was definitely to give that extra emphasis. 934
935
Chair Reckdahl: I guess as long as we have the raw data there, then it's not quite as 936 important. 937 938 Mr. Mottau: The information that it's calculated on is presented right there. If you're 939
comfortable with that, I understand the comment. In a lot of ways I would prefer not to 940
go back and rerun 27 tables or whatever to break that out. I have the Excel sheet; I could 941
do that fairly quickly. It's just getting back into a document and getting back out and 942
distributed is a little bit more production that may not be worth it. 943
944
Chair Reckdahl: I don't know, but my personal opinion is that as long as the raw data is 945
there, then I guess it's okay. It's not as clear as I would like, but it's good enough. 946
947
Commissioner Crommie: Can I just ask about the bullet point on page 22? I don't 948
understand it. 949
950
Mr. Mottau: Okay. 951
952
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Commissioner Crommie: There's a group of four bullet points on page 22, and it's the 953
fourth one in the group of four. You have percent of classes full or waitlisted, and then 954
you give how you calculate that. It seems to me that you should be saying percent of 955
classes full and waitlisted. I'm a little bit confused about the use of "or" there. Is it "or" 956
or "and?" They mean two different things. 957
958 Mr. Mottau: It's not "and," because there are classes that are full but not waitlisted. It 959
would be "or," because it would need to be inclusive but also allow for either option. 960
961
Commissioner Crommie: Right. Some of them are both? 962
963
Mr. Mottau: Some of them are both. 964
965
Commissioner Crommie: And some of them are not? 966
967
Mr. Mottau: Some of them are both; some of them are just full; some of them are neither. 968
There are none that are waitlisted without being full as far as I saw, and that shouldn't 969
happen unless it was a coding error. Yes, there are some that are both and some that are 970
not and some that are one. 971
972
Commissioner Crommie: I personally found that confusing, and I would like to see it 973
parsed out. Again, you may need the whole Commission to weigh in on it. 974
975
Mr. Mottau: Okay. If we're all clear on why that is what it is, I'm happy to field your 976
comment. I understand where you're coming from; I really do. I don't want to hang up 977 this conversation on that point for now. 978 979 Commissioner Hetterly: While we're on that point, can I just ask another question about 980
one of the charts on page 28? 981
982
Mr. Mottau: Sure. 983
984
Commissioner Hetterly: Table 7 of day camps, you have number of full classes taught, 985
the number of classes with a waitlist. For debate and freshman leadership and possibly 986
some other, the number of full classes is smaller than the number of waitlist classes. Is 987
there (crosstalk). 988
989
Mr. Mottau: You're proving me wrong there. No, that's an interesting point. I will look 990
into that. Like I said, it could either be a coding error or it could be that they were for 991
some reason creating waitlists intentionally for classes that were not indicated full. I will 992
clarify that with the program staff. That is Table 7. Can you note that for me? Thank 993
you. Sharp eyes. 994
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 24
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995
Commissioner Ashlund: The example on Table 8 on the top of page 29 for basketball. If 996
there's 12 classes, 4 are full, 3 are waitlisted, and yet 0 are under the minimum. It doesn't 997
add up for me. 998
999
Mr. Mottau: That's a good clarifying point. Thank you. There is a difference between 1000 meeting the minimum and being full. Does that make sense? If you ... 1001
1002
Commissioner Ashlund: Can you walk through one of those lines and explain? 1003
1004
Mr. Mottau: Sure. Basketball, we're all on Table 8 on page 29. Basketball has 12 1005
sessions offered. The number of participants registered are 288, which makes the 1006
average participants per class 24. There were 0 classes canceled in that program area. 1007
None of those 12 classes that were originally offered were cancelled, so there's a 0 1008
percent canceled out in the classes that were scheduled. None of those classes were 1009
under the minimum and not canceled. That would mean that we didn't meet our 1010
enrollment minimum, but we continued to offer it anyway. We were close or we decided 1011
to offer it for one reason or another. That's an important number, because those are the 1012
marginal or the rule breaker programs. They're right outside of the envelope that we're 1013
supposed to be in. The envelope would have been essentially if it was under the 1014
minimum, it got canceled. The number of full classes, there is a field of registration date 1015
that indicates, "This class is now full. We're done." There is also a waitlist number, and 1016
we counted how many classes had a waitlist. Again just clarifying, not the number of 1017
people on that waitlist. There were 4 full classes out of those 12 basketball classes; 1018
presumably 3 of the classes that were full have a waitlist, so 58 percent of the overall 1019 classes, 7 out of 12, were full or waitlisted overall. It gives a little bit of that double 1020 count. We've talked about that a little bit, but that's the breakdown across one of those 1021 rows. 1022
1023
Mr. de Geus: Just on the question. I would have to look at the detail behind this to 1024
understand it. With some of these academic classes, what can happen is parents can sign 1025
up their kids for a program and then, after the first day of class, the kid doesn't want to go 1026
anymore, not going back to that. We had waitlists already, so you can end up having a 1027
class that ends up not being full in the final analysis of the data, but does have a waitlist. 1028
I don't know if that happened here, but that happens more often in the academic classes 1029
than some of the other ones. 1030
1031
Chair Reckdahl: They don't get billed? 1032
1033
Mr. de Geus: They don't, because the class has already begun and we don't prorate. 1034
More importantly, parents need to organize their summer way in advance, so when it 1035
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 25
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comes time to that child not coming back to that camp, it's too late. The parent that was 1036
on the waitlist now is (inaudible). 1037
1038
Mr. Mottau: Where we've taken a year out of data and said this is what the most recent 1039
year looks like, the problem with snapshotting something that is that flexible is that you 1040
run into a lot of those things. One of the things that was clarified for us, and I want to 1041 bring up real quick even though it's not one of our highlighted lines, is adult aquatics, a 1042
very small program as you can see from the numbers in the summary. On top of that, the 1043
instructor who is responsible for a lot of the classes had a medical issue that essentially 1044
prevented the person from offering those classes. This was an outlier year out of a small 1045
program. We decided ultimately we weren't going to try to adjust numbers or rule it out 1046
or anything, because it's such a small item in the grand scheme of things. We did get that 1047
clarification from our aquatics section director. He offered that suggestion, and I believe 1048
that I had clarified that in the bullets in the document. Just really quickly, I want to run 1049
through the columns here that are particularly interesting. What we're touching on right 1050
now is the critical one, which is the capacity of booking. In the data needs summary that 1051
was handed out this evening, if you're looking at that table for day camps and you look at 1052
the number, this will dictate essentially are we over or are we at or are we below our 1053
capacity overall. The numbers on that, I think I touched on. If it's below capacity, more 1054
than 33 percent of the class (video break) they're getting canceled. We're canceling a 1055
third of the classes that we're offering. We have capacity in that program obviously. 1056
These, by the way, are based on natural breaks in the data that we were observing. As we 1057
went through, we break these out into categories pretty well. At capacity, we were saying 1058
"It's less than a third of the classes not meeting minimums that actually end up jumping 1059
up." 1060 1061 Commissioner Crommie: Where are you? 1062 1063
Mr. Mottau: I'm looking at the criteria on the data needs summary document. 1064
1065
Ms. Schmitt: Row 36 and then on day camps, Column F. This is why day camps is over 1066
because ... 1067
1068
Mr. Mottau: Because they had more than 33 percent of their classes full or waitlisted and 1069
less than 10 percent of their classes were canceled. We gave a little bit of credit for the 1070
fact that sometimes things get canceled for reasons that are beyond anybody's control. 1071
Usually you can't get to 100 percent utilization in any venue. You look at room 1072
bookings, you look at real estate, you look at whatever, you're going to have some 1073
capacity left. We're not going to get to 100 percent, but we said less than 10 percent and 1074
that we were seeing a third of our classes go over that waitlist or full criteria. That's a 1075
really important one as you look through these. Overall there were several that were 1076
definitely over. Day camps was one of them. Interestingly, day camps, as you move 1077
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 26
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through these, the expressed need was very low. We did not hear much at all about day 1078
camps. We know from the program data and from the professional opinions of the staff 1079
and the overall enrollment, these are actually a very critical and a huge part of the effort 1080
of what the recreation group is working on. As we pulled those two things together, we 1081
definitely see the demand for that has the potential to increase, but also that there is a 1082
high need for that evolving variety. It's like there is going to be an ongoing need for day 1083 camps. 1084
1085
Commissioner Crommie: When you said you didn't hear an expressed need, what are 1086
you referring to? 1087
1088
Mr. Mottau: The expressed need, again back in the data needs summary, it talks about 1089
did we hear about this as an area that needed to be expanded across multiple different 1090
inputs. 1091
1092
Commissioner Crommie: From who? 1093
1094
Mr. Mottau: From the community, from the community. 1095
1096
Commissioner Crommie: How? How? 1097
1098
Mr. Mottau: We have half a dozen or more public involvement efforts that we resolved 1099
over that. Each of the sources is listed across the top of the matrix. We looked at did we 1100
hear about it in the intercepts? Okay, that's one. Did we hear about it in the workshops? 1101
That's another one. Did we hear about it in Mapita? Did we hear about it in the survey? 1102 As we started racking those up, if we were hearing a consistent message across multiple 1103 areas, that's where it got to be high. 1104 1105
Ms. Schmitt: In the case of day camps, it really just didn't come up. It really didn't come 1106
up. It may be that at the beginning the people (crosstalk). 1107
1108
Mr. Mottau: Just think it's going really well. 1109
1110
Ms. Schmitt: So it just didn't come up. There weren't write-in comments whereas many 1111
other things people would bring it up, they would write in comments. We just didn't hear 1112
a lot about it. I think what Ryan is trying to illustrate is just because we didn't hear a lot 1113
about it doesn't mean that people don't want it. They're clearly signing up for the many, 1114
many camps that are offered. 1115
1116
Mr. Mottau: The one other piece that I want to bring your attention to is the additional 1117
meetings log. The additional data that we provided here is the key points from a variety 1118
of meetings we've been holding with your professional staff as well as stakeholders that 1119
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 27
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are related to particular topics. This is an effort that we've been doing partly in response 1120
to your question, partly at the suggestion of your staff, and partly because it just needed 1121
to be happening to clarify individual details. We didn't provide great depth of detail. 1122
What we were really looking for was what were some of the key points that we heard 1123
from each of these groups. This is referenced in several places under Source 17. It's one 1124
of the updates that you'll be receiving regularly. I just wanted to note that in the 1125 programming area, there were a couple of groups that were really relevant here. The 1126
aquatics group which was users, coaches, as well as your aquatics staff. There was the 1127
sports field users and there were Cubberley Community Center tenants. We also had 1128
middle school athletics. We had a group that was the middle school athletic directors, the 1129
programming directors. We had a conversation with the Boost program, both the staff 1130
and the folks that are participating in that class and some of the instructors. Each of those 1131
pieces is really fleshed out. Some of our inputs, we're not taking that like, "It was said 1132
once in this meeting. That's absolutely the gospel." We see these people that we invited 1133
to these conversations as being experts in the area that they are talking about. We wanted 1134
to make sure that their opinions and everything else got documented with some 1135
credibility across this process. Thank you all. 1136
1137
Ms. Schmitt: With day camps, as I mentioned, this really highlights the extensive use of 1138
existing programs, even though it's not being mentioned a lot by the public. When we 1139
look in Column I at demographic needs, you've got again a pretty stable youth 1140
population. We're not looking for a spike in the youth population, so we see the demand 1141
that you have is probably going to continue at about the same level. Barriers to 1142
participation seem to be low. Looking at Source 5, you're offering programs in a lot of 1143
locations at a lot of times. When you just look at the list of them, the staff really provides 1144 many offerings tailored to a lot of different interests. There's something for just about 1145 anyone at a location that they can get to, so low on that one. Projected demand, because 1146 these things are selling out and because of the interest in this community in making sure 1147
youth have positive activities, there's going to continue to be a strong demand for the 1148
level of programming that you have now. Therefore, our summary statement is that 1149
there's going to be solid demand and there's going to continue to be a need to evolve 1150
those day camps, because the same static set is not going to continue to meet the interests 1151
of that youth population. I think Rob illustrated it with the "my parents signing me up for 1152
something that I hate" example. That is very illustrative of the youth population. Any 1153
thoughts on that one? We thought that was really pretty interesting. 1154
1155
