HomeMy WebLinkAbout2017-03-28 Parks & Recreation Summary MinutesAPPROVED
Draft Minutes 1
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MINUTES 5
PARKS & RECREATION COMMISSION 6
REGULAR MEETING 7
March 28, 2017 8
CITY HALL 9 250 Hamilton Avenue 10 Palo Alto, California 11
12 Commissioners Present: Anne Cribbs, Jeff Greenfield, Jeff LaMere, Ryan McCauley, Don 13
McDougall, David Moss, and Keith Reckdahl 14
Commissioners Absent: 15
Others Present: Adrian Fine 16
Staff Present: Daren Anderson, Kristen O'Kane, Tanya Schornack 17
I. ROLL CALL CONDUCTED BY: Tanya Schornack 18
II. AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, and DELETIONS:19
Chair Reckdahl: Next step is Agenda Changes, Requests, Deletions. Did anyone want to 20
make any changes? We'll move on to Oral Communications. 21
III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS:22
Chair Reckdahl: This is for things not on the agenda. First up is David Carnahan. 23
David Carnahan: Good evening, Chair Reckdahl and Commissioners. David Carnahan 24
in the City Clerk's Office. I'm here to speak with you about Board and Commission 25 recruitment. The City is currently looking for applicants for two positions on the Human 26 Relations Commission, three positions on the Library Advisory Commission, four 27 positions on the Public Art Commission, and two positions on the Utilities Advisory 28
Commission. I'm here tonight both to inform and also to give each you a flyer and 29
encourage you to talk to two members of the public about at least one of these positions, 30
as you have a much deeper connection into the community than we do in our office, and 31
also to share this information with members of the public here and those watching from 32
home. Again, that's two positions on the Human Relations Commission, three on the 33
Library Advisory Commission, four on the Public Art Commission, two on the Utilities 34
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Advisory Commission. Applications are available on the City Clerk's webpage, 1
www.cityofpaloalto.org/clerk. The application deadline is next Tuesday, April 4th, at 2
4:30 p.m. Thank you very much. 3
Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. We'll move on. The next one is Monica Engle Williams 4
[phonetic], followed by Susan McConnell [phonetic]. You have 2 minutes. Thanks. 5
Monica Engle Williams: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for the 6 opportunity to speak. My name is Monica Engle Williams. I was a resident of Palo Alto 7
for 25 years, now live in Mountain View. I teach pickleball for Palo Alto. I'm here to 8
request permission to be allowed to reserve tennis courts. You've probably heard about 9
pickleball. If you haven't, it's become a very popular sport. Played on a court a fourth of 10
the size of a tennis court with a paddle and a Whiffle ball like this. Pickleball is 11
especially appealing to seniors because it's a game that is low impact, easy on the joints, 12
fun exercise, and it improves emotional and social wellbeing. We have a very active 13
group in Palo Alto, a majority of whom are senior citizens. A small group started playing 14
at Mitchell Park 3 years ago. It's become so popular that we have recently founded the 15
Silicon Valley Pickleball Club, which is a nonprofit 501(c)(7) entity, and we already have 16
200 members. Up to now, we've been dropping into Mitchell Park on weekends and 17
taking our chances on the back three courts. As many as 80 people show up to play. 18
Ages range from 10-85 years old. We also have a group that meets on Wednesday 19
morning, all seniors. This too is drop-in because we are not allowed to reserve a tennis 20
court. Apparently, there's a rule that only the U.S.T.A. or the Palo Alto Tennis Club or 21
contractors who teach for the City are afforded this privilege. Commissioners, we need 22
your guidance on how to accomplish reserving the tennis courts for a sport other than 23
tennis. Until there are dedicated pickleball courts, we urge you to seek a way to change 24
this rule and allow pickleball-playing seniors an equal opportunity to reserve the courts. 25 I'd also like to invite you all to come and play with us. Thank you for your time. 26
Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. Next is Susan McConnell, followed by Anne Lemons 27 [phonetic]. 28
Susan McConnell: Hi. My name is Susan McConnell, and I've lived in Palo Alto since 29
1973. That's 44 years. For 20 years, I played and captained U.S.T.A. tennis teams until I 30
was sidelined with a serious knee injury, so no more tennis, but I'm back on the courts 31
playing pickleball and an active member of our Palo Alto pickleball group, Silicon Valley 32
Pickleball Club. The parks are about neighbors coming together. Eight or more 33
neighbors come together every Saturday and Sunday to play pickleball at Mitchell Park. 34
Forty or more seniors play every Wednesday, weather permitting. In addition, 20 or 35
more play every other day. On three tennis courts, we can fit 11 pickleball courts so 44 36
people can play at any given time. Pickleball players are a welcoming and inclusive 37
community. The homeschool community reached out to us. Our seniors have taught 38
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them how to play, and now they join us every Wednesday to play pickleball for their 1
homeschool exercise class. Pickleball is being offered for the first time through Enjoy!. 2
The class is already full and has a waiting list. On May 5 and 6, we are hosting for the 3
second year in a row the Bay Area senior games pickleball at Mitchell Park. Players are 4
coming from all over the west, not just California but Colorado, all kinds of states. This 5
is great publicity for Palo Alto. We are now asking for your support to give this group, 6 Silicon Valley Pickleball Club, the opportunity to reserve courts and going forward to 7
dedicate the three back courts at Michell Park for pickleball or, at the very least, to do 8
blended lines. I too invite you all to come, all you Commissioners. Wednesdays are 9
good because there's fewer people, and we can teach you. We have available people to 10
teach you. If you just want to come and see the incredible number of people, come on the 11
weekend. We have paddles; we have everything. Just wear sneakers. Thank you. 12
Chair Reckdahl: Thank you, Susan. Next, Anne Lemons is up, followed by Bruce Hill. 13
Anne Lemmenes: Hi, my name is Anne Lemmenes and I'm a Palo Alto resident. My 14
husband grew up here in Palo Alto, and we moved back to the City in 1988. We've been 15
here for a while. Pickleball is not only good exercise, but incredibly fun, and a great 16
social activity for everyone. It also allows seniors and mildly disabled people to flex 17
their competitive muscles. As a former competitive athlete who now suffers from MS-18
related fatigue, heat, and balance issues, I'm really grateful for the opportunity to play a 19
sport like this, that not only I but other people with—some of the elderly people come 20
out, and they have mobility issues or joint issues, and they're able to play this game 21
successfully and have a great time. The pickleball culture is so welcoming. You come 22
onto the courts, and you're greeted with a smile. They always invite everybody to play, 23
even like me. I'm not very good, but they always welcome me in and give me pointers. 24
It's just a great way to get out and meet people and be active. I'm very grateful for the 25 athletic outlet that pickleball allows me. I really hope you can grant our pickleball club 26 the ability to reserve the courts, so we can get out and enjoy this invigorating and 27 delightful sport. Thank you. 28
Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. Next up is Bruce Hill, followed by Carrie Chang 29
[phonetic]. 30
Bruce Hill: I moved to Palo Alto in 1970, and I'm now in my 40th year living in my 31
house 2 blocks from Mitchell Park. I learned to play last fall. A couple of years into 32
retirement, I have gone kind of crazy about pickleball. Quite seriously, as I was 33
approaching retirement, I would read about how do you prosper, how do you thrive in the 34
golden years. Always, you would hear keep moving, learn new things, stay social. 35
Pickleball just knocks it out of the court. We have such a good time. There's yakking. 36
You're having to learn physical and mental skills in that, and you're moving. The other 37
thing I would say—I do urge you all to come—is the fourth ingredient is keep laughing. 38
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We have a great time. With a name like pickleball, how seriously are you going to take 1
it? You can, but there's plenty of joviality. Thank you for your consideration. 2
Chair Reckdahl: Thank you, Bruce. Carrie Chang followed by Gerald Pearson 3
[phonetic]. 4
Carrie Chang: Hello everybody. I'm Carrie Chang. I've been a hospital nurse for 38 5
years. You probably know about our society problem, obesity, hypertension, diabetes. 6 Another problem with the seniors is sleep insomnia. We seniors have problem sleeping 7
due to the melatonin decreased production. When you play pickleball under the blue sky, 8
the trees and friends, melatonin production increase, and you can sleep better. When you 9
can sleep better, you can do a lot more. I spent most of my life perfecting my forehand, 10
backhand, overhead. When my knees gave out, I couldn't play tennis. It's really sad. 11
Pickleball is same skill, same clothes with all of my (inaudible) skirt, forehand, 12
backhand. Everything useful. I don't have to relearn. I don't have to buy clothes. The 13
other thing about it is—when you work, I don't really trust my coworker. They can smile 14
at you and pull you under the bus. When I play pickleball, I can say what I want. We 15
play. We eat, We laugh. We play again. All day events, potluck, lots of friends. Also, I 16
can have surgery and play my tennis, but then the successful rate of the surgery is maybe 17
95 percent, but I could be the 5 percent. Why should I risk my life to have a successful 18
surgery when I can have the same fun and maybe more fun with pickleball? One other 19
thing. This is a (inaudible) society. Tennis is not that convenience. You have to email. 20
You have to find your site. You have to find your sub, make phone calls. You have to 21
pay and all that. Pickleball is drop-in. You can live your life, do whatever you want, and 22
then you play pickleball and go back to do whatever you want, and then go back to 23
pickleball, all day, from 9:00-5:00 Saturday and Sunday. There's still people don't want 24
to leave 'til they drop dead. It's very affordable. 25
Chair Reckdahl: Fifteen seconds left. Cut to the chase please. 26
Ms. Chang: Lessons are free. Lots of people willing to teach you. It's a big thing to 27 (inaudible) obesity in America. Look at the pickleball group. Most of us are in good 28
shape. Thank you very much. 29
Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. The last speaker is Gerald Pearson. 30
Gerald Pearson: Thank you. Good evening. I'm Gerald Pearson. I've been out here 31
since 1973 when I came as a student at Stanford. I've been working at Stanford for the 32
last 22 years, and I just left about a year ago just to do full-time consulting. At that point, 33
I was actually thinking of moving back East since I'm working for myself, but I 34
discovered pickleball about a year ago. It's actually completely changed my plans. The 35
ability to play a sport again and to meet people—I've created a social network—and the 36
ability to play a sport and remain healthy and active has completely changed my plans 37
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and kept me here. Pretty much the main reason I've decided to stay here. The problem is 1
we don't have any courts we can rely on to be available to us when we need them. I'm 2
here simply to encourage you to do what you can to allow us either to reserve courts or 3
have some permanent, dedicated pickleball courts. Thank you very much. 4
Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. That wraps up Oral Communications for non-agenda items. 5
We'll move on to new business. 6
IV. BUSINESS: 7
1. Approval of Draft Minutes from the February 28, 2017 Parks and Recreation 8
Commission meeting. 9
Approval of the draft February 28, 2017 Minutes as presented was moved by 10
Commissioner Cribbs and seconded by Vice Chair Moss. Passed 6-0-1, McCauley 11
abstaining 12
2. Highway 101 Pedestrian/Bicycle Overpass Project Design Update 13
Chair Reckdahl: Highway 101 pedestrian/bicycle overpass project design. We'll have 14
our presentation first. Anyone wanting to speak on that, please fill out a speaker card, 15
and you'll speak after the presentation. 16
Kristen O'Kane: Thank you, Chair Reckdahl. I'm going to be introducing Elizabeth 17
Ames from our Public Works Department. She's going to introduce the staff who will be 18
giving the presentation tonight. 19
Elizabeth Ames: Good evening. Thank you for having us today. This is a very exciting 20
project. I just wanted to highlight that in November, we went back to Council with a 21
bowstring bridge concept that had a certain alignment. It was a 15 percent design. The 22
Council gave us direction. It's unusual to go to Council at that stage, 15 percent design. 23
Normally we would go to the Commissions, but we were trying to expedite this design. 24
We have Roy Schnabel with Biggs Cardosa Associates and Megha Bansal. She's our 25 project engineer with the City. Together, we are trying to get substantive comments as 26 much as possible from the Commission on the recreation, educational opportunities that 27 this bridge provides, any kind of feedback on the trailheads. There are some overlook 28
opportunities. We'll go into that, and Roy will go into that in more detail with the 29
presentation. We're looking for some feedback so we can fold this into the design. We're 30
going to go to the Boards and Commissions and eventually go into an environmental 31
assessment this summer. With that, I'll turn it over to Roy. 32
Roy Schnabel: Thank you, Elizabeth. I'd like to briefly go over some of the project. 33
What we're going to try to achieve with this presentation is basically give some 34
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background, talk about some of the design and some of the elements, and then review 1
schedule. Basically, this project is to construct a year-round, grade-separated, multiuse 2
overcrossing over Highway 101 to replace the existing Benjamin Lefkowitz underpass, 3
which is seasonal. It gets closed during the winter by the Water District. We were 4
approved as a contractor with the City in May of 2016. As Elizabeth said, in November 5
2016 we went to Council with a 15 percent design package, which basically had a base 6 alternative with several add-on enhancements. Eventually, the Council decided to go 7
with the more basic bridge alternative with very few enhancements to keep the cost down 8
and to expedite some of the delivery schedule that we needed to provide. Some of the 9
community basically wanted some of that as well. We are currently in a 35 percent 10
design. That includes development of the environmental assessment, getting geometric 11
approval from Caltrans, who has input as one of the stakeholders because of the crossing 12
at 101. Also through Caltrans, we'll go through structure type selection. The current 13
funding is budgeted at $14 million. These are the different funding sources. Basically our 14
goal is to keep the bridge under this budget and try to deliver it as quickly as possible. 15
The existing neighborhood context. The project is located at the southern edge of the 16
Baylands Nature Preserve. It is surrounded by business parks mostly. The one property 17
that is most impacted, business property, is 3600 West Bayshore. We will be doing some 18
minor work along the trail. We've convinced Santa Clara Valley Water District to open 19
the trail up. There's one residential community, Echelon condominiums, that will be 20
impacted by this. The main project elements include a prefabricated steel truss section 21
for the principle spans over U.S. 101 and the Bayshore frontage roads. The principle 22
span requires no column in the center of the freeway, so there will not be any work in the 23
center of Highway 101. It spans from right-of-way to right-of-way and includes a 165-24
foot span. We are doing a 12-foot clear crossing. One of the things that Council looked 25 at was various widths. We decided to stay within the 12-foot clear span and try to 26 maximize that. In conversation with the bicycle community, they asked us to move the 27 railings to the outer edge of the curbs. We're trying to keep them 14-foot clear inside, but 28
the walkway basically is 12 feet. As part of that Council and 15 percent direction, we're 29
looking at standard architectural items. We also included on the eastern stretch, the 30
eastern ramp, an outlook which allows people to pause and reflect on the Baylands. 31
There was an addition of a western approach access ramp, which allowed us to do some 32
roadway improvements so that we could put a sidewalk, which there isn't a continuous 33
sidewalk there, and to eliminate a convergence of the pedestrian sidewalk and the bike 34
lane, which converge at the channel. I'll show you a little bit more about that. In opening 35
the trail, we'll be including some trailheads at Meadow and at West Bayshore to 36
accommodate some bicycle access and pedestrian access without having to go to 37
