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Home My WebLink About2016-11-16 Parks & Recreation Summary MinutesAPPROVED 1 2 3 4 MINUTES 5 PARKS & RECREATION COMMISSION 6 SPECIAL MEETING 7 November 16, 2016 8 CITY HALL 9 250 Hamilton Avenue 10 Palo Alto, California 11 12 Commissioners Present: Anne Cribbs, Jennifer Hetterly, Abbie Knopper, Ed Lauing, David 13 Moss, Keith Reckdahl 14 Commissioners Absent: Jim Cowie 15 Others Present: 16 Staff Present: Daren Anderson, Rob de Geus, Peter Jensen, Amy Johnson, Kristen O'Kane 17 I. ROLL CALL CONDUCTED BY: Kristen O'Kane 18 19 II. AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, and DELETIONS: 20 21 Chair Lauing: The next item on the agenda is any agenda changes or requests or 22 deletions. Do we have any of those? That stands pat. 23 24 III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS: 25 26 Chair Lauing: Next would be oral communications. Members of the public can address 27 the Commission on any subject that's not on the agenda. If we have a lot of speakers, 28 which happily we do tonight, we're going to allow about 2 minutes per speaker, not for 29 everybody. I have a number of speaker cards that apply to Action Item Number 2. Are 30 there any speakers on something that's not on the agenda? No, okay. 31 32 Approved Minutes 1 APPROVED IV. BUSINESS: 1 2 1. Approval of Draft Minutes from October 25, 2016 Parks and Recreation 3 Commission Meeting. 4 5 Approval of the draft October 25, 2016 Minutes as corrected was moved by 6 Commissioner Hetterly and seconded by Commissioner Cribbs. Passed 4-0 Knopper 7 abstaining 8 9 2. Update on review of Aquatics Program Analysis 10 11 Chair Lauing: The second item on the agenda is an update on the review of the Aquatics 12 Program analysis. I think we should do speakers before you make a presentation. Will 13 that be all right? 14 15 Jazmin LeBlanc: (inaudible) 16 17 Chair Lauing: You want it after, okay. 18 19 Rob de Geus: Good evening, Commissioners. Rob de Geus, Director of Community 20 Services. Good to see you this evening. Jazmin's going to lead us through the 21 presentation. You all know Jazmin, who's our Strategy and Operations Manager. We 22 have a new working title that I'm trying to remember. We also have some guests. We 23 have Tony Batis, who runs the PASA program over here. We have Carol Macpherson in 24 the audience, that has run the Rinconada Masters program for 43 years. They started the 25 program. Two very important partners in our aquatics program. We have Tim Sheeper, 26 who runs the aquatics program—he's at the table here—and was responsive to the RFP 27 that we put out, that we'll talk about again here. We also have a lot of guests. Thank you 28 for coming. That's probably my fault; I invited them here. We've been getting some 29 emails about concerns about potential changes to the schedule and how that might impact 30 some of the programs that exist out there. We want to hear their voices, so I invited them 31 here. I'm glad we've got a good turnout. 32 33 Chair Lauing: That's great. 34 35 Mr. de Geus: With that, I'll pass it onto Jazmin, and we'll get along with the presentation. 36 37 Ms. LeBlanc: Thanks. Jazmin LeBlanc. I'm going to quickly go through where we are 38 and what our program offers right now. Our current aquatics program … 39 40 Male: Could you use a microphone please? 41 42 Approved Minutes 2 APPROVED Ms. LeBlanc: Yeah. Can you guys hear me better? I'm going to speak up. We offer a 1 year-round, adult lap-swim program. In the summers only, we also offer family 2 recreation swim, learn to swim lessons for youth, facility rentals for private pool parties. 3 We have a year-round, competitive youth swim team, PASA Palo Alto Stanford 4 Aquatics, and a year-round, competitive adult swim team, Rinconada Masters. The 5 reason we're all sitting here tonight is because over the last 3 years, we've had trouble 6 staffing the pool, which has gotten to emergency levels in some cases. In addition, we 7 know that customers have been asking for additional hours of pool time and also 8 additional swim lessons. In the summers of 2015 and '16, we ended up having to contract 9 for summer swim lessons with Team Sheeper. They were able to come and do a quick 10 response to our RFP to get summer swim lessons to occur. We could not get enough staff 11 to provide the lessons that we had put in our catalogs. We continue to see staffing 12 shortages while we frequently have to call on the Recreation Coordinator to come sit and 13 actually work as a lifeguard into the fall. We even need to use Team Sheeper's staff just 14 on an hourly basis to keep the lap swim program running as it is right now. In terms of 15 the increased demand, when we looked at some recent years for youth swimming lessons, 16 we could see that 50 percent of our lessons were full or wait-listed and that 70 percent of 17 the swim lesson participants indicated to us that they would enroll in swim lessons if they 18 were offered in the spring or fall. In addition to that, we've done some pretty in-depth 19 surveys where we've gotten responses back indicating that half of the residents here 20 would like to have more opportunities for recreational swimming. That's important or 21 very important to these residents. We would like to be responsive to the needs of City 22 residents. We are hoping to achieve the following with our Aquatics Program. We're 23 hoping to be able to expand the swim lesson season and also provide more evening and 24 weekend lessons, which are the most impacted times. We don't offer weekend lessons 25 now, but evenings are the most impacted times. We'd also really like to respond to 26 customer demands to increase recreational swimming, and we'd like to add open hours 27 for lap swim and recreational swimming outside of the 9:00 to 5:00 weekday hours. We 28 issued a Request for Proposal in December '15 that allowed for respondents to propose 29 operations of any and all pieces of the swim program that we have. We received two 30 proposals, and we went forward with Team Sheeper's bid. We felt that it was the best bid 31 that we got. The criteria that we used. We're looking at City and resident costs; the 32 quality of the service and customer satisfaction; and the diversity of programming and 33 accessibility that we saw in those proposals. To continue on that, we really are aiming to 34 try to make this program better. That's our goal. We want to be able to support the 35 existing programs that we already have, which is Rinconada Masters, PASA, lap swim, 36 recreation swim, learn to swim lessons, and aquatic exercise programs. Actually we don't 37 have that yet, but it would be great if we did. We'd like to develop and grow existing 38 programs where we have capacity, and be sure that we are really efficiently scheduling 39 the use of the pool to balance increasing demand and making our programs more 40 successful and making sure that all residents feel like they have good access to the pool. 41 I'm going to let Rob chime in here. 42 Approved Minutes 3 APPROVED 1 Mr. de Geus: Thank you, Jazmin. I think the last slide is an important one, and 2 important for the members of the public that are here to understand. While we're trying 3 to solve a problem at the pool, particularly related to swim lessons, where we just aren't 4 able to staff up sufficiently to meet the demand, we also think that there is opportunity to 5 improve the Aquatics Program overall. I know that our Rinconada Masters head coach, 6 Carol, believes that too, and so does Tony. We think Tim has a pretty innovative way of 7 thinking and can be a great help to us in the Aquatics Program. Having said that, I don't 8 think we're there yet in terms of what we would like to recommend. We have these seven 9 sort of program areas. With the learn to swim program, we're at a point where we have 10 enough information that we would like to go to the City Council and lock in a contract 11 for Team Sheeper, Tim and his group, to continue the swim lesson program as he's done 12 for the last 2 years. In addition to that, expand the lesson program into the spring and 13 into the fall. We have many families that would like their kids to learn to swim in 14 advance of summer. We're not providing that opportunity and that need. It's a real safety 15 need. We have the pool sitting idle frequently in the spring. I'm talking mostly about the 16 children's pool, the cloverleaf pool. The expanded lesson program will largely be in that 17 pool. We're ready to make that commitment. We think that Team Sheeper can also help 18 support and grow some of the other program areas, but we need more time. We need 19 more time to hear from the public, from the Masters swimmers, the lap swimmers, the 20 families that swim with PASA and also from those that don't swim at all yet. They just 21 don't have access. The times just don't work for them. To understand that voice, which 22 is a very important one. As far as we are this evening, our recommendation is really 23 about expanding the learn to swim program with more outreach to occur for the other 24 programs. We think that'll take a couple of months really to give that enough time to 25 understand how we might improve the overall Aquatics Program. 26 27 Ms. LeBlanc: This is our proposed learn to swim program with Team Sheeper. What 28 you can see is there is an increase in pricing, but we have done what we think is a—we 29 have focused in on group youth swim lessons to try to keep the prices as low as possible 30 and to still be accessible to our residents. You can see that we're proposing actually a $6 31 subsidy that the City would cover for residents doing group youth swim lessons. You can 32 see there is an increase in the other lesson prices. We would point out that we've been 33 paying for this subsidy. We've been paying the nexus of roughly $40 per lesson per 34 student who's coming in for private youth lessons for the last 2 years. It limits how many 35 lessons we're able to offer. In some way, that's nice that we can give people a really low-36 cost way to get private youth lessons. On the other hand, it means that we can only 37 provide so many. What Team Sheeper is proposing is to be able to provide quite a bit 38 more in the learn to swim program for a longer period of time and more lessons in 39 general. 40 41 Approved Minutes 4 APPROVED Commissioner Reckdahl: Is only the group youth lessons—is that the only one that has 1 the subsidy? 2 3 Ms. LeBlanc: Yes. 4 5 Commissioner Reckdahl: All those prices are at cost then? 6 7 Ms. LeBlanc: Yes. 8 9 Mr. de Geus: That's a good question, Commissioner Reckdahl. The last time we spoke 10 about this which was September—was that right? Our understanding is that one of the 11 chief concerns that the Commission had was the group lessons and to make sure that 12 they're affordable, that they wouldn't be a barrier for a family to have their kids learn to 13 swim because of cost. We have a very, very low fee right now. Even if we were to 14 continue the program in-house, we would increase the fees to be closer to what other 15 public pools are charging. As we looked at this, we thought if we balanced the cost of 16 additional swim lessons with residents where the City's subsidizing half of the increase 17 and then the resident the other half, that's a reasonable compromise. We can add many 18 more offerings of swim lessons throughout the spring, summer and fall. 19 20 Commissioner Cribbs: I had a question about the adult lessons, the private adult lessons. 21 How are the charges for those? 22 23 Mr. de Geus: I understand we currently have an outside vendor already providing 24 support for the outdoor swim lessons. We have a special contractor that helps us with 25 that. 26 27 Commissioner Cribbs: They're now at 64 for residents, and then you're recommending 28 37? 29 30 Mr. de Geus: That's Tim Sheeper's proposal. 31 32 Ms. LeBlanc: It's a different model that they're proposing. 33 34 Mr. de Geus: Our lessons are an hour, and his are 30 minutes. 35 36 Commissioner Cribbs: I get it. Thank you. 37 38 Mr. de Geus: Carrying on with the learn to swim program, which is really the change 39 that staff is recommending at this time. It's not such a great change, because we had Tim 40 and his group provide the lessons for the last 2 years and have done a good job. But 41 expand the program. I mentioned that we would invite Tim this time around so that you 42 Approved Minutes 5 APPROVED could hear a little more about his program and how it's different and some of the unique 1 things that he provides. I've had a chance to get to know Tim and his team somewhat and 2 have been over to the pool they manage in Menlo Park. I think they do a very good job. 3 That's not to say we want exactly what they have in Menlo Park. We don't, I think, for a 4 whole lot of reasons. Tim is here to provide a service for Palo Alto residents and what 5 fits with our group. This shows you an example of how many increased lessons and 6 times of the year that we'll have lessons. Tim, if you wouldn't mind sharing a little bit 7 about your program and how you see the differences that a family and kids will 8 experience swim lessons with your program versus the one we've been operating. 9 10 Tim Sheeper: Yes, absolutely. Thanks for allowing me to come to talk to you tonight. 11 This table helps us out. It shows that currently there's 9 weeks of swim lessons offered 12 for the community. Our proposal is to do 30 weeks. What that is, is 10 weeks before 13 summer, pretty much the 10 weeks of summer, and then the 10 weeks following summer 14 to give you 30. Instead of running the model where it's 4 days a week of swim lessons, 15 where a family could sign up for 2 weeks in a row and get eight lessons, there's a couple 16 of options. First, we'll offer lessons 7 days a week. In the summer, they could still go 17 with that model of the session base which the community is used to, or they can go on a 18 perpetual model, which is getting a lesson every week at a day and time that they pick. 19 We could run a hybrid model with what the City currently has and something that will 20 allow people to do a perpetual basis for the 30 weeks, much like booking a piano lesson 21 or a karate lesson or something per week. The different levels of instruction. Palo Alto 22 currently has seven different levels, and ours would be a little broader. We'd offer 13 23 different levels. We'd add a water babies, water tots, swimming essentials, and then a 24 bunch of different levels on top at the higher end. We call them swim lessons elite and so 25 on. There's just a little broader range of offerings. In the table, it talks about the number 26 of aquatics camps. We're also talking about giving swim lessons in a week-long aquatic 27 camp, which is really popular. They can get a 45-minute swim lesson as part of their day 28 camp where they're at the aquatics center for 5 hours, and they get their swim lesson. 29 Maybe I could talk a little bit about the difference in our swim lesson or what we try to 30 do with our swim lessons. Ours is very skill based. We teach one skill, and we focus on 31 one skill at a time in our swim lessons. We get the individuals, the students to get a 32 mastery of that skill. We have them perform that three times before they move onto the 33 next skill. It's a layered system; they can't move on until they perfect one skill. It helps 34 to build a really strong foundationally sound swimmer rather than just somebody who can 35 be safe in the water. Of course, they're safe in the water, but it builds lifelong swimmers. 36 37 Mr. de Geus: We're almost finished with our presentation. Thank you, Tim, for that. 38 You'll have a chance, of course, to ask questions of us and Tim. Now, we need to think 39 about the other programs that exist at the pool and how might we evaluate what we can 40 do there. The main thing I might iterate here is that we're not looking to change the 41 existing programs in a negative way. Some of the emails that have been coming in 42 Approved Minutes 6 APPROVED suggested that's an interest. It's not. We want to manage and operate the pool in a 1 responsible way and be good stewards of this great asset, and see if we can have more 2 Palo Alto residents take advantage of it. How do we do that? That's really the question. 3 I think with the swim lesson program, Tim provides a great solution. I think there may 4 be other improvements we can make to the overall program. I look forward to talking 5 with the swimmers more about what that might be. We could improve opportunities for 6 lap swimmers. I'm confident we can. I've talked with Carol at length many times about 7 the Masters program and her interest in growing that program. We don't want to grow it 8 without her; we want to grow it with her, with Carol and Tim working together to build 9 the Masters program in a way that doesn't take away from what exists today but builds on 10 it. I think it would be a wonderful thing, and we'd get more Palo Alto residents 11 participating in that great program with Carol as the head coach, of course. The same is 12 true for the PASA program, which certainly seems like it's at capacity. I was at a meet 13 the other week, and it was a zoo out there. There's also limits to what the pool can 14 handle. If I'm hearing some of the concerns correctly, the pool is at capacity at certain 15 times. In the mornings in particular, I think that's the case. It really isn't going to be an 16 opportunity to do a whole lot. We think there is an opportunity to do a little more sharing 17 in different ways, and we would like to test some of that. Where it is at capacity, adding 18 just more program is going to diminish the experience for everyone. We're not interested 19 in doing that. In any case, we're going to work with the different groups and the 20 swimmers to see how we might operate the pool more effectively and not only support 21 the existing programs but grow those programs. Over the next couple of months, we 22 hope to be able to come back to the Commission in the new year with some additional 23 recommendations. That's where we are. Next slide, I think. This is just an example of 24 the current schedule that we have. We have a very sort of block-type schedule, where 25 one group uses the entire pool. They stop, and another group comes, and they use the 26 entire pool. We're still looking at the data closely. Is it really using the pool in the best 27 way? Is it at capacity at all these times? Is there an opportunity to do a little more 28 without compromising existing activity and programs? We think there is. We've drafted 29 a few different schedules to sort of play around with some ideas, but we don't have 30 anything really yet to propose. We think there's opportunity. This is another time—Tim, 31 maybe you can help a little bit, talk about a more integrated Aquatics Program overall. I 32 have to say I have some interest in that. When we run a program—I think about the golf 33 course which we operate also. We have a maintenance company that's a standalone 34 maintenance company. We have a restaurateur that's a standalone restaurateur. We have 35 a golf professional, Brad Lozares, who's a separate group. We have the City that's also—36 we're trying to make sure that everybody's on the same page and we're running a 37 seamless golf course where the customer doesn't see the differences in customer service. 38 It's challenging. It's not very efficient. If we can have a more integrated program, where 39 there is an operator that's overseeing more of the programs so that they can be sensible, 40 efficiency sharing of the pool. We think there's an opportunity there that will result in 41 more residents having access to the pool and participating in the program, able to lap 42 Approved Minutes 7 APPROVED swim, able to join the Masters program, things like that. Tim will share what's happening 1 at the Burgess pool. They have a very integrated program there. My experience in 2 observing that is it's very interesting to see, but it does seem overwhelming to me and, I 3 think, probably not what Palo Alto wants to see at Rinconada. We're not bringing Tim in 4 to replicate what's at Burgess. He's coming in to provide a service for Palo Alto 5 residents, and it has to be in Palo Alto residents' interests. He understands that, as do I. 6 We have to understand what is in their interests, and that's the process we're going 7 through now. Tim, if you wouldn't mind talking a little bit about that integration. 