Commissioner Markevitch: Yeah, let your kids pick the camps. 1156
1157
Ms. Schmitt: Yeah. 1158
1159
Ms. Fiore: Part of this process is going to be a gut check of whether the Summary of 1160
Needs sounds right to you based on your experience. That adds another data layer, if you 1161
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 28
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will, of what you hear from people who know that you're on the Parks and Rec 1162
Commission, what you hear anecdotally day-to-day, your lives as parents and residents of 1163
Palo Alto. That's not necessarily reflected here, but that's why we wanted to walk 1164
through this. Is the process based again on the information we have here that we describe 1165
as a Summary of Need. From there, does that sound right? Does that sound absolutely 1166
wrong? If it sounds wrong, we have this paper trail that we can dig back into. That's 1167 why we have this enormous binder ourselves. Maybe we did it wrong or maybe it's just a 1168
difference of opinion that showed up. I worked out (inaudible) day camps. Overall 1169
questions, concerns, comments at this point? 1170
1171
Commissioner Hetterly: I have a question about the youth and team sports. I'm trying to 1172
find it in the program analysis Part 2. 1173
1174
Ms. Schmitt: Youth and team sports are ... 1175
1176
Commissioner Hetterly: For both adult sports and youth sports. For example, page 25, 1177
Table 5 is adult sports, and you list the number of classes for basketball (inaudible). Are 1178
these classes to learn how to play the sport or are these teams? 1179
1180
Mr. de Geus: They're teams. 1181
1182
Commissioner Hetterly: (crosstalk) bunch of teams. 1183
1184
Mr. de Geus: Yeah, adult sports leagues. 1185
1186 Commissioner Hetterly: Soccer, obviously we have, oh, they're leagues as opposed to 1187 teams? 1188 1189
Mr. de Geus: No, these are teams. It's not participant. We run adult sports leagues and 1190
people sign up by team. 1191
1192
Commissioner Hetterly: This is different from the passive soccer? 1193
1194
Mr. de Geus: Yes. 1195
1196
Commissioner Hetterly: That is different. I didn't even know that the City had a soccer 1197
team. 1198
1199
Mr. de Geus: Yeah, it's just one. It's a bit of an outlier, that one. I think we did one, and 1200
this isn't an ongoing one. This must have been pulled from a specific season, maybe last 1201
fall, where staff tried to (crosstalk). 1202
1203
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 29
APPROVED
Ms. Schmitt: That is an important clarification. All of the programs in the program 1204
section are the programs that are offered by the City of Palo Alto. When we jump back 1205
to recreation facilities and we talk about your sports fields, there's a lot of other user 1206
groups and leagues who can buy programming, who are booking time on those particular 1207
facilities. In the programs, it's specific programs that Rob's staff is offering, advertising 1208
and people can go on your website and sign up. 1209 1210
Commissioner Hetterly: On page 30, Table 11, youth and team sports. Are those also 1211
teams then and not classes? 1212
1213
Mr. de Geus: Let me take a look here. 1214
1215
Ms. Schmitt: Really what we think of in a class and that's (crosstalk). 1216
1217
Mr. de Geus: Is this Table 10? 1218
1219
Commissioner Hetterly: Table 11. For basketball, soccer and tennis, I guess. Are those 1220
teams? We have 80 tennis teams? Tennis is lessons, right? I need some clarification. 1221
1222
Mr. de Geus: Yeah, these are classes. 1223
1224
Commissioner Hetterly: All of them are? 1225
1226
Mr. de Geus: Yes, they are. 1227
1228 Commissioner Hetterly: Including basketball and soccer? 1229 1230 Mr. de Geus: Yes. 1231
1232
Commissioner Hetterly: They're different from the summer camps? 1233
1234
Mr. de Geus: They are. 1235
1236
Chair Reckdahl: Different from the middle school? 1237
1238
Mr. de Geus: Not middle school athletics either. These are special interest classes 1239
related to sports for youth. 1240
1241
Commissioner Hetterly: I'd just like a little bit more clarification in the document for 1242
both of those (crosstalk). 1243
1244
Mr. de Geus: Some of these tables have a description underneath them. 1245
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 30
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1246
Commissioner Hetterly: Another question I had on that same document is on the adult 1247
special interest classes. Did you have a separate break out for senior classes? I don't 1248
remember. My question is, are the items listed primarily offered through Avenidas, the 1249
ones that are available to seniors or do we have a separate list of programs that the City 1250
does for seniors as opposed to what Avenidas does with whatever grant they get from the 1251 City? 1252
1253
Mr. de Geus: It's separate. There isn't anything in these tables that is run by Avenidas. 1254
1255
Commissioner Hetterly: We don't yet have any data in any place of what Avenidas is 1256
doing? 1257
1258
Mr. de Geus: There should be, because we met with them (crosstalk). 1259
1260
Ms. Schmitt: Actually in the thing that Ryan referenced ... 1261
1262
Commissioner Hetterly: It's (crosstalk) the list, but it's not in any of the data sources. 1263
1264
Ms. Schmitt: It's actually referenced in the table in a few places. When we get to 1265
facilities, Avenidas reported about what the demand they see for the programs that they 1266
offer and for the use of their facilities. In the additional meeting log, there is some 1267
findings from that meeting that start to present information about their programs and 1268
what they find with their user base. We learn also quite a bit about the percentage of 1269
programs, where their focuses are, because they have certain focus areas. What is more 1270 drop in and what is more of a day-to-day program. 1271 1272 Commissioner Hetterly: That's reflected in the conclusions in the matrix. 1273
1274
Ms. Schmitt: Not for senior programs, because those are City of Palo Alto programs. 1275
1276
Commissioner Hetterly: Yeah, not in the capacity (crosstalk). 1277
1278
Ms. Schmitt: In the facilities, yeah. 1279
1280
Commissioner Hetterly: In this big chart. 1281
1282
Ms. Schmitt: Yeah. In the facilities in particular, yes. 1283
1284
Mr. de Geus: I understand what you're saying. Let's assume that's there a need for low 1285
impact aerobics for seniors. Where does that get drawn out? It gets drawn out from a 1286
conversation with our major senior provider, Avenidas, we talked about earlier. Where 1287
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 31
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does that percolate to so that it can be represented as a need? It's not in this stuff, in what 1288
we're looking at right now, because this is just looking at City programs and it's not 1289
looking at senior programs. I think it's a fair question. I know we have it, because we've 1290
had these focus group meetings. We've gotten from Avenidas where they see the trends 1291
going for programming for senior services. It's a really interesting conversation. Where 1292
is that in the binder? 1293 1294
Ms. Schmitt: It'll be on Source 17. For example, on page 4 of that additional meeting 1295
log, the top column is the meeting with Avenidas which Rob and I both attended. They 1296
had quite a bit of data about the need for a second senior center on the south side of Palo 1297
Alto. They have data on where their participants are coming from. They know the way 1298
people use space and know at their current center there's a need for social gathering space 1299
and that would be needed in the new center. 1300
1301
Commissioner Hetterly: Have they shared any of that data with you or have they only 1302
shared their conclusions based on their data? 1303
1304
Mr. de Geus: We asked them for the data. They do a, I want to say it's a biennial survey 1305
that has hundreds of seniors participate. They sent us the most recent survey that they 1306
did. It talked about programs and services and other things. Yeah, we have it. They sent 1307
it to us. 1308
1309
Commissioner Hetterly: What about data on capacity? Can I just back up for a second? 1310
1311
Mr. de Geus: They took a lot of our capacity. They're trying to rebuild Avenidas. 1312 Actually it's a City building that they lease, and we have a long-term contract with them. 1313 They want to fund a $15 million capital improvement primarily for increased program 1314 space for that particular age group, because it's growing so much and it's expected to 1315
grow over the next 20 years. 1316
1317
Commissioner Hetterly: Can you just take a second to explain to us what is the 1318
relationship between the City and Avenidas? It's my understanding that the City 1319
provided most of its funding that's targeted towards seniors to Avenidas to provide the 1320
services. Is that correct? 1321
1322
Mr. de Geus: It is correct. There's a long history with Avenidas. Many years ago the 1323
City ran programs for senior services, but this was like in the early '70s. I want to say it 1324
was 1977, somewhere around there, where we entered into an agreement and established 1325
a nonprofit called Avenidas to run senior programs and services for the community. We 1326
provided the initial seed money to get them started. We've done that ever since. 1327
1328
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 32
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Chair Reckdahl: What is the advantage of having a separate nonprofit as opposed to the 1329
City? 1330
1331
Mr. de Geus: There's a number of advantages. Not the least of which is a nonprofit can 1332
raise money whereas a city really can't. They're more nimble because they can make 1333
decisions maybe a little quicker and adapt a little bit quicker than a city can. At that time, 1334 the thought was they would provide a better set of services than the City could with the 1335
same amount of money. We've been funding Avenidas throughout those years, and I'm 1336
sure it's gone up over those years. At this point, I think we're paying, I want to say 1337
something like $0.5 million to Avenidas annually. It may be a little more than that. 1338
What they do is leverage that $0.5 million, and now they have a $4-plus million program 1339
that they run. 1340
1341
Chair Reckdahl: Do you just give them a chunk of money or do you give them so much 1342
per class or so much per person? 1343
1344
Mr. de Geus: We give them the funding and then our Office of Human Services, Minka 1345
van der Zwaag and staff, work closely with their executive director. There's some 1346
evaluation process of the programming and services they provide. The evaluation 1347
determines how satisfied Avenidas participants are. Within the contract, there is that 1348
evaluation process that happens. They've been able to leverage the City funding 1349
significantly to the point where now in terms of the program, the City funding is maybe 1350
10 or 15 percent of their actual program. Did that help? 1351
1352
Commissioner Hetterly: I think that helps. The thing I keep struggling with is they are 1353 our primary service provider to seniors, and the capacity bookings is unknown on our 1354 chart. We don't know how their services break out in terms of adult aquatics, adult 1355 fitness, adult special interest classes, all these things we have broken out from City-1356
offered services. We don't know what role Avenidas plays in meeting that need. When 1357
we look at the need on this chart, that's just based on what we offer. If what we offer is 1358
over-subscribed, we're going to have a high need indicated here. We don't have a bigger 1359
picture across the community whether seniors' needs are being met. 1360
1361
Ms. Schmitt: In some cases in the Summary of Needs, seniors would be a good place to 1362
maybe consider doing something like. When there are either a number of other providers 1363
like in the health and fitness realm or where there's one really heavy hitter, we're noting 1364
their existence. It's something to think about when you get to the next step, about how 1365
you prioritize things. I think that's a really, really good point, because you may decide, 1366
like you did in the past, you're actually more effective if you work through them. I will 1367
say their focus is not recreation. They were pretty clear on that. They offer some 1368
recreation programs. They have the drop-in seniors who are more mobile and who may 1369
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APPROVED
come for a personal finance class. Then they have the people that are there every day for 1370
food programs who are much less mobile and really need more social support. 1371
1372
Mr. de Geus: It's bridge that's the big player. 1373
1374
Ms. Schmitt: Yeah, that was another one, the bridge program. 1375 1376
Commissioner Crommie: In relationship to that, where are the conditioning classes for 1377
seniors? I know my own family members are taking conditioning classes at Cubberley. 1378
Once you get to be old, you want to work with weights and condition your body. That's 1379
really important, but I didn't see it reflected into these tables. Is that because Avenidas is 1380
covering body conditioning classes? Am I missing them? 1381
1382
Mr. de Geus: There are others like Avenidas who are providing those programs too. The 1383
JCC has a whole series of recreational programs targeted to senior services. So does Palo 1384
Alto Family Y; they have lots of programming targeted for seniors in that area. 1385
1386
Commissioner Crommie: It seems confusing to me. If you're a senior in this community 1387
and you need a conditioning class to keep your muscles strong and let's say your primary 1388
care doctor says, "Your muscle tone is getting low. I'd like you to go to a conditioning 1389
class." It's a very common experience of people hitting their 70s. Where do they go to 1390
find a conditioning class? If they're a Palo Alto resident, they might go first of all to our 1391
recreation handouts. 1392
1393
Mr. de Geus: Then we would send them to Avenidas most likely. Avenidas really does 1394 understand the needs of seniors and have relationships with a lot of these partner 1395 organizations like the JCC. 1396 1397
Commissioner Crommie: If they go to the schedules that you publish for Palo Alto 1398
classes, are you going to list all the Avenidas classes within that? 1399
1400
Mr. de Geus: We do list in the catalog our partner organizations. We don't list all of 1401
their classes, because it's a lot and the catalog would be large. 1402
1403
Ms. Schmitt: It would be difficult. 1404
1405
Mr. de Geus: We list their organization and a web link and a phone number. 1406
1407
Commissioner Crommie: It comes down to envisioning where we want to put our 1408
resources as a City. Right now those are almost contracted out. The concept is we 1409
contract it out. I just didn't see basic muscle conditioning classes listed in our charts here. 1410
1411
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Mr. de Geus: Yeah. We wouldn't be the primary provider of that. If someone calls us, 1412
we would talk to that resident, tell them about Avenidas, that they're the repository for all 1413