Bayshore directly. Within the properties, we will be looking for bio-retention to collect 38
all the drainage, treat it, and then put it into the City's drainage system; some landscape 39
areas; an enhanced amenities package; some enhanced lighting opportunities. Just 40
recently the City has selected an artist, Mary Lucking Studios, who will be working with 41
us in the next couple of weeks to develop some art integration into the project. We have 42
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a video, which basically shows the alignment and some of the elements. [Video shown] 1
Hopefully that provided a little insight and probably explained it a lot better than I could. 2
Now, I'll go into some of the project elements specifically. Here's a plan overview. You 3
saw it in the video. We basically have an east-west connector across Highway 101 that 4
connects from the Bay Trail to the Adobe Creek Reach Trail and is connected by those 5
individual concrete access structures. Here's a bird's eye view of that. It'll also include a 6 steel span over the confluence of Barron and Adobe Creeks. The principle spans over the 7
freeways are going to be prefabricated steel trusses. These are some of the more 8
economical long-span options that are out there. You see them in trails where you have 9
long spans. It was important for us to eliminate the column in the middle of the freeway 10
especially since the freeway had the addition of an additional HOV lane in both 11
directions. There's not really an opportunity to put columns in the middle. We talked a 12
little bit about path widths. This is one of the diagrams we showed the City Council. 13
Here are some different alternatives. We have a 6 1/2-foot clearance local in Palo Alto. 14
Eight-foot, that's the pedestrian crossing over in Belmont. Ten-foot, that's the 15
Permanente Creek crossing down in Mountain View. Twelve feet is what we decided to 16
go with. That's what's shown here. For the base architecture, part of the direction with 17
the City Council was to select cost-effective materials, so we're looking at either utilizing 18
galvanized cable for the railings or welded wire mesh or standard chain link with 19
standard form features. The architecture is very industrial. There's a very industrial look 20
to it. We're looking at the potential of either self-weathering steel for the trusses or some 21
color that's more in the brown or earth-tone shade. Here shows the different samples of 22
the railings. I don't know if you can see it clearly. There are some that are cable, some 23
that are welded wire mesh with two different welded wire mesh appliques. We'll be 24
reviewing this with the Architectural Review Board and with the artist that's been 25 selected to come up with some preferred alternatives for the railings. With regards to the 26 eastern overlook, we looked at individual belvederes and then opted to do a longer stretch 27 across from one bend to the other, which allowed for a little bit longer stretch. It has 28
opportunities for seating and pausing. We were hoping to utilize some of the reclaimed 29
wood that's being taken out of the Boardwalk and utilizing the wood here either as boards 30
to sit on and also for the bench opportunities to integrate them into some bench or 31
artwork type thing. We have the one slide that shows the educational signage. We'll 32
need some direction as to what we want the educational signage to reference. With 33
regards to the western approach, if any of you have gone out to the site, I know David 34
mentioned he's been out there. You went out there today. The sidewalk is eliminated on 35
the southern end of the channel. The sidewalk continues on West Bayshore, where the 36
first bullet is. As you can see in the picture below, looking south, the sidewalk ends and 37
merges with the bike lane. On the other side of it, there is no sidewalk, so you have to 38
continue on the bike lane. If you're disabled or if you don't want to walk on the grass, 39
you have to continue on the bike lane on the street all the way up to the Adobe Creek 40
Trail. We've developed the alternative, which is a bypass connection, which takes the 41
sidewalk up and connects with the bridge that goes over the creek channel and then 42
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continues the sidewalk on the other side. We basically create an ADA-compliant, equal-1
access opportunity for a continuous sidewalk with this. The other advantage is the bike 2
lane now becomes exclusive use for the bikes. The bicycle community has really 3
embraced this adopted access. One of the benefits of this access is, instead of having to 4
walk all the way down to the Adobe Creek Trail if you're traveling on West Bayshore as 5
a pedestrian or southbound, you now have a direct access from the south onto the 6 pedestrian bike crossing. Our two connection points. One is at the Bay Trail. In lieu of a 7
very open plaza, the Council decided to go with a more minimal approach and look at a 8
safe T-connection that directs traffic both directions on the Bay Trail without the plaza 9
and to locate some of the enhanced amenities that they want to put there. Similarly at the 10
other end, as part of the discussion with the Water District and with the bicycle 11
community, they wanted a fairly large access opening so that bicyclists could make U-12
turn there and the Water District could store and place large maintenance vehicles. It's a 13
fairly large plaza. We'll put in an amenity station at that end as well, at the Adobe Creek 14
Trail. This is the Adobe Creek Trail. The limits of what we're doing on the trail is to 15
open it. The Water District is amenable to allowing us to open the connection between 16
Meadow and Bayshore. We will have to reorganize some of the fencing for them. We 17
will improve the trailheads so that they're more open and accessible. We will utilize the 18
existing paving between the trailheads. The only work that we're talking about within the 19
trail itself is to put up safety railing so that we have the 4-foot height requirement for 20
safety for bicyclists and pedestrians to utilize the trail. With regards to our bio-retention 21
and landscape areas on the Baylands side, we have had conversations with Fish and 22
Wildlife. This area is planted with a lot of nonnative material right now. They've asked 23
us to expand the area that we hydroseed and return back to native. We're not going to hit 24
all of it, but we are looking at an area that our construction potentially would impact. We 25 have a fairly large construction area, which is normally limited in this type of 26 environment. Because of the Fish and Wildlife's desire, they basically gave us 27 opportunities to destroy that area and replant it with native material. Of course, we'll be 28
looking at bio-retention opportunities to collect the drainage that's coming from the 29
bridge. Similarly on the other side, we're impacting the parking lot of 3600 West 30
Bayshore, so we'll have to reconfigure the parking lot. Where the existing access 31
opening used to be is a little further to the south. We've had to relocate the ingress/egress 32
point. We've maintained their number of parking stalls, so we haven't affected their 33
parking, the parking number of stalls. We basically are going to similarly put a bio-34
retention area along here. We're trying to locate that underneath the bridge section 35
because that's not very usable for landscaping, and then utilize the other areas as 36
landscaping opportunities for the trees that we're impacting with this project. With 37
regards to the enhanced amenities package, the Council wanted to have a little more up-38
scale amenities and included drinking fountain stations, water bottle refilling areas, some 39
bike racks, and some interpretive signage. With regards to the lighting, we're planning to 40
use LED lighting because of the efficiency of them. There are some requirements with 41
regards to glare, both from the environmental areas that we're impacting, with the 42
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channel, and with the freeway as well. They're high efficiency; they'll be very focused 1
lighting. We're looking at opportunities to do more of the pole-mounted lights because 2
they're a lot more efficiency. In areas where we can't do the pole-mounted lights, we'll be 3
looking at rail-mounted lighting. There's an example of what the look of the lighting will 4
be on the path for both those alternatives. With regards to schedule, Phase 1 we've 5
finished the preliminary design. We've gone to Council with the 15 percent. We're 6 currently on the 35 percent, which we're hoping to complete sometime in the summer or 7
fall. It'll correspond to CEQA and NEPA clearance, environmental clearance, around fall 8
to winter with our 65 percent design. Once we're completed with our 65 percent design, 9
we'll go into final design and go into 95-100 percent completion and then into 10
construction. We're scheduled for early 2019, but we're looking for opportunities to 11
accelerate schedule where we can. Questions. 12
Chair Reckdahl: We'll open it up for public comment first, and then the Commission will 13
crack at you. First is Shani Kleinhaus, followed by Jeff Sanders. 14
Shani Kleinhaus: Good evening. Welcome to the new Commissioners. My name is 15
Shani Kleinhaus. I'm a biologist and the environmental advocate for Santa Clara Valley 16
Audubon Society, and I'm a resident of Adobe Meadows, which is the neighborhood that 17
is really looking forward to this bridge moving forward. I have a few comments about 18
the information that was provided. This bridge is in a riparian corridor. To see the 19
design and the presentation, looking at revegetation with hydroseeding in a place that 20
really should have restoration of the riparian corridor as much as we can by planting trees 21
inside the circle, things like that, I find that a little disappointing. I don't think 22
hydroseeding would work, and I was really looking forward to actually seeing plants 23
there and something that relates to the environment of the creek, willows, cottonwood, 24
these kind of things. That's one comment. Another one is about the art that is moving 25 forward. It would be nice if it is bird-friendly, and we don't find out later that it's some 26 kind of art that has some transparent components that could damage birds. I'm going to 27 remove public hat and just talk as a resident now. It's nice to see there's a drinking 28
fountain. It would be good if it was also a dog-drinking fountain. I know it's a small 29
comment. We have one at the Baylands; it would be nice to have a similar facility or 30
amenity here. One other thing. I don't know how many of you have been there. It's 31
really noisy, and it's not a very pleasant place to be at. I'm not sure that investing a lot of 32
money in an overlook would really bring what we're looking for. I don't think people will 33
want to sit there. Even though the views are really good, the noise from the freeway, if 34
we don't plant trees, would be very, very disruptive. Maybe the funding should go more 35
into the restoration of the habitat to the best we can rather than overlooks that may not be 36
used very much. That was a comment as a resident. I thank you and hope this moves 37
forward quickly. 38
Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. Jeff Sanders is next. 39
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Jeff Sanders: My comment is more about the future after the bridge. West Bayshore is a 1
very un-bicycle-friendly stretch. Right off of West Bayshore, there's Sterling Canal, 2
which is a City right-of-way. I'm not sure if you all are aware of it. It runs right along 3
behind all those buildings, and it goes all the way from Adobe and Barron confluence up 4
to Greer Park. If you throw a bridge across Matadero Creek, you've got off West 5
Bayshore access for pedestrians and bicycles. When the condominiums went in on West 6 Bayshore at Loma Verde—that backs up to my property—I convinced the developer then 7
to improve and develop Sterling Canal from Loma Verde up to Matadero Creek. That 8
part's already done. The only part that would need to be done is really securing at 3600 9
West Bayshore, Google's property, right-of-way across their parking lot to Sterling 10
Canal. That gets you behind Girls' Middle School, behind all those other businesses, all 11
the way up. If you eventually do a bridge over Matadero, it gets you all the way to Greer 12
Park. That's where the northern end of the bike lanes ends. At Amarillo, there is no bike 13
lane. Colorado is where it ends. Keep that in mind as the next step after this bridge 14
would be getting the bicycles and pedestrians off West Bayshore entirely. Also, the 15
sidewalk on West Bayshore is not ADA compliant. The fire hydrants and the street lights 16
are in the middle of the sidewalk. It's already a very unfriendly—even on the sidewalk 17
it's not pedestrian-friendly. Pedestrians, moms with strollers are in the bike lanes, and the 18
cars on West Bayshore go 50 miles an hour. That's it. Thank you. 19
Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. We have a new comment here for Roy Snider [phonetic]. 20
Roy Snider: Thank you. Like everybody else, I've been a resident of Palo Alto since 21
Columbus discovered America. I live in the Palo Verde neighborhood. I bike out to the 22
Baylands once or twice a week during the season. I want to associate myself with the 23
comments of the previous speaker. We can do a lot to open up access along that corridor 24
from Louis to this point. The other point is right now the West Bayshore bike line is 25 unsafe. Cars coming southbound around that curve drift into the bike lane. I've asked 26 City staff over the course of about the last 5 years to investigate, as you've done, opening 27 up the Water District right-of-way between East Meadow and the trailhead. I think that's 28
called the Adobe Reach project. I understand that we've reached agreement with the 29
Water District. I urge you now, while we're continuing with this project, to open up that 30
trail now. As I say, I've sent to Elizabeth and to other staff photos of cars drifting into the 31
bike lane. About two out of every three cars coming along West Bayshore in the 32
southbound direction drift into the bike lanes. You'll find bikers on the sidewalks or they 33
come along behind the buildings and use their back parking lot. Thank you very much. 34
Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. That's all the public comment we have. I'll move on to 35
Commissioners. You want to start? 36
Commissioner Greenfield: Sure. I think there's a lot to like about the plan. I really like 37
the aesthetics. It's clean, simple, and traditional. It's nice. Including the Adobe Reach 38
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Trail connection to East Meadow is a huge win. That's great work and will be very 1
popular with the community. I do have a question about that. I understand that you'll 2
utilize the existing aggregate-base surfacing. There's no plans to resurface it at this time 3
presumably for budgetary reasons. It's a pretty rough surface and would be difficult for 4
strollers and for road bikes. Is it possible to crush the material to make it more accessible 5
for bikes? Would that be within the budget perhaps? 6
Mr. Schnabel: We're looking at different alternatives there. One of the major issues is, if 7
we do something that's nonpermeable, collection of water. We'd have to be able to find a 8
way to treat that. Unfortunately, it's submerged. It would probably require a pumping 9
station to take the water out of that area. There's an escalated cost. We could look at 10
some additional alternatives. We have been communicating and having meetings with 11
the bicycle community about what preferences they have and what they want. We're 12
clearing the utilization of other surfaces from an environmental standpoint. If we have 13
enough money, it has the opportunity to do something a little bit more there as long as it 14
fits within the budget we have. 15
Commissioner Greenfield: Would you pave the area if you had the money to do that? 16
Mr. Schnabel: One of the things I was looking at was permeable asphalt, but it's still kind 17
of a rough surface. It's a permeable situation, which has the same drainage capabilities as 18
the aggregate base. We're looking at some other, finer aggregate base. We're taking a 19
look at it and trying to cost it. Right now, it's not included in the overall concept. If it's 20
something we can fit within the budget, we'll do that. 21
Ms. Ames: We could also consider, when we do our value engineering, we could do—22
sometimes we do add alternates with our bids, our bid package. Then, we'll get prices for 23
the construction to see if we can squeeze in something like that, just to see what the price 24
is. 25
Commissioner Greenfield: There was mention that the Water District may close trail 26 access for channel sedimentation maintenance. Can you clarify what area would be 27 closed? Do we have any idea how frequently this might occur and for what length of 28
time? 29
Mr. Schnabel: They want to have the ability to close—one of the big issues with regards 30
to opening the trail is that at any time they may want to close it for channel maintenance. 31
Their planned channel maintenance probably ranges from 3-5 years. Depending on 32
nature and conditions, it may be more frequently or less frequently. They may have some 33