8 9 Mr. Sheeper: Looking at the current summer schedule that you have up, it's a 10 combination of the block schedule that you talked about and the integrated schedule. 11 You have a little bit of both. For example, the morning is the block schedule. The 12 afternoon and the evening is integrative. Just to use and see more of that integrative 13 throughout the entire day is the direction that I would like to see with Rinconada pool. 14 It's something that's already in place; I'd just like to see a little more of it so that the pool 15 is serving more of the community more of the time. 16 17 Mr. de Geus: This is the non-summer schedule. Again, we think there's opportunity here 18 to do some more integration, even more of a block schedule here. By the way, this is just 19 the main pool, not the children's pool. The children's pool schedule is closed essentially 20 much of the time outside of summer. We'd like to open that up for more recreation 21 swimming, more swim lessons. Even some periods of time during the non-summer 22 schedule, even the main pool doesn't have activity. That's the yellow maintenance time. 23 There's an opportunity for maybe more lap swim, additional aquatic programs that the 24 community might be interested in. I think we're at the last slide. Is that right, Jazmin? 25 We're at a point that we would aim to recommend a contract with Team Sheeper for the 26 learn to swim program. We have a catalog that we need to put out for the summer. 27 There's some urgency there. We've put it together already, and it gets printed in late 28 December and out in January. We have our summer camp fair and all those things. We 29 do need to know what we're planning to do with the swim lesson program. Very much 30 would love to be able to offer an expanded swim lesson program for residents this spring, 31 if we can do it, and I think we can. As far as any changes to the other programs at this 32 time, not recommending any at this time. Interested in hearing from the variety of user 33 groups. We've done a couple of surveys. There's a survey out currently, which we've 34 received a couple hundred responses on. It's really interesting. We certainly are hearing 35 that people want to see more access and more opportunity for their different swimming 36 interests and needs. We'll be doing additional intercept surveys. Just going to the pool 37 and talking to people, particularly important with lap swimmers that aren't an organized 38 group. They just come, and some come very regularly, some obviously not as regularly. 39 Just trying to get a sense of where they're at. Perhaps a community meeting we're 40 thinking also. We're continuing to study the data and looking at each of the months of 41 the year and what have we been experiencing in terms of lap swim or Masters, when they 42 Approved Minutes 8 APPROVED have 14 lanes and at that particular time of the day, is it at capacity and we have all 1 swimmers or are several lanes empty frequently. If that's the case, is there an opportunity 2 there that we could more efficiently use the pool? That's where we are. That's the next 3 steps, and then back to the Commission in January/February timeframe. 4 5 Chair Lauing: What's that going to be? More recommendations? 6 7 Mr. de Geus: It could be. I think so. We'd see if we think it does make sense to expand 8 Tim's contract to support some of these other areas. I have to say we're working closely 9 with Tony from PASA and Carol with Rinconada Masters and meeting together as a 10 group and with Tim to understand what their interests are, how they want to grow the 11 program, where they think it's going to be a real problem. We had a couple of schedules 12 that we put out as an example, and it was clearly going to be a problem for at least one of 13 the programs. That's exactly what we need to know, so then we adapt and see what is 14 just the right fit. They've been great, by the way, Carol and Tony, extremely supportive 15 and have been doing a phenomenal job for many years for Palo Alto. I don't want to 16 speak for them, but I think there's real hope here for improving and enhancing their 17 programs as well as the overall program for Palo Alto. With that, happy to answer any 18 questions or listen to the public. 19 20 Chair Lauing: We really welcome all of you. Love to hear voices directly from the 21 public. I'm pretty sure this group here is more than all we've seen in 2017, which is great. 22 It shows interest around this. We also have quite a few speaker cards. I'd like you to be 23 sort of prompt. I'll announce who going to go up, and then who's going to be next so you 24 can get ready. Assuming that there's going to be some overlap in some of the comments, 25 which is fine, we'd like to keep it to 2 minutes because we have about 20 speaker cards 26 here. That's going to take a while to get through. Twenty-one. To give everybody a 27 chance, we're going to run a timer here and be somewhat strict about that just in the spirit 28 of cooperation. The first person—you need to use the mike because this is all being 29 recorded as well as being broadcast. You need to be at the mike so that we can record. 30 Yes, Commissioner Cribbs. 31 32 Commissioner Cribbs: Thank you very much. I just wanted to say in the interest of full 33 disclosure, as I'm sitting here as a Commissioner, I have known Carol Macpherson since 34 we were kids together and swam at Santa Clara Swim Club. I also sat in the room where 35 she and Tom Osborne and Cindy Baxter and I started the Masters program at Rinconada, 36 when we were looking for a place so that the swimming could go on year-round. I have a 37 real attachment to Rinconada Masters. I have been a member, but I'm not currently. I 38 coached at Palo Alto Swim Club in the 1980s and know Tony and Tisha incredibly well. 39 I'm so proud of what they've done for Palo Alto, carrying the name forward in the 40 swimming world. I'm also on the Board of Directors of the Rich May Foundation. We 41 recently, within the last year, hired Team Sheeper to monitor and take care of our field in 42 Approved Minutes 9 APPROVED East Palo Alto. He is absolutely doing a great job. Those are my connections as I'm 1 asking questions. I thought everybody should know that. I'm also so happy to see all the 2 swimmers in the audience. Thank you. 3 4 Chair Lauing: The first speaker is going to be David Levison, to be followed by Carol 5 Macpherson. These are pretty much in the order that we got them submitted. 6 7 David Levison: I've been a member of the Rinconada Masters swimming program for 40 8 years. Carol Macpherson has been my coach the whole time along with Cindy Baxter, 9 who retired several years ago. One of the reasons I moved to Palo Alto was to be close to 10 Rinconada pool so I could ride my bike to the workouts. In college, I was on the 11 swimming team, but I was a relatively mediocre swimmer. I always believed I had more 12 potential than I had demonstrated. In the Rinconada Masters program, coaches Carol and 13 Cindy worked with me and developed my stroke mechanics and conditioning to such an 14 extent that I won eight national titles over the years including several in the grueling 400 15 meter individual medley and 200 meter butterfly. Now that I am 66 years old and retired 16 as a competitor, I depend on the Rinconada Masters program, which has been such a 17 major part of my life, to keep me healthy and fit. You might imagine that it came as a 18 great shock to me when I found out that seemingly out of the blue and without consulting 19 any of us swimmers, the City is proposing to degrade both the Rinconada Masters 20 program and the lap swimming program by going from the present system, which nearly 21 every swimmer in both groups is happy with, to a poorly thought out hybrid system, 22 which we don't need or want. Right now the lap swimmers have exclusive use of all 14 23 lanes early mornings on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, and the Rinconada Masters 24 have exclusive use of all 14 lanes early mornings on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays. 25 Giving us each seven lanes six days a week during the same time period is unworkable. 26 Lap swimmers want to do their own thing, but Masters swimming involves organized 27 workouts and timed swims. Trying to combine the two during the same time period 28 would lead to chaos. Please leave our mornings status quo. It would be a personal 29 disaster for me if the Rinconada Masters swimming program I have been perfectly happy 30 with for 40 years were to be destroyed. 31 32 Chair Lauing: Thank you. After Carol will be Anne Harrington. After Carol. 33 34 Carol Macpherson: Am I next? 35 36 Chair Lauing: Yeah, you're next, definitely. 37 38 Ms. Macpherson: I'm going to read mine so it'll be faster, so I can stay within the 2 39 minutes. 40 41 Chair Lauing: Thank you. 42 Approved Minutes 10 APPROVED 1 Ms. Macpherson: My name is Carol Macpherson, coach and founder of Rinconada 2 Masters along with Cindy Baxter, who's retired. In 1973, we started Rinconada Masters, 3 and we were the second Masters team on the Peninsula, San Mateo being the first. 4 Within 1 year, we had over 100 swimmers. Rinconada ran two national meets at Santa 5 Clara within the first year and won the first one with 90 competitors; competed in the 6 World Games at Stanford in 2006 with 27 relays, being four person per relay. We had a 7 lot of swimmers at that time. Anne Cribbs ran that. Every year we put on a meet at the 8 Rinconada Pool, which is for the community of swimming in the Pacific Association. 9 We do that to help out with meets like the Pacific does the same thing. Let me get my 10 place. Since then we have evolved to more of a conditioning team but have still 11 swimmers competing in meets, open waters and triathlons. We have trained three 12 swimmers for the English Channel, which all three of them made it. That was good. 13 That's like 26 miles or something. It's grueling. We also trained a swimmer who just 14 recently—Jeff, who's here tonight—swam the straits of Gibraltar. We have a new, 15 revised website now and are attracting more swimmers each month. We are now slowly 16 building our numbers back up. We need the Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday 17 and Sunday workout times to stay the same. That is where most of my swimmers train. 18 We are willing to share the Tuesday, Thursday and Tuesday, Thursday night. Tuesday, 19 Thursday night we're already sharing with Palo Alto Swim Club. We've been doing that 20 for 3 years. The noontime is just hard for people. During the summer, my swimmers 21 don't want to come because there's so many kids in that dressing room, it's not worth even 22 looking at. It's bad. Swim for fitness was a program that I founded 3 years ago, and that 23 was to feed into the Masters program. I take adults, some that can't swim, some that just 24 want stroke technique, and I train them so they can move into the Masters team with no 25 problem. The Masters do not need the other hours at this point. It was suggested by 26 Team Sheeper that we take Tuesday and Thursday for Masters. Right now, we really 27 want to build our Monday, Wednesday, Friday program. When we overflow with that, 28 then going into Tuesday, Thursday would be an option, but right now we don't need that. 29 Just as a matter of fact, when I was 7 years old I learned to swim at Rinconada. I've been 30 there forever. We've been there 43 years with the Masters team. Also years ago, Cindy 31 Baxter and I taught swimming lessons at the Rinconada pool for about 10 or 12 years, I 32 think. We did that there too. What I would like is a 3-year subcontract with Sheeper or 33 the City and to see what happens after the 3 years. Thank you. 34 35 Chair Lauing: Thank you. Anne Harrington, and next up will be Gwen Fisher. Please 36 try to stay to the 2 minutes. 37 38 Anne Harrington: Good evening. I'm Anne Harrington, a longtime resident and a 39 longtime lap swimmer, one of the … There are a number of things I thought about 40 speaking about, but I'm just going to talk about two things. I'm really glad to hear that 41 there's going to be increased outreach to the lap swimmers and recreational swimmers. 42 Approved Minutes 11 APPROVED This has come as somewhat of a shock. I certainly second keeping Tuesday, Thursday 1 morning for the lap swimmers, because that's when people who work come and swim. I 2 have reservations about the way the financial arrangements are being set up, as described. 3 There's been a lot of discussion about this pool as an asset, and it really is. A setup where 4 90 percent of profits are going to another organization while the City is bearing the 5 operational cost, the ongoing expenditures and maintenance and depreciation doesn't 6 seem like a very good return on investment to me. My main concern is this pool is a 7 community asset. It's been built with the dollars and good will of the community over 8 many, many years. To turn it over to an outside organization, essentially giving up 9 control while bearing the cost, would truly be a privatization of a public asset. I don't 10 think we want to see that. City staff would be relinquishing control, having no say over 11 the schedule or daily operations essentially. I know the Master Plan recognizes that there 12 might be benefits from public-private joint ventures, but this isn't like the Magic Bridge 13 joint development. This is turning a public asset over to a private entity to run and profit 14 from. At a time when there is increasing pressure nationwide to privatize our parks, 15 please don't do that here. 16 17 Chair Lauing: Thank you. 18 19 Ms. Harrington: Palo Alto can and should do better than that. Find a way to manage the 20 pool in-house or a minimum arrangement that doesn't cede total control. 21 22 Chair Lauing: Linda Fletcher, you're up. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Did I skip Gwen? 23 24 Gwen Fisher: I'm Gwen. 25 26 Chair Lauing: Good, good, good. 27 28 Ms. Fisher: As I said, I'm Gwen Fisher. I've been a Palo Alto resident for about 15 29 years. I've been a user of the pool for 15 years. All my children learned to swim there. I 30 was a lifelong runner; my knees have told me no. I have been a lap swimmer for 9 years, 31 4 days a week for 9 years, committed lap swimmer on Tuesday, Thursdays. As a non-lap 32 swimmer, I can understand. When you look at Team Sheeper's proposal, that looks like a 33 great idea. We all share; we all get a little. Let me give you a visual. Think about 34 somebody who says to a football team, a baseball team and a soccer team, "You're all 35 going to use the same turf for your practice. You're all athletes. You'll all get a little. No 36 problem. Your workouts will be great." It doesn't work. The same with the sharing of 37 our pool. We are different types of athletes, different types of swimmers. We have 38 different needs, different wants. In our group, the lap swimmer group, we have 39 everything from octogenarians to pregnant moms to women and men rehabbing injuries, 40 post-surgery rehab, me being one of those. I couldn't have rehabbed my shoulder in the 41 pool if I had to share these lanes with everybody. To think that would work is very 42 Approved Minutes 12 APPROVED misleading. I want to give you some numbers from just yesterday morning, a chilly, dark 1 November morning prior to the Thanksgiving holiday. Pool opens at 6:00. 6:04, 17 2 swimmers in the pool. That's already more than—that's one swimmer per lane with 3 several having more than that. At 6:40, I got out, and I counted the numbers. Twenty-4 seven swimmers were swimming; three were getting ready to get in. Thirty swimmers at 5 about 6:45. Team Sheeper's plan is proposing that all 30 are swimming in six lanes. My 6 arm span is just a little bit short of what the width of the lane is. His proposal is to have 7 five of us swimming and sharing that space and figuring out a way to make that work. 8 We don't have a coach that organizes us by speed or technique. We would have to fight 9 and muddle and figure out a way to do it. It won't work. It won't work. Masters is happy 10 with their schedule. We're happy with our schedule. We don't want more. They don't 11 want more. We're happy. Please leave it as it is. Thank you. 12 13 Chair Lauing: Thank you. 14 15 Linda Fletcher: I can keep this really short, because I can say ditto. I'm Linda Fletcher. 16 I'm a lifelong Palo Alto resident. I'm going to plot my age; I'm 53. I was born swimming 17 at Rinconada pool. I was swimming pregnant. Both my kids swam at Rinconada pool. 18 We're lap swimmers. We're a family. We don't have a person that's heading our 19 program. We don't have somebody that's standing up for us, but look at how much we 20 came out. We support each other. We go to the pool in the morning. We are 21 recuperating; we're pregnant; we are supporting each other through stressful times, no 22 more stressful times than what we're going through right now. Also being a teacher, we 23 are telling our kids we're really striving for wellness in our community. There's nothing 24 better than getting in the water, relaxing. If we have to change that by crowding into 25 lanes and sharing and trying to join Masters and do a workout that's scheduled, that's 26 timed, it doesn't work for all of us. Our family sat with Masters swimmers outside. 27 We're all in agreement we like sharing the pool. We can work this out. For our 28 wellbeing, please listen to our families. Thanks. 29 30 Chair Lauing: Cathy Mak is next up, followed by Cindy Ainsworth. 31 32 Cathy Mak: Hi, I'm Cathy Mak, and I'm also a Palo Alto resident. I've been swimming 33 for almost 10 years at the pool now as a recreational lap swimmer. I go early in the 34 morning before I go to work, before my kids get up and get them out the door to school. 35 I love the loose knit community of people that I swim with in the mornings, but we all 36 have our own styles of swimming and we all have our own speeds. We're just there to do 37 what we want and what we love. I think that speaks strongly that the block schedule 38 that's currently in place, as people have mentioned before, works best, where lap 39 swimmers can swim at their pace and in their space, and Masters swimmers have their 40 own dedicated time in the pool to help them achieve the goals that they want to as 41 Masters swimmers. I understand that the status quo of the pool might not work now, and 42 Approved Minutes 13 APPROVED there's many issues with swim lessons, which I don't really fully appreciate. I think that's 1 something that can be worked out on a part-time basis. I think the wholesale handing 2 over the pool to private management is not in the interest of the community, and it's not 3 in the interest of the swimmers. It would be best if the City takes their timeline that was 4 proposed in their September meeting, which was handing over the pool to management 5 by January of 2017, to reconsider that and say, "Is this something we should bring to the 6 broader community? Is this something that we should think about not wanting to give up 7 this valuable resource and not give it to a private investor?" Thank you. 8 9 Chair Lauing: Cindy Ainsworth next, followed by Timothy Groves. 10 11 Cindy Ainsworth. I'm Cindy. I've lived in Palo Alto—I don't know—35 years probably. 12 I've been a lap swimmer at Rinconada most of that time. I think people have already 13 made clear that the block schedule—we really like the block scheduling, the way it 14 works. I just want to acknowledge the City for having listened to us. If you want people 15 to work with you on tweaking the schedule, clearly you have lots of people who would 16 really love to help you find a schedule that's going to work. 17 18 Chair Lauing: Timothy and then Terri Baxter-Smith. 19 20 Timothy Groves; Hi. I'm Tim Groves. I'm a Palo Alto resident. I first joined the 21 Rinconada Masters in 1978. I'll just say two things briefly. One is it's a great program. 