senior services. Not that they do them all, but they have a relationship with the Y, they 1414
have a relationship with the JCC. They do things with the City that we do together. That 1415
would be the first place to start for someone who would be interested. 1416
1417 Ms. Schmitt: To your point, Deirdre, again as we move into that next stage, is that the 1418
right role for the City? Is the City ... 1419
1420
Commissioner Crommie: A broker. 1421
1422
Ms. Schmitt: Yeah. A referral service. Bringing it down to the reality of as an 1423
individual what do you experience? It's an issue that you see in a lot of places. It makes 1424
so much sense when we do it this way and that way. When you're just a resident out 1425
there, it's like, "Where do I go?" There is actually a pretty robust way of connecting 1426
people to Avenidas, but you may decide as a Parks and Recreation Commission you want 1427
to take that further or you want to go in a different direction. 1428
1429
Commissioner Crommie: I would want good data. If we have our average residents who 1430
are in their 70s, is it at their fingertips that they know where to go for conditioning 1431
classes? If we just polled people in their 70s, do they know how to hook in already? Is it 1432
just a done deal for them? Or is there a gap there in our aging population? They don't 1433
know where to go. That's all I'm concerned about. In some ways I don't really care who's 1434
providing it. I just want to make sure that when someone hits their 70s, they go to their 1435
primary care doctor, they're told "Go find a conditioning class. Your muscles are getting 1436 weak." They know how to do it. 1437 1438 Mr. de Geus: I think there's an answer to that, Deirdre. They'll be working with Pam, for 1439
instance, and with Lucille at Stanford Hospital, with primary care physicians so that 1440
actually when they want to prescribe exercise, they actually hand out material to 1441
Avenidas, to the JCC, and to some extent to the City of Palo Alto for programs that we 1442
provide. There is that link. To this point, which may be a bigger question, it might be 1443
helpful to have the executive director of Avenidas come to a Commission meeting and do 1444
a little 10-15 minute presentation on all they do. 1445
1446
Chair Reckdahl: That would be good to have. We're a little off topic here, because this 1447
doesn't directly apply to (crosstalk). 1448
1449
Mr. de Geus: I think it's a good topic because ... 1450
1451
Commissioner Crommie: I looked for it; I just didn't see it, so that's the origin of my 1452
question. I didn't see it in our charts here. Like what Commissioner Hetterly might have 1453
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 35
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been getting at. That was my question. I don't see these types of conditioning exercise 1454
classes for seniors that I hear through my own family members. I think they're hooking 1455
in with them. 1456
1457
Mr. de Geus: Is that the gap? If we have some resources, do we focus it there? That's 1458
what I (inaudible) with senior programs. I don't know if we have all the answers here. 1459 As we look at the City's recreation programs and the City's park system, what is it that we 1460
should focus on for filling a need there? Recognizing that Avenidas does some part, JCC 1461
does. Where is that gap? We're trying to get some of that with these focus group 1462
meetings. 1463
1464
Vice Chair Markevitch: He's got to change the tape. 1465
1466
Chair Reckdahl: Change the tape. 1467
1468
Mr. de Geus: ... now reflecting on some of the conversations we had with Avenidas. 1469
There was a strong interest in not having senior programs be called senior programs. 1470
Their interest was having adult programs generally more accessible to people ages (video 1471
break) age span. That was really an important take away. 1472
1473
Commissioner Ashlund: The JCC no longer calls them seniors; they call them adults 1474
again. Can I ask what the six highlighted ones indicate? 1475
1476
Ms. Fiore: Those are the ones we're walking you through. (crosstalk) 1477
1478 Ms. Schmitt: As you can see when Ryan was on the un-highlighted one, you lose track 1479 as you're going across if you're not keeping your fingers there. 1480 1481
Commissioner Ashlund: Those are examples as opposed to the topics? 1482
1483
Ms. Schmitt: Yeah, exactly. 1484
1485
Chair Reckdahl: I have one comment that I want to get in before we move on. On page 1486
20, on the bottom. 1487
1488
Commissioner Hetterly: Of what? 1489
1490
Chair Reckdahl: Of the new handout, new materials for (inaudible) session. I'm sorry. 1491
This is the Part 2 of the recreation and programming analysis. On page 20 there's a 1492
comment that is just left there. I think there's a lot of meat there from a planning 1493
standpoint. It says, "Youth and adult sports programs are not easily expanded regardless 1494
of popularity due to facility and instruction/coach constraints." Then it refers us to the 1495
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 36
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tables. The tables don't talk anything about the constraints at all. They just talk about the 1496
demand. Knowing what constraints are preventing us from fully meeting the demand is a 1497
very important topic. 1498
1499
Ms. Schmitt: And it's a great segue to recreation facilities. One of the highlighted ones 1500
we wanted to talk about was sports field needs. 1501 1502
Chair Reckdahl: Also you mentioned coaches too. It would be very good to have it 1503
expand that topic. If it's just a coach issue, then we have options. We can go out and hire 1504
third parties to come in and act as coaches. Whereas, facilities we have less leeway. 1505
1506
Ms. Fiore: I agree that that was a key finding. In the data and needs highlight that you 1507
received tonight, we did flag that as an issue that was impacting capacity. (crosstalk) 1508
1509
Commissioner Crommie: When you get on this topic, can you frame it for regional need 1510
versus resident need? That plays in hugely (crosstalk). 1511
1512
Ms. Schmitt: Before you got here, Deirdre, that's one of the framing pieces. Because of 1513
your past policy directions and because of the pretty clear direction from Palo Altans 1514
through the survey, this is really looking at the need generated by Palo Alto residents, not 1515
the regional need. We understand and recognize that your residents may be going to Los 1516
Altos to play on a field and their residents may be coming to yours and that balances out. 1517
We're not looking to capture the entire Santa Clara County thing with a magnet facility, 1518
because you could build the biggest thing in the world and probably fill it up from around 1519
the region. This is really targeted at the need generated by your residents, trying to match 1520 that, and then realize it'll balance out across the region if everybody carried their share. 1521 1522 Chair Reckdahl: For time, we have 1 hour left and we have 30 minutes that we're 1523
allocating towards facilities and then 30 minutes towards the framework of policy 1524
questions. Is that still your ... 1525
1526
Ms. Schmitt: We were told we had until 8:30 with you, and that you had a few points of 1527
business you needed to take care of. 1528
1529
Chair Reckdahl: With them? 1530
1531
Ms. Schmitt: Yes. 1532
1533
Vice Chair Markevitch: (crosstalk) the rest of the agenda. 1534
1535
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 37
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Ms. Fiore: Our plan of attack as of right now is to spend about 20 minutes on the 1536
recreation facilities and then 10 minutes on wrap-up and just touch real quickly on what 1537
we'd identified there as the introduction to the framework and policy questions. 1538
1539
Ms. Schmitt: Then we discuss next steps. 1540
1541 Ms. Fiore: Then set the stage for next month's meeting and what we hope to accomplish 1542
there. Does that sound okay? 1543
1544
Commissioner Hetterly: Can I ask you a question before we go on? 1545
1546
Ms. Fiore: Yes. 1547
1548
Commissioner Hetterly: I do have some comments on the stuff that was in the packet. 1549
Should I hold those until next week or should I email them to staff? 1550
1551
Ms. Fiore: If you could get those to Peter, and he will communicate those to us. Thank 1552
you. 1553
1554
Commissioner Lauing: It looks like you did some additional analysis on (inaudible) and 1555
(crosstalk). 1556
1557
Ms. Fiore: We did. Another memo you received was the survey follow-up based on 1558
(crosstalk). 1559
1560 Commissioner Lauing: Can you tell us tonight how many you went out to and the 1561 process for it? 1562 1563
Ms. Fiore: We did not do additional survey work. We did initial number crunching on 1564
the survey data we had before. I don't think we have room in our agenda tonight to talk 1565
about that, but you can talk about it next time. It is reflected in this matrix. It has been 1566
rolled up into that or we could talk about it in May if there's specific questions. 1567
1568
Ms. Schmitt: Looking at recreation facilities, the two we wanted to highlight were 1569
diamond sports fields and rectangular sports fields, because I think they're an interesting 1570
counterpoint. We also wanted to walk through special purpose buildings and parks. 1571
Those are things like we talked about earlier, the Baylands Interpretive Center, the 1572
Foothills Nature Interpretive Center. Let's start off with diamond sports fields. When we 1573
look in Column C. your inventory is 19 total and that includes the school district facilities 1574
that you program. One of the important things around sports fields is you as a 1575
Commission worked with staff to develop a policy that has some pretty clear priorities 1576
about how you allocate the field space that you have, given that it's a limited resource and 1577
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 38
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how you balance the use of that. You're booking the time that you have. As we move 1578
across this, we'll see that. Your level of control is high, because you either own your 1579
fields or you have an agreement with the school district that allows you to use the fields 1580
that you use. When we look at the geographic analysis, these are concentrated at 1581
particular sites. There's a particular map around that. There's also a map around sites 1582
where there's flat graphs that you're doing practices and things on and that people can 1583 also drop in at. In terms of capacity and bookings, you're at capacity. The reason you're 1584
at capacity is because of the policy that you developed to allocate that field use. If you 1585
authored more field use and more field space, you provide more space and it would get 1586
filled up. Right now, because your policies are set to balance the use of what you have, 1587
you're at capacity. It's not showing as over, because you're taking all the time and you're 1588
dividing it out based on the availability that you have. I think that's a really important 1589
one when it comes to your diamond sports fields. If you look above that at rectangular, 1590
you're actually over in the case of that one, because you're getting more requests from 1591
additional groups than the time you have available. Even though you set the policies, 1592
you're sharing time, there's documented more requests. 1593
1594
Chair Reckdahl: I don't understand. You said we're at capacity, because we have not ... 1595
1596
Ms. Schmitt: Because you've developed a policy that says, "We've got a certain amount 1597
of field time. Here's how we're going to prioritize assigning out that field time." 1598
1599
Commissioner Lauing: You've allocated everything (crosstalk). 1600
1601
Chair Reckdahl: You said if we had more fields, we would fill those fields. 1602 1603 Commissioner Lauing: Because of insatiable demand. 1604 1605
Commissioner Hetterly: Only if we changed our policy. 1606
1607
Ms. Schmitt: Only if you changed your policy, yeah. If you were going to allow regional 1608
demand or you were going to allow 40 percent Palo Alto residents rather than ... 1609
1610
Commissioner Crommie: It's always this calendar, the use is always a biggie. Is it in the 1611
season or out of the season, pre-season, post-season? 1612
1613
Ms. Schmitt: It's in the season. 1614
1615
Commissioner Crommie: Right. We're basing it on in-season use. 1616
1617
Ms. Schmitt: In-season use, yes. 1618
1619
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 39
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Chair Reckdahl: Can we achieve policy and allow more non-residents? 1620
1621
Commissioner Hetterly: No, allow more practice days a week for example for a change. 1622
Instead of having them holding practice twice a week, if we let them practice 5 days a 1623
week, we would be well over capacity because many teams would prefer to practice more 1624
than twice a week at that (crosstalk). 1625 1626
Ms. Schmitt: Exactly. In the case of diamond fields, you have effectively managed 1627
demand for those. You're meeting it based on the policies you set out. The perception of 1628
quality is medium. People have mixed opinions. It's pretty good, but certain things could 1629
be better. There's data from several sources around that. If you look to Source 13, there's 1630
one in particular that we pulled out. Then you get to expressed need. In Source 14, that 1631
is the survey results, you see that reported as a high. Again this is different from being at 1632
capacity. This is about "We'd like to practice five times," or "We'd like to have a couple 1633
of games a week." That is reflecting the expressed need, but it is not showing up as being 1634
over capacity because of how you're managing demand through your policies. When you 1635
look at demographic trends, we are predicting a decline because nationwide you see a 1636
decline in diamond sports. (video break) debate that, but as a professional I would say 1637
that we're not going to see an increase in that. Really there's a downward trend. 1638
1639
Chair Reckdahl: If you look in the past 5 years, we're serving more baseball and softball 1640
players now than we did 5 years ago. Whether you're looking 10 years in the future, 1641
that's another story. The trend certainly is up. 1642
1643
Ms. Schmitt: The overall trend though nationally in terms of baseball participation is on 1644 a downward trend, in softball as well. 1645 1646 Vice Chair Markevitch: But we're still just looking at Palo Alto. It's pretty high demand. 1647
They would build the space if we had more. 1648
1649
Ms. Schmitt: Yeah, your thoughts on that are that's it either stable or increasing. 1650
1651
Chair Reckdahl: If you look at the past 5 years, it has been increasing. 1652
1653
Ms. Schmitt: A question I would ask you, because we see this in some communities. 1654
What you see is a small percentage of people who want to play more and more and more 1655
leagues, so I think that's also an important part of teasing apart that trend. 1656
1657
Commissioner Hetterly: Part of that, Keith, also in the past 5 to 10 years, elementary 1658
enrollment has been increasing. As we look forward, we expect it to decline. 1659
1660
Chair Reckdahl: Yes, that is true. 1661