issues with fixing—they had to fix a concrete liner at one point. The closure is probably 34
weeks, maybe months, depending on the type of work. One of the advantages of that 35
alternative access from the south is even if they close the area in front of that access, we'll 36
still have a secondary access point. They really like that. It gave them pause to allow us 37
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to open the trail up. What we're planning is—they wanted a fence. If you can see in that 1
top picture, I located the fence behind that big, large plaza area. That's where they want 2
to store equipment overnight during their maintenance operations. There would be 3
opportunities for that to continuously stay open depending on what type of operations 4
they were doing. 5
Commissioner Greenfield: The plaza would remain open or that could potentially close 6 as well? 7
Mr. Schnabel: It's going to be up to them. They have to keep the sidewalk open for sure. 8
It's up to them because they own the property. We've sort of had conversations with them 9
about how they do that. At least, it gives them the opportunity to keep the plaza open by 10
design. Whether they close it or not, it's up to them. 11
Commissioner Greenfield: If I understand it correctly, if the plaza were closed, then the 12
south entrance to the bridge would be closed and you'd have to enter through the north 13
entrance or the south entrance would always be open? 14
Mr. Schnabel: I think there's opportunities that the south entrance may be closed. 15
Hopefully we can come to an agreement to limit that. Even if it's closed, we still have—16
for them, their biggest worry was they're going to close it and they're going to get killed 17
by the community and by the City for closing it. The alternative opening allowed them to 18
say, "There's an opportunity for us to close it and not get raked." Again, it's still up to 19
them because it's within their—that whole plaza or most of it is within their property. By 20
right, they only have to keep the sidewalk open. 21
Commissioner Greenfield: Thank you for clarifying that. I see that a number of trees 22
would need removal from this plan. They're marked for removal. Do we have a plan to 23
plant at least as many trees as we remove and hopefully plant more? Can this be added 24
specifically as a policy within the landscaping plan, documented? 25
Mr. Schnabel: I think we're required to, by the environmental document, to do at least a 26 1:1 depending on the type of trees. If they're larger depending on the quality, there 27 numbers go up. I don't have specifically what they are. The goal is to replant. There's 28
not a lot of large trees; a lot of the trees are smaller. There's probably three or four 29
medium-size to large trees. We'll have to replace those. The other ones are much 30
smaller. Google also is looking for some of those trees to be planted to create some 31
screening opportunities from people looking into their building. 32
Commissioner Greenfield: It'd be nice to see this stipulated in the plan. This may be 33
more of a question for Staff. Will the Lefkowitz underpass remain intact for maintenance 34
purposes? If so, could this possibly be temporarily open for bike or pedestrian use on 35
heavy traffic dates like the 4th of July? 36
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Mr. Schnabel: No. 1
Ms. Ames: Right now, we're proposing to close the tunnel during the construction, and 2
then permanently—basically it's going to be permanent once we start construction. The 3
Water District wants to have access. 4
Mr. Schnabel: That creates a hydraulic issue for them. At some point, they'll probably 5
come to you to look at removing it completely. They wanted it as part of this project, but 6 it didn't make sense for us to do it as part of this project. 7
Commissioner Greenfield: Thank you. I believe the community's sentiment is very 8
strong to get this completed as soon as we can. I certainly support that. I've commuted 9
either on the underpass or options hundreds of times to work, into the Baylands. I'm very 10
excited about this and really applaud your efforts. Thank you. 11
Commissioner Cribbs: First of all, I think it looks really nice. Thank you for that. I also 12
am very interested in getting it completed as quickly as possible. It would be great to be 13
faster than 2020. Is it really going to be $14 million or will that cost grow? Is the 14
funding that you listed in there secure or are we sort of sure it's there or is it there? 15
Ms. Ames: We believe we have—we reapplied for OBAG Cycle 2. We were told 16
unofficially this is going to happen, to get that 4.35 million. I don't know if you have the 17
detail. It's just the OBAG Cycle 2 funding. That's the only one that we don't have the 18
official word on. We are told that's going to happen. Sorry. What was the other 19
question? 20
Commissioner Cribbs: More than 14 million by 2020. 21
Ms. Ames: Thank you. We have built in some inflation into our cost estimate. We are 22
trying to account for that. Say we get construction bids at the end of next year; we start 23
early '19, We've got some inflation in there; we've got contingencies. Yes, we think 24
we've got the budget that we need. 25
Commissioner Cribbs: One more question. Does the chain link-ness of the fence mean 26 there will be less ability to have graffiti on the sides or not? It's such a beautiful bridge. 27 It would be too bad. 28
Mr. Schnabel: There's a couple of ways we protect or mitigate graffiti. The chain link, 29
we're required to do at least a 1 inch opening to prevent people from dropping stones onto 30
the freeway and things like that. The mesh granularity has to be at least 1 inch. Outside 31
of that, we're looking to open it up. That's why we've looked at cable railings and those 32
more open mesh requirements for the railing opportunities. The more open it is, it tends 33
to be less graffiti applicable. On the surface of the concrete for the piers and things, we 34
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put in a texture, and the texture tends to prevent people from graffiti-ing it because it's 1
less flat. We'll also put a graffiti coating. There's the ability to try to take it off after it's 2
been applied. 3
Commissioner Cribbs: Thank you. That's all the questions I have. Thank you very 4
much. 5
Chair Reckdahl: David. 6
Vice Chair Moss: I had a couple of question. The big, big accident we had on 101, 7
where the truck hit the Embarcadero Bridge—it seems like you have a much lower 8
profile. You don't have anything in the middle. I don't know where it was hit. I'm happy 9
to see you've got a low profile thing. Is that going to be an issue? 10
Mr. Schnabel: The way it works in Caltrans' world is pedestrian bridges, which are more 11
susceptible to collapse if it has a vehicle strike—they require you to be 2 feet higher than 12
a standard vehicular bridge. We're actually, along the corridor, going to be 2 feet higher 13
than some of the other crossings. You tend to be protected by those bridges. If 14
somebody is going to strike, they're going to strike those bridges first. Our profile is 15
much higher. We selected the steel because it allows us to lower the profile of the overall 16
bridge structure because the structure occurs above the bridge instead of below the bridge 17
like most concrete structures. 18
Vice Chair Moss: The wire mesh, it's not climbable, is it? 19
Mr. Schnabel: No. It's not intended to be. It's supposed to protect against people doing 20
that. Anything and everything is an attractive nuisance nowadays. The mesh is pretty 21
tight. We're looking at some even tighter mesh in certain areas. While I don't think it can 22
completely eliminate the ability for somebody to climb it, it's not easy. 23
Vice Chair Moss: I want to reiterate what one of the speakers said about coming to it 24
from the north on West Bayshore. I biked that West Bayshore yesterday at rush hour. It 25 was very dangerous. If there's any way that we can connect to the Sterling Canal instead 26 of—or at least widen the sidewalk, but you have to widen the sidewalk all the way down 27 West Bayshore. It seems like it would be much better to tie into that Sterling Canal or 28
something. Whatever we can do to make that—I don't know—canal ready or path ready. 29
Chair Reckdahl: I think that's a good idea. It's out of the scope of this project. 30
Vice Chair Moss: The Adobe Reach, I'm very excited about that little piece so you can 31
go from East Meadow straight to the bridge, and you don't have to go onto West 32
Bayshore. That's fantastic. You mentioned that the—somebody else mentioned the 33
artwork. I'm a bird watcher, and it's really important that the art not be transparent or 34
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shiny, whatever you can do along those lines. Where were you going to put bike racks? I 1
saw where drinking fountains and trash receptacles are, but I didn't see where you're 2
going to put a bike rack. 3
Mr. Schnabel: Originally, we had contemplated them at the connection points, and then 4
potentially one at the overlook. We haven't identified all the bike rack opportunities yet. 5
We have to talk to the bicycle community with regards to that. Hopefully they'll lead us 6 where they potentially look for opportunities to rest and where they want to put their 7
bikes. One of the things we're doing is reaching out to them and taking their input and 8
trying to put their input into some of the things that we've done here. I think we've done 9
a very good job so far with regards to their concerns. 10
Vice Chair Moss: The last thing is I want to reiterate as much as possible to make the 11
plantings on the east side be more than just a few little native bushes. If it can be tied in 12
with some kind of riparian environment around the drainage so that it looks attractive and 13
attractive to birds, that would be great. 14
Chair Reckdahl: Ryan, do you … 15
Commissioner McCauley: No questions. Thanks for the presentation. 16
Commissioner McDougall: I have some questions that are mostly probably rhetorical, so 17
maybe I don't need answers right now. Not having been involved in this from the start, as 18
I listen I would have liked to have seen at the beginning of the presentation something 19
about whether the usage model for this was recreation or commuting. That's sort of 20
missing, and the context for many of the comments that were made by the public and by 21
my fellow Commissioners would make a difference if we had it clear what we were 22
doing. That would cause us to think more about biking versus walking. When you speak 23
about the bike community, is that the commuter bike community or the recreation bike 24
community? I think it does make a difference to some of the ways you would look at 25 this. My second thought is—it's maybe outside the context of the bridge itself—I would 26 like to see a usage context as far out as Greer Park. If we build a beautiful bridge, but it's 27 really difficult to get to, and even in the process of doing this thinking about safe—we 28
have safe routes to the library and we have safe routes to school, maybe we need to early 29
on anticipate safe routes to the bridge. Is this something people would use to ride from 30
Downtown Palo Alto across the bridge, through the Baylands and then back or is it this 31
something—what would the usage be? I'd like us to think about that. In this same way, 32
the overlook—on the one hand, I like the idea of the overlook. I love the Baylands and 33
what can happen there. I think that's a great idea. The question is—back to the 14 34
million—how much does that add. Is it in a safe place? If it's bike commuters using that 35
bridge and they're going really fast, do you really want to be standing on that corner or 36
have your kid accidentally step out? I think that's a concern. The thing that I would do—37
you said sooner or later we're going to have come up with the signage. I would like to 38
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see the signage right now because that would make us think about how useful is this and 1
what is there if we actually put effort into understanding the signage now and then we 2
store it away and use it later. Building an outlook and then saying, "What sign will we 3
put up here later," could be dangerous. It would be really useful to say, "Here's the signs 4
we're going to put there." The whole context of the connection—some of these corners, 5
particularly on the east side when you're coming down and merging onto the bike path, I 6 would like to see almost the design that included a merge lane. I can see bikers going 7
fast, and then people coming off the bridge—I think it could be a risk. The other thing 8
when I first looked at this and looking at the parking, I thought, "There's going to be 9
parking there. I can go park there and go across the bridge." Now, I realize that's not my 10
parking; that's Google's parking. That brings up the question of what about parking. If 11
the use of the bridge is recreational, where do I drive to, to park to go walk across the 12
bridge to look at the overlook? I would like to see that thought about. I have the same 13
question about the 14 million and the funding. I just worry about the OBAG 4.35 million 14
in the context of everything else that's happening. I would, at some point, like to hear 15
about the color of the LED lights. LED lights have more than one white. Obviously, the 16
lights are going to be white, but what shade of white because LED lights have different 17
things. I would really like in the schedule part—I think we would be better off if we said 18
not the summer or the fall but September 12th so that we had a specific date to go by. 19
The problem when you say summer or fall—I know what that is. That's the fall. As soon 20
as you say fall, I know that's the last day of fall or something. I would be really 21
happier—what everybody says is we're doing it, so let's do it. I think we need to be very 22
specific about the goals we set in terms of dates. The more general we make them, the 23
more likely we are to miss them. Sorry to rant. Thank you. 24
Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. 25
Commissioner McDougall: Otherwise, one hell of a good presentation. 26
Chair Reckdahl: Jeff. 27
Commissioner LaMere: Looks like a great project. I think a lot of people will use it. I 28
do think it's interesting, the context of recreational versus commuters. Basically, my only 29
comment would be the utility of the overlook. I've been a lot of times on the pedestrian 30
bridge that cross over 101. That is extremely noisy, and it doesn't necessarily seem like a 31
place where one might spend time. Even though it does seem the views would be 32
incredible, I do wonder how often it would be used or if it's used more for people who are 33
a little bit tired and want to sit. I don't know if it's a place that people would spend a 34
great deal of time. That would be one thing I would wonder about. 35
Chair Reckdahl: Overall, I think it's a very nice design. It's much simpler than previous 36
designs, which overall is a good thing. The things I am worried about are the practical 37
applications of the merging. I agree with Don that on the east side we want some merge 38
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lanes as you come off there. That's a pretty clean interchange. Where I'm really worried 1
about is West Bayshore because West Bayshore is really a mess. Anyone who's been on 2
that—right now, when you come out of that tunnel and you merge on and there's cars 3
coming, your life is in your hands. Can you go over the merging, how you anticipate 4
bikes are going to use the bridge? If they're coming from the north down, and they want 5
to go on the bridge, they'll go up that elevated ramp. 6
Mr. Schnabel: Coming from the north … 7
Chair Reckdahl: This is on West Bayshore. 8
Mr. Schnabel: … based on our conversations with PABAC … Coming from the north, 9
they'd have to make a left turn into the plaza or the connection point or the trailhead at 10
that location. What PABAC had told us is commute bicyclers are probably experienced 11
enough to make that turn and comfortable enough to make that turn. They were worried 12
more about the recreational bikers. 13
Chair Reckdahl: They're coming down West Bayshore from the north … 14
Mr. Schnabel: You're coming down (crosstalk) … 15
Chair Reckdahl: … they're going from upper right to lower left. 16
Mr. Schnabel: You're traveling north, so you're going this … 17
Chair Reckdahl: From the north. You're traveling south from the north. 18
Mr. Schnabel: Traveling south, you basically have to make a U-turn. 19
Chair Reckdahl: You go up that ramp and make the U-turn at that sharp corner right 20
there. 21
Mr. Schnabel: No, no. That's a pedestrian ramp. You go all the way down the trailhead, 22
and at the trailhead there's a big enough area for them to make a U-turn. Then, they head 23
up that area that's there. 24
Chair Reckdahl: If you were coming off the bridge and you wanted to keep on going to 25 the south, would you then take the Adobe Reach Trail? That's the only way you would 26 support or there's an exit off there to … 27
Mr. Schnabel: There's an ingress/egress ramp there. 28
Chair Reckdahl: You could get back onto West Bayshore? 29
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Mr. Schnabel: Yeah. You can do the same thing, do a U-turn there at that point, or you 1
could go down and connect to East Meadow and go down Meadow back to Bayshore, 2
which is probably safer. 3