22 As long as I can remember, we've relied on Monday, Wednesday, Friday in the early 23 mornings. I'd sure love to see that continue. If there needed to be a safety valve, it might 24 be in midday or evenings as Carol suggests. I'd also like to say that—I might be stepping 25 outside my expertise here—it's normal for the City to have contractors to do things on the 26 assumption that contractors know what they're doing. I think Tim Sheeper knows what 27 he's doing. At that point, it becomes a matter of (inaudible) the services. Thank you. 28 29 Chair Lauing: Thanks very much. Terri, Terri Baxter-Smith. Next up is Richard—30 excuse me—Hermance. 31 32 Terri Baxter-Smith: I will talk really fast here. I am Terri Baxter-Smith, assistant coach 33 of Rinconada Masters. I am the daughter of Rinconada Masters cofounder Cindy Baxter. 34 Graduated from Paly High School in 1982. My mother and father graduated from Paly in 35 1949 and 1950. All my aunts and uncles and brothers and sisters graduated from Paly. I 36 say this because of my connection to our community and also to Rinconada Masters. I'm 37 a 1980 Olympian. I made the 1987 Pan American Games. My background in aquatics is 38 quite extensive. I was a YMCA aquatics directors in western Pennsylvania and assistant 39 pool director at Franklin & Marshall College in central Pennsylvania, and I coached age 40 group swimmers for 13 years. Rinconada Masters has always had a contract since our 41 inception in 1973 with the City of Palo Alto. We are a self-governing entity with an 42 Approved Minutes 14 APPROVED advisory board. We have put together just recently a recruiting committee. We purchase 1 our own equipment, and our coaches are certified by United States Masters Swimming; 2 therefore, we need no lifeguards on the pool when we're swimming. Our main concern is 3 the reduction in lane availability beginning the summer of 2017. Our most popular 4 workout times are Monday, Wednesday, Friday mornings and Saturday and Sunday 5 mornings. Our team finds it necessary to keep the 14 lanes available to use and not 6 reduce it down to eight lanes on the weekdays and ten lanes on Saturdays and Sundays. 7 Our Masters swimmers are not opposed to having multiple people in a lane to share lanes. 8 When having multiple people in one lane, the swimmers need to be of the same ability 9 level; that is extremely important. We have a very diverse group of swimmers on our 10 team. They consist of competitive and noncompetitive swimmers of all ability levels, 11 people who swim for rehab, people who swim due to health issues. We have 80 and 90 12 year olds on our swim team, and we also have swim for fitness on the weekends. Carol 13 and I can accommodate and coach all of these wide range of abilities and needs. 14 15 Chair Lauing: Thank you. 16 17 Ms. Baxter-Smith: To condense these groups down to eight lanes or nine lanes, I assure 18 you we will lose swimmers. They will not have fun. Their fitness routine will be 19 compromised, and they will go elsewhere. Our goal is to increase our membership but at 20 the same time make swimming for the Rinconada Masters enjoyable, meaningful 21 experiences for all ability and physical levels. Thank you and … 22 23 Chair Lauing: Thanks. 24 25 Ms. Baxter-Smith: … happy Thanksgiving. 26 27 Chair Lauing: Richard, and next up is Barbara Reeder, if I have that right. Go ahead, 28 Richard. 29 30 Richard Hermance: My name is Richard Hermance. My wife and I have lived in Palo 31 Alto for 35 years, and we've been lap swimmers at Rinconada pool for 35 years. We 32 were surprised when 2 weeks ago we first heard about a proposal to change the 33 management and program at the pool. As longtime lap swimmers, we were disappointed 34 that our inputs were not solicited prior to issuing the RFP. I realize that you are only 35 being asked tonight to approve employing Team Sheeper to manage the swimming 36 lessons program for summer 2017. However, I want to provide you some inputs 37 regarding the proposed changes to the lap swimming schedule that Team Sheeper 38 included in his response to your RFP. We swim three times a week at either the early 39 morning lap swim or the noon lap swim. Usually there are two swimmers in each lane, 40 and this has been a consistent number over the years during these peak demand times. 41 Mr. Sheeper's proposed plan adds lap swim hours throughout the day but cuts down the 42 Approved Minutes 15 APPROVED lanes during high-use periods. Reducing the number of lanes during high-use times 1 forces three or four people into each lane, which is not satisfactory as you've already 2 heard. Lap swimming during the current early morning hours and midday peak demand 3 times needs to be a dedicated activity using all of the lanes to best meet the needs of 4 working people. In addition, I question the need to outsource the management to a third 5 party. The pool has always been a unique benefit for Palo Alto residents, and the City 6 should be able to provide the programming and services that will best satisfy the needs of 7 our residents. For example, Team Sheeper is going to raise the rates to use the pool. The 8 City should be able to do this. Team Sheeper is going to increase the salary for 9 lifeguards. The City should be able to do this. Finally, the City already has employees, 10 namely Tyler Stetson, who do a terrific job and understand better than anyone the needs 11 of lap swimmers. His knowledge, work ethic and people skills cannot be outsourced. 12 13 Chair Lauing: Barbara Reeder and then Jeff Everett. 14 15 Barbara Reeder: Hello. My name is Barbara Reeder, and I have lived in the same house 16 in Palo Alto about 4 1/2 blocks since November of 1962. I'm a lap swimmer. I've taken 17 my children to that pool along with their neighborhood friends, my grandchildren. My 18 husband and I are noontime lap swimmers. I call it our exercise, play and stress 19 reduction. It has definitely contributed to my health and wellness. I think it is really sad 20 to see the changes—hear about the changes that are being proposed. There is some 21 sharing that goes on during noontime. There's someone that gives a lesson in one lane. 22 I've only noticed that there's one student. I don't think that there's a huge demand for the 23 lessons. I think Tyler Stetson, particularly this last summer, did a remarkable job as far 24 as accommodating noontime lap swimmers with the children's swim program. It worked 25 really smoothly as far as I was concerned. The other observation that I made during this 26 past year is that there was a delightful young woman who offered free Zumba lessons, 27 taking one or two lanes. She discontinued those free lessons because they weren't being 28 used. In terms of what's (inaudible), I think that between the Masters program and the 29 lap swimmers, we've been delighted with this community service. I will be unhappy 30 personally to see it substantially change. 31 32 Chair Lauing: Mr. Everett. Thank you. After Mr. Everett is going to be Al Kenrick. 33 34 Jeff Everett: Hi. My name's Jeff Everett. I'm here to speak on behalf of Carol's proposal 35 for the Rinconada Masters. In brief, the access to the night and morning workouts and 36 the quality of the workouts and the attentiveness of the coaching has been a key factor in 37 realizing my dream of swimming the English Channel and most recently the strait of 38 Gibraltar. Thank you, Carol. I hope that we can continue with the great program. Thank 39 you. 40 41 Approved Minutes 16 APPROVED Chair Lauing: That's absolutely terrific. Mr. Kenrick, and then Joanne Chace, I believe it 1 is. 2 3 Al Kenrick: My name's Al Kenrick, and I'm a lifelong resident of Palo Alto. I also 4 learned to swim at Rinconada pool. I'm here to throw my support to not changing the 5 open swim hours. I think the Masters program and the open swim hours both meet 6 different needs. Consistency is really important for any kind of exercise. Having a 7 system that works is working for a lot of people. I've swam at Burgess before, and there 8 was four or five people in a lane. It's just not the same, and it's not very enjoyable. I urge 9 you to not change the current schedule. 10 11 Chair Lauing: Joanne, and then Sharon Sass, I believe. 12 13 Joanne Chace: Hello. My name is Joanne Chace. I've lived in Palo Alto since 1970. I 14 too—thank you, Dave. I'd like to add my support to the notion that the Masters program 15 is working very well as it is, that we need structured workouts, that we can have more 16 people to a lane. I would be very happy, we would all be happy to have more people 17 move into the Masters program. I'm here to say it's not so hard to do. When I joined the 18 program in 1975, I went to talk—I dropped in at the pool; I talked to Carol. I said, "I 19 love to swim, but I don't swim very well. I can swim pretty well, maybe some 100 20 yards." She said, "Can you swim 600 yards?" I said, "I can swim 600 yards I think." I 21 started out in 1976 swimming my 600 yards. I've been swimming for a long time with 22 that program. Now, my morning swim is 3,000 yards. That is the advantage of having 23 good coaching and having structured workouts. I would like to thank Carol and Terri and 24 all the others who put that program together and held it together over the years, and to 25 invite anyone who would like to share my lane with me and work to that length any 26 morning. Come on. When I started the program in 1975, I was in my 40s. Now that I'm 27 doing the 3,000 yards, I'm 83. 28 29 Chair Lauing: That's a longevity program. That's wonderful. Is this Sharon? 30 31 Shawn Sass: Shawn. 32 33 Chair Lauing: Sorry, Shawn. I didn't quite … 34 35 Shawn Sass: My name is Shawn Sass [phonetic]. I'm … 36 37 Chair Lauing: Jay Rosser is next. Excuse me. 38 39 Ms. Sass: I'm both a lap swimmer and a Masters swimmer at Rinconada pool. I've been 40 swimming there for 15 years and love it. I think it's really great to see everybody here 41 tonight considering that 2 weeks ago nobody really knew about this happening. It's really 42 Approved Minutes 17 APPROVED nice to see everybody here and coming out and expressing their opinion. I think a lot of 1 us have a similar viewpoint. One of the biggest issues here is sharing the pool, having 2 shared users at the same time. Right now it really works to have lap swimmers on their 3 day, Masters swimmers on their day. It's a mess when you try and combine them 4 together, because the lap swimmers have their own ages, speeds, strokes, time of arrival. 5 It's very difficult to know if you're going to get a lane or not or if you're going to be 6 sharing with three people, four people. Right now, the way it exists, you know you're 7 probably going to have a lane, maybe two people at the most, occasionally three, rarely. 8 That works for lap swimmers. It's nice to have our Masters team. It's a great team. 9 We've had it for a long time. We have people of all ages who swim on it. We have 10 people who are 90 years old, who are on our team. They kind of need their own lane. It's 11 the one team in this area where these swimmers can come and actually do their workouts 12 and be a part of a group and even compete at that age. Our 90-year-old swimmer 13 competes. I would hate to see that go. I hope in considering the proposed schedule you'll 14 keep all of this in mind and what everybody said here tonight. Everybody is very 15 passionate about this. They came here in short notice to speak what they really feel about 16 this pool. It's a community; it's a core community. It's a culture. It's not just looking at 17 facts and numbers at a desk. It's knowing everybody who swims here and working with 18 them to get a solution that can keep what we have and that culture that we have. Thank 19 you. 20 21 Chair Lauing: Thank you. Jay Rossiter and then Lisa Krieger. 22 23 Jay Rossiter: Hi everybody. It was great to—this is my first time ever being at a City 24 Council meeting. I've lived here for 22 years. This brought me out, and it's great to 25 actually see everybody involved. I'll just be brief because you've already heard a lot from 26 everybody. Since I'm here, I just wanted to—I don't know whether you record each 27 person or what you do. I'm a lap swimmer. One of the key points that I agree with, that 28 I've heard tonight is people who swim, lap or Masters, have different goals and they have 29 different abilities. Especially for many of us, your abilities go up and down and your 30 goals go up and down over time, depending on how you feel and how you're doing 31 physically also. I think what happens is as the pools get denser and usage gets denser, the 32 quality goes down. I know from myself—I swim everywhere. I swim in all countries 33 and cities and pools. When it gets dense, then the quality goes down because you end up 34 with a herd kind of thing going on where you have to keep up with the person in front of 35 you and behind you and that kind of thing. It's really important to not lose your quality of 36 life like we see what's happened in the Bay Area with the traffic by overcrowding the 37 lanes. I learned something tonight. I'm going to actually join Masters now. I didn't 38 realize you had people with different levels of ability. You certainly have that with lap 39 swimmers. If you get too dense, you will actually lose that and the whole quality of life 40 will go down. One of the big reasons of living in Palo Alto are the parks, the pools, the 41 schools. Thank you. 42 Approved Minutes 18 APPROVED 1 Chair Lauing: Thanks. Lisa Krieger and then Scott van der Lippe. 2 3 Lisa Krieger: Hi. Lisa Krieger;; I'm a lap swimmer also. Just want to reiterate what 4 everyone else has already said. As this valley gets more crowded—I commute every day 5 on 101, long distances. The streets are more crowded. The stores are more crowded. 6 Everything's crowded. The pools are Walden Pond. It really is. Just very briefly, for an 7 hour we decompress, and we're with our tribe. We come out stronger. That's what makes 8 this town so great. I brag about it all the time. Please don't take that away from us. 9 Thank you. 10 11 Chair Lauing: Thank you. Scott. 12 13 Scott van der Lippe: Thank you. I'm actually from Los Altos. I know I'm kind of an 14 outsider here. This is my favorite pool. I go to Mountain View; I go to Palo Alto, and I 15 also sometimes go to Menlo Park. I can tell you if I had a choice, I always come to this 16 pool because it's very relaxed. Menlo Park is—what is it—$8. I can swim in Palo Alto 17 for 4. Literally, Sheeper has a nice thing over there, but it's—I kind of look at the cost. 18 I've got to come to Palo Alto because it's a whole lot cheaper. Of course, I like the pool 19 environment; it's so much more relaxed. It's a little high stressed over in Menlo Park, and 20 I hate to see that management style applied to our very nice pool that I've enjoyed for 21 probably 20 years over there. The cost is a big thing. You're going to lose a lot of—a lot 22 of swimmers are going to go, "Eight bucks to swim." You're here for 30 minutes. I'm 23 not going to pay the equivalent of $16 an hour just to swim. That's pretty expensive. 24 Thank you. 25 26 Chair Lauing: Thanks. Again, just overall love to have this kind of turnout on any issue 27 and have direct feedback from our residents. Would you like specific comments now 28 from us on this whole document or are we going to just focus on the item that you want 29 us to talk about tonight? 30 31 Mr. de Geus: I think you can ask questions about any of it, anything that you heard, 32 anything that you heard in the presentation, the concerns that you might have, questions 33 that you have for us for clarification. I would just reiterate that we're not trying to 34 degrade the program. I like hearing the voices about how great the pool is and how great 35 it is for your health and wellness and stress reduction and it's this special place. I think it 36 is. Our interest is how do we make that accessible to more Palo Alto residents without 37 making it a bad experience. I think there's a way we can do that working together. Tim's 38 a great professional. He's here to provide a service for the City of Palo Alto. It's a 39 contract; it's not passing the pool over and then turning away. It's writing a contract that 40 represents the interests of the Palo Alto residents. That can be very specific about 41 schedules and what we would like to see with the Masters program with Carol's 42 Approved Minutes 19 APPROVED leadership. Those are things we define in a contract and monitor it closely. I'll leave it 1 there. Happy to answer questions. 2 3 Chair Lauing: Just on that point, which I think is a very helpful clarification, it's an 4 outsourcing process or a subcontracting process. The City doesn't lose control. You're 5 completely in charge of the contract and the asset of the pool. 6 7 Mr. de Geus: That's correct. It's about how do we best operate the pool in the interest of 8 Palo Alto residents. That's what we're trying to accomplish here. It is supporting the 9 current swimmers. That is one element. There's another piece too, people that don't 10 currently swim because the pool's not available to them when they're available. We need 11 to think about how we can create opportunity for others to have access to this pool. I get 12 the sensitivity. Overcrowding doesn't work. We're not suggesting that, but we do think 13 that some sensible, fair sharing at certain times when there is low demand is possible. 14 15 Chair Lauing: Comments? I'm looking at our resident water sport expert here. If you 16 would like to go first, I think that'd be appropriate. 17 18 Commissioner Cribbs: Thank you very much. First of all, I'd love to say that I think it's 19 great that we have so many people interested here, coming out tonight to share their 20 comments. I think we're going to learn a lot from all of that. I think the staff is excited 21 about that too. Thank you all very, very much. You all know that in September I was 22 concerned about the cost of lessons. I really want to be very careful whatever we do that 23 we make sure that we can offer swimming lessons to all children, because it's so 24 important for kids to learn to swim and for their parents to learn to swim as well. We 25 have a lot of parents who don't swim yet. That's why I was asking the questions about the 26 swimming lessons and if we can subsidize those and keep the cost down and also offer 27 the lessons at a longer time, so that we can utilize the water, so it's not just in the 28 summertime. We start in early April, and what you've suggested is also go through to the 29 fall, because a lot of people want to take swimming lessons. There's a lot of people that 30 go year round. I'd even love to see us do the (inaudible) that we talked about, but I know 31 that's a little bit far in the future. The cost of lessons was a concern for me with this new 32 particular program. I'm okay with that now. I think this will work. I do want to mention, 33 even though we're not talking about doing the lap swimming right now, the cost of the lap 34 swimming for seniors seemed to me to be disturbing. I believe we're increasing the cost 35 for many senior swimmers. We heard some here tonight who are swimming because 36 their knees have gone away. It's important for seniors to have a great outlet to swim as 37 well. Whatever we do with lap swimmers, I hope we don't increase the cost for seniors. 38 Finally, from my perspective I'm very concerned in the future about the background and 39 our relationships with Rinconada Masters and also with PASA. I'd really like to 40 understand in the future, Rob, what the swim teams are going to get from the relationship 41 with Team Sheeper, how that's going to help them in the future. If it does move forward, 42 Approved Minutes 20 APPROVED what the City is going to get from that as well, whether it's just a matter of cost or 1 whether there's are some other benefits that will accrue. I'll stop there and let other 2 people … 3 4 Chair Lauing: It might be best if staff responds as we go. 5 6 Mr. de Geus: Those are good questions, Commissioner Cribbs, and comments. We do 7 have Tyler Stetson on staff. He's a Recreation Coordinator helping oversee the aquatics 8 program. He's one full-time entry-level sort of professional position that we have 9 focused on aquatics. He's doing his best but struggling to staff up the pool. What 10 someone like Tim can bring is a whole team of people and a pool of professional coaches 11 that teach year round and are there to support and develop the existing programs. I would 12 hope that's what we would have. We've talked about Rinconada Masters and we want to 13 grow that program. Carol Macpherson wants to grow the program. You heard some of 14 the Masters swimmers. There's a relatively small group of swimmers in the Masters 15 program. I get they love that they're family. It is relatively small; I want to say it's 56 16 residents or something like that. Carol, something like that, is that correct? 