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 40
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1662
Commissioner Hetterly: That will affect the usage trend as well. 1663
1664
Ms. Schmitt: Yeah, because then all of those team sports, the 13 and under, is where you 1665
have your peaks and then it drops off because you either continue playing in high school 1666
or you stop. Barriers to participation, medium from Sources 8 and 9. That's about where 1667 the fields are located and the existing conditions, the configurations. 1668
1669
Commissioner Crommie: Just on the baseball diamonds, we do have the Babe Ruth 1670
League that uses our fields. Like you're saying, it can fall off, but then we have this 1671
specialized club structure within our City that has some regional draw. Did you put that 1672
in your analysis? We have a whole diamond dedicated to that, the Babe Ruth. 1673
1674
Ms. Schmitt: We did not do some kind of Babe Ruth specific demand. What we're 1675
looking at is the overall bookings using your system, how does that work. 1676
1677
Commissioner Crommie: Is that system that you analyzed outside of the Babe Ruth 1678
system or does it include it? I just need a point of clarification there. The data you ... 1679
1680
Ms. Schmitt: No, in the diamond sports fields, it's anybody that's booking your time. It's 1681
outside leagues, it's tournaments. You have real specific guidance about how much each 1682
of the user groups can do in terms of turning ... 1683
1684
Vice Chair Markevitch: Can I re-ask that question? 1685
1686 Ms. Schmitt: Yes. 1687 1688 Vice Chair Markevitch: The 19 total diamond fields, does that include the Babe Ruth 1689
field? 1690
1691
Ms. Schmitt: I'll look on the inventory. 1692
1693
Mr. de Geus: It should, yeah. 1694
1695
Vice Chair Markevitch: I think that might get to your question. 1696
1697
Commissioner Crommie: They're rolled into this analysis? 1698
1699
Ms. Schmitt: Yeah. Yeah. The fields that are counted will be right on this inventory 1700
sheet. 1701
1702
Commissioner Crommie: They're self-contained. They have their own dedicated space. 1703
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 41
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1704
Commissioner Lauing: High schools are included in this number as well. Generally 1705
those are not available for use. That's what it says. 1706
1707
Vice Chair Markevitch: Yeah, they're currently not available for use. 1708
1709 Commissioner Lauing: That overstates it, but ... 1710
1711
Mr. de Geus: I'm not sure that's exactly right. The high schools use those fields. The 1712
high schools themselves rent out those fields. They don't use the City of Palo Alto's 1713
program process to make them available to the public. 1714
1715
Vice Chair Markevitch: They keep the money. 1716
1717
Mr. de Geus: They make it available along the same criteria. 1718
1719
Vice Chair Markevitch: They also don't rent (crosstalk). 1720
1721
Commissioner Hetterly: They don't prioritize residents. 1722
1723
Mr. de Geus: They don't. 1724
1725
Vice Chair Markevitch: They don't. They rent to outside teams. 1726
1727
Commissioner Hetterly: I don't think we can count that as ours. 1728 1729 Ms. Schmitt: If you look on the physical inventory, the baseball and softball fields, you 1730 can see the school inventory is there. Yes, Palo Alto High School, those fields are 1731
included. Do they count in the inventory, that would be a really good feedback point that 1732
they shouldn't count. 1733
1734
Commissioner Crommie: I've always felt that they should be folded in. They're a 1735
resource. I don't understand why they can generate all this revenue on their property 1736
when there's this whole relationship between the City and schools. 1737
1738
Vice Chair Markevitch: They're not in the original agreement of the shared-use spaces. 1739
1740
Commissioner Crommie: I would question whether we should evaluate that as a 1741
Commission. (crosstalk) 1742
1743
Vice Chair Markevitch: That's not in our purview. That's school district property. It's 1744
not us. We can't. 1745
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 42
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1746
Commissioner Crommie: Whereas, the middle schools are different. 1747
1748
Vice Chair Markevitch: No, the middle schools have a brokered system with an 1749
agreement with the City. The high schools do not. 1750
1751 Commissioner Crommie: I'm saying can the City ever formulate an agreement if 1752
necessary with the high schools? 1753
1754
Commissioner Hetterly: (crosstalk) hope they would. 1755
1756
Chair Reckdahl: Yes. 1757
1758
Mr. de Geus: If the school district wanted to do that. We're in a contract with the school 1759
district to maintain the elementary schools and the middle schools. In exchange for this 1760
relationship, we get to broker those spaces outside of school hours. 1761
1762
Commissioner Crommie: We benefit. 1763
1764
Mr. de Geus: The public benefits. The school district has not been interested in doing 1765
the same thing for high schools, largely because they have a very robust athletic program 1766
and the athletic directors at the high schools really want to have the ownership of those 1767
fields and who gets on those fields. Do they rent them out themselves and they generate 1768
revenue? They do. I don't know enough about that to speak to who actually gets on 1769
those fields and what criteria they use. I'd like to know more about it. I'd love to have 1770 more access, because we certainly have the need for fields. 1771 1772 Commissioner Crommie: How do we learn more about it? 1773
1774
Vice Chair Markevitch: That's not related to this though. We're getting into the weeds 1775
again. 1776
1777
Ms. Schmitt: We'll flag that as an issue. I think it brings up a point. You can use the 1778
plan as a tool. You as the Commission could say, "We should have a recommendation in 1779
here that we should seek enhanced access at the high schools, because there is a need in 1780
the community. The community doesn't see a difference. We have this data, and we 1781
would like to see those brought into the system." You can't make the school district do it, 1782
but you can say, "We'd like that to happen, and we would like Council's buyoff of that as 1783
a direction." The plan can be a tool to try to move in those directions, keeping in mind 1784
you can't control what they do. Yeah, I think it's a great point. 1785
1786
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 43
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Commissioner Hetterly: I would argue strongly for removing the school district deals 1787
from this particular representation, because I think it is a misrepresentation of what's 1788
available to (crosstalk). 1789
1790
Ms. Schmitt: Mm-hmm. Because they're different from the elementary sites. 1791
1792 Vice Chair Markevitch: You can even footnote it saying high schools not listed. 1793
1794
Ms. Schmitt: Yeah, they're there, but we can't (crosstalk). 1795
1796
Commissioner Crommie: It's good to have an inventory, but you might have to separate 1797
it out. I think visibility is good though to see what the inventory is. 1798
1799
Ms. Schmitt: I think it would be good to footnote perhaps which ones are subject to the 1800
agreement or it may be just because it's the two high schools that are outside of that, to 1801
footnote that those are outside of the agreement and you don't book time on those. 1802
1803
Vice Chair Markevitch: Yeah. 1804
1805
Ms. Schmitt: Make sure that's reflected in the discussion. Okay. 1806
1807
Vice Chair Markevitch: I actually had a comment. It was Column E. You have off-1808
leash dog areas and then right below it community gardens. In community gardens, you 1809
have them all clustered in the north end. I'd like to see that same thing in the off-leash 1810
dog areas as all clustered in the south end. It spells it out more and it's consistent. 1811 1812 Ms. Schmitt: That's a good point, because that was specific feedback from the Palo Alto 1813 dog owners group, that they're all clustered, we really need them spread out. 1814
1815
Ms. Fiore: Lauren, do you want to make a couple more points about diamond versus 1816
rectangular fields (crosstalk). 1817
1818
Ms. Schmitt: There are some of the same patterns, some of the same issues around the 1819
sports fields. We should make that same footnote and consider taking the high schools 1820
fields out of the inventory. What we did hear from multiple sources on trends is the 1821
increase in rectangular sports, so there's some higher demand there because there's more 1822
sports that are playing on rectangular fields for more parts of the year. On that one, 1823
there's a higher need, however, that can be accommodated in a number of ways, whether 1824
it's by increasing playable time on your own fields, getting access to other fields. I think 1825
it's important to look at both rectangular and diamond fields and also understand the 1826
seasons of the year where those are played which this does not capture that as much. 1827
Because we're getting really close, I'd like to move on quickly to the special purpose 1828
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 44
APPROVED
buildings. That came up right at the beginning. This is the Baylands Nature Center, 1829
Foothills, Arastradero. Those special purpose buildings for which the City has a high 1830
level of control in Column D. When we look at those, they're really located at the 1831
preserves. There's a few other special purpose buildings, but the most significant ones 1832
are those centers that are on the preserves. We don't have any data on capacity and 1833
bookings. There is a perception that the quality of those is low and they're difficult to 1834 program as they are now, just because of their configuration and their age. There is a 1835
medium expressed need. Again some of this is through those follow up meetings, 1836
because there's a desire to do outdoor programming and interpretive classes, yet not 1837
really the space to do it because the spaces aren't suitable. There isn't really data on the 1838
demographic trends, because those programs aren't really offered, so we don't know 1839
who's participating in them. In terms of the barriers to participation, because the ... 1840
1841
Commissioner Ashlund: Are you talking about the buildings themselves or the 1842
programming in the buildings or both? 1843
1844
Mr. de Geus: The buildings. 1845
1846
Ms. Schmitt: The buildings because they're a place for programming. They only exist 1847
because you want to do something with them. Otherwise, they'd be like a storage facility 1848
or something like that. 1849
1850
Commissioner Crommie: I want to know that I can get the (inaudible) that you're citing 1851
on additional need and see that data. When I go to your additional meeting log, I don't 1852
see anything on these centers. Where is (crosstalk)? 1853 1854 Ms. Schmitt: The meeting with John Aiken on page 3. You know him well from his role 1855 at the Junior Museum and Zoo. He's been a wonderful source in a variety of areas. One 1856
of them is around the outdoor programming. We met with him specifically about these 1857
special purpose buildings. On page 3, there's key points that are summarized from that 1858
discussion. He has a vision for how they would program, using some of the educational 1859
initiatives and curriculum that they have in place. As an example with Baylands, there's 1860
two classrooms. Neither of them works really well for the types of classes that they 1861
would offer. It doesn't really work well for their needs, but it also doesn't really function 1862
as a museum space. He sees a need at all of these sites for his volunteer programs staging 1863
areas which these buildings could potentially function as. People need a place to have 1864
lunch, to get oriented in the morning, to have tool storage, have a place to use the 1865
restroom. One of the things that he also brought up is there's a lot of things you could 1866
interpret at any of these sites. Really thinking about what you wanted to interpret and 1867
how you wanted to interpret it rather than being scatter shot would be pretty important to 1868
determining the facility configurations because it would have an implication there. He 1869
was a really great source on that and has thought a lot about how can he do more to meet 1870
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 45
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the demand that he's seeing, because he said, "I can fill programs. I just don't have 1871
basically a platform from which I can do it using these buildings." 1872
1873
Commissioner Ashlund: Are the interpretive centers reserveable by the public? 1874
1875
Mr. de Geus: Yes. The gateway facility at Arastradero I don't think is, but the meeting 1876 room at Foothills Park is and the Baylands Interpretive Center, the main room. 1877
1878
Commissioner Ashlund: It says n/a for capacity. We don't have any information? If 1879
they're bookable, we should have that information somewhere. 1880
1881
Mr. de Geus: Yeah, they're bookable. That's online; you can make a reservation. It's in 1882
the list of fee schedule. 1883
1884
Council Member Filseth: The Baylands Interpretive Center is closed, isn't it? 1885
1886
Mr. de Geus: It's open 3 days a week, minimal hours. 1887
1888
Commissioner Markevitch: Not during high tide. 1889
1890
Mr. de Geus: We have a lot of classes that go there, and we program that space with 1891
John through the Junior Museum and Zoo. There isn't enough staff and resources to keep 1892
it open on a regular basis. It is closed a lot. 1893
1894
Commissioner Ashlund: That booking data information is available? We can get it into 1895 the matrix? 1896 1897 Ms. Schmitt: Yes and no, because there's the class booking times which would appear in 1898
class data. Then you walk in and you do a ... 1899
1900
Commissioner Ashlund: Facility space. 1901
1902
Ms. Schmitt: Yeah, the facility space. I'm Audubon and I want to rent this facility. We 1903
can inquire about that, but ... 1904
1905
Commissioner Crommie: I just think in your table you should reflect that John Aiken 1906
was talking about those facilities. They're not even listed on the table. Just to make it 1907
(crosstalk). 1908
1909
Ms. Schmitt: Okay. Rather that it ... 1910
1911
Commissioner Crommie: He is the (inaudible) information. 1912
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1913
Ms. Schmitt: I think that's a really good clarification. He wears a lot of hats, and it's tied 1914
to the Junior Museum and Zoo, but in this case he was (crosstalk). 1915
1916
Commissioner Crommie: His focus is really the Junior Museum and the Zoo. I don't 1917
think he has a strong focus at the Baylands. 1918 1919
Mr. de Geus: No, he doesn't. 1920
1921
Ms. Schmitt: He doesn't. 1922
1923
Mr. de Geus: His focus really is the Junior Museum and Zoo. 1924
1925
Commissioner Crommie: It's about need, and we don't have anyone who's really focused 1926
there. 1927
1928
Mr. de Geus: Yeah, you're right. Ideally we would have a naturalist on staff and has 1929
their office there (crosstalk). 1930
1931
Commissioner Crommie: That's a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you don't have the staff, 1932