Chair Reckdahl: That's a little cleaner design. Going towards the north now, is the only 4
designed access to go through the Reach Trail or you will be cutting across … 5
Mr. Schnabel: No. You can make a left turn there. What the guys at PABAC said was 6 the more experienced commute bicyclists will probably stay on that and do the left turn. 7
Now that they have the opportunity to go into Meadow, come through Meadow and 8
connect that way, the inexperienced commute bicyclists and the recreational bicyclists 9
will probably prefer to utilize that because it keeps them from having to do that left turn. 10
Chair Reckdahl: Would we be painting—at that trailhead, would there be green paint 11
going across—that's right on a corner. That's really dangerous. 12
Mr. Schnabel: We haven't gone that far yet with what we're doing with the striping. The 13
original Alta plans didn't have any striping on this side and had some striping on the other 14
side. We've looked at that striping from their plan, and it creates some unsafe movements 15
for the bicyclists, especially with the left turn. They wanted to put a median. We have to 16
still look on the Meadow side, but the Meadow side is less impacted than this side. 17
Chair Reckdahl: Especially if you're bringing kids out there, families going across, I 18
think the Adobe Teach Trail is mandatory. That's always bothered me about these—19
without the Adobe Reach Trail, if you're coming on Fabian and curving around that curve 20
and you have to somehow get across West Bayshore, you're just asking for trouble. 21
There's no clean way to do it without the Reach Trail. That makes me worried. Jeff's 22
questions about closing it, if they close it now, that could be a big impact for safety. 23
Mr. Schnabel: Unfortunately, the only way for them to open it is to have an agreement to 24
allow them to do their maintenance. Otherwise, they'd keep it closed continuously. Their 25 big concern is if they open it, the exact same thing that you're just stating now; they'll be 26 crucified for closing it for safety reasons. They don't really want to have that. Right 27 now, the Water District is opting on more about their concerns and their issues, especially 28
in light of some of the flooding that's occurred. Some of the issues they've had with other 29
projects where cities have promised to allow them to close streets to do their maintenance 30
and then come back and say they can't. They've taken a really hard stance. It took a lot 31
of cajoling and effort to get them to agree to open the trail for us to use. I'm not sure that 32
we have a lot of rights with regards to when they're going to do their maintenance 33
because they're going to be pretty strict about the ability for themselves to do the 34
maintenance. 35
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Chair Reckdahl: We're in a tough situation. The other thing I wanted to talk about was 1
the width. You mentioned that it's 12 feet from curb to curb but 14 feet from railing to 2
railing. 3
Mr. Schnabel: The curbs are there to collect water. There are slopes to get to the curbs. 4
The curbs collect the water. Curbs are typically 6-12 inches wide, and we typically put 5
the railing on top of the curbs. That's how it was in the video. We basically had the 6 railings at the center of the curb. In conversations with PABAC, they asked if we could 7
move the railings to the outside and mount them to the side of the bridge instead of 8
mount them on the curb. It gives them a little bit extra room so it has the feel of 14 feet 9
instead of the 12 feet that we're looking at from inside curb to inside curb. 10
Chair Reckdahl: Is this a raised curb or is this a trench, a depressed curb? 11
Mr. Schnabel: It's a raised curb. 12
Chair Reckdahl: You still have to worry about the pedals hitting the curb. 13
Mr. Schnabel: It's typically—unless you're pedaling—it's only about 6 inches tall. It's 14
the standard height for curb and gutter that you have for the City. It would be the same 15
issues they would have on their bike lane. 16
Chair Reckdahl: I'm really sensitive to this because, when I take the Permanente Creek 17
Trail—that's only 10 feet and that's just not wide enough. People will ride side by side, 18
and you'll meet them, and you have to really squeeze through there. If they're not paying 19
attention, again you're hitting them. The same with walkers. People walk typically side 20
by side. 21
Mr. Schnabel: It's a cost issue. As you can imagine, the cost per square foot goes up by 22
the amount of square feet that you're increasing. 23
Chair Reckdahl: What is the incremental cost for increasing the width? The sides stay 24
the same. All you do is all the cross beams just get … 25
Mr. Schnabel: We looked at several different widths. They're in the order of millions of 26 dollars because of the length. You're talking about, if you add 2-3 feet, 2-3 feet times 27 1,500 feet of length. It's in the order of millions of dollars. 28
Chair Reckdahl: The Department of Transportation, as you probably know, has 29
guidelines. They say 10 feet minimum, but they recommend 14 feet wide for bike 30
bridges. I think there would be some value. If it's just making the cross members an 31
extra foot wide … 32
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Mr. Schnabel: There's some additional costs. It's not strictly just by width. For the steel 1
structures, we chose the maximum width that you could transport on a single lane. If I 2
make the steel wider, I have to basically cut the steel section in half and reassemble at 3
site, which adds quite a bit of cost to the structure. We did do an extensive—it was one 4
of the things the Council wanted to take a look at. Ten feet is the minimum, which is 5
done almost everywhere up and down the corridor. We decided to do as much as we 6 could go out, which is about 12-14 feet, with regards to structure without going into that 7
next level of cost. They did take a look at it. Like I said, it was in the order of a couple 8
of million dollars extra. 9
Chair Reckdahl: The thing that worries me about moving the … 10
Mr. Schnabel: Railing to the outside. 11
Chair Reckdahl: … railings out to the side is that, if you have seniors, they're going to 12
want the railing by their feet. Seniors are not going to want to reach 1 foot over for the 13
railing. 14
Mr. Schnabel: I think we're still going to put a handrail. Their thing was something that 15
the handlebar could catch to. The handrails are a little lower. It's 42 inches for a 16
handrail; it's 48 inches for a safety railing for a bicycle. 17
Chair Reckdahl: You have two railings, one for … 18
Mr. Schnabel: No. We do the maximum standard. The maximum standard requires a 19
48-inch railing to accommodate both pedestrians and bicyclists. We'll have to do the 20
maximum 48-inch high railing. 21
Chair Reckdahl: Is that going to be on the curb or is that going to be a foot over? 22
Mr. Schnabel: That's all going to be outside. The handrailing is a different thing. We're 23
looking at handrail opportunities. The handrail—one of the things we're looking at is at 24
handrail height keeping it linear and for the last foot or so slanting it outwards to give the 25 bicycle handlebars a little bit more room. We've looked at several ways to mitigate and 26 improve that. Overall, we're looking at a 48-inch tall railing for bicycle and pedestrian 27 safety with the possibility of putting a handrail. We haven't gone through that. 28
Chair Reckdahl: It's going to 12 feet from handrail to handrail, though? 29
Mr. Schnabel: Probably not. I think the handrail will probably stick in somewhat unless 30
we want to reduce the curb. 31
Chair Reckdahl: There no practical use for 14 feet if the handrail is going to be 12 to 12, 32
from railing to railing is going to be 12. 33
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Mr. Schnabel: As I understood it, the handlebars were a little higher than that. 1
Chair Reckdahl: I think that's an issue. If we can make it wider, I think that would be 2
good and, I think, there would be some value. If it increases the cost, I don't think there's 3
value. 4
Mr. Schnabel: I think the Council's big … 5
Megha Bansal: I think the cost increase—we looked at 12-foot and 16-foot wide bridge, 6 and the cost increase was in the order of $2.5-3.5 million. It was that range. We looked 7
at different types of structures. 8
Chair Reckdahl: I'm just curious where the threshold is. There's a reason the DOT says 9
14 feet. Fourteen feet is a very good width because when you have people walking and 10
people riding, that gives enough room for people to pass in both directions. Twelve is 11
going to be much better than 10. That extra 2 feet is going to be big. 12
Mr. Schnabel: The DOT standard makes stipulations for bridges. The bridge widths 13
basically are 10 feet is what they recommend for bridges. Partly … 14
Chair Reckdahl: For bridges, they say minimum is 10, recommended is 14. 15
Mr. Schnabel: Right, but most go with the minimum. It's … 16
Chair Reckdahl: Cost issue. 17
Mr. Schnabel: It's cost driven. Bridges tend to be fairly expensive if you go a little bit 18
wider. 19
Chair Reckdahl: The last thing, the overlook. I think the Baylands is pretty. It's noisy, 20
but I think you do want an overlook there just for seniors or other people who have 21
trouble walking. You need a break. This is a very long stretch. Even though it may not 22
be the quietest place, we really do need some benches there. Otherwise, good design. I 23
like it. It's simple. I think it fits in with the Baylands. I think we're on the right track. 24
I'm looking forward to riding over it soon. Thank you. Does anyone else have any—25 Council Member Fine. 26
Council Member Fine: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just one quick question. Some of the 27 diagrams showed striping on the bridge; some didn't. Can you just speak to that for a 28
moment? 29
Mr. Schnabel: We'll be putting the striping in. That's standard for a Class 1 bicycle 30
facility. We'll be putting the striping in. 31
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Chair Reckdahl: Any follow-ups? Thank you very much. We'll move on to the next. 1
3. Buckeye Creek Hydrology Study 2
Chair Reckdahl: Daren Anderson is here to talk about the Buckeye Creek hydrology 3
study. We've been looking forward to this. This is good. While we're setting up, does 4
anyone want to talk on dog parks? I have two speaker cards. Fill out the speaker card 5
and give it to Tanya, please. 6
Daren Anderson: Good evening. I'm Daren Anderson with Open Space, Parks and Golf. 7
I'd like to introduce some of my colleagues today. In the audience, we've got two 8
members from the Public Works group. This is Megha Bansal and Elizabeth Ames, our 9
Public Works engineer working on this project with us in Community Services, my 10
colleague, Curt Dunn, who's the supervising ranger at Foothills Park, and our consultant, 11
Jonathan Buck, with ENGEO. We're here tonight to inform you about the Buckeye 12
Creek hydrology study and to collect your feedback on this. I'm going to provide you 13
with an overview of the project, the project context, explain how Buckeye Creek fits into 14
the overall watershed and where it sits in Foothills Park. I'll go over the background, the 15
purpose of the study, the nature of the problem we're trying to resolve through this 16
analysis, the connection to the 7.7-acre parcel in Foothills Park and how that relates to the 17
Buckeye Creek study, the key findings from our preliminary hydrology analysis and the 18
initial concepts that we'll eventually use to hopefully resolve these issues, and finally next 19
steps. Let me start with orienting you to the area. In this slide, you can see Buckeye 20
Creek is circled in that small red area. Curt's going to highlight the small areas. I 21
apologize for how tiny that depiction is. I wanted you to see the greater context and how 22
Buckeye Creek fits into the San Francisquito Creek watershed. This creek originates 23
within Foothills Park and flows, as it transcends out of Foothills, into a larger tributary of 24
Los Trancos Creek, which ultimately connects to San Francisquito Creek, which in turn 25 flows into the Bay. This next slide is going to help orient you a little bit to how it fits 26 within Foothills Park. Curt is going to use the cursor to highlight a few known features in 27 the park relative to the creek so you can kind of orient yourself. You can see Boronda 28
Lake up in the right, the Interpretive Center, the two picnic areas, Orchard Glen picnic 29
area and Oak Grove picnic area, and to your far left the 7.7 acre area highlighted in 30
yellow. The creek flows through all those portions, not the lake. You can see it depicted 31
in the blue line. The next photo is a shot of Las Trampas Valley. I'm going to be using 32
two valleys' names over and over. I'm going to reference one with the lower reach of the 33
creek; that's this one, Las Trampas Valley. This is looking from the maintenance shed 34
towards the Interpretive Center, as a point of reference. The creek is on your right in this 35
photo. The next photo is Wildhorse Valley; this is going to be the upper reach of 36
Buckeye Creek. In this photo, the creek is on our left, and we're looking towards the 37
campground area. If you were to continue on this service road, you'd run into the 38
campground. Let me tell you a little bit about why we're doing the study. We entered 39
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into a contract with ENGEO in July of last year to study the hydrology and to provide 1
recommendations on how to reduce the erosion problem that we're having. The erosion 2
results in sedimentation flowing down this creek and depositing in various spots 3
throughout the creek but mainly in that 7.7-acre area. It's problematic; it builds up. It has 4
to be removed with heavy equipment or it could cause flooding in that area or elsewhere 5
in the park or even downstream to some of the residences as well. Buckeye Creek has 6 had this longstanding issue with this erosion problem. It happened because the creek was 7
channelized many years before the City took ownership of the property or the park. 8
When it was channelized, it caused this problem of downcutting. We've focused all the 9
water into these narrow areas. With heavy storms you've got lots of rain runoff; the water 10
comes through, erodes the sediments, which are washing downstream. As I mentioned, 11
they're accumulating in that 7.7-acre area. In a minute, I'm going to show some photos of 12
some past erosion control techniques that were implemented in the '80s and some a little 13
before that. They weren't successful; they haven't altered the downcutting. That's why in 14
some areas you'll see the creek is actually almost 20 feet below grade because it's just 15
continued to cut. As it cuts in some areas, you'll see that the creek just keeps—you'll see 16
in just a second that bridge in particular. The two edges of the creek have folded in and 17
started falling in. You can now see that the edges of this bridge have eroded such that 18
there's very little left on the supports on either side. It won't be too much longer before 19
that bridge is in peril of no longer be structurally sound. That bridge allows you access 20
from the Interpretive Center, across the turf and into the trail system. It is an important 21
access point for our park visitors. We're going to look at some of those old techniques. 22
These are gabions and check damns that I'm going to show you. These are old structures 23
put in, in the early '80s that are no longer functioning, didn't resolve the problem, and 24
have exceeded their lifespan and need to be replaced. Let's go ahead and look at a couple 25 more photos. This is another shot of the creek during the dry season. You can see the 26 downcutting and how narrow and channelized that is. The other thing to possibly point 27 out is we did a tour with our stakeholders at our community meeting I'll tell you about 28
momentarily. They kept pointing out the habitat value of our existing creek areas. In a 29
lot of the sections, it's very poor. It's more of a drainage ditch in some areas with very 30
little habitat, deeply cut, lined with concrete in some areas or rock gabions in others. We 31
think there's a good solution to improve that habitat. I'll tell you about it in a minute. 32
We'll go ahead and look at another couple. More photos show you the erosion and 33
downcutting. I will note that in the last storm we had, that big flood in the last couple of 34
months, there were areas that we saw just in that short window of time, a couple of 35
months, over a foot of downcutting. This has been going on for many, many years, 36
probably throughout the history that the City's owned the property. Even recently, we're 37
still seeing really large pieces of the creek washing away and sedimentation causing 38
problems. Here you see the creek with a little more flow. You're also seeing that wire 39
gauged gabion structure that we were talking about on both sides of the creek. These are 40
the wooden check damns, probably installed—correct me if I'm wrong—in the early '80s. 41
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Curt Dunn: '70s. 1
Mr. Anderson: Early '70s. They again have exceeded their lifespan. While they 2
slowed—this was the engineered solution that they tried to implement to solve this 3
problem. It probably helped somewhat, but it did not resolve it. Another shot of that 4
same structure in disrepair. This is down in the 7.7-acre parcel of the park. Just as the 5