17 18 Ms. Macpherson: We have a lot of drop-in swimmers too that don't show on our 19 numbers. 20 21 Mr. de Geus: We think that if Tim and the knowledge and experience and expertise he 22 brings in aquatics is closely partnered with Carol and the advisors to say, "How might we 23 grow the program into the future that doesn't lose what's really good about it, but allows 24 more Masters swimmers to come join the family," I think that would be more than what 25 we offer with one staff person in Tyler Stetson. 26 27 Commissioner Cribbs: Is there a goal for the Masters swimmers at this point, what you 28 see in the future, how many you'd like to see on the team? 29 30 Mr. de Geus: We haven't defined a goal. We want it to grow. It has been dropping over 31 the years. I would like to see a goal and a plan be developed with Carol and her group 32 and Tim working together. It's still her program. She's going to manage the program and 33 lead the program as the head coach. Tim would want to see them be successful. That's 34 what he wants to do. We're trying to work on what that looks like. If the City does go 35 forward with an expanded contract for Team Sheeper to oversee more operations of the 36 pool, we'll write that into the contract and be pretty specific about expectations of lanes 37 for the different groups that use the pool. If there are going to be changes to the lanes, we 38 can also define how those changes will be made. They won't be made just independently 39 by Tim. We would likely write something in there that there is a process where the City's 40 involved and the key user groups are involved in making those decisions. Does that 41 help? 42 Approved Minutes 21 APPROVED 1 Commissioner Cribbs: Mm hmm. 2 3 Chair Lauing: Commissioner Reckdahl. 4 5 Commissioner Reckdahl: To me, there are kind of two separate issues. One is what are 6 the hours, what's the schedule and who does the management. I suspect that if we had the 7 status quo hours and nothing was going to change with hours, a lot of these people 8 wouldn't be here. Still, besides that, it's important to understand the management. What 9 would be the scope of Team Sheeper's management of the pool? In particular, in page 10 10 it talks about that Team Sheeper would handle the registration. I don't see the benefit to 11 that. Can you talk more about the scope of what would be done by the City if Team 12 Sheeper came in for management and what would be done by Team Sheeper? 13 14 Mr. de Geus: It depends. We haven't defined the scope yet. Team Sheeper bid on all of 15 the programs, so that's part of their proposal. The City can choose to say, "We want you 16 to do one piece of that, two pieces or all the pieces." At this point, we're comfortable 17 with the learn to swim program, that we want to bring him on to do that and lock that in. 18 The other elements of the pool, I think, we're sort of in the process right now of figuring 19 out does that make sense, will there be value added to the program overall. Not only the 20 existing swimmers, but the program overall and potential new swimmers that might enjoy 21 the pool. We don't have that yet, and we don't have a schedule yet either. By the way, 22 when we do have a schedule at some point, if we get to that point, that's also going to be 23 somewhat tentative and flexible to see how the community's responding. Is it working, is 24 it not working? Ultimately it's the residents' pool, and we need to adapt and adjust the 25 schedules that it works for the residents. That's what we'll be aiming to do. That's the 26 contract we'll have with Tim. That's what he's responsible for doing, making sure that 27 happens. Specifically, you asked a question about registration. There is a change there 28 for families that are registering kids for swim lessons. They would no longer do that 29 through the City and the City system. They would do it through Team Sheeper's system. 30 We don't have to do it that way. We could continue to register through the City's system 31 and share the information with them about enrollment. It's not very efficient. We've 32 done that the last 2 years. With swim lessons in particular, there's lots of transferring 33 between classes and lessons. You get the parents whose son is in Level 1 and jumps in 34 the pool, and he's not. He's in Level 3 or something. That happens all the time. These 35 changes happen on the deck. Really it's much more efficient for the operator and the 36 family to have that close connection to be able to make those transfers. That's the added 37 advantage. It's less efficient if we were to continue the registration process. 38 39 Commissioner Reckdahl: Commissioner Cribbs also talked about the importance of 40 having everyone to be able to afford the swim lessons. Currently, we have a financial aid 41 program. Can you describe that? 42 Approved Minutes 22 APPROVED 1 Mr. de Geus: We have a fee reduction program for all of the Community Services 2 programs. That has a cap of $300 per person and a maximum of a 50-percent discount on 3 the fee itself. We would expect and write into the contract that all families would have 4 that same benefit or more when there's an additional scholarship program that Tim has, 5 that can also provide additional discounts beyond what the City is currently offering. 6 7 Commissioner Reckdahl: Who funds this new scholarship program? 8 9 Mr. de Geus: I would ask Tim to explain that. 10 11 Mr. Sheeper: About 4 years ago, we set up a scholarship program through Beyond 12 Barriers Athletic Foundation to subsidize our lessons over at the Belle Haven pool in east 13 Menlo Park. They have subsidized 90 percent of the lessons that have happened over at 14 Belle Haven. Beyond Barriers is currently in discussion with Rob's team about 15 subsidizing the lessons and the programs at Rinconada and JLS. 16 17 Commissioner Reckdahl: This is a separate charity that would be funding this. 18 19 Mr. Sheeper: Correct. 20 21 Commissioner Reckdahl: It wouldn’t come out of the City or it wouldn't come out of 22 Team Sheeper. It'd just be an unaffiliated charity that is just funding lessons. 23 24 Mr. Sheeper: Yes. 25 26 Commissioner Reckdahl: We'd have to have some cooperation with that and the current 27 fee reduction program. 28 29 Ms. LeBlanc: Yeah. If I could just clarify. We haven't determined if we would—we 30 would most likely keep both programs. It is possible that—we have to sort of work out 31 whether we want people to be able to double up on these programs or not. We spoke 32 with Beyond Barriers, some of the Board Members. It seems like a really wonderful 33 opportunity for us to participate. No matter what we do, they're interested in just getting 34 as many kids to learn to swim as possible. They focus in this region. It's a group we'd 35 like to work with. They have some different standards actually. It's kind of boring policy 36 work, but their definition of the poverty level is slightly different than our definition of 37 the poverty level. That's why I wouldn't want to get rid of both; some people are going to 38 qualify for ours but not theirs and so on. 39 40 Commissioner Reckdahl: In the report, you talk about the SEIU and how, for example, 41 we only have the ability to hire staff who work less than 1,000 hours per year. It talks 42 Approved Minutes 23 APPROVED about the impacts of SEIU hourly employment. Can you give us some more details about 1 what happens? 2 3 Ms. LeBlanc: We have right now a certain amount of staff that's budgeted in the 4 program. They are, aside from Tyler, all part-time staff. We have a limit for part-time 5 staff that once they hit 1,000 hours in a year, they become eligible for CalPERS pensions, 6 which dramatically increases the price of providing the service. As soon as we hit half-7 time, we need to increase—the cost goes up for that employee. We really don't try to do 8 that. 9 10 Commissioner Reckdahl: How much does it go up, do you know? Can you give an 11 estimate? 12 13 Ms. LeBlanc: I want to say it's roughly $50,000 per person per year. It's a very big 14 increase. 15 16 Commissioner Reckdahl: Even if they're just a part-time employee, once they hit the 17 1,000 hours you have to shell out 50,000 per. 18 19 Ms. LeBlanc: It's a rate; it's not a flat amount. It's a very expensive rate. The Budget 20 Office and HR can provide more detail on that. Occasionally we do look at that as we're 21 considering adding positions in different places around the department. It suddenly 22 becomes very expensive. 23 24 Commissioner Reckdahl: If we outsource, there's no restrictions and people can work as 25 many as we want and we have no commitment to … 26 27 Ms. LeBlanc: Right. Once it's not a public employee, it's not a person who's subject to 28 participating in CalPERS. 29 30 Commissioner Reckdahl: When I compared the schedules … 31 32 Male: Can I ask a question? 33 34 Chair Lauing: I can't do that now. 35 36 Commissioner Reckdahl: When I compared the schedules, especially the new schedule 37 looks rather fragmented. During the summer, during the midday, we have three different 38 things going on. Do we have a copy of that to put up on the screen, of the schedule? 39 40 Mr. de Geus: We can get to it. Tim can speak to it. 41 42 Approved Minutes 24 APPROVED Commissioner Reckdahl: Is it useful to have open swim in three lanes or open recreation 1 in three lanes? That seems so narrow. Would that be slicing the bread too thin? 2 3 Mr. Sheeper: I think I know what you're talking about. 4 5 Commissioner Reckdahl: I'm looking at page 16 if you have a … 6 7 Mr. Sheeper: I don't have it in front of me. I think you're talking about the summer of 8 '17. 9 10 Commissioner Reckdahl: (crosstalk) midday summer is when it really gets divided up. 11 12 Mr. Sheeper: That's a lot of usage of the pool. There's a diving board on one side. Open 13 swim has five lanes, and then there's lap swim and then there's swim lessons at some 14 points in time too. The pool is divided up into three unequal parts to be able to use the 15 diving board on the deep end, to be able to do lap swims in the middle, and then to be 16 able to do lessons and/or open swim on the shallow side of the pool. 17 18 Commissioner Reckdahl: During this time in the summer, what's going on at the JLS 19 pool? 20 21 Mr. Sheeper: Lessons. 22 23 Commissioner Reckdahl: They're just purely lessons? 24 25 Mr. Sheeper: Yeah. Lessons start at noon currently at JLS. They have for the past 2 26 years. 27 28 Commissioner Reckdahl: When I see the Rinconada pool divided so finely, couldn't we 29 use the JLS pool and move stuff between it so you have larger chunks and more 30 functional chunks than having it split up so tight? 31 32 Mr. Sheeper: I think that's what has been tried. I don't think the demand—people haven't 33 used the JLS pool like they have used the Rinconada pool. 34 35 Mr. de Geus: I just want to be clear about this schedule. It ought to say draft all over it, 36 but it doesn't. That's what it is. 37 38 Commissioner Reckdahl: It's a straw man. 39 40 Mr. de Geus: That's what I asked him. He talks about more integration, some sharing. 41 We're concerned about that, recognize that can take away from a program. I said, "Put 42 Approved Minutes 25 APPROVED something together. What does it look like in your view?" This is the first cut of what it 1 looks like. It's not right. It doesn't work in several areas particularly in the morning for 2 lap swimmers and Masters. That's going to change. It'll change in other ways as well. 3 We're not proposing that this is the schedule. 4 5 Chair Lauing: If we could stick to sort of more policy-oriented issues like do you think 6 it's too crowded, that type of thing. 7 8 Commissioner Reckdahl: The reason I ask this is to say instead of looking at Rinconada 9 by itself, we really should be looking at the pools as a whole in the City and coordinating 10 their schedules between the two as opposed to saying this is the schedule for Rinconada 11 and we're going to slice it up with no regard to what's going on at JLS. With that said, 12 what about JLS during the year? Do we have any possibility to do evening swims at JLS 13 or anything like that to offload Rinconada? 14 15 Mr. de Geus: We don't do that currently. I'm interested in that, in more collaboration 16 with the Unified School District. JLS isn't the only pool. By the way, it's not their best 17 pool. It's not one that I'd choose as the one we get access to. I would absolutely be open 18 to that to get more kids able to have swim lessons at different times of the year in 19 different locations around town. I think Tim has the capacity to do that. 20 21 Commissioner Reckdahl: Before we hear this in January, are we going to have better 22 demand numbers about when is the pool being used and when isn't it being used? 23 24 Mr. de Geus: Yes. 25 26 Commissioner Reckdahl: That's it. Thanks. 27 28 Commissioner Hetterly: I'm a little confused about what you are really looking for most 29 feedback on tonight. The staff report was mostly, it seemed to me, about the total suite of 30 services, and that's what the schedule is with the lane distribution, this one. The next step 31 is you're going to propose to Council a contract for swim lessons and summer camp for 1 32 year. We don't have the same kind of detail for that program as we do for this potential 33 longer-term program. It was very difficult looking at the staff report to understand what 34 the impact of the impending decision is. I think it would be helpful to understand how 35 the lane distributions would work. We know the number of days and weeks, that we're 36 going to have more weeks and more days of lessons, but it's hard to translate from that 37 into how many more lessons that is relative to demand. In the staff report, when you're 38 talking about the full program, it's a six times increase in swim lessons. That raised a flag 39 to me; it wasn't clear at all that we have a demand for six times more lessons than we 40 currently offer. I don't know if this 1-year summer plan is also a six times expansion of 41 swim lessons. If it is, it seems likely it would have a similar impact on the lane demand 42 Approved Minutes 26 APPROVED at Rinconada. I'd like to know more about how the demand meets the supply in that 1 initial summer. 2 3 Ms. LeBlanc: Thanks. It is the same proposed summer swim lesson program that you 4 see in there. It is increasing it by six times. I think the thing that is nice about working 5 with Tim Sheeper on this is that they can kind of match our demand. That's part of what's 6 nice about this. If there aren't a lot of people who want to come swim at 2:00 p.m. on 7 Wednesdays, they just wouldn't have their staff over at our pool to operate that. If there 8 is, then we're able to provide that service to residents. Unfortunately, we only can tell 9 you how many programs get full or have a wait list. We can't tell you how many people 10 are not even signing up, because the program doesn't work for them or it's full before they 11 get the opportunity to get onto our Enjoy! catalog and register. I think the first year of 12 this program will be a learning opportunity for us and for Tim Sheeper and his staff in 13 terms of what residents really do want in the lesson program. We think the nice thing 14 about this lesson program is, at the rates that we've set, it strikes a balance of being 15 accessible to most all families and still has the fee reduction programs in place and 16 extends that and also keeps the price roughly the same as our contracts have been for the 17 last 2 years. We can dramatically increase—I'm running out of power and didn't bring 18 my thing. I'm going to close this for a minute. We think that this is a great opportunity 19 for us to see how much demand there is. In terms of the impact on lanes, actually we've 20 discussed that with Tim quite a bit as well. We don't think it will have a huge impact 21 because they'll be doing a lot more lessons in the round pool. Tim can elaborate if you'd 22 like. 23 24 Commissioner Hetterly: I would like some elaboration on it, but let me expand my 25 question. I also would like to better understand—it seems like even … I think we've 26 heard very clearly tonight that there's a lot of concern about impacts on other users of an 27 expansion of this size. I think it makes a lot of sense to think very hard about the 28 demand. Maybe six times as many lessons is too ambitious for a first year try-out a new 29 season. I would love to see something less ambitious so that we can actually learn 30 something from it before we risk turning people away from the pool. I don't know how 31 that plays into the financials. If you don't have as many swim lessons, then maybe it's not 32 financially feasible to use Sheeper. I don't know how that works, but it seems to me 33 something that you all ought to think hard about. With that, if you did still go forward 34 with that ambitious schedule, it seems to me that this breakdown doesn't work on a lot of 35 different levels, not just for Masters, not just for lap but also for open rec swim. I think 36 there are qualitative impacts on the experience in the pool once you shrink down lanes, 37 for example. If you have only three or five lanes dedicated to open swim, that's a much 38 narrower area. It really limits the kinds of things that you can use it for. I would love to 39 see staff and Team Sheeper work a little more with the community to understand what all 40 of those qualitative impacts are and see if you can fit them into the quantitative numbers 41 Approved Minutes 27 APPROVED that you're collecting. That's basically my comment. I would love to hear more about 1 how the lessons are planned. 2 3 Mr. de Geus: Tim, maybe you can share a little more and also your experience about 4 demand generally, managing a pool very close by. 5 6 Mr. Sheeper: Thank you. I'll address the demand first. Since we've stopped running 7 lessons at Rinconada this summer, we've continued running lessons at Burgess. In that 8 period of time, which has been all of September, October and November almost, so far 9 we've given 12,000 more lessons. The demand is out there, and we still have wait lists. 10 That's equivalent to anywhere from 1,100 lessons—it's about 1,100-1,200 lessons per 11 week that's happening 2 1/2 miles away. To do those lessons, it's mainly from real entry 12 level, smaller kids. The best thing is in a warmer pool. Currently, the play pool that you 13 have is going unused. The discussion with Rob and the team is let's see if we can get that 14 pool online and heated up, and use that as an instructional pool because it can be used. 15 We use just three lanes to do our swim school, so that's six instructors teaching 24 kids 16 every half an hour. We're only using three lanes, but they're warm lanes. The pool is 86 17 degrees. To teach a lot of kids in the performance pool that you have at Rinconada, we'd 18 use that pool very sparingly for lessons. The other thing is we're looking at summer, this 19 schedule that you talked about. Summer at every pool is a very condensed time. That's 20 when the kids are out of school. You're looking at 8 weeks of the 52 weeks of the year. 21 Every pool is impacted. Rinconada being in a landlocked area where there's no access to 22 a lot of water, people are going to come there. To make this all happen, there has to be a 23 lot of sharing to serve all the groups. I did run some numbers, thinking into the fall of 24 2017, after the impact of summer has happened. For instance, currently the lap 25 swimmers—I measure things in lane hours—have 553 lane hours per week, 553. In the 26 fall of 2017, the proposal that we have is to increase that to 734 lane hours per week. It's 27 more than a 30 percent increase in the amount of lane hours that the lap swimmers have 28 to be in the pool. That's a large increase. I heard a lot of talk about the exclusivity, and 29 there was—we want the 14 lanes. Looking at this, this is highly impacted. In the fall, it 30 spreads out. Currently, there's 36 hours that the lap swimmers have exclusive use, 36 31 hours per week that the lap swimmers have use. Under the model that I proposed, it 32 would cut down to 33. There would just be 3 less hours. More time to swim, but there's 33 still open space in the pool. I think that addresses the impact that you talked about in the 34 summer and the demand that's out in the community. I don't know if Palo Alto even 35 realizes the strong need that's out there right now. 36 37 Mr. de Geus: Thank you, Tim. Increasing hours for lap swim is important, and that's one 38 piece of it. What I'm hearing also from the public is how those lanes are distributed and 39 what times of day can make a very big impact. You could have more hours, but it doesn't 40 work as well as it currently works, at least for the current swimmers. I think we need to 41 really work through that and understand what we're hearing and why we're hearing it so 42 Approved Minutes 28 APPROVED that we can see if we can come up with a program that really does make sense, that does 1 improve access without degrading quality. 