you start to not have the time. The facility is no longer open. The need falls off. 1933
1934
Commissioner Ashlund: There was an extra category besides facilities and 1935
programming. When the Interpretive Center was open, if it was a hot sunny day or you 1936
needed a drink of water or a bathroom, or you wanted to look at the exhibits and talk to a 1937 naturalist, you could do that. It wasn't programming and it wasn't reserveable space. It 1938 was accessed by the public. 1939 1940
Mr. de Geus: Prior to 2008, we did have that staffing and the Interpretive Center was 1941
open a lot more. 1942
1943
Ms. Schmitt: That's actually one of the reasons for high barriers to participation. It's not 1944
open very much. When a class is in session, it might be open, but not necessarily when 1945
you happen to be there and maybe needed to get a drink. 1946
1947
Commissioner Ashlund: Barriers are high. 1948
1949
Commissioner Crommie: That's why this projected demand thing, though I don't quite 1950
understand that. 1951
1952
Ms. Schmitt: This would be a point of discussion. 1953
1954
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Commissioner Crommie: How did you come up with that? 1955
1956
Ms. Schmitt: We came up with that because we were thinking about these buildings. If 1957
they were achieving what they're supposed to do as what they are, you don't need more of 1958
them. If you look at the findings, there's no need for additional facilities. You wouldn't 1959
build four more of these things. However, the facilities that you have are not meeting 1960 expectations, and we see a real need for them to meet expectations, because people really 1961
want to connect to nature and they want to have preservation of nature. If you look up at 1962
Rows 11 and 12 there's a high need for both of those. There's the rub. 1963
1964
Commissioner Crommie: You have two bullet points. One says no need for additional 1965
facilities. The other one, need exists for facilities. Then you came up with a low. Is that 1966
based on buildings? I think you already talked about this maybe. What is the category of 1967
projected demand based on? Is it facilities or programming? 1968
1969
Ms. Schmitt: When we get to facilities, it's both. There are factors of both for certain 1970
facilities. The projected demand, the reason we put a low is because of the criteria here. 1971
This is debatable. You may make a different judgment. We don't see you capturing new 1972
user groups; however, we don't think those buildings are functioning as they should and 1973
that they need investment. You could make an argument that you would capture an 1974
expanded use. It's slicing it fine. We just don't ... 1975
1976
Commissioner Crommie: Can you point me to where the criteria is written out? I'm 1977
sorry. I lost it. 1978
1979 Ms. Schmitt: Absolutely. Page 9 of the data and needs summary for projected demand. 1980 1981 Commissioner Crommie: That's the one you handed out today? 1982
1983
Ms. Schmitt: Yeah. It's an updated version of the one that you received before. 1984
1985
Commissioner Crommie: If you have it in the criteria, I'm sorry to confuse that. 1986
1987
Ms. Fiore: That's a good place to stop, not because we're almost out of time but because 1988
we want to talk about what we're going to do next. Overall as an exercise, I'm going to 1989
start to answer some of your questions. Do you feel like you're getting a little more 1990
confidence in how the needs are based on the data that we have available to us? 1991
1992
Chair Reckdahl: I feel much better. I told Rob I feel much better now than I did a month 1993
ago. 1994
1995
Ms. Fiore: Great. 1996
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1997
Ms. Schmitt: Good, that's what we were looking for. We're trying for that. 1998
1999
Ms. Fiore: What we want to propose to move forward is to give you all more time to 2000
digest this. Obviously there's questions. There's things you want to dig into and look up 2001
probably to varying degrees. We were going to suggest, as a small homework 2002 assignment, between now and two weeks from now, if you would take your top three 2003
areas of interest, things that jumped out at you, pick three rows from this matrix, spend a 2004
little time going through it, do that gut check, see if it makes sense, see if it seems 2005
accurate to you, and then see if the Summary of Need makes sense. If not, flag that for 2006
us. What questions does that trigger for you? What would you like to do about what 2007
we've found here? That's going to lead us into the next step of the planning process, 2008
which is developing these actions and criteria and priorities and recommendations and the 2009
policy questions that you all need to answer in order to come up with those 2010
recommendations. 2011
2012
Commissioner Lauing: You're saying top three off of this (inaudible)? 2013
2014
Ms. Fiore: Top three off of the matrix. 2015
2016
Ms. Schmitt: Top three rows. If you want to do more, that's fine. We'll provide you a 2017
way to give your feedback to Peter electronically so it's just consistent. We can pull all 2018
of that together and have for you what you all have to say about your top three, so you get 2019
it in your packet for your next meeting. At the next meeting, we can talk about that and 2020
see where we get and if we're ready ... 2021 2022 Commissioner Lauing: This is on a policy basis. We're not going to say we want more 2023 bowling classes. 2024
2025
Ms. Schmitt: No, no. 2026
2027
Commissioner Lauing: We're going to keep it as a need here. You said high demand 2028
(inaudible). 2029
2030
Ms. Schmitt: Yeah, based on the data that you're seeing here, that I track back to these 2031
threads. I disagree here. I found this statement from this other thing and I really think it's 2032
this direction. Even a comment, this doesn't jive with what I heard from either meetings 2033
at the PRC or in the community of people who I interact with in Palo Alto. 2034
2035
Mr. de Geus: Can I just add? 2036
2037
Ms. Schmitt: Yes. 2038
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2039
Mr. de Geus: The most important thing though is to focus on the needs summary in the 2040
far right, and not focus on any one particular data source and cell, if you think maybe you 2041
have a different opinion on how to read the data. What we want to do is move in this 2042
direction to seek the need you describe and to set a truth test. Is there enough information 2043
here and data that supports that need? There's a couple of things that are surprising to me 2044 a little bit, that I would want to look into more closely. Most of it seems about right from 2045
what I’m hearing from the public. I would encourage you to look at those or those areas 2046
that you're particularly interested in, a topic, and dig deeper to see if it makes sense. As 2047
you come back next month, we have seven Commissioners each looking at three, we'll 2048
capture a lot of the questions that you may have. Hopefully we can start to shift to what 2049
is really a lot of work. That is the prioritization of needs, because what you see here, it's 2050
something that jumped out at me which is not surprising either. There are a lot more 2051
needs than there are resources that we can apply to these needs. People love their parks 2052
and their recreation in our community. The fact that most of these are high and medium, 2053
mostly high, is not surprising. The next and much harder job is then how do all of these 2054
needs as described stack up with one another in a prioritized fashion. We've got to apply 2055
resources and a timeline to do that. That's going to be tricky. The other piece to it is, this 2056
is a description of needs, but it doesn't really describe how we address those needs. 2057
Deirdre brought up the point about nature and experiencing nature. There are a lot of 2058
different ways you can do that, and some of them are more effective than others. That's 2059
the real meat of the Plan itself, because that's going to define how we're going to work on 2060
our park system in the future and the choices we make about how we design them. We 2061
need to get past the description of needs. 2062
2063 Ms. Schmitt: Also there's a lot to ponder here. When you're looking at these sites, you 2064 can start to see if you move one piece, in some cases you also move some of the other 2065 pieces. To pick off that experience nature, there's a number of ways you can do that. In 2066
trying to meet that need, you might pick off some other needs. As we talk about that 2067
prioritization as a Commission, thinking about the criteria you want to use, how we 2068
prioritize things is going to be important. You may decide a lot of different things are 2069
important. We may try out different sets of criteria and see how things shake out. 2070
Multiple benefit in some communities is an important criteria in deciding what to do first. 2071
It's the start of a lot of work, but it is the place where we all want to go. What are we 2072
going to do? 2073
2074
Commissioner Ashlund: Can I ask two quick clarification questions before our 2075
homework? 2076
2077
Ms. Schmitt: Mm-hmm. 2078
2079
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Commissioner Ashlund: The first question. On line 38, open space and outdoor rec, it's 2080
under programs. That's with regard to open space and outdoor recreation as opposed to 2081
the experience nature up on line 11. 2082
2083
Ms. Schmitt: Exactly. 2084
2085 Commissioner Ashlund: This is programming. 2086
2087
Ms. Schmitt: This is a program area that ... 2088
2089
Commissioner Ashlund: The other question is under the geographic analysis, Column E, 2090
it points out difficult to access on foot or bike, yet the barriers is considered medium. 2091
Would that change its status? The other ones don't talk about their difficulty or 2092
accessibility in that column. 2093
2094
Ms. Fiore: My guess would be that accessing the spaces is difficult by foot or bike. 2095
Because these are structured programs, there is some transportation support. We could 2096
dig deeper into it. 2097
2098
Ms. Schmitt: Because they're being offered at the preserves or locations like that, not 2099
dispersed or in central Palo Alto, that might be why there's that comment. If you feel like 2100
that comment is off mark, that's a really good piece of feedback, that it's not consistent. 2101
2102
Commissioner Ashlund: Is public transit in that category of access along with foot or 2103
bike? 2104 2105 Ms. Fiore: Public transportation is normally included. I'm not sure (crosstalk). 2106 2107
Ms. Schmitt: There certainly is not at this point an analysis of is there a transit stop by 2108
the park. That's certainly something that could be looked at in the future. I would 2109
recommend it as a data point now. If you wanted to go in certain directions, you could 2110
say, "Is there transit there? If there's not, we should focus this type of thing at sites with 2111
transit or work on getting it there." 2112
2113
Commissioner Ashlund: Okay, great. My last real quick one was on Number 26. Row 2114
26 is called recreation centers. Lucie Stern and Cubberley, I always hear them referred to 2115
as community centers. When I think rec center, I think there's like a racquetball court and 2116
fitness centers. We don't have any of that. I mean we do have some of that access at 2117
Cubberley, but I just don't hear it referred to that way in our community. 2118
2119
Ms. Schmitt: Okay, so a title change there. 2120
2121
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Commissioner Ashlund: Those are not my three points. Those are prior to my three 2122
points. 2123
2124
Commissioner Crommie: We're going to do this homework. Do we have any data 2125
source on how many people are using the Baylands in our City? 2126
2127 Ms. Schmitt: No, there's not counts. 2128
2129
Mr. de Geus: Lauren? 2130
2131
Ms. Schmitt: Yeah. 2132
2133
Daren Anderson: The ranger staff in the last year or so have monitored the counting 2134
devices at several entrances to the Baylands. We're getting increasingly accurate 2135
numbers for visitation in the Baylands. 2136
2137
Ms. Schmitt: But we don't have past data on those, that's been reflected in any of this 2138
material. 2139
2140
Mr. Anderson: We have past data too. It's not contiguous. There is a break in time, but 2141
we've got data going back a ways. It's evolving as we're getting better and better at it. 2142
When we used to track it, it was one entrance to a preserve that has ten, so it's flawed 2143
data. It was the best we could do at the time, and now we've gotten better. We're getting 2144
more and more accurate data. I guess you're right; it's not apples to apples if you were to 2145
compare our 2000 to this new data. We do have for Foothills very clean numbers. 2146 2147 Commissioner Crommie: It would be interesting to see it. 2148 2149
Ms. Schmitt: You can look in Mapita and some of the survey data. People are self-2150
reporting which sites they're going to, and you can extrapolate from that also. 2151
2152
Chair Reckdahl: I have two comments here. Some of these are nice and crisp and I 2153
understand what went on. Some of them are not presentable. The demographic trends, 2154
for example, it's stable for gathering together, but it's increasing for picnic shelters. I 2155
don't quite understand exactly why. The source is citing growing population. It has 2156
nothing to do with the shelters. Some of these growth things are just very arbitrary. The 2157
other thing is Column K, the projected demand, that's a pretty important column. It 2158
would be worthwhile to, when you get to the end, have a paragraph on each one. Some 2159
of this is professional judgment. Some it's not numbers. It would be good to have an 2160
explanation of why is that an H. Granted that's going to be a few pages of writing, but 2161
that would be very useful for us. That's one of the columns we're going to be really 2162
looking at, projecting forward and looking at the demand going forward. 2163
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2164
Ms. Schmitt: That's a nice piece of feedback. If there's one place to put more verbiage, 2165
focusing it there makes a lot of sense. 2166
2167
Chair Reckdahl: Thank you very much. We appreciate the work. 2168
2169 Ms. Fiore: Thank you. 2170
2171
Ms. Schmitt: We really appreciate the excellent discussion tonight. 2172
2173
4. Recommendation for a Park Improvement Ordinance for Pilot Batting Cages 2174 within the Former PASCO Site at the Baylands Athletic Center. 2175 2176
Daren Anderson: Good evening. Daren Anderson with Open Space, Parks and Golf. I'm 2177
here tonight with an action item seeking your recommendation to Council to adopt the 2178
Park Improvement Ordinance authorizing the addition of two batting cages and 2179
converting one standard parking stall to a handicap-accessible parking stall within the 2180
former PASCO site at the Baylands Athletic Center. Staff has brought this project to the 2181
Commission on February 24th, and the Commission generally supported the project, but 2182
suggested there should be a public meeting. On March 23rd, we held a public meeting at 2183
the Baylands Athletic Center and discussed the project. Six members of the public and 2184