creek leaves the City property and heads out, you have this very large—I think it's 7-foot 6 diameter drainage as it leaves. That will come up again, I think, in the future as we 7
discuss the future of the 7.7 acres and how that relates to that. Let me tell you about how 8
this project connects to the 7.7-acre parcel. It fits in the context of what we want to do 9
ultimately with this land. This is a shot of the flat area of the 7.7 acres that was dedicated 10
as parkland in 2014. When Council dedicated it, they gave an assignment to staff to work 11
with the stakeholders, the community, and the Parks Commission to figure out the best 12
uses for that land. We held public meetings; we formed an ad hoc committee that worked 13
on the issue, came up with a lot of ideas. Ultimately, this longstanding problem was kind 14
of a concurrent issue that we were debating to submit a capital project to do a study. As 15
we were submitting that project and debating what to put on there, it became obvious to 16
staff, the stakeholders and the community that we really should do this hydrology study 17
first. We debated that with the Commission; the Commission agreed. We did the same 18
with Council; Council also agreed. Although, Council was eager that we move quickly 19
through this; they were eager to open up that land to public access. They didn't like 20
having parkland that was closed off. This is a fenced off area, that 7.7 acres. Aside from 21
the Grass Roots Ecology, formerly Acterra, nursery, the gate is closed and locked, and 22
you can't go in there during normal times unless you had requested a ranger give you a 23
tour or you're participating in one of the Grass Roots programs. Lastly, Council had 24
directed staff to proceed with the hydrology study and, once complete, resume work with 25 the community and the Commission to talk about next steps, which is what we'll do after 26 we conclude this study. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Jonathan, who's going to 27 talk about the concept developments. 28
Jonathan Buck: Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Jonathan Buck. I'm a 29
consultant with ENGEO. I was hired by the City of Palo Alto last year to take a look at 30
the erosion problems in the park. I had never been to Foothills Park before, not being a 31
Palo Alto resident. I didn't have any preconceived notions about what might be in there. 32
Briefly, I was surprised by the erosion problem, as were many of us who came out and 33
took a look at it over the last year or so. It's interesting to look at Foothills Park in a 34
historic context, where the creek prior to 1900 probably used almost the entire valley 35
floor out there to move water and sediment through the whole reach. Over the years, 36
there's been more sort of development of the valley floor, and the creek's kind of been 37
pushed over to one side or the other. The question really becomes what can we do to try 38
to solve this problem or at least try to make it better. What we've come up are some 39
preliminary concepts to talk to everybody about this evening. The major concept is try to 40
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restore the creek to the maximum extent practicable. When I say maximum extent 1
practicable, what I mean is we want to try to use as much land as we can out there to 2
expand the areas where the creek can flow without concerning ourselves or at least 3
without disrupting the current land uses that are out there. I think Daren's going to speak 4
a little bit more about that. In terms of what our preliminary study came up with as an 5
alternative to move forward with, the expansion of floodplain areas in what we're going 6 to call the lower region. That includes the Las Trampas Valley and the 7.7 acres that 7
Daren was just discussing with you. What this would mean is we'd open up the creek. 8
We'd go down to about the 2-year water service elevation, and then we would remove 9
dirt and create a riparian corridor through both this valley and the upper valley, which 10
we'll get to in a minute. In some places, it looks like we're going to have to, because 11
there are utility conflicts, leave the creek more or less in the same place. We're probably 12
going to have to engineer some new grade control structures that would work in the 13
context of restoring the whole valley. The general idea is to create floodplains and 14
restore riparian habitat through as much of this corridor as we can. By doing so, we can 15
lengthen the creek a little bit by meandering it through sort of a new floodplain. 16
Lowering the slope will also help reduce some of the erosion problems. I'm going to say 17
in the Las Trampas and the 7.7 acres, our concept involves basically floodplain creation 18
and some grade control structure rehabilitation. In the Wildhorse Valley area, there's an 19
existing sediment basin that's at the top of the valley. Currently, the folks running the 20
park are basically taking sediment out of there during, I'm going to say, years with a lot 21
of rain events. The concept up here is a little bit different than down in the lower reach. 22
Basically, we have a utility corridor that's bifurcating the whole valley. With some 23
discussions with the public and some of the resource agencies, which we'll talk about, I 24
think we've decided to take flows that are coming from the westerly side and create a new 25 creek channel where the historic creek channel used to be. Then, leave the existing creek 26 channel that's there right now in place, but we'll be reducing the amount of flow that's 27 going into that channel. That would reduce erosion issues in that particular channel. 28
Also, I think we're going to have to go back and retrofit some of the existing engineered 29
structures that have been put in the creek channel in the existing corridor shown on this 30
map. In terms of general engineering and restoration concepts, the idea of creating a 31
floodplain. When we channelize the creek and we put it all in one ditch, there's less 32
boundary friction, there's less area for the creek to spread across the soil material that's 33
there. That creates more erosion and higher velocities when it's channelized like that. If 34
you open up the whole valley and create a floodplain, you reduce the velocities and you 35
have more boundary friction and less erosion. This is a concept that's basically done 36
throughout the Bay Area for creeks that have been channelized in this same fashion. If 37
we can get a meandering creek channel as opposed to the straight alignment that we have 38
right now, we allow the creek, the low-flow channel at least, the ability to wiggle around 39
a little bit, so to speak. We get some nice kind of ephemeral areas occurring out there 40
that are beneficial for many habitat types that are out there. This is an example of 41
floodplain creation, just to give you an example of what it looks like right after it's been 42
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done. This is an example of a restored habitat in a creek. At this point, we've had two 1
meetings. We've had a meeting with a number of stakeholders that were invited to 2
Foothills Park to discuss these concepts with us. I think for the most part, Daren can 3
elaborate. That meeting went well. I think we had widespread support for the project 4
concepts and our broad concepts. We obviously haven't done an engineering design of 5
this, but we're looking at what land uses we could potentially take from the park in order 6 to restore certain parts of the creek. We also went to a—for those of you who are 7
familiar with creek projects, there's a rather rigorous permitting regime that goes along 8
with them. There's Federal and State agencies, especially the State agency, the Regional 9
Water Quality Control Board, considers themselves to be, I'm going to say, the lead 10
agency in terms of creek restoration because most creeks go through more than one 11
jurisdiction. The State has taken the lead on that. They do have something called an 12
interagency meeting. It's basically an informal meeting where you can go in with a 13
project concept, and you can discuss with the Regional Water Quality Control Board, the 14
United States Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the California 15
Department of Fish and Wildlife your concept and get early feedback before you go 16
down the path too far. I'm going to say for this project we had generally positive 17
feedback and from the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Army Corps of Engineers. The 18
Regional Water Quality Control Board are restoration purists. The way they view a 19
project like this is they would like to see as much restoration as possible. The question 20
that they have with our concepts right now is are we restoring everything we possibly 21
can. I think at some point we have to come in with a framework of constraints, which 22
Daren is going to talk a little bit more about, about what we can and cannot do in the 23
valley. I think they wanted more clarity on what we can and cannot do in terms of cost-24
benefit and, for example, utility relocations and things of that nature. I think the 25 preliminary meeting we had with them—they were encouraged to see that Palo Alto was 26 going through at least a study to take a look at restoration concepts for the creek. If we 27 actually turn in a formal application, there's going to be some more, I'm going to say, 28
rigorous questioning about what we can and cannot do with some of the parkland uses. 29
With that, I'll turn it back to Daren. 30
Mr. Anderson: Thank you, Jonathan. As Jonathan mentioned, there are some challenges 31
and some impacts that come with that. First, I want to highlight some of the benefits that 32
would come from these proposed concepts and how they would help. First, they resolve 33
our erosion and sedimentation issues, which would be terrific. They're going to create 34
more and vastly improved riparian areas, which cannot be undersold how valuable that is 35
and how rare the opportunity is to create that much riparian. You're putting a whole new 36
creek channel in, which is very rare. It's an exciting option, especially in that upper reach 37
where—it's a beautiful meadow, but I think we have a chance to make even more of it, 38
which is exciting. We provide public access to creek areas. Right now, there's no way 39
you can get down to that creek at all. You can't get close to it in some areas. That's 40
exciting. With that access comes enhanced environmental education opportunities, which 41
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is great. Lastly, I'd say that it poses an opportunity to reduce ornamental turf. There are 1
16 acres of ornamental turf in Foothills Parks. This proposed option would get rid of five 2
of them, which of course saves on labor, mowing time, as well as potable water, which is 3
critical at this phase and where we're at with the drought. There are some challenges, 4
however, and some impacts. The first sort of limitation relates to utilities and roads. I'm 5
going to ask Curt to pull up a slide where he can with the cursor—you'll see the creek, 6 and you'll follow it down. These major utilities, we've got a water line, a sewer line, fiber 7
optics, phone, electric, all located very, very close to that creek. In fact, in the upper 8
reach they follow right on the edge of that creek in the Wildhorse Valley, and they pass 9
through the Orchard Glen picnic area and across the Las Trampas Valley. It's all kind of 10
right—you'll be able to see where that cuts through. It's very, very impacted and limits a 11
little bit. That's extremely cost prohibitive to be moving major water mains, sewer lines, 12
those kind of things. However, I will say the proposed concepts that you see before you 13
are not impinged by those. We can do what we've proposed and not have to do anything 14
to those utilities, which is great. Another limitation or constraint is the maintenance 15
building. This is the maintenance shop where the rangers operate their open space 16
maintenance. This is in the lower stretch of the park. We've got several buildings in the 17
yard, and that is possibly where the historic flow had once traveled into the 7.7-acre area, 18
possibly. As Jonathan pointed out, in an ideal world, if that wasn't there, the regulatory 19
agencies would love to have the creek flow right through that. It's extremely cost 20
prohibitive to pick up all those maintenance buildings and parking lots and move them 21
somewhere else into the preserve, not to mention very impactful to other parts of the 22
preserve, wherever you're going to put it. We could not operate that. This is a 7-day 23
operation, dawn 'til dusk every day. We need to have a ranger presence. We need to 24
have the equipment and the fuel inside the park. Just like the other utilities, it doesn't 25 infringe or stop us from carrying out these two proposed concepts that you see before 26 you. We can work around it and still achieve our goal of controlling the erosion and 27 sedimentation, and still have that functional maintenance area. The last impact I want to 28
show relates to the grass area. That improvement in Las Trampas Valley, that lower 29
reach, would mean widening that creek to a significant part of that very wide, natural 30
grass field area. In fact, it would take about half of it, we believe, at this point. Again, 31
that's a 10-acre swath of turf, but it's going to have impacts, both aesthetically. As you 32
enter a park, we're used to seeing 10 acres of turf. That's a significant change, some may 33
argue for the better in that you'd have potentially a very attractive riparian area. Still a 34
change nonetheless. Also, an impact to the recreation. We would say—Curt, for 35
example, has worked at Foothills Park for 32 years. He's documented the amount of use 36
that turf gets over that time, so we know. It's not an unknown about the type of 37
recreational use we get. We get individuals, usually family and people coming in on the 38
weekdays and weekends, throwing frisbees, hanging out, relaxing, throwing a ball 39
around, not intense, certainly not using even half of that. We also have the two picnic 40
areas. The adjacent picnic areas are Oak Grove and Orchard Glen. Those people will 41
frequently come and use the turf for the same kind of activities in modest numbers 42
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usually. A third big user of those fields are summer camps. They come up with the 1
recreation programs in the summer and use Foothills. Sometimes those are 100 or so 2
kids. Again, they don't use 100 percent of that turf. We sat down with the recreation 3
staff to understand what the impacts would be if we indeed took half this turf, would they 4
still be able to operate programs as in the past. They think they can. It shouldn't be an 5
issue. The other benefit is they had long wanted to augment the Foothills camp to be 6 more nature focused. It wouldn't be going to Foothill to play dodgeball or kick the ball, 7
but rather you could learn about the habitat, you could learn about the creek, and actually 8
get down into the creek. In a lot of ways, the project would have benefits to the 9
recreation, especially the camps that we mentioned. I mentioned earlier that there's 16 10
acres of turf in Foothills Park, 10 are in this lower reach in front of the Interpretive 11
Center. There's 6 more acres in the front of the park near the entrance and by the lake 12
that can also be used and has been used for passive recreation, both by camps and other 13
park visitors visiting the Foothills. Again, if we widen the creek in Las Trampas Valley, 14
we know it will take about 5 acres, but that would leave 11 acres of turf in Foothills Park. 15
With that, I'll turn it back to Jonathan to discuss permitting. 16
Mr. Buck: Quickly, we've already had a meeting with the Army Corps of Engineers, the 17
Regional Water Quality Control Board, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, 18
and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. We will need permits from all those 19
agencies to do this particular project because we'd be impacting waters of the State and 20
waters of the United States under the Clean Water Act and Cologne-Porter Act. A couple 21
of things that came out of the meeting in terms of species—our biologist couldn't be here 22
this evening. There were two species, and they're both up there. One is the California 23
red-legged frog, and that is an endangered species under the Federal Endangered Species 24
Act. Curt says he's never seen one up there, but it seems like it's in their polygon of 25 where they believe that habitat might be. I know that they're in Matadero Creek, so 26 they're certainly not that far away. We were asked to try to incorporate some sort of red-27 legged frog mitigation into this project if we could. The other special status species of 28
interest is the steelhead trout. We certainly got some feedback from our stakeholder 29
meeting about trying to incorporate steelhead trout concerns into the project. We got a 30
different opinion from the resource agencies, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the 31
Regional Water Quality Control Board. They felt that we were too far up this particular 32
watershed to be concerned about that particular fish species. We probably have to do a 33
little bit more research on that before we move forward. I think steelhead may not be 34