2 3 Commissioner Hetterly: That's good. Of course, in the summer in particular as you 4 move lessons into the small pool, then the users of that pool during those times can't use 5 it. There's always an overflow. Whenever you add, somebody's going to give up time for 6 it. I don't think that's necessarily an insurmountable challenge, to figure out how that 7 works, but it is a challenge that I don't think we've resolved yet. Again, I would 8 encourage a less ambitious plan. I also would love to see you talk to the School District 9 and see if there isn't a way to get a second pool. If it's a matter of pool space and we 10 could get access to another pool during the summer time is all I'm talking about here. I 11 don't know anything about the cost of that or how that works between the City and the 12 School District. It sounds like summer demand everywhere for pools is really high. I 13 know our School District pools are not fully used all summer, I think. I don't know; I 14 think. That's something that I'd love to see you all look into. I think Team Sheeper offers 15 an opportunity to be able to staff more space. In the past, we haven't been looking for 16 that because there was no way we could manage it. Maybe between Team Sheeper and 17 the City and the School District we can find a way, at least for this first summer, to meet 18 everybody's needs while we figure out a long-term plan. Thanks. 19 20 Chair Lauing: Commissioner Moss. 21 22 Commissioner Moss: I've been hearing a lot about the needs of the lap swimmers and the 23 Masters swimmers versus the lessons. On the side of the lap swimmers and the Masters 24 swimmers, our population is getting older. There are more seniors. One of our goals is 25 to be a Healthy City Healthy Community, and the people here are extremely healthy. We 26 wish we had more. It's a nationally recognized program, as I hear. I don't think it's 27 either/or; I think it's just a matter of scheduling. To throw out the whole program in the 28 name of lack of privatization, I don't think is an option. I think with careful oversight by 29 the City, we should be able to come up with a schedule that serves both groups. The 30 problem is when we talk about the number of swimmers for lap and Masters and then 31 wanting to increase that number of swimmers versus the lessons. Going from 5,500 32 lessons a year to 32,000 lessons a year, it's not all going to fit. Something has to give. I 33 agree with Commissioner Hetterly that we might want to scale back the number of—34 instead of six times the number of lessons, maybe it's only three times the lessons. Also I 35 fully agree with Tom Sheeper about using the round pool and using JLS and using Paly 36 and using Gunn pools as much as possible. When you talk about six times the number of 37 lessons, I don't think it's going to be six times the number of lessons during the summer, 38 but rather spread out over more months. Maybe it's only two times the number of lessons 39 in the summer or even 1 1/2 times the number of lessons in the summer. If there's a wait 40 list, you push them out to the side. I could even make the same argument for the Masters 41 swimmers and the lap swimmers that it seemed like there's this core number of hours 42 Approved Minutes 29 APPROVED between 6:00 and 9:00 and maybe between 4:00 and 5:00. Maybe people need to push 1 towards 10:00 in the morning instead of having everybody try to get in between 6:00 and 2 8:00. I think there's room on both sides for pushing out the edges in the schedule. If we 3 can work those things, I think we have a really good chance to work a schedule that will 4 improve in both areas, maybe not as much as we'd like, adding the number of Masters 5 swimmers, adding the number of swim lessons. Also, back to what Commissioner 6 Hetterly said, I'd like to see the demand for lessons. It sounds like we need Palo Alto 7 first, meaning if some of these lessons are not Palo Alto residents, maybe we can't 8 accommodate everybody. We should always give Palo Alto residents first. The same 9 thing with the Masters swimmers. We have a nationally recognized program, but maybe 10 we need to have Palo Alto first as well. I think if push comes to shove, we can do 11 something like that because this is a City asset, as you've said over and over again. Palo 12 Alto first. That's my comments. 13 14 Chair Lauing: Commissioner Knopper. 15 16 Vice Chair Knopper: Thank you. Hello. Clearly we have a passionate constituency, 17 which is awesome. It's a valuable resource. I think we've had enough discussion, as far 18 as I'm concerned, with regard to lap assignment, so I'm not going to discuss that. What I 19 did want some clarity, Rob, if you don't mind, is on the cost recovery expectation that 20 was in our report. There's an approximately $35,000 differential, if we outsource, to the 21 City's General Fund as a plus net advantage to us. I guess my question is because there is 22 a tremendous amount of demand on a facility that is already needing, as we discussed in 23 the Master Plan, a tremendous amount of improvement. The locker rooms, food, snack 24 areas, lounging areas, everything else out of the water needs renovation. Are we thinking 25 of, as we're contracting out, keeping that money and our control—not letting that $35,000 26 get sucked into the vortex of everything else we need in the City? Is there a way to 27 redirect it and earmark it for, if we are increasing demand on this facility that already has 28 tremendous stress on it, where we can turn that money into the pool and offset some of 29 that budgeting that we need to improve it? 30 31 Mr. de Geus: Interesting question. We're not contemplating that at this time. Is it 32 possible, if the cost to run the program with Tim, provided that it's a better program for 33 residents—if there was a savings to the City for running the program that way, could we 34 start a reserve that would support future improvements to the facility itself, that facility? 35 That's something that we can certainly recommend to the City Manager and City Council. 36 I think you're right that we have a lot of needs there. As we know, in the Master Plan we 37 have a variety of things we'd like to do there, and there isn't a funding source to do all of 38 those. We can certainly look at that. Regarding the terms of the contract with Tim, we 39 haven't developed those yet, but they're all valid points. How does the revenue flow? 40 What is the expectation of maintenance and other things? Those things still need to be 41 worked out. 42 Approved Minutes 30 APPROVED 1 Vice Chair Knopper: Thank you. 2 3 Chair Lauing: That's a good segue to the exact same page but a different question that I 4 had on that. Looking at the downside, are there any risks to the cost there with whatever 5 increase the number of users such that this 540 goes to 640? Is there any sort of expense 6 risk? 7 8 Ms. LeBlanc: This is assuming that we have—I can't remember exactly the percentage of 9 those newly offered swim lessons being filled. It's not all the swim lessons that Tim 10 Sheeper would potentially be able to provide. I think it's around 15 or 20 percent more 11 residents were to enroll in the group swim lessons that we are proposing to subsidize. 12 We would be paying $6 per child per lesson beyond that assumption that we have for 13 what we'd be subsidizing. It could go the other way. If we have fewer residents enrolling 14 and we don't see the demand that we're anticipating, then we would drop that number. I 15 think that's the biggest unknown factor in what you're seeing here. If I could add one 16 other thing about the demand in here. Just a few years ago, we offered and had enrolled 17 about twice as many kids in swim lessons as we do now. Through the trouble that we've 18 had in hiring, we haven't been offering as many lessons, and we haven't been offering 19 them at the same times of day, so we've seen a drop. In terms of the scale, six times more 20 lessons sounds very intense and scary when, in reality, it's more like three times, two or 21 three, from where it was just in 2013 or 2014. 22 23 Chair Lauing: The short answer to that is it could go either way. 24 25 Vice Chair Knopper: There might not be a cost recovery. 26 27 Chair Lauing: Just two other comments. I'll go in reverse order. I'm really pleased that, 28 on page 10—Commissioner Reckdahl touched on or two of these things. I'm really 29 pleased on page 10 that you called out these serious reservations or serious issues that we 30 need to look at. Very much appreciate that transparency. Let's not keep anything hidden 31 under rocks. Particularly the last two—all three of them actually are real problems. I 32 agree with that. They need some digging to be looked at. We've talked many times here 33 about how parents, when they're signing up, want to do it all in one place and all at one 34 time. If they're on two different systems, that's going to get some push back at the time 35 of registration. You addressed the financial aid—that was a question—which is great. 36 You heard about the conflicts of sharing the pool. The only other thing I wanted to add 37 just almost a stylistic point, which has caused some of this maybe. I notice on page 5 you 38 say that Team Sheeper's philosophy is one of maximizing usage. Now, words are 39 important. We're not hearing anybody in this room say maximize usage, like as many 40 bunkbeds as you can get in one room. It's making it efficient, increasing the amount of 41 Approved Minutes 31 APPROVED access that folks can get that aren't using it right now. That might have kind of driven the 1 discussion or even the contract—I don't know—in a slightly different direction. 2 3 Mr. de Geus: Appreciate that point. I think that's exactly right. The point you made 4 before about some of the changes in experience in terms of registering, they are important 5 and we need to weigh the pros and cons. We hope and we think that it will be maybe 6 inconvenient at first to go to a different site to register for lessons. The fact that you have 7 many more lessons to choose from in the spring, summer and fall and somewhat ongoing 8 will be the added value that makes it okay. 9 10 Chair Lauing: Just put somebody on the phone that day, because you will get questions 11 during the transition, if that's what it is. 12 13 Mr. de Geus: For sure, yeah. 14 15 Chair Lauing: I don't know if you want sort of a sense of the Commission on the first 16 point that was mentioned, which is the first part of the contract. 17 18 Mr. de Geus: That would be great. I think we heard from everybody. If there's more 19 that the Commission wants to say or ask … 20 21 Chair Lauing: (crosstalk) not a particular motion, but relative to what you propose, I 22 think we could just get a nod or an up or a down. From my perspective, what you're 23 proposing here on that first piece of it and then investigation of the rest of it is acceptable. 24 (crosstalk) 25 26 Mr. de Geus: What we're really saying is it's an expanded swim program whether it's 27 what we presented here or less. What I'm hearing is at this time we want to be sure that it 28 has relatively no impact to other programs and their schedules, because we still have 29 some things to work through there. We think particularly with the small pool and 30 utilizing it when it's not just being used, that's something that we'd like to do now. 31 32 Chair Lauing: I don't mean to speak for all the Commissioners. Commissioner Moss. 33 34 Commissioner Moss: I have two more questions. Talking about hiring Palo Alto 35 students during the summer, is that going to be doable for you and still make your profit? 36 37 Mr. Sheeper: Yes. 38 39 Commissioner Moss: The second thing is if we didn't have six times the number of 40 lessons, we only had three times the number of lessons, would you still be interested in 41 Approved Minutes 32 APPROVED the contract? What if it was only two times the number of lessons, would you still be 1 interested in the contract? 2 3 Mr. Sheeper: Yes, still interested. We've been doing lessons for 2 years already at the 4 level. 5 6 Commissioner Moss: If it was double, you'd be happy. Not six times, but double the 7 number of lessons you do today, you'd still be happy? 8 9 Mr. Sheeper: I'm always happy. 10 11 Commissioner Moss: One other question. You said there were two styles of lessons. 12 One is the one where you are skills based, and one is sort of what we have more today 13 which is not so much skills based. I'll call it the fun factor, more fun and less intense. Do 14 you have two different styles or just one style? 15 16 Mr. Sheeper: You're speaking of lessons? 17 18 Commissioner Moss: Yes. 19 20 Mr. Sheeper: There's a Red Cross way, which is what is adopted by Rinconada 21 previously. There's our own proprietary curriculum that we have, that we teach. 22 23 Commissioner Moss: You're going to offer both or just yours? 24 25 Mr. Sheeper: Just ours. I was speaking to how people can register. They can register for 26 a 1-week session every day or they could register 1 day a week for 20 weeks. 27 28 Commissioner Moss: In both cases, it would be your style. 29 30 Mr. Sheeper: Same curriculum, yes. 31 32 Mr. de Geus: Fun is very important. It's got to be a fun experience, particularly for kids 33 in their learn to swim program. We haven't talked about this or heard about this. We've 34 heard from a lot of parents wanting a less competitive recreation swim program outside 35 of what Tony and the PASA organization does. They do a great program; it's a 36 competitive swim program. This is another area I have a real interest in. Is there a way 37 we can figure out how to support some of these families that want their kids on a team 38 but not so competitive? Just in talking about how we might manage the pool in an 39 improved and enhanced way, some ideas are coming up from Tony and his organization. 40 Then, working closely with Tim to try and figure out how might we do that so that it 41 doesn't impact the other programs. Working with PASA we can have this recreation 42 Approved Minutes 33 APPROVED swim program, not taking a lot of hours but another opportunity for kids that might not be 1 at that competitive level but still want to be on a team. Those are the kind of things we're 2 looking for, and we hope to really improve the program. I know we're wrapping up. I 3 just wanted to finish on one thing here that I think is important. The Community 4 Services Department does a lot of programs and services. We oversee all of the parks 5 and all of the open space and trail systems, the Palo Alto Art Center, the Junior Museum 6 and Zoo, the Children's Theatre, recreation programs, special events. A $26 million 7 budget, and it's not going up. We look to deliver those services in the best way we can 8 for Palo Alto residents. Sometimes that's in-house, and it's with staff, and it's just the best 9 way to do it. I think that's the case with our open space ranger program, for example. 10 Sometimes it's a partnership with a nonprofit group that supports a program. Palo Alto 11 Art Center Foundation is fantastic. They helped us rebuild the Art Center. Sometimes 12 it's partnering with the private sector, because they have an expertise and a quality that on 13 balance is in the best interest. Just to the point about we're just outsourcing and it's not 14 thoughtful, that's just not the case. That's not what we're doing. We realize we've got 15 some things to work through still, but we're really trying to look out for the residents 16 ultimately and hope to get it right. I do want to thank everyone for being here and that 17 we're hearing you. My office is at the Lucie Stern Community Center, and you can call 18 me any time or drop by if you want to talk to me about it or tell me why it's wrong. My 19 card is here. Let's see if we can figure this out. Thank you. 20 21 Chair Lauing: Just from the standpoint of giving feedback to the City, is there any 22 Commissioner that thinks that we at this point shouldn't give preliminary support for the 23 swim lessons? As was pointed it, it's already happened for the last 2 years. 24 25 Commissioner Reckdahl: I have one question. In the staff report, it says recommending 26 both the swim lessons and the summer camp. Summer camp right now on the schedule 27 doesn't appear anywhere. Where would that appear and what would it be displacing? 28 29 Ms. LeBlanc: It would be kind of displacing what you see as the swim lessons. The 30 swim camps—Tim can elaborate—are not in the pool for the whole time that they're in 31 the camp. What they do is sort of a super lesson each day. Instead of doing a 30-minute 32 lesson, the kids would be doing 45 minutes. I think they might have another half hour for 33 some of the more advanced kids. They would be taking over those times, which are most 34 of the times where we have very low demand. That's where you do not see the wait lists 35 for swim lessons. We think there would be really minimal impact to the lap swimmers 36 during the summer when we add those summer camps. 37 38 Commissioner Reckdahl: How many hours a day are the swim camps? 39 40 Ms. LeBlanc: I will let Tim chime in. 41 42 Approved Minutes 34 APPROVED Mr. Sheeper: I think you explained that well. It's 5 hours a day, 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. 1 Their 45-minute lessons happen in the morning, usually around 9:30. They'll get back in 2 the pool in the afternoon in the open swim times. They're mixing with the current open 3 swim. 4 5 Commissioner Reckdahl: Some of it's in the round pool, and some of it's in the 6 (crosstalk)? 7 8 Mr. Sheeper: Yeah, depending on their age. 9 10 Commissioner Reckdahl: My take is if you can fit the camp and can fit more lessons in 11 without affecting other people, then I'm for it. I'm just nervous about how packed we're 12 going to be. 13 14 Commissioner Cribbs: Could I just clarify one thing? You're also retaining the 15 lifeguards. The lifeguards will be reporting to you as well as the swimming teachers, 16 right? 17 18 Mr. de Geus: At this time, we're not recommending that. We may come back with that 19 recommendation after we work through this. What we will include in the contract is 20 under emergency circumstances, we can call on Tim to provide lifeguards. I can tell you 21 it happens even now for lap swim. We don't have the staff to be there. We will draw on 22 Tim's staff to come over and help us. 23 24 Commissioner Cribbs: It was actually David who brought that up, because he was asking 25 about hiring Palo Alto youth to be swim teachers and lifeguards. I thought, "We haven't 26 talked about the lifeguards; maybe you're doing both." It's just swimming teachers at this 27 point, right? 28 29 Mr. Sheeper: That's what we're talking about. 