two Commissioners attended the meeting. All members of the public supported the 2185
project. There was a request to include a gate on the west end of the site to allow more 2186
efficient access to the batting cages. After a little further examination, there is an existing 2187
gate there that will provide the requested access. I don't have a lot to add since the 2188 previous presentation covered the bulk of the project and there weren't a lot of 2189 outstanding questions. If there are any questions for me, I'm glad to answer them. 2190 2191
Commissioner Lauing: What was the public comment? 2192
2193
Mr. Anderson: The public comment was that on the west end, over here, if we had a gate 2194
that would allow for easier access from the other field. 2195
2196
Commissioner Lauing: I got that. Was there anything else? 2197
2198
Mr. Anderson: We support the project. It was nothing but support. It was largely 2199
athletic field supporter proponents, Babe Ruth, little leagues. Maybe the Commissioners 2200
who attended that would like to chime in if you have any thoughts on how that public 2201
meeting went from your perspective. 2202
2203
Chair Reckdahl: It was fairly non-eventful. The people there were all baseball people, 2204
and they supported the batting cages. Do you have any comments about it? 2205
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 53
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2206
Commissioner Hetterly: That's right. It was all baseball people, and they were all very 2207
supportive, from all the different venues of baseball. I understand, Daren, you also sent 2208
an email notice about the public meeting to all the stakeholders including all the 2209
environmental groups. No one came or submitted comments. 2210
2211 Mr. Anderson: Correct. 2212
2213
MOTION: Commissioner Hetterly moved, seconded by Vice Chair Markevitch that the 2214
Commission recommend to the Council approval of the Park Improvement Ordinance. 2215
2216
Chair Reckdahl: Any discussion? Okay. Let's vote. 2217
2218
MOTION APPROVED: 7-0 2219
2220
5. Staff Update on Drought Response for Parks, Open Space and Golf. 2221
2222
Daren Anderson: Thank you so much. Bear with me just a moment. We're pulling up a 2223
PowerPoint. I'm here to give you an update on our drought situation and how it's 2224
affecting the City and what kind of things we'll be facing in the near future. As you 2225
probably already know, California is facing one of the most severe droughts on record. 2226
Governor Brown declared a drought state of emergency in January and directed State 2227
officials to take all necessary actions to prepare for water shortages. This drought is 2228
going to have profound effects on open space to some degree. We have a few irrigated 2229
areas that will be impacted. Parks, to a great degree and the golf course to a great degree. 2230 We'll have to change the way we do business to address these demands and restrictions 2231 that will be coming our way. This next slide gives some of the numbers. You've 2232 probably seen a number of these different percentages on the news. Which ones pertain 2233
to us? The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, this is our water provider, has on 2234
the books, and hasn't changed it, a 10 percent voluntary reduction. That's still in place. 2235
The Santa Clara Valley Water District is calling for 30 percent; although, we do not get 2236
our water from Santa Clara Valley Water District. Statewide, the Governor has issued a 2237
call for 25 percent water reduction. This is potable water, not recycled water. Though 2238
the Governor's is 25 percent, it is on a sliding scale per community. The State Water 2239
Board looks at each community and allocates water reductions. Some were low; some 2240
were in the 20s; some were higher in the 30 range. Ours is for the moment at 24 percent. 2241
That's the bucket we've been allocated for now. It does seem that things are in flux and 2242
can change and have been changing. I don't know exactly what it will be. It's draft form 2243
right now, and everything I can tell you is we're in this moment in time and subject to 2244
change. We hope to know more soon. We'll be back in May to give you an update. On 2245
May 11th, the Utilities Department is going to bring a report to City Council on the 2246
drought and discuss the City's water shortage contingency plan. This plan will discuss 2247
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 54
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the 24 percent reduction and what that means for the City and where we'll be making 2248
some of the restrictions to conserve that much water, how much we've made in previous 2249
years and what we have left to do. There's also other restrictions. This is just a small 2250
snapshot of some of them coming our way. Using potable water to wash sidewalks and 2251
driveways. That does have implications for the parks department. In the past and in our 2252
maintenance contract with Gachina, as a best management practice we cleaned tennis 2253 courts with a water broom. It gets deeper cleaning of the tennis courts and prolongs the 2254
life of the court itself as opposed to using a blower or a broom or anything. That's just 2255
not a best management practice in the drought. We've discontinued that for some time 2256
now, and we'll continue to discontinue that as well as other places. The runoff when 2257
you're getting potable water. This is one we get a lot of complaints unfortunately. We 2258
have a lot of citizens keeping their eye out for this, which is great. It doesn't take much. 2259
when you have hundreds of thousands of sprinkler heads scattered throughout the City, 2260
for one sprinkler head to be either kicked, clogged, or broken off by somebody and then 2261
water pours down onto the sidewalk. You'll see that. Unfortunately, it gives us a black 2262
eye, as if we're not monitoring it closely. It just can happen so quickly. It's really 2263
incumbent upon my team to be on it, to be looking at it, to be really responsive when we 2264
get those complaints and fix it the same day. Oftentimes we get it within the hour. 2265
We've got a really responsive manager in charge of irrigation, comes in on his days off 2266
and on the weekends to shut off valves and fix things like that. We're doing the best we 2267
can. Using potable water in decorative water features that do not have a recirculating 2268
function. Just for the record, Lytton Plaza has that fountain that is recirculating, so we 2269
have continued that practice. We're probably going to add some signage that explains 2270
we're cognizant of the drought, this is a recirculating fountain, that's why we're allowing 2271
it to continue. The Cal Ave fountain will also be recirculating. It's not up and running 2272 yet, but that will be recirculating which is permissible under these restrictions. Outdoor 2273 irrigation during 48 hours following measurable precipitation. This is another one of 2274 those restrictions that will require us to be very cautious. Sometimes you'll see maybe in 2275
the news, agencies making mistakes. It rained yesterday, and they come out and test the 2276
irrigation. Can't do that anymore. We'll have to be careful on ensuring that we're 2277
compliant with these. As I mentioned, this is going to heavily impact my division 2278
especially, the Open Space, Parks and Golf areas. We're going to have to bear a lot of the 2279
burden, because we're such a big user of the outside irrigation in the City of Palo Alto. 2280
We need to help achieve that City goal of 24 percent, possibly more. We don't know at 2281
this point. We've been working on a plan that's going to reduce significant amounts of 2282
irrigation. I want to share with you the methodology of the initial thinking that's behind 2283
this initial draft. We put a lot of work into it, and it's been evolving. We're still 2284
massaging it into place, so bear with me when I show you what I'm about to and 2285
understand it's in the preliminary phases. What we're doing is a park-by-park analysis, 2286
looking at all the irrigation that goes there. We're identifying the ornamental sections or 2287
aesthetic pieces of turf and recommending them for elimination. That would mean 2288
stopping irrigation wholeheartedly there and cover it with wood chips, let it go 2289
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completely brown, maybe come back and plant some drought-resistant plants in some 2290
cases. One of those three options. At this particular site, the Baylands Athletic Center, 2291
you can see we've got a couple of different colors. Forgive me if you can't quite make 2292
out the colors. We've outlined them. You can see orange is to reduce irrigation to two 2293
times per month. There's a little sliver of the park where we have got turf, and it's got 2294
trees in it. We'd like to eliminate irrigation but not entirely, because we don’t want to kill 2295 the trees. They're still dependent on it. We're having this back-and-forth with our tree 2296
department to say, "Are these trees the type that you think would make it?" If they say, 2297
"No. They need supplemental irrigation, because that's how they've been sustaining 2298
themselves because they're turf trees." then we're going to continue to irrigate, but very 2299
minimally. Two times per month is more than enough to sustain those trees. The turf 2300
will die, and it will look different. Another area you'll see is outlined in green. That's 2301
eliminate entirely. That's not without any impact. There's an aesthetic impact. As you 2302
drive into this major athletic facility, we have these three strips of turf there, closest to the 2303
parking lot. While not used for active play, they have been used for warm-up, certainly a 2304
place where some people congregate. If we don't make these changes, we don't believe 2305
we're going to be able to realize that 24 percent reduction. We've got to make hard 2306
choices like this. What we've done in this initial pass is to say, "These areas, we're going 2307
to have to cut back." What you'll see is the larger section, the actual playing fields 2308
identified in yellow, we're going to need to irrigate them a little bit more. It's one we 2309
can't quite let go. It's an athletic field. It's highly brokered. It's highly used. There's a 2310
safety component. If you were to let it dry up, what would happen to it? That's a 2311
question we've been getting asked quite frequently. What's that going to look like if you 2312
went to two days a week or one day a week? It's really difficult to answer, because every 2313
site is different. There's micro differences in the soil makeup, the irrigation system itself, 2314 the history of the field on how much it's used and brokered. This particular site, our 2315 hunch is it's not going to exceed five days. We will probably dial it back, and that's going 2316 to put some constraints on it. We think we can keep it safe. We can still grow grass on it 2317
at five days a week, which will allow us to save some water. We would still be a little bit 2318
more than some other parks like this one, Cameron Park. This park we've outlined 2319
completely in light blue, which is to irrigate no more than two days a week. Basically 2320
we'll irrigate that entire park just two times a week That would result in changes. It's a 2321
big cutback. I can't say lots of questions have come up. How often do you typically 2322
irrigate it? It fluctuates with the season. During the winter, we're irrigating maybe not at 2323
all. If we have a dry winter, it's a couple of days. In the peak of summer, it could be six 2324
to seven days a week. In the peak of summer, that would turn mostly brown. In some 2325
areas we'll probably lose turf, is my guess. Little spots here and there where the turf will 2326
die away. The ability to grow grass is possible irrigating two days a week. A site like 2327
this, if we implement a two-day-a-week restriction or something like that, what you could 2328
expect in the long term is some dead patches, lots of brown areas during the summer, and 2329
with luck it would come back each year. We'd do our best to make it look as good as we 2330
can, make it safe for people to play on. That's the ideas of what we're doing. Every 2331
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single site in the City where we irrigate, we're starting this. We started with the parks and 2332
preserves. There's not a lot in the open space preserves. Mostly it's native landscaping 2333
which is irrigated to establish and then it's pretty much left on its own. The next steps 2334
again. I mentioned that there's going to be a staff report going to the Council on May 2335
11th. After that we hope to know more. We'll get some feedback from Council, get 2336
some direction, and continue working on our site-by-site analysis. Hopefully we'll get a 2337 more firmed up figure of what our cut is going to be, and then we can use some of this 2338
analysis to say, "Okay, we can eliminate so many square feet of turf. How much water is 2339
that going to save us? Will we realize a 24 percent reduction based off the 2013 2340
baseline?" Again, I hadn't mentioned that before, but that's our baseline year, 2013, for 2341
my first slide that talked about those different percentages. They're all predicated on the 2342
2013 baseline. 2343
2344
Chair Reckdahl: Are you also doing this for the golf course? 2345
2346
Mr. Anderson: Yes. 2347
2348
Chair Reckdahl: There will be some areas of the golf course that don't get watered as 2349
much. 2350
2351
Mr. Anderson: Correct. Mainly the outer rough. We have got a great relationship with 2352
Valley Crest. The Superintendant there, Brian Daum, is working closely with us. We 2353
really have a good plan at the golf course. I feel confident. It'll be good to make great 2354
strides there. We've got a 70/30 blend right now, 70 percent recycled/30 percent potable. 2355
The same is true for Greer Park and Baylands Athletic Center. Long term there'll be 2356 hopefully more parks coming online as the recycled water line gets extended. I don't 2357 have a lot of information on that right now. I hope to have more for you soon. 2358 2359
Rob de Geus: The idea is to extend it all the way down Middlefield to south Palo Alto. 2360
In fact, the new Mitchell Park Community Center is all plumbed to accept recycled water. 2361
Installed accelerated networks would be a good strategy, because that's money spent now 2362
for the current drought but it's ongoing. 2363
2364
Vice Chair Markevitch: Long term, that recycled water, does it hurt the plants or does 2365
not have any impact to them? 2366
2367
Mr. Anderson: In the site-by-site analysis, it really depends on the soil profile. If we 2368
look at a park like Greer where it's been irrigated with recycled water for some time, I 2369
hear mixed opinions on whether it impacts certain trees differently, less salt tolerant 2370
because the recycled water has a little higher salt content. Ours is getting better and 2371
better. By ours, I mean our City provider said the water has dropped its TDS or total 2372
dissolved solvents significantly in the last couple of years. It's getting closer and closer 2373