something that we have to necessarily accommodate in this project. I don't think it would 35
make a big difference one way or another, at least in the lower reaches that we were 36
talking about, just so we're all on the same page. Resource agency permitting takes a 37
while. Generally, I'm going to say 2-3 years to get through that Federal and State 38
permitting process. That's what we typically tell applicants. It generally doesn't take any 39
longer than that. It's sometimes going to go a little bit faster. We just want everybody to 40
be aware that these particular types of projects move through, especially the Federal 41
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government, rather slowly. Given the current political environment, I don't know if that's 1
going to change or not. We also have to do a CEQA document to go along with this as 2
well. One of the questions is how do you do all of those five things at the same time. 3
That's the thing we'll have to be looking at moving forward. 4
Chair Reckdahl: Are any of these just hoop jumping or do we have to negotiate with all 5
of them? 6
Mr. Buck: From a practical level, the Regional Water Quality Control Board is going to 7
be the agency that we're going to spend 80 percent of our time on. I'm going to say that 8
the 404 permit—once we have a Section 401 from the State, we need a 404 permit from 9
the Federal government. That's just the way the process works. I don't think the Corps—10
because this is a restoration project and we're trying to make things better in the creek 11
channel, generally I don't think we're going to have a lot of push-back from them. It's 12
just a matter of getting somebody to actually review our application and write a permit. 13
That itself can take 2 years. I'm going to say that the California Department of Fish and 14
Wildlife, I don't think we would get a lot of push-back from them. We haven't done a 15
"boots on the ground" biology study, so we don't know if there are any special status 16
plants out there; although, we have a full-time ranger out there who seems to think that's 17
unlikely. I'm thinking that it's really going to be a question of can we get a permit from 18
the Regional Water Quality Control Board. The issue they have is that we need to clearly 19
spell out—because we can't give the creek the entire valley floor back, we're going to 20
have to have some engineering structures in there to make up for the amount of space that 21
we can't give the creek back, just very conceptually. They will want to review all of that. 22
They are very detailed, based on the way they review restoration projects. They'll want 23
to make sure we've given them everything that we can. I don't know what to say other 24
than I've seen those projects go 2, 3 years with them. It kind of depends on who gets 25 assigned to the project. The person who reviewed the project at the Regional Water 26 Quality Control Board is somebody who I've worked with for 15 years. We know each 27 other quite well. I will say that he's very detail-oriented, so it can take a long time for 28
him sometimes to get all the way to the finish line on a permit. Is there anything else? 29
Mr. Anderson: I think we'll conclude with the next steps and when we'll be back to the 30
Commission. We're looking at May. We'll continue with the hydrologic analysis and 31
refine these alternatives; of course, incorporating your feedback tonight, and then be back 32
in May to discuss this in more detail. We're available for questions. 33
Chair Reckdahl: We have a couple of speakers who want to speak on this before we go 34
to the Commission. Herb Borock is first, followed by Shani Kleinhaus. 35
Herb Borock: Good evening, Chair Reckdahl and Commissioners. This parcel of 7.7 36
acres has an emergency ingress/egress easement from Foothills Park to the east, which 37
connects to Los Trancos Road. Between Los Trancos Road and the 7.7 acres is an 38
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easement on the common area of the Lee subdivision. It would be helpful in a future
report to take maybe a page to get the proper scale to just show the 7.7 acres and then
show the relationship of that easement to the proposals that are being made for the creek
for two reasons. One, you need to have that available in case of an emergency for people
needing to evacuate the park or for emergency assistance coming from Los Trancos Road
to get to the park. The second is it might provide an opportunity for at least hikers to
make a connection between Foothills Park and Los Trancos Road, which is similar to the
connection we have for hikers only to come through from the Arastradero Preserve into Foothills Park. Thank you.
Chair Reckdahl: Thanks, Herb. Shani, you're next.
Shani Kleinhaus: Thank you. Shani Kleinhaus with Santa Clara Valley Audubon
Society and a resident of Palo Alto. This is a very exciting project. I was on the
stakeholder group. Staff did wonderful work of outreach to the community. There was
consensus on the idea of expanding wetlands and riparian corridors. The floodplain was
a really wonderful opportunity here, given that wetlands and riparian corridors have so
suffered in the last decade and beyond. If you want to see an example of a creek
restoration project close by, you can look at Blackberry Farm in Cupertino. It used to be
a parking lot, and there was a little channel right next to that. They actually meandered
the creek, changed into historical creek channels, and rebuilt it in an ecological
restoration. It's a beautiful project. It functions well. This could be the same and even
better. Thank you to Staff and to all of you.
Chair Reckdahl: Thank you, Shani. Now, we'll move on to Commissioners. Do any
Commissioners have questions, comments? Jeff, do you want to start.
Commissioner LaMere: I'm just curious with this current plan, does it have any effect on
the Acterra nursery or does anything affect what's going on with that?
Mr. Anderson: Thank you. That's a good question. It was one of the things that when we had negotiated the lease—we re-up their lease periodically. We had discussed what if this creek study indicates that perhaps the nursery is not in the right place, how do we
work around that. ENGEO has so far—throughout their evaluation, it doesn't affect it. It
looks like we're in a good place. In fact, the alterations to that 7.7-acre area that he's
proposing is downstream of the nursery. It doesn't look like it'd be an impact.
Chair Reckdahl: Don.
Commissioner McDougall: I just want to comment that I'm very excited about the
riparian habitat restoration. As was commented, that's the exciting part of this. Thank
you. 35
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Commissioner McCauley: Thanks for the presentation. I realize this is very early in the 1
process. What's the high-level thinking on cost-benefit analysis? 2
Mr. Anderson: That's a tough one. We're still working on—it's always a challenge this 3
early in the process, looking at the costs. We've got really crude numbers that just aren't 4
worth sharing with you yet. I think we need to do that next level of analysis before we 5
get back to you with the cost. The benefits and the potential to get outside funding make 6 it something really valuable. The cost of not doing this, though, is quite significant. 7
Eventually, as the creek keeps cutting down and the environmental impacts of 8
sedimentation downstream, the impacts to areas that do have steelhead creek like Los 9
Trancos Creek and like SF Creek are significant. The environmental impacts of doing 10
nothing are hazardous and impactful. The cost-benefit analysis is tough for me to put 11
together now, but we'll work on that. 12
Commissioner McCauley: At what point in the process are you going to have that in 13
place? 14
Mr. Anderson: The cost estimates for the project? 15
Commissioner McCauley: Yeah. 16
Mr. Anderson: I think upon completion of this next step. The next level of analysis that 17
ENGEO will do will probably have something. The other piece is it would be 18
preliminary especially without those follow-up conversations with the regulatory 19
agencies, which can dramatically alter plans, at least I’m familiar with that being the 20
case. Sometimes exponentially more money to meet their needs or desires on a project. 21
Maybe Jonathan can speak to this. We might come up with a proposed project that has a 22
rough range of costs. Once the regulatory agencies are done, that may alter. Is that your 23
understanding and findings too? 24
Mr. Buck: I think on this project there's a potential for that to happen. If we can get 25 everybody behind the study that we have and come up with a good package to explain 26 why we're restoring to the maximum extent and explain—it's going to go into cost. Cost 27 is going to be part of that discussion, that we cannot spend $7, $8 million relocating 28
utilities in the valley in order to accommodate the creek, which is what they're going to 29
be looking at. If we can win that argument, I think we can come in with a pretty 30
reasonable cost estimate. That's going to be the major discussion that we're going to have 31
with them, the utilities and why can't we move them. 32
Mr. Anderson: From a City funding standpoint, the other piece we're looking at—we 33
expressed to ENGEO early on the need to phase this and compartmentalize this if need 34
be. If the overall cost is prohibitive and we can't find a way to fund it, can we break it 35
into pieces and say the upper reach is most critical, we'll do that first, how much would 36
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that cost, and how much bang to the buck do we get relative to the middle or just the 7.7 1
acres. We've had those discussions already. ENGEO has already weighed and said, "If 2
you were to do just one segment, if finances were a limiting factor, you would do that 3
upper reach first." 4
Commissioner McCauley: That answers my next question. That's your top priority, the 5
upper reach? 6
Mr. Anderson: So far. 7
Commissioner McCauley: Why is that? 8
Mr. Anderson: Jonathan can probably speak to that better than me. 9
Mr. Buck: The idea is if we have an erosion problem—I'm sorry. We have a sediment 10
deposition problem on the 7.7-acre parcel. If we were just to do a floodplain down there, 11
it would just fill up with sediment from the upper reaches. It would be more logical to try 12
to address the upstream sediment issues, the upstream erosion issues first and then work 13
downstream, so that we're not getting the sediment that's eroding upstream into our 14
downstream project. Does that make sense? 15
Commissioner McCauley: It does. From a hydrologic or geologic perspective, how 16
much deeper do you think the creek will cut, both in the upper reach as well as in the 17
lower reach, before it would stop cutting because it's going to start flooding? 18
Mr. Buck: It's an interesting question. The bedrock that we have around here doesn't 19
really seem to stop the creek erosion just from a geologic standpoint. I think it could be 20
substantially more. I'm going to say that we haven't studied that particular question in the 21
sense that what I've seen in other channels like this is, right now we have some grade 22
control structures and some other aging infrastructure that are holding everything 23
together right now. I suppose, to answer your question, if that aging infrastructure were 24
to fail because it were to be flanked or undermined somehow by the creek, you could get 25 20-30 feet in some places. I think that would be reasonable based on the calculations that 26 we've seen so far. I'm going to say the potential for further downcutting on this thing is 27 substantial at this point. 28
Commissioner McCauley: Relatedly, what are the opportunities for natural repair, for the 29
creek essentially to widen its own channel? Is that completely off the table because the 30
creek would never, because of the current channeling, be able to begin to meander more 31
on its own through its own erosion patterns? 32
Mr. Buck: Without intervention right now … 33
Commissioner McCauley: Right. 34
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Mr. Buck: .. if we were just to leave it alone? Interesting discussion. I think it's possible 1
that you would get some equilibrium in the creek channel. I don't know at what cost that 2
would be in terms of the amount of erosion that's occurring there right now. Ultimately, I 3
suppose if we waited 1,000 years literally, the creek would probably just go back to the 4
way it was in the 1850s because that's sort of the way that nature works. There hasn't 5
been a lot of development in the watershed. The amount of runoff coming down that 6 creek channel is relatively the same as it was before the park was developed. Eventually 7
it would probably take back the entire valley that it used to have, but that would certainly 8
take a long time. 9
Commissioner McCauley: I'm sure that you are very thoughtful when it comes to this. 10
One of the things that occurs to me is this is a manmade problem in the first instance. I'm 11
always a little bit hesitant about having further intervention, very well intentioned 12
intervention but further intervention that might have unintended consequences. Have you 13
thought about potential unintended consequences of building essentially a new channel 14
for the creek? 15
Mr. Buck: I think the discussion that we had with the Regional Water Quality Control 16
Board, who's again our restoration lead agency, is that we're actually just trying to put the 17
creek back to the way it used to be. That's the intent of the project. I appreciate what you 18
just said. A lot of the engineering we do in 2017 is putting things back to the way they 19
were before because the science of channel manipulation wasn't that great in the '70s and 20
'80s when a lot of this was done. I think the original channelization was way back in the 21
'50s. People didn't really understand the consequences when they moved the creek to one 22
side of the valley or the other when they did it in the first place. Now, we need to try to 23
restore that creek back to the way it was 150 years ago to the best we can. That's the 24
whole dilemma that we're having here, obviously, in the study. We're not going to be 25 able to get all the way back to 1850 because there are certain land uses in that park that 26 we cannot change to creek restoration. I'm not sure if I'm answering your question. I 27 appreciate what you're saying, which is you're concerned that there's consequence to us 28
changing a natural system. The system really isn't natural in the first place. We're trying 29
to actually restore it back to the way it used to be. I guess we sort of wish that they 30
would have had that thought process 70, 80 years ago when they originally did this. 31
Commissioner McCauley: My question is perhaps an impossible question to answer. In 32
the design process—I guess I’m asking—what are some of the considerations you take 33
into account to think about what the consequences are of a new stream channel? Are 34
there going to be any effects on existing wildlife because of that broader stream channel? 35
Perhaps not, and that's a great thing. Perhaps there will be. Actually the depth of the 36
stream may well change or the average depth of the stream may change because the 37
channel is now broader. What are the impacts of that? What are you expecting may be 38
the potential impacts of that? 39
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Mr. Buck: I think the biggest impact that we're looking at right now is just how it's going 1
to change the park land uses that are existing. In terms of other impacts, I would say 2
generally restoration projects have a net benefit to wildlife. I don't think, if we're looking 3
at it from a wildlife standpoint, we're going to have—we're obviously going to have 4
temporary impacts associated with construction. The final product that we'll have will be 5
more beneficial than it will be impactful in the big picture. In terms of the engineering, I 6 guess what I was trying to say is we're still going to have some engineering structures 7
that are going to be in there. We're going to have to take the old structures that are sort of 8
holding the creek together in certain places where there is no place to put in a floodplain 9
and try to—we look at a certain slope for the creek channel. We do some modeling and 10
look at velocities. We try to come up with something that looks stable at least 11
mathematically. Then, we generally go out and look at some other creek channels that 12
are similar to the Buckeye Creek channel that we're working on to try to see 13
geomorphically what the dimensions look like for a stable creek channel where there's no 14
intervention. There's a standard of care in doing this. Most people would agree if you go 15
in with the 2017 standard of care and understanding creek restoration science, you can 16
generally fix the problems. The bottom line is there's going to be some maintenance 17
associated with the areas where you have engineered structures in the channels when 18
you're done. There's really nothing you can do about that. It doesn't mean there's a lot of 19
maintenance associated with them. It just means you're going to have some manmade 20
structures, and they're going to require maintenance from time to time. 21
Commissioner McCauley: You mentioned something that's probably a good segue. 22
What are the interim effects from actually doing the channel work? The construction-23