30 31 Commissioner Cribbs: Thank you very much. 32 33 Commissioner Hetterly: I'm not gung ho to go forward with the plan as it is, to respond 34 to you. This is not an action item. As I understand it, Tim, you've managed our summer 35 lessons for the last 2 years. From everything I've heard, that's been very successful and 36 positively received. It's on this scale, the status quo scale, and not this scale. I really 37 strongly encourage you to find something that's somewhere in the middle before you 38 move forward with something for this coming year. I think it offers a great opportunity 39 to try it out. It's a 1-year contract, right? See how it goes before you do something scary 40 that upsets a lot of people. I think this is an opportunity for us to take it another step 41 Approved Minutes 35 APPROVED further, building on the relationship and experience that you all have with Tim and his 1 staff to make it better, see how it goes bigger, and see where we can go from there. 2 3 Chair Lauing: Thanks to the public. That's the conclusion of this item. Thank you, staff 4 and guests. 5 6 3. Parks, Trails, Natural Open Space and Recreation Facilities Master Plan. 7 8 Chair Lauing: Thank you. We're going to move onto the next agenda item. If the public 9 could please move outside to continue your discussions if you don't have a comment to 10 give on the next agenda items. That 45-minute item took 2 hours. We'll see if we can zip 11 right along here. The next item is the Parks, Trails, Natural Open Space and Recreation 12 Master Plan, version 73 or whatever we're on. Kristen, take it away. 13 14 Kristen O'Kane: Good evening. Kristen O'Kane, Community Services. In your packet, 15 you received a draft version of the Master Plan in its entirety. What we're going to talk 16 about today is first a summary of the community meeting that we had on November 1st, 17 and then briefly go through Chapter 5 because in the copy of the draft Master Plan that 18 you have in your packet, that was the chapter where most changes occurred. We'll also 19 talk about how the public will have an opportunity to review the draft, and then next steps 20 and the schedule. Community meeting. On November 1st, we had a good turnout, very 21 positive feedback, and a lot of support. Thank you, Commissioner Moss, for attending 22 and for speaking also at the community meeting. That was very thoughtful. Some of the 23 comments we heard. I've sort of broken them down by service or program area. The first 24 was recreation facilities and recreation programs. We heard a lot about pools, both the 25 Rinconada pool, liking the pool the way it is, and also the need for an additional pool. 26 We also had some questions on the tennis courts and support for an additional public gym 27 and also pickleball courts. There were quite a few questions as well on Cubberley and 28 the Master Plan effort that we're embarking on and what that would entail and what that 29 would include, for example, would it be a gym, a pool, a senior center. Of course, at this 30 time we don't know what we have in store for Cubberley, but we are starting that process. 31 We also heard support for collaborating with the School District to access facilities and 32 also support for unstructured play and connection to nature. Related to … 33 34 Commissioner Reckdahl: One question about pickleball. Are we having two pickleball 35 courts on each side of the tennis net and they're using their own net or are they going with 36 the tennis net and using the tennis net? 37 38 Ms. O'Kane: Are you asking what they're doing now? 39 40 Commissioner Reckdahl: No. What's the proposal when people talk about pickleball? 41 What do they want? Do they want to use the current tennis net? 42 Approved Minutes 36 APPROVED 1 Ms. O'Kane: They want to have dedicated pickleball courts. Not shared with tennis but 2 dedicated for pickleball. For parks and open space, we heard some comments related to 3 the 10 1/2 acres. The first comment was to add active recreation use. A subsequent 4 commenter said it should be passive recreation use. The policy as it says now doesn't 5 address either of those. I think it's best to leave it as is. As we go through the process of 6 deciding what to do with the 10 1/2 acres, we can address it at that point. Just briefly, we 7 had support for benches, turf fields both natural and synthetic, support for restoration of 8 natural areas, dog parks. Some question on adult fitness areas; really the comment was 9 please don't add adult fitness areas to every park. We agreed we would do it as a pilot 10 effort to see how it was accepted in the community. Also, a request for a restroom at the 11 Magical Bridge Playground, and questions related to access to creeks, and also a 12 comment to provide free shuttles to the open space areas. Finally, some of our bigger 13 comments we received were how do we prioritize the priorities. We've talked about that. 14 What is a process for future improvements? Will the public have an opportunity to weigh 15 in at that time? Of course, we said yes. Some discussion on demographics and 16 accessibility, and then ensuring that we integrate the Master Plan with the Urban Forest 17 Master Plan, and then some conversation related to potable water use at our parks. That 18 was the community meeting. Again, it was overall very supportive. We had a great 19 turnout. I don't know if anyone else wants to chime in. Commissioner Moss, if you have 20 any comments? 21 22 Commissioner Moss: You did great. 23 24 Ms. O'Kane: Shall we move on? 25 26 Chair Lauing: Yeah. 27 28 Ms. O'Kane: Chapter 5 outline. Again, this is the chapter where we had the most 29 changes since the last version. Just briefly, the way it's organized now is we talk about 30 prioritization including the prioritization process. We've reordered the projects and 31 programs so that the—I'm sorry. I jumped ahead. The prioritization process, and then 32 we talk about high priority projects and programs implementation, considerations, and 33 then we get into the descriptions. We still have the action plan, funding strategies, and 34 how we're going to evaluate future projects, and then our progress reporting. Key 35 updates to Chapter 5. We've added two additional high priority projects. One is improve 36 the Rinconada pool facility. The last time we had that sort of combined with aquatics 37 programming, so we separated those out. Another one that came up when we met with 38 the ad hoc was to include golf course facility improvements. This is specific to the 39 clubhouse, the actual structures that are that golf course, that weren't included in the 40 current reconfiguration project. We've added that as well. We've reordered the high 41 priority projects so that the projects that need further study and strategic funding are 42 Approved Minutes 37 APPROVED listed first, and then it goes to the short-term projects and the programs. We've also 1 expanded the definition of urgency to include the things we heard from the Commission 2 last time such as time sensitivity and if we fail to act on something, do we miss an 3 opportunity by not acting. That's all been added to that chapter. That's all I have on 4 Chapter 5. I'll continue. 5 6 Chair Lauing: Might as well give the whole review. 7 8 Ms. O'Kane: Do you want to take over here, Peter? 9 10 Peter Jensen: Sure. Currently the full document of the Master Plan report is online. It 11 can be accessed through the website for the community to review by clicking on the 12 green. You see there, it's very similar to how our last online survey was structured, 13 where it takes you to a form. This one has specific questions it asks about the document, 14 and it also allows you to provide feedback, whatever that may be, specific comments for 15 specific pages or just general feedback in itself. You see there the two links taking you to 16 the plan body which is the full document or the appendix. The public can see both of 17 those. This will run through November and into the first week of December for the 18 community to review and supply comment on. 19 20 Chair Lauing: Who wrote that? 21 22 Mr. Jensen: Say again. 23 24 Chair Lauing: Who wrote it, who created it? 25 26 Mr. Jensen: The project team staff and MIG worked together to put this together. 27 28 Ms. O'Kane: I'd like to add that there are specific questions where we're trying to get 29 specific information, but there also is an open-ended question at the end where people 30 can provide additional comments. 31 32 Mr. Jensen: The next steps. PRC review of the document. We're hoping to get your 33 comments back by December 5th. That will allow us to incorporate those into the final 34 draft, coming back on December 14th to your meeting. The community will have a few 35 days after that to supply further comment that will also be incorporated into the draft. 36 We're looking at going to Council for the study session that we were hoping to have in 37 December in January. I think it's right now tentatively January 9th. This all coincides 38 with the CEQA work that is going on and that will take place through January with the 39 public review, a portion of that, occurring at the end of January and into February. 40 Finally, hoping to take the plan for adoption to Council in March. That's our current 41 schedule. It mostly depends on the CEQA work that's taking place to meet those dates. 42 Approved Minutes 38 APPROVED 1 Chair Lauing: Go ahead. 2 3 Commissioner Hetterly: Can I just ask a quick question about the CEQA process? That 4 will include a public comment period. It would be great if you would add to the website, 5 if it's not already up there, some announcement that that's happening so that people can 6 have in mind that this is going to be the timeline, and you'll have an opportunity to 7 comment and any details you can provide about how to do that. Thanks. 8 9 Chair Lauing: Would it be appropriate to get Commissioners' comments on Chapter 5 as 10 a starting point here? 11 12 Ms. O'Kane: Chapter 5 or any of the document is fine. 13 14 Chair Lauing; It just seems like there are more changes to 5. 15 16 Ms. O'Kane: There are more changes to 5. 17 18 Commissioner Hetterly: Why don't we start in 5 and then go to the rest? 19 20 Chair Lauing: I was going to ask if members of the ad hoc wanted to state anything 21 relative to the progress, other than what she put in the slides, which I thought was a pretty 22 good summary. No. I'll look to non-ad hoc members who haven't seen this before they 23 got it in their packet. If there are any comments on 5 in terms of the batting order, the 24 way things were shifted around or anything at all. 25 26 Commissioner Moss: I just want to say that it looks fantastic. I didn't think you could 27 make so many changes in just that couple of weeks, but you did incorporate all the things 28 that we talked about last time. I think it looks great. I don't have any changes. 29 30 Commissioner Cribbs: I would just add to that. I thought it looked terrific. I have 31 yellow sticky notes all over this, and they all say great, I really like this, I like this list, I 32 like the way the prioritization was going. I love it that we have the page with the big 33 projects where everybody can see them, that we've really called out Cubberley and what 34 we're going to do with property and all of that. I think it's terrific. The piece at the end 35 about the fundraising and the opportunities for fundraising, the different kinds of 36 fundraising, to explain that to people is really terrific. At some point, I'd like to see some 37 sort of a timeline. It's probably not appropriate in here, but how is that going to get done, 38 is there going to be a committee formed, will there be a consultant, and all of that. That's 39 probably pushed off later. Otherwise, I just was pretty pleased about it. I was like, "How 40 did that ad hoc committee do all that work in such a short time along with the staff? How 41 did that happen?" It's terrific. 42 Approved Minutes 39 APPROVED 1 Chair Lauing: Abbie, any questions? 2 3 Vice Chair Knopper: I missed last month's meeting. I wasn't here for the discussion. It 4 was just a really easy chapter for me to read. I was thinking back when we started this 5 process a year and a half ago. I remember reading and thinking how confused I was 6 when we first started working with the consultant. It was like one non sequitur after 7 another. I'm like this was just so pretty (inaudible) in comparison. It's taken so many 8 hours of staff work. So many hours, but it's so reflected in it. I know this is my second 9 to last meeting, and I just wanted to make sure I said it. I'm done. 10 11 Commissioner Cribbs: I found three little short questions, if I could. Only one gym. Did 12 we want to say plural gyms or is there just one gym to be discussed? That was one 13 question I had. 14 15 Chair Lauing: Page? 16 17 Commissioner Cribbs: On page 89. Would we contemplate a set of gyms, like 18 Cubberley has right now with the big gym, the pavilion and two smaller gyms? 19 Sometimes those are useful. If we're thinking about building, maybe we should do that. 20 21 Commissioner Moss: A gym complex. 22 23 Commissioner Cribbs: A gym complex maybe, right. Did we lose the idea of perhaps 24 another pool someplace or is it just rebuilding Rinconada? Is there a point … 25 26 Chair Lauing: If not, I think that's a wording omission. We've generally said we need to 27 investigate … 28 29 Commissioner Cribbs: Another pool. 30 31 Chair Lauing: Yeah. The pool needs or something to that effect. 32 33 Commissioner Hetterly: We have in other chapters mentioned an interest in looking into 34 an additional pool, but we don't have a project that covers that. Cubberley is a possible 35 location. I think we mentioned a possible connection between gyms and Cubberley 36 somewhere, but I don't think pools were as explicitly called out for that. That's an 37 opportunity. I guess it is an outstanding question whether we should have a project to 38 find a place for a pool. 39 40 Approved Minutes 40 APPROVED Commissioner Cribbs: I would like it. In the discussion about Cubberley, is there a 1 reason to add bringing forth the old Cubberley plan that the community worked so hard 2 on a couple of years ago, just to make sure that we know it's in there? 3 4 Ms. O'Kane: We can add that. 5 6 Commissioner Cribbs: The last question was just about in the fundraising area, if we are 7 being able to fundraise for facilities, is there is an idea to put in an endowment to take 8 care of those facilities after they're built or a fund? On page 91. Actually that's not the 9 page; it was just a note that I had. It doesn't go there at all. 10 11 Commissioner Hetterly: I think that's a great idea, to think about an endowment fund for 12 maintaining facilities. We do identify the funding gap for maintenance and operations in 13 particular, but we don't really identify any way to fill it. I think that would be a great 14 suggestion. 15 16 Commissioner Cribbs: I didn't know if that conflicted with the capital fund or anything. 17 Sometimes when major donors are interested in giving a lot of money for a big project, 18 they're also concerned with how the building is going to be taken care of. If we could 19 build that in, that might be something useful. I'm done. 20 21 Commissioner Moss: There was one more comment about the community meeting. I 22 had an opportunity to talk to not one but three members of the Friends of Palo Alto 23 Foundation or whatever. Just like Council Member Filseth said last time, just ask 24 because there's money out there. We just need to ask. 25 26 Chair Lauing: Anything else on Chapter 5 down here? 27 28 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah, I've got a couple. Go ahead. 29 30 Commissioner Hetterly: I just had a few. On page 86, enhance existing sports fields. 31 This is not necessarily 86. General comment. I like the way you did the funding options. 32 That was new since we last talked. I think it worked really well. I wonder if there are 33 any of these big ticket items in this front group that are well suited to special districts or 34 to tie in with other infrastructure projects. I don't know if that would require a lot of 35 effort to figure that out. If there are some that staff thinks are suitable, that would be 36 great. Pretty much the only extraordinary funding measure we have in here is a bond 37 cited for some of them. It may well be that some of the other funding options identified 38 in the summary could apply to some of these big items. I'd love to have you take a look 39 at that. The Rinconada pool facility improvements on page 90, we should mention 40 somewhere in there the recent Rinconada Master Plan. Somewhere in that description 41 that should be tied in, because there is a plan for those renovations in place. 42 Approved Minutes 41 APPROVED 1 Mr. de Geus: Yeah, yet to be approved. 2 3 Commissioner Hetterly: It has not been approved? 4 5 Mr. de Geus: It's still a draft. We're really trying to align the approval of that with the 6 Junior Museum and Zoo and their final plan. 7 8 Commissioner Hetterly: I see. I thought that had already been approved. 9 10 Mr. de Geus: Not yet. 11 12 Commissioner Hetterly: Maybe you don't need to include it here. Thirdly, page 92 was 13 talking about acquiring new parkland. It just reminded me that we had talked previously 14 about adding a program about legacies and bequests or long-term leases. I don't think 15 we've done that. I'd like to see that added in. Not on that page, but that's the page that 16 made me think of it. Sorry. Lastly, the progress reporting. I see you took out all the 17 indicators. Previously you had planned to add a table with some considerations for 18 tracking—this is page 112—progress. I kind of liked the indicators. I can see some 19 rationale for not including specific indicators, but I think this section without them is 20 pretty light. It needs to be beefed up in some way to offer some greater credibility and 21 accountability for the plan. I have several editorial comments, typos, words and stuff 22 throughout. I wonder if we couldn't maybe just hand you our notes at some point for that. 23 Surely the rest of you will be looking through for that too. That's the end. Thanks. 24 25 Chair Lauing: Commissioner Reckdahl. 26 27 Commissioner Reckdahl: Just a couple here. Page 90, the Rinconada pool facility. I 28 think the third sentence that says "to meet growing demand, a subsequent program policy 29 to open the pool for a long season is being explored." I think that's irrelevant. What the 30 other sentences say is sufficient. It's old; it's not in good condition; we need to redo it. 31 Whether or not we're going to have a long season really doesn't change the fact that it's 32 not in good condition. I would just delete that whole sentence. I don't see the value 33 added to that. I would start a new paragraph where it says two-thirds of the way down 34 "overall pool facility improvements include." I would start a new paragraph there, 35 because the first part before that is all background. Now, you're starting to get into 36 specifics. I would break that up and just make it clearer instead of one big paragraph. 37 That's stylistic, I guess. The same thing also on 93 for the golf course improvements. 38 We have a couple of sentences that talk about background, and then we start talking 39 about improvements. I would have the background be one paragraph and have the 40 improvements be another. Again, that's stylistic. That's all I had on Chapter 5. I had 41 some typos too, but I'll email you those. They're just piddly things. 42 Approved Minutes 42 APPROVED 1 Chair Lauing: Apart from Chapter 5 then. 2 3 Commissioner Reckdahl: On A1, Appendix A, in that chart where we list all the parks 4 and then all their attributes, you list El Camino Park as owned by City of Palo Alto, 5 which it's not. It's owned by Stanford. I don't know if you want to say ownership leased 6 from Stanford. That may be a cleaner way of doing that. We do have a long-term lease. 7 Maybe even say when the lease expires. When does the lease expire, do you know? 8 9 Mr. de Geus: It was extended. 10 11 Chair Lauing: I think we got 15 more years, didn't we? 12 13 Mr. Jensen: It's 2045 I think. 14 15 Commissioner Reckdahl: 2045. Under the ownership say leased from Stanford until 16 2045. Also the same with the Palo Alto playing fields. It might be nice to say leased 17 from Stanford University, lease ending this date. If that disappears, we are in trouble for 18 playing fields. The expiration date of that lease is important. The second thing is on A3. 