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 57
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to the point where we feel that turf and plants can almost take 100 percent recycled water 2374
and do okay. We've pushed the limits periodically, both at the golf course and at the 2375
Baylands, and ran it for periods of time at 100 percent. At the golf course, eventually we 2376
see accumulation of salts rising up, and it starts to distress and kill grass. I don't know 2377
that that will transfer to every other site necessarily. 2378
2379 Female: It's also the closest to the Bay. 2380
2381
Mr. Anderson: That's right. With a very shallow water table right there with salt water. 2382
2383
Commissioner Knopper: What's the expectation as to when as a City we will be at the 24 2384
percent reduction with regard to a date, timeline? 2385
2386
Mr. Anderson: I believe we're going to be required to start the process June 1st, is my 2387
understanding. 2388
2389
Commissioner Knopper: Have you noticed in the preserves where we don't irrigate, do 2390
the native plantings and trees, have you guys started to notice changes? 2391
2392
Mr. Anderson: We do. We've got indicator species like Buckeye trees, for example, that 2393
will turn the quickest during drought years. This isn't too new, because these are all un-2394
irrigated areas. In the past, we'll see those indicator trees that turn the fastest, like the 2395
Buckeye, and others will dry out a little faster. It'll probably have implications for us for 2396
an extended fire season. Luckily we've made good strides with our wild land fire 2397
protection plan and made some improvements that protect us there. Still my expectation 2398 is that we'll have definitely drier habitat. 2399 2400 Commissioner Crommie: What set of guiding principles are you using when you decide 2401
which parks to cut back on or not? 2402
2403
Mr. Anderson: That's an excellent question. We've been under the gun to move quickly, 2404
because of the amount of parks to go through. Every single one of those we had to pour 2405
through and say, "Is this on a continuous irrigation zone or valve where I could turn all 2406
this in one shot or do we have to reconfigure things?" There was a lot of analysis in 2407
every park. We followed the basic criteria of is it a heavily brokered or used piece of 2408
turf. I'll give you an example. The area I showed you was the Baylands Athletic Center 2409
where we had athletic fields, and it was highly used, highly brokered. We selected that as 2410
a criteria that we continue to water a little bit more. We used the aesthetic ornamental 2411
turf as the areas where we say either let go or did it lend itself to be isolated easily. Did it 2412
have trees on it that we have to do something different with? If I leave the irrigation 2413
system off for a very long time, the cost of getting it back running again is expensive. 2414
We're trying to be as judicious and intelligent as we select these areas. The main criteria 2415
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 58
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is, is it ornamental and aesthetic? Then we have flexibility in either eliminating or 2416
reducing. Is it highly brokered and is there a safety component to it like an athletic field 2417
or a highly brokered area? For example, the internal courtyard at Lucie Stern where we 2418
have weddings. A lot of the special events or rentals are predicated on having an internal 2419
courtyard where there's grass to recreate and use. It's almost part of the rental in many 2420
ways. There are a few areas like that. Basically, is it highly used? Is it highly brokered? 2421 Does it usually lend itself to, in our criteria, extending the irrigation to a little less water 2422
use? 2423
2424
Commissioner Crommie: You're not using a criterion that has to do with amount of 2425
resource in dollars that are lost through death. 2426
2427
Mr. Anderson: Death of turf, you mean? 2428
2429
Commissioner Crommie: Yeah. Well, death of trees, plants. 2430
2431
Mr. Anderson: We're not going to let the trees go. We haven't identified any areas yet. 2432
2433
Commissioner Crommie: You'd already established that you will not let trees die. 2434
2435
Mr. Anderson: That was one of our criteria for tree areas. This was the good example. 2436
In the turf area that did have trees, we changed it to a different color, that orange color 2437
you saw, and said two times per month. 2438
2439
Commissioner Crommie: You're going to present on this on May 11th. 2440 2441 Mr. Anderson: I won't. The Utilities Department will be bringing the staff report to the 2442 Council. 2443
2444
Commissioner Crommie: Is that the same report you're going to give back to us? I'm just 2445
wondering how we coordinate with Council. Often on a topic like this, we would hear it 2446
before it goes to Council. Then they might want to look at our feedback. This seems a 2447
little backwards to me. 2448
2449
Mr. Anderson: I think that May 11th won't be getting to the degree of detail that you see 2450
here. This is very much a draft. Council won't be seeing this. This is just the staff 2451
document to let us know where we are in our capability to reach a 24 percent reduction. 2452
Because we are such a big water user, I can't arbitrarily say, "I think I can get rid of most 2453
of my aesthetic turf to meet that 24 percent." I need to be reassured, because the 2454
penalties are stiff and the need to meet it is huge. I believe we're one of the dominant 2455
water users. It's incumbent upon us to be confident of whatever percent we're saving 2456
with the belief that we can meet it. This is the only way I know how. 2457
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 59
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2458
Commissioner Knopper: From a percentage perspective, of the 24 percent, you may not 2459
know and this might just be way into the weeds, what percentage of the 24 percent do 2460
you think Parks and Rec will have to reduce versus other City agencies? 2461
2462
Mr. Anderson: We don't have that. 2463 2464
Mr. de Geus: That data is still being analyzed. 2465
2466
Commissioner Knopper: I would imagine it would be hard for Daren to go through this 2467
exercise (glitch). 2468
2469
Mr. de Geus: This is a lot of sites too. There may be additional executive orders from 2470
the Governor and other things for further restrictions. Actually, we expect that in the 2471
next couple of months. There's going to have to be even more work. To your point, the 2472
24 percent is the goal for our City, but our parks division and our parks system is going to 2473
have to take a greater load, carry a heavier load. We've heard as much as 35 percent that 2474
we're actually going to have to do. With some of the buildings and indoor uses, there's 2475
only so much you can do to get to 24 or 25 percent. 2476
2477
Commissioner Knopper: Of that 24 percent though, is any of that being kicked to the 2478
residents? 2479
2480
Mr. de Geus: Yeah, the whole City has to come with the 24 percent total. 2481
2482 Commissioner Knopper: When the City's going through this exercise, are you ... 2483 2484 Mr. de Geus: City and community. Not just City or community. 2485
2486
Commissioner Knopper: They're going to come in for the residents. I went for a walk 2487
the other day. Gorgeous rose gardens and beautiful green, luscious lawns. I wanted to 2488
knock on the door and bop the homeowner on the head. Like, hello, beautiful garden, but 2489
what's going on here, people? The cost to the City has to be spread through everyone, the 2490
residents as well as the City and commercial people. That's why Daren's going through 2491
this horrific exercise of what can I let die. As Deirdre just said, what death are we 2492
allowing to happen without residents taking some responsibility? 2493
2494
Mr. de Geus: Everyone in the community, residents, businesses, the public, we all have 2495
to take ... 2496
2497
Commissioner Knopper: This is going to be an edict from ... 2498
2499
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 60
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Mr. de Geus: Yeah. 2500
2501
Commissioner Crommie: Who's leading the public education on this? Who's in charge 2502
of that? 2503
2504
Mr. de Geus: (crosstalk) Utilities Department. If you're interested in this topic, the May 2505 11th meeting will be an important one. The staff report itself will be an interesting read. 2506
2507
Commissioner Hetterly: I just have a quick question. The water feature at Mitchell Park, 2508
is that recirculating? 2509
2510
Mr. Anderson: It is not. 2511
2512
Mr. de Geus: That will be turned off. 2513
2514
Commissioner Hetterly: It will be turned off this summer. 2515
2516
Chair Reckdahl: What was the time span it took before grass and trees are damaged by 2517
100 percent recycled water? 2518
2519
Mr. Anderson: It depends on the site. At the golf course, I couldn't give you an accurate 2520
estimation. We ran it for probably a month on 100 percent recycled. 2521
2522
Chair Reckdahl: We can't make it to rainy season. You couldn't just go all summer and 2523
be all right with 100 percent recycled? 2524 2525 Mr. Anderson: No. 2526 2527
Mr. de Geus: It's interesting you ask. The new golf course, should we get underway one 2528
day, has a turf variety that can withstand 100 percent recycled water. We did a lot of 2529
research (crosstalk) on that topic. 2530
2531
Commissioner Crommie: I have an educational point to make. I think it was last 2532
weekend I went on a native gardens tour in Los Altos. It was very educational and 2533
inspirational to try to make those kinds of changes within our own property. Do you 2534
know if someone is running that in the City of Palo Alto? 2535
2536
Mr. Anderson: Do you mean conversion of lawn to ... 2537
2538
Commissioner Crommie: Where people put their gardens on display for educational 2539
purposes. Do we have an annual tour in the City of Palo Alto? 2540
2541
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 61
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Mr. de Geus: I don't know if there's a tour. I know there's some of those gardens. We 2542
could bring it up. 2543
2544
Commissioner Crommie: I know they do one in Los Altos. That's the one I normally go 2545
to. I haven't seen it noticed in the City of Palo Alto. 2546
2547 Mr. Anderson: Gamble Gardens is our go-to. They're heavily involved in that. 2548
2549
Commissioner Crommie: I mean residents. 2550
2551
Mr. Anderson: I know. They are part of that tour of resident gardens. 2552
2553
Peter Jensen: I would like to preface that the renovation of a turf area to native landscape 2554
does not mean in the first two years that you save water. In fact, you would probably use 2555
more water to establish that plant material. The plant material is based on drought 2556
tolerance because of the size of the root system that grows. To develop that root system 2557
takes water. It's not like an area where you can just convert your grass to native 2558
landscape and you're reducing water. It's a transition idea. That part probably needs to 2559
be provided in the education to residents. What that conversion is and the amount of 2560
water you could expect to use. In that process where people do renovate their yards to 2561
drought tolerant, they are quite surprised in the first year that they're probably using a 2562
little bit more water than they were. They were watering established plant material, even 2563
if it was grass. Most old grass is not actually a lot of grass anymore, but it's a mixture of 2564
weeds that are usually a lot tougher than the grass we have. Just another point of view to 2565
think about. 2566 2567 Mr. de Geus: I'm glad you mentioned that. That's another criteria that we're looking 2568 through as we do this exercise, particularly for those high demand athletic fields. If we 2569
let them die, the cost of bringing them back, in terms of money and water ... 2570
2571
Commissioner Crommie: That's what I was getting at. 2572
2573
Mr. de Geus: ... to reseed a field. You could end up using more water to bring it back 2574
than to cut down to three days a week or whatever we can do to keep it alive. 2575
2576
Commissioner Crommie: That would be in your criteria, right? The cost to reestablish 2577
what you kill. 2578
2579
Mr. de Geus: Right. 2580
2581
Chair Reckdahl: Thank you, Daren. 2582
2583
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6. Ad Hoc Committee and Liaison Updates. 2584
2585
Chair Reckdahl: Are there any ad hoc committees that want to report in? 2586
2587
Commissioner Hetterly: I have an update that I received notice (crosstalk) putting 2588
together a resolution for Council about the fire management budgeting. 2589 2590
Commissioner Lauing: I was going to read that. 2591
2592
Commissioner Hetterly: (crosstalk) back on the radar. 2593
2594
Chair Reckdahl: They asked (inaudible). 2595
2596
Commissioner Lauing: I was going to raise that, as a matter of fact, for the agenda for 2597
next month. 2598
2599
Chair Reckdahl: The agenda's not (inaudible) for next month. 2600
2601
V. COMMENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS 2602
2603
Chair Reckdahl: Rob, do you have any? 2604
2605
Rob de Geus: The May Fete Parade is this Saturday, the 93rd. The theme is no space to 2606
alienate. Last year's Mayor said the theme is to be about anti-bullying. I'm like, "How do 2607
we make that fun?" What we try and do is have a topic that is fun and interesting but also 2608 is something that teachers, in elementary schools in particular, as they build their floats 2609 can have a conversation about youth development. No space to alienate is also space 2610 focused but also not alienating your friends. Really fun. It's this Saturday, 10:00. The 2611
parade and fair starts at Heritage Park. It runs through the afternoon. Lots of music. It's 2612
going to be great. It's one of the best events we do. Kids can participate. Most children 2613
participate one way or another as part of their school. If a child wants to participate, if 2614
they want to walk in the parade, they can. We have kids with pets. Just come, bring your 2615
pet on a leash. Kids on wheels, come and we'll get you into the parade. It's really going 2616
to be a fun event. I think there's 78 groups in the parade. In fact this year, Mayor 2617
Holman's very interested in the parade and has been supporting some of the planning. 2618
She's been meeting with us. Her recommendation was to extend the parade route, so we 2619
did that. We can go by Lytton Gardens and Channing House. We shortened it partly 2620
because it was so long and there was no one on the sides to watch the parade. 2621
2622
Chair Reckdahl: Channing House always had a lot of people, right? 2623
2624
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Mr. de Geus: Yeah, they did. We're having a block party, but we're organizing for them 2625
and with them right in front of Channing House and Lytton Gardens. Avenidas is 2626
participating with people at Stevenson House. That's a nice addition. It should be really 2627
fun. 2628
2629
Chair Reckdahl: What time does it start? 2630 2631
Mr. de Geus: 10:00 is when the parade gets started. The fair at Heritage Park starts at 2632