related effects. You kind of described how long you think that process will take. 24
Mr. Buck: Generally for a creek project—this creek doesn't have water in it all year-25 round. I'm thinking we probably wouldn't need to dewater it if we did this in different 26 phases. There would be some tree removals, so there's going to be, in terms of our 27 resource agency permits, bird surveys and probably bat surveys and probably surveys for 28
other species. If they're found, they have to be temporarily relocated while we're doing 29
the construction activities. Generally there's an onsite biological monitor in case 30
something comes up. In terms of doing one of these types of projects, there's protocols 31
out there that mitigate for any of the temporary impacts that are associated with 32
construction. It takes 3-5 years before the trees get establish to the point where the 33
habitat value is noticeable. There is that sort of temporal period right after construction is 34
over where you don't get all of the bang for your buck that you're kind of expecting. The 35
types of tree species we have up here, oak trees and bay trees, just don't grow that fast. 36
Those are the temporal impacts that are associated with it. If we show you some other 37
restoration projects—I think someone from the audience also mentioned it. Ten years 38
later, the benefit of restoring a creek channel in the way that we're proposing right now is 39
a huge benefit for at least the creek system in the sense that it's more of an equilibrium 40
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where it's not overly depositing or overly eroding in certain areas. It's kind of figured out 1
a nice path for itself, and it's not moving all over the place. You have all the additional 2
wildlife habitat that you get out of it. 3
Commissioner McCauley: What would you say is the best case construction timeline 4
period and perhaps what might be the more reasonable timeline period for construction? 5
Mr. Buck: If we were to move forward with the project—in terms of constructing the 6 project, if we were going to do it all at once, we could probably do it all in one summer. 7
It's not that big of a project, but that would require some coordination. I'm sort of leaning 8
here on Curt. It could be that we would have to do it in two seasons depending on if 9
shutting down that portion of the whole park was palatable to everybody. 10
Commissioner McCauley: I imagine it would be disruptive to park use. You're 11
anticipating that that area would essentially be shut down to residents. 12
Mr. Buck: Not necessarily. I think at least in the Los—the lower reach that we are 13
talking about, we could cordon that area off. It's really about the construction traffic and 14
where all that dirt is going to go. We are looking for places in the park to put all that dirt 15
that we're going to have to take out. I think we've located a couple of places. If they're 16
doing off-hauling to other parts of town, that construction traffic can be disruptive. I 17
think that's probably what you'll get the most complaints about. If we could find places 18
in the park where we can actually use the dirt, then I don't think the truck traffic is going 19
to go very far. 20
Commissioner McCauley: Just to be realistic, we're talking about heavy earth moving 21
equipment that's going to be doing this work. 22
Mr. Buck: This is big earth-moving restoration work. 23
Commissioner McCauley: This is big Tonka truck sort of stuff. Last question and then 24
I'll let you off the hot seat. Have you considered—I'm sure the answer is yes—different 25 channel plans? This one essentially takes half the Las Trampas Valley. Have you 26 considered one that takes a third of it, one that takes three-quarters of it? Have you done 27 a cost-benefit analysis around different alternatives or is this, from your perspective, the 28
one way to go? 29
Mr. Buck: That's a great question. I think Daren was asking me the same question. 30
When I started as a consultant, I asked for all of the land that you could possibly give me. 31
We looked at what that scenario was going to look like. It sounded like there was 32
some—from talking to Daren, that wasn't palatable to some of the park users. We ended 33
up with this—is it 50 percent? 34
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Mr. Anderson: About. 1
Mr. Buck: About 50 percent of the parkland that's available in the lower area. To answer 2
your question fully, we haven't done a full engineering analysis of this yet. That's our 3
next step. We can take a look at where we get with 50 percent, and then I'd probably 4
have a better answer for you on that particular question. I think what we're trying to iron 5
out today is the land uses that you're going to share with the creek now that are different 6 than they were before; looking at it from that perspective, see what everybody's thoughts 7
are; and then go with the maximum amount that you think you can live without, so to 8
speak. We'll take that and run with it, and then we'll get back to you and see if maybe a 9
30 percent or a 40 percent would have about the same benefit. My concern is that—from 10
talking to the folks at the Water Board, they want 100 percent. If we're only giving them 11
half, I'm worried that if we give them less, they're going to start asking a lot of questions. 12
The cost-benefit at least in terms of the engineering design hasn't really been figured out 13
yet. We're looking at the global land use issue right now. We can get back to you with 14
an answer on that, if we run with the current proposal that we're sharing with you tonight. 15
Commissioner McCauley: Thank you. 16
Chair Reckdahl: David. 17
Vice Chair Moss: To continue a little bit on what he said, I don't have any questions, but 18
I do have comments. I feel that this project is nonnegotiable. As far as the cost-benefit, a 19
lot of these benefits are environmental and cost avoidance. When I look at that channel 20
in the lower valley, I see just in my 35 years here it's dropped at least 6 feet deep, maybe 21
more. I don't see any end in sight. To do nothing—you have to do something. The other 22
thing is as far as when you change the channel and you make it flatter and you take over 23
some of that lower valley, I wonder if—you're not going to get as much water going out 24
of the park—water and dirt—you're not going to get as much as you used to. Right now 25 it's just a freefall. Now, you're going to slow it down. You're going to get more sediment 26 down there in the valley, and you're going to slow the water down. The Regional Quality 27 Board is going to have questions about how slow is the flow, is there going to be enough 28
flow coming out the other end. We're not talking about too much, but maybe too little. 29
It'll be interesting to see what they say about that. I was hoping against hope that we 30
could move some of the maintenance yard, but it sounds like that's off the table. It's not 31
even going to have an effect. That seems interesting. If there's any chance we could 32
move some of that stuff out of the way or just to the side or take up less of a footprint 33
than we have today, that would be ideal. That's all I had. 34
Mr. Anderson: Thank you for those comments. I would just add that what we've really 35
stressed and asked ENGEO to do is try their best to figure out what absolutely needs to 36
happen to address the problem. As opposed to how much can you take, it's what's 37
necessary to solve this problem. That's the perspective we're hoping they can take from 38
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our—where we're at right now is it's not essential to take the maintenance shop to resolve 1
this problem with this current alignment. I'm thinking about this from a number of 2
issues. One is the permitability [sic]. One is the acceptability from our stakeholders, 3
environmentalists, our Commissions and Councils, and then lastly the hat of being able to 4
finance this project. When you're looking at the potential of $10 million to move that 5
shop to another place, years more in environmental permitting, I'd love to see this happen 6 soon because I don't think the park can wait. I'm kind of looking at ways to make sure 7
this happens in a timely manner, that it's fundable, permitable [sic], acceptable, and all 8
these different things. My personal recommendation is if we can achieve our objective of 9
resolving the creek's primary issues, erosion, sedimentation, while still leaving the 10
utilities intact, the maintenance shop intact, that would be my personal recommendation 11
at this point, but would certainly be eyes open to look for opportunities if we can do it, if 12
it is permitable, if it is the kind of thing we can afford, I think it's worth looking at. 13
Commissioner Cribbs: Thank you very much for the presentation. Thank you, Daren, 14
for your just recent comments. They make a lot of sense. I was just interested in the 15
timeline and also the cost. I guess we'll be hearing that, especially the cost about what's 16
realistic, that we can do right now without getting embroiled in a lot of things that are 17
going to take a very long time. I was also interested in your comment about the potential 18
sources of other funding that you know of or maybe we would seek. If we could get 19
some information about that when it's available, it would be great. Thank you very 20
much. 21
Commissioner Greenfield: Thank you for the presentation. I'm curious. Changing the 22
creek in a manner like this, is this something that's previously been contemplated? Now 23
that we have the 7.7-acre parcel that we're trying to figure out how to access, is that why 24
this has come to the head? (crosstalk) history. 25
Mr. Anderson: I think both. In actual fact, we had submitted for a capital project to 26 study the hydrology of Buckeye Creek to resolve this problem a decade ago. It just 27 wasn't approved during the capital planning process. Five years after that, we 28
resubmitted, and it wasn't approved. It met nicely with the 7.7 acre issue to resolve it. 29
Yes, to some degree. Also we tried in the past unsuccessfully. 30
Commissioner Greenfield: Do we have a timeline for when the hydrology study and the 31
analysis is expected to be completed? Is that dependent on if you get a go ahead and then 32
need an engineering design for this? 33
Mr. Buck: After this meeting tonight, we're going to go ahead if everybody's okay with 34
the preliminary concept. That's why we're here. We're going to take about, I'm going to 35
say, 3 weeks, and we're going to run some models based on the alignments and the 36
floodplains that we are currently proposing. I believe by hopefully the end of April we 37
can get back to everybody with what we think is an engineering design that will solve the 38
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problems given the constraints we have with land uses with the understanding that we 1
can't completely un-engineer the creek. There's going to be some engineering structures 2
in there. We should be getting back to Daren and the rest of the folks here probably by 3
the end of April. 4
Mr. Anderson: In our current plan for our schedule for the project, we show finalized 5
report sent to Council for approval in July of this year. 6
Commissioner Greenfield: When you come back to us in May, the bulk of the analysis 7
will be completed, it sounds like. One thing that was on my list before was based on the 8
original packet. It'd be great to have some pictures of what the restoration would look 9
like right after it happens and 5 years down the road and 10 years down the road. Those 10
are in the presentation. I think those are very helpful for the public to visualize what 11
we're talking about. Including those in the packet would be great. Also if you could 12
include the field area next to the restored area so people can visualize what that will look 13
as well, I think that would be helpful. I'm curious. How many months does Buckeye 14
Creek typically have water? I know this isn't a normal year by any means. It's usually 15
dry in the summer. How many months is it dry? 16
Mr. Dunn: Buckeye Creek is still flowing actively right now. With the volume of rain 17
we've received, I anticipate it going until mid to late May. Fish and Wildlife, I believe, 18
was hoping that it would stay wet longer, like until July, which would then be good for 19
steelhead trout and red-legged frog. Unfortunately, the dynamics of the creek don't allow 20
for that. 21
Commissioner Greenfield: In a typical year, the creek may be dry 6 months or more. I 22
think that's important for us to understand when we're considering what kind of 23
environment we're going to end up with. We're not going to have a creek that's trickling 24
all summer long to hang out by and cool off in. That might be helpful to include in the 25 report, for the public to understand what we're getting. It's going to be a dry creek bed 26 for many months of the year. Overall, the proposed change is a considerable 27 undertaking. It's a rare opportunity to add a riparian environment. It's really an awesome 28
opportunity. A couple more questions. There was some discussion whether there would 29
be one or two flows through Wildhorse Valley based on your original analysis and then 30
one of the stakeholder recommendations. Is this something that's still under 31
consideration? 32
Mr. Buck: Just to be clear on this slide, the existing creek alignment is at the west side of 33
the valley. I guess we don't have a north around here. If you can see where the stations 34
that we put in our engineering analysis are, that's the existing alignment. There is a road 35
and a utility corridor that separate that alignment from this proposed alignment. The 36
original discussions we had with the stakeholders was to potentially leave an overflow 37
area where the existing sediment basin is. That would create a bifurcation in the creek 38
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channel. The Regional Water Quality Control Board suggested that we get rid of the 1
sediment basement altogether. I tend to agree, if we're trying to fix the sediment problem 2
by creating a large, meandering channel with a floodplain, that would replace the 3
sediment basin. There really isn't much of a reason for it to be there at that point. That 4
was one of the modifications we made in the project concept through the stakeholder 5
meetings. 6
Commissioner Greenfield: The current plan is just to have all of the flow go in the new 7
area or some of the flow would go in the current creek location. I thought that's what you 8
had mentioned. 9
Mr. Buck: I just want to make sure I’m clear on what you're asking. Currently, there's 10
one creek channel going the valley, and everything is going into where the existing creek 11
is shown on this plan. If we are to go forward with this proposed concept, the flows that 12
are coming from, I'm going to say, the lower left of this page would be intercepted by this 13
new creek channel. The flows that are coming down from the upper right are going to go 14
into this existing creek channel. We would have two channels, but the two channels 15
would not be hydraulically connected anymore. Does that make sense? 16
Commissioner Greenfield: Yes. 17
Mr. Anderson: I would just add to that. It's our understanding at this point that the new 18
channel would get the bulk of the flow. The watershed on that side is just larger. 19
Chair Reckdahl: May I ask one follow-up question? We see a lot of erosion on that 20
north side. If we still have some flow through that, would we still expect to see erosion 21
or is it just the lower flow won't erode? 22
Mr. Buck: I will have the answer for that question after we run the engineering analysis. 23
In terms of a concept, I'm going to tell you that if we reduce the flows by 40 percent, I'm 24
led to believe that would probably reduce the in-channel velocities below the erosion 25 thresholds for that type of creek, but I don't have an answer for that. If we can't get them 26 below the erosion threshold of the soil material out there, we would have to adjust the 27 grade control structures that are in that existing channel a little bit to accommodate. I'd 28
like to think that if we reduce the in-channel flows by 40 percent, we'll probably get 29
pretty close. 30
Chair Reckdahl: There's no way we can make that meander just because of the utilities, 31
right? 32
Mr. Buck: Right now the utility corridor and the roads are a tough barrier to work with. 33
We have looked at that. We did look at trying to run those flows over land and filling in 34
the channel. We looked at all of those options. It's a cost-benefit question. It seems like 35
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that would be a tremendous cost to do that. We feel like if we're trying to solve the 1
erosion and sediment issue, we can probably do it with this particular concept, and it 2
would be basically a cost savings. 3
Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. 4
Commissioner Greenfield: If I understand correctly, the reason you're planning to 5
continue using the existing creek is because of the utilities and the road location. My last 6 comment is with the additional drawings, if you can clearly label Wildhorse Valley and 7
Las Trampas Valley, I think that will help understanding as well. Thank you. 8
Chair Reckdahl: Overall, I'm very excited. We are going to the right direction. 9
Returning it back to where it was is going to be a much more sustainable answer. I like 10