19 Down at the very bottom, there's an asterisk. It says "high school fields not available for 20 City or community use." They are available, but not through the City channels. If you 21 want to rent the Gunn baseball field, you call Gunn and rent that out. I'm not sure how to 22 phrase that. That sounds a little misleading, because it is available but you can't just drop 23 in. You have to arrange it ahead of time. I don't know how to phrase that to say that's not 24 available for—down at the very bottom—not open for use. I don't know how to qualify 25 this. 26 27 Mr. de Geus: We can work on something. The use is not managed by the City during 28 non-school hours as opposed to the middle and elementary schools. We can do 29 something with that. 30 31 Commissioner Reckdahl: That was it. Thank you. 32 33 Commissioner Hetterly: I think you have to be careful about how you word that high 34 school fields thing. It's not managed, but it's also not necessarily available to be managed 35 by the City. I think you should—that's a tricky one. 36 37 Chair Lauing: It's not controlled by the City specifically. 38 39 Commissioner Hetterly: I just had a couple of other comments in other sections. In the 40 executive summary, page 7, it talks about expanding the system and underserved areas 41 Approved Minutes 43 APPROVED map, park search areas map. In the paragraph up above, you talk about areas with the 1 greatest need, for example those with the highest density and/or the largest population. 2 3 Commissioner Reckdahl: (inaudible) 4 5 Commissioner Hetterly: It's page 7 of the executive summary, vii. I know we talked 6 about that long ago, about trying to build into the walkshed map some density 7 considerations that would then lead to park search areas, so the search area didn't reflect 8 just geographic location outside of a certain radius but reflected a greater need in certain 9 areas that have denser population. Is that reflected in the park search areas or is that not? 10 I apologize for not raising this question long, long ago. 11 12 Mr. Jensen: I think we had a slide that we originally showed, that called out … I guess 13 it's "E" or "D" that had the most population and the least amount of parkland. It started to 14 reference which ones were ranked per that. I don't think that got translated into any of 15 these actual maps. 16 17 Commissioner Hetterly: I think that's hugely useful information. If we have it, I would 18 like to see it included. If we can't include it, then we should not say that we've 19 considered it as it does in the text. I would love to see it. Further on in that same 20 paragraph, the last clause is talking about school grounds and says "that can be used in 21 park search areas, that will be maintained and expanded to better support neighborhood 22 park uses and enhance their open space value." Has the School District been involved in 23 any discussions about this plan? It seems a little bold to say they will be maintained and 24 expanded to enhance open space if we've not had those conversations with the School 25 District. I think you can handle that either by taking it out or by talking to them or by 26 changing the wording to say "we will seek to" or "hope to" or "there's potential for future 27 partnership to" blah, blah, blah. The next page on connecting the systems, I would love 28 to see somewhere in that paragraph some mention of the Safe Routes to School. They do 29 have connections that are built into this map, that are important. They are increasing 30 their efforts to expand their advocacy to include safe routes to parks. We ought to 31 reciprocate that by going together on that one. 32 33 Commissioner Moss: Are you saying that it should dovetail with their plan? Our job is 34 not to provide safe routes to school, but you're saying that they have a plan to do that. 35 We have a plan to do our connecting, and it would be nice to dovetail. Is that what you're 36 saying? 37 38 Commissioner Hetterly: Yes, I think we do largely dovetail. Those connections are all 39 reflected in the Bike and Pedestrian Transportation Plan. That Safe Routes to School 40 effort should be recognized in this paragraph as we took that into consideration in 41 Approved Minutes 44 APPROVED figuring out what are the best routes to parks. That's it. All the rest of my comments are 1 editorial. 2 3 Vice Chair Knopper: You have some comments? No. I just had one quick one. There's 4 a couple of typos in the executive summary or some grammatical things. I don't know if 5 you want to go through that right now. The one thing I would say is on page 12. That's 6 xii, Keith. Under high priority projects and programs, the last sentence says "they are not 7 ranked nor are they presented in priority order." I just would bold and underline or just 8 really make that sentence prominent, because you immediately go into the projects. If 9 they're just glancing, they're just going to miss that and think we have bullet points and 10 all of a sudden this is our order. It's just a style thing, but I know how people glance. 11 Did you want some of the typos or no? I can just give you my … 12 13 Mr. de Geus: Send them in. 14 15 Chair Lauing: It's a wrap. We have our dates for the next set of line-ups. 16 17 Ms. O'Kane: Can I just add? I'd like to thank again the ad hoc for their insight, wisdom 18 and work on this, especially Chapter 5. It's been very helpful. 19 20 Chair Lauing: We aren't going to say it was nothing, because it was something. Thanks 21 for hanging in there. We should be getting this zooming off to Council soon. Thank you. 22 23 4. Recommendation to Council to Explore the Potential Sale by AT&T and 24 Purchase by City of Palo Alto of a Portion of a Parcel at 3350 Birch Street, 25 Palo Alto, Adjacent to Boulware Park, for Parkland Use. 26 27 Chair Lauing: We have some speaker cards on the next item, which is recommendation 28 to Council from the Commission to explore the potential sale by AT&T and purchase by 29 City of Palo Alto of a portion of a parcel at 3350 Birch, Palo Alto, adjacent to Boulware 30 Park for parkland use. We have three speakers, and then we have a draft to circulate that 31 we can potentially vote on. The first speaker is Angela de la Parta. I hope I said that 32 correctly. Approximately 2 minutes. Thank you. 33 34 Angela de la Porta: My name's Angela de la Porta [phonetic]. I live in the Ventura 35 neighborhood. I'd just like to voice my support for the acquisition of the AT&T land that 36 is just right across the street from Boulware Park. It's been this lovely space that's been 37 very attractive for many years, but it's all overgrown and not used except by sometimes 38 vagrants as a toilet, which is not very pleasant. It would be great if we could actually 39 acquire that land and make it into a pleasant, welcoming place for people. Boulware Park 40 is, I think, maybe the smallest park in Palo Alto or one of the smallest. Just that little bit 41 of extra land would be lovely to have. That's all. 42 Approved Minutes 45 APPROVED 1 Chair Lauing: Thanks very much. Next is Jonathan Brown. 2 3 Jonathan Brown: Thank you to the Commission for giving me the opportunity to speak 4 tonight. Thank you to the staff who have worked hard on this. The Ventura 5 neighborhood has historically been an underserved part of the City. Boulware Park, with 6 the exception of the Ventura Community Center, is the only park in our very large 7 populous and diverse neighborhood. I wholeheartedly support the acquisition of as much 8 of the parcel at 3350 Birch Street as possible to expand this precious resource and elevate 9 our neighborhood's park space closer to those of other neighborhoods and closer to what 10 our community expects and deserves. The Ventura parks committee feels likewise—I'm 11 the chair of that committee—as do many of the community leaders and others to whom 12 I've spoken about this idea. Importantly, the time to act is now. AT&T is willing to sell, 13 and this opportunity must be seized now or it will be forever lost. I commend the 14 Commission for prioritizing this issue and putting it on tonight's agenda for action. The 15 community stands ready to help in any way necessary including with time, negotiations 16 and funding. In order to maximize our chances of successfully capitalizing on this 17 opportunity, we need to bring to bear all of our resources including not only those of our 18 City staff, who are already working on this, but also our community members and public-19 private partners who have shown the ability to step up to meet community needs when 20 government finds itself constrained in various ways as noted in several examples set forth 21 in the draft Parks Master Plan on pages 106 to 108. Please recommend pursuit of this 22 acquisition and please keep those in the community who stand willing to help involved 23 throughout the process. I live on Fernando Avenue, right across the street from Boulware 24 Park. I'd be happy to answer any questions from the Commission to the best of my 25 ability. I look forward to progress on this. Thank you. 26 27 Chair Lauing: Thanks. The third speaker is Becky Sanders. 28 29 Becky Sanders: Good evening, Commissioners. I want to just thank all of you all for 30 opening my eyes to how wonderfully smooth a Commission can run. It wasn't until I got 31 involved in this Ventura Park expansion program that I actually came to Parks and Rec. I 32 do seem to think—I'm not trying to butter you up, but you do seem to be one of the more 33 efficiently run. Everybody's firing on the—all the cylinders are working. It's been really 34 inspiring for me. I just want you to know that we had as many people here as the swim 35 club did; not really. We did have three more people; we had three more people here. 36 Here's the deal. With the acquisition of the Mike's Bikes property, that's going to be 37 expanding deep into Ventura along Pepper Avenue, and with the coming online of 441 38 Page Mill, that's a ginormous Godzilla project, that's increasing the housing stock big 39 time, as they say. How about increasing the parkland? Just a little bit would be great. Of 40 course, we'll be back for the Fry's. I don't know what's going on with Fry's. When that 41 comes online, we'll be back. It doesn't make any sense to keep piling people into the 42 Approved Minutes 46 APPROVED Ventura neighborhood already, I think, the densest neighborhood in Palo Alto without 1 adding parkland. If it's beaucoup moolah that AT&T is looking for, let's see what we can 2 do. There is a tradition of investors buying on spec, hoping that they can get Council or 3 somebody to flip the public facility. We've seen that at VTA. There's a little nod there. 4 If they can make below market rate happen there or something, they'll flip that zoning. 5 I'm anxious that the PF zoning will be flipped to something that will be like RM-30 or 6 something. I just want to send developers a clear signal that zoning is not for sale in Palo 7 Alto, and it's not for sale in Ventura. I feel very passionately. I make jokes and 8 everything, but I feel deeply passionate about keeping the public facility. We pave it 9 over if there's no money, but let's not lose this opportunity to make a beautiful addition to 10 our open space in beautiful Palo Alto. Thank you for your service and great job on the 11 Master Plan, parks people. Really good job. Thank you. 12 13 Chair Lauing: Thank you. You can come every month if you like. Lovely comments. I 14 did some, and you did some. Kristen did some. Mine are the non-green, two-page 15 varieties in case you want to write on things. Just a draft of what we should talk about. It 16 doesn't have to be this wording. 17 18 Commissioner Moss: Can you remind me what the process is? 19 20 Vice Chair Knopper: Is this the same thing? 21 22 Chair Lauing: Sorry. I didn't know you passed it out. Sorry. 23 24 Commissioner Moss: You will remind me what the process is. 25 26 Chair Lauing: This is a recommendation from us to Council specifically to do what it 27 says in the—staff and ultimately Council to do an investigation to kind of bring all the 28 issues to light and see if there's a way that we can sort of wrestle this to the ground. 29 That's an informal way of answering your question, Commissioner Moss, but that's what 30 we're asking for here. You want to add to that, Rob? 31 32 Mr. de Geus: I'm not sure I understand the question. The Parks and Recreation 33 Commission is a Commission that advises Council on matters related to parks and 34 recreation. This is the Commission contemplating making a recommendation to the City 35 Council that we look to acquire, if possible, this piece of land. That's the process we're 36 in. If the Commission agrees to do that as a Commission, then staff will facilitate making 37 sure the Council gets that advice from their Commission. 38 39 Chair Lauing: With appropriate investigation of options and costs and risks and all that 40 kind of thing. Just to clarify, it doesn't mean that if we make this, then we're done and it 41 Approved Minutes 47 APPROVED just goes straight to Council. It still needs to have a lot of work done around the issues, 1 but it's an activation process that we're going for here and a very high visibility process. 2 3 Commissioner Cribbs: What's the timeline then? 4 5 Chair Lauing: Of next steps? 6 7 Commissioner Cribbs: Yeah, of next steps. 8 9 Mr. de Geus: If the Commission votes to send this along to Council, recognizing there is 10 some sensitivity and urgency around this, we would want to get it to the Council as soon 11 as possible. I'd have to talk to the City Manager about how exactly he would like to do 12 that. There's different ways that can be communicated. We'll look into that right away, 13 and then I can let the Commission know. 14 15 Vice Chair Knopper: What are we supposed … 16 17 Chair Lauing: We need to look at this and see if this states exactly what we want to say 18 or if we want to change the draft of this in any way. This is just a draft for the 19 Commission to evaluate. Obviously it shows how it's tied to the draft Master Plan and 20 Comprehensive Plan. 21 22 Commissioner Reckdahl: Do we know how many acres this parcel is? 23 24 Commissioner Hetterly: The parcel, I don't know. Do you know? 25 26 Commissioner Reckdahl: The park is 1 1/2. 27 28 Daren Anderson: We recently had the real estate attorney look into this. What we found 29 is it's not the entire parcel outside those buildings. It's actually 0.63 acres that they're able 30 to sell, 0.63 acres. 31 32 Commissioner Reckdahl: That lot is part for sale and part not for sale? 33 34 Mr. Anderson: Yes. 35 36 Commissioner Reckdahl: It might be good to specify that. In the second paragraph, 37 where we say the subject property is currently zoned, maybe in that sentence somehow 38 we can mention that it is 0.63 acres. 39 40 Ms. O'Kane: I'd like to add a couple of things on that. The first is just to clarify that the 41 property isn't for sale yet. They do need to do a lot line adjustment to identify that 0.63 42 Approved Minutes 48 APPROVED acres. I don't think that's set in stone at this point, that it's 0.63 acres, because they have 1 to go through that process and then actually put the property up for sale. 2 3 Commissioner Reckdahl: Maybe we can just say approximately 0.6 acres. I just wanted 4 to give … 5 6 Commissioner Hetterly: I would leave it out. 7 8 Commissioner Reckdahl: You'd leave it out? 9 10 Commissioner Hetterly: Yeah, just because we don't know what it's going to be and it's 11 negotiable presumably how it will turn out. I think the Council knows the property that 12 we're talking about. I don't think we need to provide that kind of detail that we can't be 13 certain of. 14 15 Commissioner Reckdahl: The reason it's important to me is that it's a significant lot, it's a 16 significant size. Compared to the park itself, it's almost like half the size of the park. It'd 17 be different if this was a tiny little lot and if we miss it, we miss it. This is really 18 important because this would really make an impact to the park. Maybe we don't have to 19 give numbers, but I would want to say it would significantly improve the park or make a 20 strong statement that this is really important for the park. It's just not a small lot that just 21 happens to be on the edge. 22 23 Chair Lauing: You just want to put significant expansion in there? 24 25 Commissioner Hetterly: We could say something like "the generously sized property is 26 currently zoned public facility" or something to that effect. Is that what you—does that 27 work? 28 29 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yep, I'd be happy with that. I just wanted to make sure that 30 they understand this is significant, and it's not just a small lot. 31 32 Commissioner Moss: It's important because they could conceivably carve out a piece of 33 that for two homes and give us the rest. That would diminish the utility for us. I want to 34 make sure it's the whole thing and not half the thing. I don't know how to say that. 35 36 Chair Lauing: Commissioner Hetterly, what are you suggesting for the add there? 37 38 Commissioner Hetterly: How about we say "the sizable subject property is currently 39 zoned public facility"? 40 41 Approved Minutes 49 APPROVED Chair Lauing: That works. Any others? Commissioner Hetterly, would you like to 1 make a motion to adopt this? 2 3 MOTION: 4 5 Commissioner Hetterly: Yes. I move that we approve this memo and forward it to 6 Council. 7 8 Chair Lauing: Second, Commissioner Cribbs. Further discussion, staff? 9 10 Mr. de Geus: It's a really interesting and unique opportunity. I think exploring it makes a 11 lot of sense given what we heard from the public and just looking at it. We just went 12 over the Master Plan, and we have all of those things that we want to accomplish, the top 13 33 and more. You just take any number, take the 10 1/2 acres out at the golf course with 14 no funding for how we might improve that site. We have the 7.7 acres up at Foothills 15 Park that we're soon to learn what we might be able to do there. There's no funding for 16 that either. We talked about pools and gyms and other things. If we were to do 17 something like this, it could potentially draw on funds that could be used for some of 18 those other things. I think that's important, and maybe that could be part of the full 19 exploration. I don't know that that comes across as clearly here. It may be a unique 20 opportunity, but on balance is it the one that we should spend the limited resources and 21 funding on? Maybe it is, but I think it's important that there's some caution. At least that 22 staff will do that when we share it with Council. I'd be interested to hear from the 23 Commission if you agree. 24 25 Vice Chair Knopper: Because geographically speaking, Palo Alto has significant 26 limitations that any opportunity that you can purchase—totally hear what you're saying. 27 Obviously everybody at this table would renovate everything and make everything state 28 of the art tomorrow if we had the financial resources. The opportunity to actually 29 purchase land here is so difficult. It doesn't come up that often. Any chance that we 30 might be able, that has an adjacency to a park, it would be crazy not to explore it. It may 31 be financially not viable. AT&T might decide to do something completely different. I 32 think it's necessary based on everything that we've talked about, trying to expand our 33 parkland. I do understand your reservation. I do understand that. 34 35 Chair Lauing: Others? As one of the speakers pointed out, that we know, that's a 36 particularly unserved place for parkland. That, I think, adds to the urgency of this 37 particular plot. 38 39 Commissioner Cribbs: I would agree with that about Ventura being underserved. I also 40 think that this is a great opportunity to paint the picture of we can do this, we can create a 41 vision, and there can be money out there to support it. It can go along with the list of the 42 Approved Minutes 50 APPROVED great things that we want to do as long as we ask and get it out there. I have a lot of faith 1 that saying we're going to do this or we recommend this is going to really help draw some 2 of the funding that we need. 3 4 Commissioner Hetterly: I agree with that. I think it will draw funding not just from City 5 resources but it gives something for people to rally around, as we heard from the 6 community. They're ready to step up and do what they can in terms of funding support 7 within the community and with other partners. I think putting a flag in the ground, saying 8 we really believe in taking advantage of unique opportunities like this for the long-term 9 good of our community is an important message to send. 10 11 Mr. de Geus: Do you think there is any advantage in including something about creative 12 funding opportunities to do this? The way it reads is just the City should purchase it, if 13 we can. That doesn't inspire fundraising. The City doesn't have money to purchase it. It 14 just seems like a gap in the message to me. 15 16 Chair Lauing: Do you think that should be here, though, or is that in part of the 17 investigation? Plus, we've heard here, which is obviously recorded in the minutes, that 18 there are local resources that are willing to step up and look at helping fund it. 19 20 Mr. de Geus: I would feel more comfortable if it was included in there, that there was 21 some recognition that the City does not have a fund that can just buy land, and a 22 recognition of that balance with the many needs that the City has in the park system and 23 recreation program and facilities. That's not to say we shouldn't do it. I'm not saying 24 that. I actually think it's really a unique opportunity that I would support. 