the same time, so you can go there as well and wait. 2633
2634
Chair Reckdahl: The Commission's marching in it? 2635
2636
Mr. de Geus: Yep. I'll be there at the corner of University and Emerson. 2637
2638
Vice Chair Markevitch: Do we ever invite the other commissions? I don't see too many 2639
of them. 2640
2641
Mr. de Geus: Usually we get some Community Relations Commissioners. 2642
2643
Chair Reckdahl: There's a better showing from Park and Rec. 2644
2645
Vice Chair Markevitch: Always. 2646
2647
Mr. de Geus: The other thing I want to say is we're going through budget season right 2648
now. Our budget goes through the hearing process which is through the Finance 2649 Committee. Eric, are you on the Finance Committee? I can't remember if you are. 2650 2651 Council Member Filseth: Yes. 2652
2653
Mr. de Geus: There's four Council Members on the Finance Committee. Vice Mayor 2654
Schmidt is the Chair, is that correct? The Community Services budget goes to the 2655
Finance Committee on May 5th. They meet several times this month and take two or 2656
three departments at a time and look through the budget for fiscal year '16 and the 2657
requests being asked and the rationale for those requests and a discussion. They have the 2658
opportunity to recommend changes and tweaks to that budget. After May, it goes to the 2659
full Council for adoption. Next Tuesday, May 5th, is when the Community Services 2660
budget goes forward. Council got their taste last night when Jim Keene, our City 2661
Manager, gave an initial preview of the capital budget plus the operating budget to the 2662
Council. It's a lot of information. They spoke for maybe half an hour or 40 minutes, and 2663
then the books were handed out. 2664
2665
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 64
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Council Member Filseth: Three of us are real green-eyeshade guys, so watch out 2666
(crosstalk). 2667
2668
Commissioner Lauing: Are you pretty much through the book already since last night? 2669
2670
Council Member Filseth: Sorry. 2671 2672
Commissioner Lauing: Did you get through the book yet? 2673
2674
Council Member Filseth: I got through it about 11:00 last night. It's like two or three of 2675
these things. 2676
2677
Peter Jensen: I'd also like to add that Rob was presented a key to the Magical Bridge two 2678
weekends ago that opened up the playground. If you haven't been by it to see the 2679
playground, it's a lot more powerful than I thought it was going to be. 2680
2681
Commissioner Lauing: You designed it. 2682
2683
Mr. Jensen: Yeah. 2684
2685
Mr. de Geus: Peter Jensen, our Landscape Architect, deserves a lot of credit as well as 2686
the members of the public who made that happen, Olenka and team. The City donated 2687
some land, of course, and some seed money, $300,000. They raised $4 million. They 2688
never came back to ask for more money which is amazing. I saw several of you at the 2689
opening. What a remarkable playground it is. 2690 2691 Commissioner Lauing: It was astonishing. I agree with Peter that the design was as good 2692 or better than anything we've been looking at. It's just phenomenal, completely 2693
heartwarming. Everywhere you look, the message is just absolutely great. 2694
2695
Mr. de Geus: One of the goals of the founders of the Magical Bridge Playground is to 2696
start a national conversation about inclusive play. They're really doing that. This is a 2697
national story, this playground. 2698
2699
Commissioner Lauing: It did get national publicity. 2700
2701
Commissioner Crommie: Can you plan to report back to the Parks and Rec Commission 2702
in a year or so about the durability of the components. That will come into play when 2703
people want to integrate those into other parks. It'll be really important to hear what 2704
lasted, what had trouble, that kind of thing. Is that already in your plans? 2705
2706
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 65
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Mr. Jensen: Not right now to come back to give an update. We observe the playground 2707
every day to make sure that it's holding up. I'm happy to say that it's doing very, very 2708
well for the amount of traffic that it's getting. 2709
2710
Commissioner Crommie: It's a magnet, yeah. 2711
2712 Commissioner Lauing: I was going to ask anyway about any news on the golf course, 2713
with or without water impacts either way. Is it still in abeyance or moving to Plan B? 2714
2715
Mr. de Geus: There isn't a lot of information. At this point, we're not going to be able to 2716
start construction before the end of the calendar year. The earliest we could seek permits 2717
at this point would be after summer or at the very end of summer. It wouldn't be a good 2718
sensible time to start the construction. The earliest is January or February time period. 2719
The real question is how are we doing in the permitting application process. There's 2720
constantly movement in the right direction. It's just agonizingly slow. From the golf 2721
course perspective, we are waiting for the levee project to get through their issues with 2722
the Corps, and with the Marine Fisheries and the Water Board. We need a permit from 2723
all those, because they're telling us, "Wait. We want to first be sure that we're satisfied 2724
with the levee project and then we'll issue a permit for the golf course." You see the issue 2725
there. If there's concerns about the levee project, that they think in some way that 2726
project's going to change, that may impact the design for the golf course. That's why they 2727
don't want to do that. The Joint Powers Authority is making progress. They've made 2728
significant progress with the Water Board and have their permit from them. They're now 2729
working with the Corps and Marine Fisheries. I understand that's going well, that they've 2730
made progress. Not a permit in hand at this point. 2731 2732 Commissioner Knopper: On the schedule, the City Council/Commission joint meeting 2733 on the 27th of next month. It says 9:00 to 10:00 P.M. Then like 75 emails came in; 9:00 2734
to 10:00, no. What time is it? 2735
2736
Mr. de Geus: Agenda planning is next on the agenda, so we'll get into it there. 2737
2738
VI. TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR May 26, 2015 MEETING 2739 2740
Chair Reckdahl: Agenda planning, we'll save that to the end. We had this resolution on 2741
the fire mitigation in Foothills Park. Byxbee Park, the PIO may come back. We were 2742
thinking about having it this month, but Daren's been swamped with other work as you 2743
can see. That one got bumped to next month. We have a couple of ad hocs that we've 2744
penciled in, the website and community gardens. They have a couple of weeks to figure 2745
out if there's anything they want to present, if you're on those ad hocs. Then the joint 2746
study session with Council. Do you want to talk about that? 2747
2748
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 66
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Rob de Geus: I'm not sure if everyone's responded to Catherine on availability for that 2749
evening. The Council has a lot on their agenda over the next few months. The idea here 2750
was to pool some of these study sessions on separate nights to get through them. That's 2751
why that's happening. The 27th was identified as a night for this Commission as well as 2752
the Public Art Commission and the Palo Alto Youth Council. Three of them, one after 2753
the other. The latest count, I thought, was that we may not have enough Commissioners. 2754 I think two or three said they couldn't attend. I was talking to Catherine about that. My 2755
view is if three can't attend a study session, we shouldn't do it. We should try and find 2756
another time when more Commissioners can be there. If it's later in the year, I think it's 2757
probably fine, unless the Commission needs to ... 2758
2759
Commissioner Hetterly: I think it's much preferable to have it much later in the year. I 2760
don't think we have much to report to them frankly. 2761
2762
Commissioner Lauing: On top of which we would have to plan it in the next 30 minutes. 2763
2764
Mr. de Geus: Keith and I talked about that. 2765
2766
Commissioner Lauing: It comes a few hours after our next meeting, so we would have to 2767
plan it right now. 2768
2769
Chair Reckdahl: If you look at the last six months, the bulk of our time has been on the 2770
Master Plan. That still is a work in progress. We certainly could give them an update on 2771
where we stand, but I don't know. 2772
2773 Vice Chair Markevitch: Can't we just send them a memo? Send them the matrix, this is 2774 what we're working on. Eric likes it. 2775 2776
Commissioner Lauing: It's not a big problem from the Council's perspective. Just 2777
pushing it a few months later would be highly preferable for us. 2778
2779
Commissioner Hetterly: After the summer break. 2780
2781
Mr. de Geus: That's my sense. I don't know, Council Member Filseth, if you have any 2782
thoughts. You're pretty new to this. 2783
2784
Council Member Filseth: Do it when it makes sense. Don't try to rush it because we've 2785
got a time slot here. We have lots of stuff to do. You guys have lots of stuff to do. Do it 2786
when there's useful material. 2787
2788
Mr. de Geus: That makes a lot of sense. We'll report back to ... 2789
2790
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 67
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Catherine Bourquin: Beth was okay with that. 2791
2792
Chair Reckdahl: This should have been back at the comments. This park, have we 2793
started construction on that? 2794
2795
Mr. de Geus: Oh, yeah. It's under construction. It's leveled. A bocce ball court's going 2796 in. 2797
2798
Chair: I really wanted bocce. How about ... 2799
2800
Commissioner Knopper: It doesn't take water bocce. 2801
2802
Mr. de Geus: El Camino Park is underway. It's still currently on schedule. It does 2803
represent another policy question. Did Daren leave? 2804
2805
Ms. Bourquin: Yes. 2806
2807
Mr. de Geus: The northern field is a synthetic turf field. The southern, large field is a 2808
turf field. It's going to require a lot of water to grow that in. I think we're planning to use 2809
sod. Still that's going to be a lot of water to make sure that that turf is ready for play. It's 2810
another question that'll come up as a policy matter for our community, the Council. Not 2811
just for community parks, but all of our parks and our renovation plans. Do we need to 2812
rethink some of the decision about how we're bringing them online? We don't have a 2813
recommendation about that. 2814
2815 Vice Chair Markevitch: That one field is literally sitting on top of 3 million gallons of 2816 water. Can't we tap some of that? It's a valid question. 2817 2818
Chair Reckdahl: Did we consider going with artificial turf or doing just a dirt outfield? 2819
2820
Mr. de Geus: What we need to do for every park site, as I've discussed with Daren, is 2821
think critically about every one and have a good sense of the criteria that we're using and 2822
some consistency about using that criteria. Some of them are unique, like bringing on a 2823
new field like that. That's really large; it's a couple of acres. That's a lot of water to grow 2824
that in. To at least pause and think through whether this makes sense given what we're 2825
facing with regard to the drought. 2826
2827
Vice Chair Markevitch: How about if we open half of it? The artificial turf gets opened 2828
and they're playing it. 2829
2830
Mr. de Geus: There's a number of different ways we could work it. That's what we are 2831
doing now. 2832
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APPROVED
2833
Chair Reckdahl: In what timeframe do we have to make a decision on that baseball field? 2834
2835
Mr. de Geus: It will be ready to lay turf there at the end of summer. 2836
2837
Chair Reckdahl: We still have a couple of months. 2838 2839
Mr. de Geus: Yeah. Our hope is to open that field by the end of the calendar year, both 2840
of those fields. Of course, you know the community has been waiting for those fields to 2841
come online for a couple of years now, because we've fallen behind on that. That's 2842
another factor to consider. One might say, "You haven't had them for so long, maybe not 2843
bringing it online is the smart thing to do." That saves more. On the other hand, the 2844
community hasn't had that field, and it's going to be a great park. As you know, you've 2845
spent a lot of time on it. It's fantastic; a really, really nice park. The community wants to 2846
use it; they want to have access to it. Some of those tough policy decisions I expect the 2847
Commission will have to weigh in on and ultimately Council. 2848
2849
Chair Reckdahl: Okay. Is that it? 2850
2851
Vice Chair Markevitch: Mm-hmm. 2852
2853
Commissioner Lauing: On this resolution, I did want to check with Eric to see if we're 2854
still in okay shape on timing. This is the resolution around the Fire Management Plan 2855
that was a CIP, now going into the annual budget. We want to get Finance Committee 2856
support. If this is far along, then you might have missed the deadline. 2857 2858 Council Member Filseth: I don't have a good answer for that. The schedule is being set 2859 by the staff and (inaudible) check with those guys. (crosstalk) whatever their deadline is, 2860
is about the only answer I can give. 2861
2862
Mr. de Geus: It's in the fire management plan moved into CIP, the capital budget to the 2863
operating budget. The operating budget is being looked at by the Finance Committee 2864
next week on Tuesday. It includes the fire management plan which is in three different 2865
departments though. Community Services has a piece of it. We'll be discussed next 2866
week. Council Member Filseth is on the committee, so he can relay the strong interest of 2867
this Commission on that particular line item to the extent you understand. That's one 2868
way, or we could have a Commissioner come and speak. It's a public meeting, and 2869
there'll be time to speak. The Commission and management support staff can give a 2870
recommendation. 2871
2872
Commissioner Lauing: Even after it gets out of the Committee, we will still do a 2873
resolution as opposed to Council. 2874
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 69
APPROVED
2875
Mr. de Geus: You can. Typically that is the way. The Commission is advisory to the 2876
City Council, not advisory to the Finance Committee. 2877
2878
Commissioner Lauing: That sounds like we can leave it on the agenda for next month, 2879
Keith. Then you can be our liaison. 2880 2881
Council Member Filseth: I encourage you to show up at the Finance Committee sessions. 2882
They're public sessions and there's time for public comment. The one thing I would say 2883
is I haven't been through this personally before. I'm going to find out how it works the 2884
same as you guys are. I expect that probably the Council isn't going to make too many 2885
changes to what comes from the Finance Committee. For what that's worth. 2886
2887
VII. ADJOURNMENT 2888
2889
Meeting adjourned on motion by Vice Chair Markevitch and second by Commissioner 2890
Hetterly at 9:58p.m. 7-0 2891
Approved Minutes April 28, 2015 70