25 26 Commissioner Hetterly: How about if we add a sentence at the end of that first clause 27 that says "including identification of creative funding opportunities to realize this unique 28 opportunity"? Does that work? 29 30 Mr. de Geus: I think that's better. 31 32 Chair Lauing: Creative funding, I think, is fine. We don't want to commit the 33 community to any dollar amount tonight. It's not unprecedented. This has happened 34 before in the City. Any other comments? 35 36 Commissioner Cribbs: Yes, it could be the (inaudible) our first for our program legacy 37 thing that we talked about in the Master Plan. This could be something that we can try 38 and everybody can jump aboard. 39 40 Chair Lauing: Any other comments or are we ready to vote on the revised memo? Let's 41 just review the revisions. 42 Approved Minutes 51 APPROVED 1 Commissioner Hetterly: I do have one other question following up on Anne's point. We 2 do have a policy about that, should that policy be added to the Master Plan policies that 3 are relevant. 4 5 Commissioner Cribbs: That's a good idea. 6 7 Commissioner Hetterly: The changes I have are at the end of the first sentence insert a 8 comma and add "including identification of creative funding opportunities to realize this 9 unique opportunity." 10 11 Chair Lauing: I don't think we want "opportunity" twice there? 12 13 Commissioner Hetterly: What do you want to say? 14 15 Chair Lauing: "To enhance the ability to make the purchase." 16 17 Commissioner Moss: Maybe a public-private partnership. 18 19 Male: Funding strategy. 20 21 Commissioner Reckdahl: (crosstalk) strategy. 22 23 Commissioner Hetterly: Creative funding strategies to realize this unique opportunity. 24 Does that work? 25 26 Vice Chair Knopper: Sure. 27 28 Chair Lauing: Sure. 29 30 Commissioner Hetterly: At the beginning of the second paragraph, we're going to insert 31 "sizable." It says "the sizeable subject property is currently zoned public facility," and 32 then it continues on. We're going to figure out whichever program it is that talks about 33 look for funding partnerships, etc., and add that to the programs or policy, whichever it is, 34 that's listed in the Master Plan. 35 36 Chair Lauing: All in favor of the motion as amended on the floor. It's unanimous. 37 Thank you. Thanks to the speakers as well. 38 39 MOTION AS AMENDED PASSED 40 41 Approved Minutes 52 APPROVED 5. Other Ad Hoc Committee and Liaison Updates. 1 2 Chair Lauing: The next item on the agenda is other ad hoc committee and liaison 3 updates. Do you have any items on that, Daren? 4 5 Mr. Anderson: Just a brief update on the IT&T property. We were able to do tours for 6 most of the Commission. If there were any Commissioners who didn't get to come and 7 would like to do it, I'd be glad to set up another tour. You can just send me an email, and 8 we'll find a time. For those that joined me, thanks so much. I enjoyed that. One of the 9 follow-up items was to look into the hydrology of that area a little bit. I'm sorry I don't 10 have the display for you. The next time I come back, I can. Commissioner Moss joined 11 me. We walked around and looked at it for about an hour. This was at a king tide. The 12 intent was to see exactly how much of it receives any tidal influence. As we suspected, 13 it's one 18-inch pipe that carries tidal water from the other side of Byxbee, closer to the 14 marsh front trail in the Baylands, across into this 150-acre wetland area. It's extremely 15 muted because there's (inaudible) coming in. This is in a 9-plus king tide. There was just 16 very little change into what we had seen the day we had come out, which I think was an 17 average tide height. We know it's muted, but there is water that comes into the area 18 inside the fence of the 35.5 acres, the antenna field. There is tidal action in there for what 19 it's worth. We could easily put together a little display that kind of shows you where 20 that's at. I think that's all I had on that item. 21 22 Commissioner Reckdahl: Were we going to, in the Baylands Master Plan, address that? 23 We had talked about that on the tour. 24 25 Mr. Anderson: It's a challenge. It was a great question. How in depth would it get? I 26 think unfortunately it is unlikely to go into great detail. What mostly likely would 27 happen is there'd be a recommendation upon further analysis and study to say you can 28 enhance the habitat by increasing the tidal flow. Exactly how you do that is very 29 complex. You don't just reshape a marsh by going in with shovels. It's a very engineered 30 solution, and it would take a lot of study, almost its own hydrology study. What I would 31 anticipate is it would be looked at a high level with the Baylands Comprehensive Plan 32 and probably be a recommendation on ways to improve the habitat in that area. 33 34 Commissioner Reckdahl: I think that's a good idea. It's not that we need to solve this 35 problem, but I want it on people's radar screen. If we include it in the Conservation Plan, 36 then it will be eventually addressed hopefully. 37 38 Mr. Anderson: Thank you. 39 40 Chair Lauing: Other ad hoc committee or liaison updates from Commissioners or staff? 41 42 Approved Minutes 53 APPROVED V. DEPARTMENT REPORT 1 2 Chair Lauing: The next item on the agenda is Number V, now VI department report. 3 Rob, Kristen? 4 5 Mr. de Geus: I just have a couple of updates. I sent the Commission a report for a study 6 session on the Junior Museum and Zoo that's going to happen this coming Monday. I'm 7 not sure if you've had a chance to read that. The study session with Council will look at a 8 few things. We'll give them an update on where we are in the process with the Friends. 9 We'll look at the current design of the new facility, which is smaller as I've mentioned at 10 previous meetings. It's still being worked on even as we speak. We just included some 11 fairly simple floor plans in the actual staff report. The big changes are going from a two-12 story building to a one-story, more modest building. We will share that. The Zoo 13 footprint is the same as the last time you saw it. I thought it had actually come off even 14 further, but it's the same as the last time. I think the Commission was comfortable at that 15 point with that. There was also a phasing of the project. There's a second phase of the 16 construction project, because the funding is just not available to do what they had hoped 17 for. It's unfortunate but in some ways a smaller, more modest program might be in the 18 end the better thing to go forward with for the local community and some of the 19 challenges we already have with that site and how packed it is and parking and other 20 issues. We'll also talk about an interim location for the Junior Museum and Zoo when we 21 do close and rebuild. We're looking at Cubberley as a possibility for that, at least that's 22 the current thinking as a site. The auditorium at Cubberley not to have a zoo but certainly 23 the program and exhibit space so it can remain relevant. We'll give them an update on 24 the fundraising, which is going very well from the Friends. They committed to raising 25 $25 million; they've raised 24 and have $1 million to go. This additional Phase 2, which 26 staff thinks is really important to try and get done, is about $3 million more. We'll see if 27 funding will find its way to that. We'll talk about timeline, which is still all tentative. 28 They haven't submitted a project for permitting yet. It'll be an interesting study session to 29 tune into. It's taped, so you can watch it later as well. We can also add it to the 30 December agenda if the Commission wants to get a full update from the project team. 31 32 Vice Chair Knopper: May I ask one quick question? 33 34 Mr. de Geus: Yeah. 35 36 Vice Chair Knopper: They're shrinking the size. Will it still be large enough for them to 37 get that accreditation they needed for the animals? 38 39 Mr. de Geus: It will. 40 41 Vice Chair Knopper: It will not? 42 Approved Minutes 54 APPROVED 1 Mr. de Geus: It will. It will still be accredited. 2 3 Commissioner Cribbs: What time is the study session? 4 5 Mr. de Geus: 6:00. Are there any other questions? 6 7 Commissioner Reckdahl: Can you discuss shortly about the Rinconada Master Plan? 8 You mentioned in that discussion that we were waiting for the Junior Zoo. What's the 9 timetable or what's the order of tasks that are going to happen? 10 11 Mr. de Geus: I hope that'll come forward in the spring of next year, once the final plans 12 for the Junior Museum is done and the environmental work for the Rinconada long-range 13 plan is completed. 14 15 Commissioner Reckdahl: (crosstalk) under way right now? 16 17 Mr. de Geus: They're related. Yeah, most of it actually is done. We're waiting on a few 18 reports to be finalized. 19 20 Commissioner Reckdahl: That will come back to us in the spring? 21 22 Mr. de Geus: The Rinconada long-range plan will come back to the Commission right 23 before we go to Council. We'll need to be reminded of everything that's in there, because 24 it's been some time. 25 26 Commissioner Reckdahl: (inaudible) or is it just that it's a courtesy, coming back to us? 27 28 Mr. de Geus: I think we would ask the Commission to recommend approval for that. 29 Just quickly, we had an interesting trip over to Emeryville. Emeryville decided to build a 30 community center and school together. They very much needed to do that and had big 31 funding issues and other things. With Dr. Max McGee and Bob Golton from the School 32 District, Kristen and I visited and got a tour and heard about that whole experience as 33 related to our interest in Cubberley. It was fascinating. They share everything, the whole 34 space, classrooms, the whole thing. We learned some things from that. I don't think we 35 need to have that level of sharing here in Palo Alto, but it can be done. It's clear that it is 36 being done there. They're 3 months in or something like that, less than 6 months open at 37 this point. There are some growing pains that they're going through. It was interesting to 38 be there, and it was great to have Max and Bob join us, showing their interest in moving 39 this along. That's all I have to report. 40 41 Approved Minutes 55 APPROVED Mr. Anderson: I do have one more report. Staff has started work on the CIPs, our capital 1 budget. Just started today, first kickoff meeting. Unfortunately and as usual, the 2 turnaround time is quick. We're to return to Council by December 15th. Sorry, not 3 Council, to our OMB staff, budget staff, with our department's recommendations for 4 CIPs. As our custom has been, there's an ad hoc with the Commission that meets with 5 staff and kind of vets this through. The turnaround time is kind of quick, but that would 6 be really helpful. I don't know if it's the same ad hoc committee we've worked with or if 7 there's a new one. It'd be helpful to meet fairly quickly with them and talk through some 8 of the options. 9 10 Chair Lauing: I think the current one is just Keith, as I recall. 11 12 Commissioner Reckdahl: Unless there is other takers. 13 14 Chair Lauing: In addition to or instead of? 15 16 Commissioner Reckdahl: In addition. If one of the new people have some interest, 17 they're welcome to join me. Otherwise, I'm happy to do it myself. 18 19 Female: (inaudible) 20 21 Mr. Anderson: I'm sorry I did a bad job of kicking that off. This is the capital 22 improvement projects. 23 24 Chair Lauing: Looks like you've got it, Keith. You and Daren can coordinate on it. 25 26 VI. COMMENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS 27 28 Chair Lauing: Overall comments and announcements as distinct from the department 29 report. Always looking for the hydrological update from the 7.7. 30 31 Mr. Anderson: Yeah, the Buckeye Creek hydrology study. By the end of this month, we 32 should have some concepts, which is great. They've done some preliminary analysis on 33 their survey work. We're one step closer. We'll look over those concepts and probably 34 have a public meeting, bring it to the Commission not too far after that. 35 36 Commissioner Moss: The Baylands Conservation, is that going out to bid? 37 38 Mr. Anderson: Yes. We're still working with purchasing to get that one out to bid for the 39 Baylands Comprehensive Conservation Plan. 40 41 Chair Lauing: Go ahead. 42 Approved Minutes 56 APPROVED 1 Commissioner Hetterly: I just wanted to let everybody know that the Comp Plan Update 2 Committee is wrapping things up around the Natural Environment Element for the Comp 3 Plan. I wanted to thank Daren for coming to the subcommittee meeting and putting in a 4 lot of time. We hashed through a lot of details. We met about it last night. The current 5 draft was very well received along with some additions that were nearly unanimous if not 6 unanimous. I think there will be some additive. I expect next month, December 13th, the 7 full Committee will vote to move that Element forward to the City Council. 8 9 Ms. O'Kane: I have one announcement. I wanted to recognize that Chair Lauing and 10 Commissioners Knopper and Hetterly were recognized at Monday's Council meeting. 11 There were resolutions read for each of them in appreciation for their work here on the 12 Commission for many years. Of course, that was voted unanimously to accept those 13 resolutions. Again, on behalf of all of us here, thank you for all your service and work on 14 the Commission. 15 16 Chair Lauing: On top of all her other work, Kristen came to that too. Thank you. 17 18 Vice Chair Knopper: Did you replace us? 19 20 Mr. de Geus: The interviews, I think, are the 30th of November. 21 22 Chair Lauing: Not much time. 23 24 VII. TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR DECEMBER 14, 2016 MEETING 25 26 Chair Lauing: Tentative agenda items for December 14th special meeting. 27 28 Commissioner Cribbs: Is that still the 14th? 29 30 Chair Lauing: Yeah. Special meeting because it's been moved. That's why it's called 31 special, the 14th. Just before that on the calendar, we see still the Council meeting on the 32 Master Plan on the 12th. That's done, out. 33 34 Commissioner Moss: Peter mentioned three dates. He mentioned December 5th, 35 December 9th and December 14th. What is 5th, which is a Monday? What is 36 December 9th, which is a Friday? 37 38 Mr. Jensen: December 5th is when staff, the project team, would like further comments 39 that you have for the draft Master Plan report to come back to us, so we can incorporate 40 those into the final draft that'll be coming to you on the third date, the 14th. The meeting 41 Approved Minutes 57 APPROVED on the 14th is the next PRC meeting. The 5th is when we'd like comments back from 1 you. The 9th is when we'd like to close the community survey. Those are the three dates. 2 3 Chair Lauing: Let's get back to the tentative agenda. Is anything on aquatics coming 4 back next month? 5 6 Mr. de Geus: We're going to be actively working on that over the next couple of months. 7 If there is substantive updates, that could certainly be. We have this survey that's out 8 right now, that we have several hundred responses to. I don't think that's enough. If we 9 have more than that or more alignment of what we might be thinking to have a further 10 conversation. At this time, though, I'm just not sure. We'll have to stay in touch. 11 12 Chair Lauing: Clearly the Master Plan is coming back again. 13 14 Commissioner Hetterly: Are we going to vote on it in December? 15 16 Chair Lauing: What? 17 18 Commissioner Hetterly: The Master Plan. 19 20 Chair Lauing: Yeah, I would hope so. Action item. 21 22 Vice Chair Knopper: How exciting. I genuinely mean that. 23 24 Commissioner Cribbs: I have a conflict that night, so I most likely will not be there 25 (inaudible) out of town. 26 27 Chair Lauing: The Zoo, if they're willing to come back and meet us again. 28 29 Mr. de Geus: If the Commission wants to do that. 30 31 Chair Lauing: I would like to, but I'm just raising it for Commission input. Go ahead. 32 33 Commissioner Reckdahl: I'm not sure what we would say. Certainly if they want to give 34 us an update of what the status is, I could listen. I don’t have any strong feelings either 35 way. 36 37 Mr. de Geus: I don't think they have a strong interest to come back, not for any other 38 reason. Their park issues haven't changed considerably since the last time they were 39 here. They will come back for a Park Improvement Ordinance at some point when it's 40 closer to a real project and happening. 41 42 Approved Minutes 58 APPROVED Commissioner Reckdahl: One of the questions we had last time was can they shrink it 1 back at all. Did they shrink it back at all? 2 3 Mr. de Geus: They did twice. The third time was as far as they felt like they could go. 4 They haven't gone further back. What they have done, which is interesting, is the 5 building is smaller. That's allowed for the Zoo to get a little bit more space. That wasn't 6 on parkland. 7 8 Commissioner Reckdahl: It still went out like 90 feet into that grassy area. 9 10 Chair Lauing: That's why we should see it again. 11 12 Commissioner Reckdahl: If they're going to come back and say it is what it is, we're 13 going to bring it to Council, then that'll be a little awkward. 14 15 Commissioner Hetterly: It's going to Council before our next meeting. Isn't that right? 16 17 Mr. de Geus: It's going to Council next Monday. 18 19 Commissioner Hetterly: My inclination would be not to bring it back to us unless 20 there's—I would like an update following the Council session to hear how that went. I 21 think we can certainly watch it on the webcast and get the same presentation, unless they 22 want to come. Of course, I would welcome them to come, but I would hate to ask them 23 to put in the hours of prep time in order to present to us something that they've just 24 presented to Council and we have access to. 25 26 Chair Lauing: Any other comments? No. Doesn't seem like we need that to come back 27 then. It's just Master Plan and possibly aquatics. 28 29 Mr. de Geus: Maybe. 30 31 Chair Lauing: Maybe, why? It's an action item. Any other comments? 32 33 Mr. de Geus: I'm not saying we should do this. We have three Commissioners. The 34 Human Relations Commission for their December meeting has a short meeting, and they 35 all go out to dinner together. Isn't that nice? I'm just saying. 36 37 Chair Lauing: We would have to start our meeting at about 4:00 p.m. to have a short 38 meeting so we could still go out to dinner. 39 40 Vice Chair Knopper: We're just approving it. It's going to be perfect. 41 42 Approved Minutes 59 APPROVED Commissioner Moss: When do we get … 1 2 Chair Lauing: There's that. Any other items? A motion to adjourn? 3 4 Commissioner Moss: Hold on. 5 6 Chair Lauing: Sorry. 7 8 Commissioner Moss: When do we get your replacements? 9 10 Chair Lauing: They just said that they were going to interview on the 30th. It's for the 11 January meeting. Motion to adjourn? 12 13 VIII. ADJOURNMENT 14 15 Meeting adjourned on motion by Vice Chair Knopper and second by Commissioner 16 Hetterly at 10:25 p.m. 17 Approved Minutes 60