the public access. Kids can play in the creek. Our kids spent a lot of time down at Shoup 11
Park; they spent hours there. Especially in the rainy season, that will be greatly used. 12
We have those rock structures inside the wire cages. We're leaving those or are we 13
replacing those with something similar? 14
Mr. Buck: Those types of structures are not considered to be, at least under current 15
restoration standards, palatable to a lot of wildlife. We discussed those structures with 16
the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the Regional Water Quality Control 17
Board. They would like us to replace those with something that doesn't have wire mesh. 18
Apparently, Curt's saying that rattlesnakes are the only thing he's seen get caught in them, 19
but other endangered species at least in the Bay Area have been spotted in those gabion 20
structures, missing limbs and other things because of the wire. The bottom line is we 21
would have to restore those grade control structures with something that's a rock face or 22
something that didn't at least have wire mesh in it. 23
Chair Reckdahl: Is that poured concrete or something more like loose packed rock? 24
Mr. Buck: Generally loose packed rock is the preferred material. The resource agencies 25 like it if we can put structures in that could potentially adjust themselves a little bit. 26 Concrete does not adjust itself after you pour it. Generally there are some rock 27 structures; we'll bring in some examples of those. 28
Chair Reckdahl: Replacing those in itself is a lot of work. 29
Mr. Buck: Yeah, that will be substantial work, but they're at the end of their lifespan. If 30
you go out there and take a look at them, they're ready for refurbishing right now. I think 31
it would make sense to do it with this project. Even if we don't substantially do a 32
realignment of the creek channel there, it would make sense to do a permit to do 33
everything and just do all of the maintenance at the same time. 34
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Chair Reckdahl: You had a slide that showed a meandering creek. Can you go back to 1
that? If you construct it to be meandering—the velocity is really big up there. I've been 2
in there when it's rainy, and it's just a torrent coming down that hillside, going along the 3
valley. Is that going to stay serpentine or is it going to get cut straight? 4
Mr. Buck: If we look at the slide that we were just looking at for at least the lower reach, 5
I think in both cases what we're going to try to do—we had a discussion with the 6 Regional Board about this. Really there's two ways of looking at this problem. One is 7
that we can create a large floodplain. Understanding the science behind creeks isn't 8
exact, and we all understand, for example, this particular creek channel was a project that 9
we worked on several years ago. That low-flow channel was quite different when this 10
project was started. We basically did some surveys upstream and downstream to see 11
what that channel might look like, which would be pretty much the same way we would 12
go about Buckeye Creek. We graded in that low flow channel based on the dimensions 13
of what we see upstream and downstream on that particular creek. We're also running 14
hydraulic models. The bottom line is you try to get something that's as close to nature as 15
possible. 16
Chair Reckdahl: Are you putting anything on the bends to keep the bends from 17
straightening out or is it … 18
Mr. Buck: This particular creek channel—we showed that on another slide—there's 19
buried rock. There's rock you can't see. That's the preferred thing to do around the 20
bends. 21
Chair Reckdahl: You're not just piling dirt there; you actually are making a structure. 22
Mr. Buck: To answer your question, we try to get some channel dimensions and a bed 23
slope that look like we have a stable channel configuration. We expect the creek is going 24
to wiggle around a little bit. We're going to expect that we're not going to get it exactly 25 right because the creek system is too chaotic to do that precise level of engineering. The 26 idea with the floodplain is it can move around a little bit. That's what we expect to see. 27
Chair Reckdahl: Why wouldn't it just go down the center of that and dig a rut? 28
Mr. Buck: That's an interesting question. The science of creeks is they want to have a 29
certain slope. The creeks don't necessarily want to be too steep, and they don't want to be 30
too flat either. The science behind doing creek restorations is trying to figure out what 31
that slope is. They call that the equilibrium slope. We have to make sort of a guess at 32
what that gradient is. I'm going to guess on this project it's probably about 1 percent. 33
Chair Reckdahl: That's a function of the dirt underneath? 34
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Mr. Buck: It's a function of the way the sediment transport works and the way the 1
hydraulics work. If we can get something in the range of where that creek wants to be, it 2
will basically stay in a stable configuration. That was one of the questions that we had 3
from the Regional Board when we went to this particular interagency meeting I was 4
telling you about. The problem is Buckeye Creek has been obliterated through the entire 5
valley. There really are a lot of reference reaches for us to base a guess of what the stable 6 slope and what those channel dimensions might look like. We have some areas that look 7
like they're relatively stable. That's kind of the science behind how we go about doing 8
things. Understanding if it's a 1 percent slope and the valley slope is 2 percent, we're 9
going to put in some floodplains, and we're going to meander the creek and see if we can 10
get it to 1 percent with the meanders. If we can't, then we have to start putting in the rock 11
structures to make up the grade. 12
Chair Reckdahl: Is there any thought about, instead of having half the grass together and 13
half the creek or the creek all on one side still, having the whole floodplain meander 14
through the valley and have patches of grass instead of chunks of grass? 15
Mr. Anderson: Maybe I can help answer that. I took note of your comment during the 16
public meeting where we could reference that. We liked the idea. As we digested it a 17
little bit and discussed it with Jonathan and with our recreation staff, there were some 18
challenges in terms of—we mentioned that half that area could still be used for 19
recreation. As we start to slice that into smaller pockets interweaving with the creek, 20
soon it's less valuable in terms of recreation space. 21
Chair Reckdahl: Fair enough. That's it. Overall, we're barking up the right tree. I'm 22
looking forward to this. Thank you. We have follow-ups here. 23
Commissioner McDougall: Just one quick follow-up consistent with the comment on the 24
biking area. One of the slides you had, I thought, was particularly interesting, and it 25 showed the whole watershed all the way down to the Bay. I think you've done a nice job 26 of outreach and probably with people interested in the park. As you go further along and 27 eventually talk about how much money it is, you're going to have interest throughout the 28
whole City. At that point, making sure they understand and that it's quite visible, the 29
impact on the whole watershed all the way down needs to be talked about more. 30
Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. We'll see you in May. 31
4. Dog Park Discussion 32
Chair Reckdahl: Next up is dog parks. I'm sorry. I apologize for making the dog park 33
people wait. Do we have a presentation first, Daren, or do we want public comment 34
first? 35
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Mr. Anderson: Whatever you desire. 1
Chair Reckdahl: Generally, I like the presentation first. If you have slides, let's 2
(inaudible) slides first. 3
Mr. Anderson: Good evening. Daren Anderson again from Open Space, Parks and Golf. 4
I'm here tonight to talk to you about dog parks this time, specifically asking your 5
feedback regarding adding a new dog park. I'll give you the background fairly 6 extensively, because I know I have a lot of Commissioners who weren't here for the past 7
several years of dog park discussion. At one point, it seemed we were discussing it at 8
almost every meeting. I'm going to try to quickly but efficiently cover that so you can 9
track why we are where we are today relative to that discussion. The Commission has 10
been interested in dog parks since I started with the City. Seventeen years ago, I heard 11
conversations. In fact, my first day as a ranger, they handed me a form and said, "Here's 12
the three dog parks in the City. There's only three, so you're going to have to direct them 13
to other cities if they want more." Even back then we were talking more dog parks. It 14
has been something that's constantly under the watch of the Commission, asking staff to 15
look for more. Palo Alto only has three dog parks. They're all located in south Palo Alto. 16
Two of them are very small. That is Greer at .12 acres and Hoover at .14. Mitchell's our 17
largest at .56 acres. Again, all in south Palo Alto, nothing north of Oregon Expressway. 18
In 2010, the Commission and staff worked to try to take action to change that. They 19
created a policy directive that guided staff to any time there was a park renovation or a 20
capital project or we were working on a park to see if the public would be interested in 21
adding a dog park to that given park at that time. Unfortunately, in the last 7 years, that 22
did not result in any new dog parks. In 2015, the ad hoc committee working on dog parks 23
with staff started to explore other options to meet this need. If it wasn't dedicated parks, 24
could we look at other models such as the shared use model, which is where you take an 25 existing facility that's already fenced and in a grassy area like a ball field, for example 26 and during limited portions of the day make it serve as a dog park. There are other 27 agencies that have tried this including local ones. Menlo Park had used this at Nealon 28
Park, where limited parts of the day they had a dog park at that baseball field. After the 29
Commission and Council had reviewed feedback from the various users, particularly the 30
stakeholders who used the athletic field and other park users, they said—this was both 31
their Council and their Commission—it was not in the best interest of neither the dog 32
owners or the athletic field users. They abandoned that model to pursue a dedicated, 33
fenced dog park instead. That's where they're moving towards. We started to explore 34
other models. There's another one, very similar, shared use except it's unfenced. The 35
City of Mountain View is currently exploring that option. I went to all their sites on 36
multiple days to see how that's working and what it looks like. Imagine a passive area of 37
a given park, unfenced, with a simple A-frame barricade that says "dogs may be off leash 38
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 10:00-11:00." Every time I went, regardless 39
of the day, there were dogs off leash all through the park. They would run through that 40
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little, off-leash, unfenced area right into the playground or anywhere else. The dog 1
owners also did not adhere or follow the hourly or day restrictions for those areas. I 2
spoke with Mountain View PD as well as their park staff to say, "How is this working 3
from your perspective?" The PD officer I spoke with said it's been a constant problem in 4
terms of law enforcement. The park staff was really interested in knowing the 5
maintenance implications, if the dogs are tearing that up. They said it was too soon to 6 know for sure, but they were getting lots of complaints about it. They weren't planning 7
on changing anything yet. They're about a year and change into that model. We held a 8
public meeting on July 2015 to talk about the shared use. We had selected a few sites 9
that we thought this might work, for example, Baylands Athletic Center. It was a well-10
attended meeting. We had 100 participants come to that meeting, very vocal, a mixture 11
of athletic field users and dog park advocates. Nobody was in favor of a shared use 12
model. They were very frustrated by the concept; there would be such few hours in the 13
day. The athletic field users weren't particularly fond of the idea. It just didn't have a lot 14
of support. As a result of the feedback, the analysis that we learned from what these 15
other agencies were doing and that public meeting, the Commission and staff concluded 16
that we should be pursuing fenced, dedicated dog parks. We've taken that route since. 17
The other thing we learned is this piecemeal approach of waiting for a park to be 18
renovated and then seeing if a dog park could fit was not the way to go. Instead, we 19
should do a systematic approach of analyzing all of our park system including non-park 20
areas. There's a few—if you look at the current recommendation in the Parks Master 21
Plan, there are a few areas that aren't parkland. They're just grassy areas that we feel 22
maybe you could put a dog park. When we did that analysis, it coalesced perfectly with 23
the Parks Master Plan. That was just getting going. In the dog park process, which had 24
been ongoing, it kind of collided nicely. We tied in a lot of that outreach for the Master 25 Plan into our dog park analysis. I included it in your staff report, and it's in the Parks 26 Master Plan. It helped form that policy and program, which ultimately called for adding 27 additional dog parks. You're familiar already with our recommendation on that. The 28
locations we looked at were at least a quarter acre in size and not currently used for active 29
or programmed recreation. We listed 11 locations. I should preface that we aren't saying 30
this is exactly where it should be. Those are really starting areas for conversations. They 31
weren't fully vetted with the neighborhoods of each of those locations. As I'll tell you in 32
a minute, some of the ones we had labeled for near term had some problems. Knowing 33
how long the process takes to get the Parks Master Plan completed, the Commission 34
wisely said, "We've been working on dog parks for almost 10 years. We would love to 35
proceed with this in advance of this being adopted by Council. There's no reason to wait. 36
We know it's an existing need. Let's proceed." Commission wrote a memo to Council 37
and said as much. Council agreed, so staff had the direction to start moving forward with 38
finding a near-term dog park. We looked at two spots originally. One was Eleanor 39
Pardee Park; we'll get more into that in a moment. The other was Bowden Park. As we 40
started to delve in—as I mentioned, those were preliminary sites that needed more 41
outreach to the community and more analysis. The Bowden Park example, which I 42
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thought made such great sense, seemed like a logical, great place. It abuts a busy road; 1
it's an underused piece of the park. It's got a lot of turf there. It made a lot of sense. 2
Unfortunately, I was unaware of the impacts of having public art on that spot. There are 3
two pieces there. I naively thought we could work around it or perhaps it wouldn't be a 4
big deal to have a fence. It turns out it is more of an issue than that. We met with the 5
staff that manages public art. While it may be possible, it didn't make sense as a near-6 term project after having these initial conversations. For example, moving one of the 7
pieces, if we were to get approval from the artist and the other art stakeholders, was going 8
to cost around $20,000. That was moving it inside that park. For the near term, it 9
became prohibitive, and we started looking elsewhere. In my consultation with the ad 10
hoc, we suggested that Peers Park would make a good alternative site, so we selected 11
that. We went forward with public outreach for those two sites, Eleanor Pardee and 12
Peers. The Eleanor Pardee Park, much like my Bowden one, had some conflict we hadn't 13
anticipated. You see the area on the screen is off to the right and abuts the residences. 14
Originally, we were looking toward the center of the park, underneath an oak canopy that 15
was away from the residences. It was an underused area. We thought it made a lot of 16
sense. It was a little bit larger, .43 acres. This site is in north Palo Alto, already has a lot 17
of off-leash activity in terms of dogs off leash or regular dog walkers. There was a lot of 18
interest in having a dog park there. Canopy and the Audubon Society approached us and 19
had concerns with that site for two reasons. One, the dog park in that spot is not 20
consistent with that naturalized area. It's undeveloped, and there's a canopy of significant 21
oaks there. The dog urine will have an impact on the trees. Secondly, it'll have an impact 22
on the wildlife that might be using that area. We consulted with the Urban Forester to 23
say what's your perspective on the impacts to the trees with dog urine. He said that is a 24
known phenomenon. Other cities invested quite a bit in protecting trees from dog urine. 25 You could make a counter argument. For example, if you went to Hoover Park where we 26 have a dog park, trees have been in there for 20 years. There aren't impacts to those trees. 27 We had them looked at, and they are in good shape. It's a tough spot because it is a 28
known thing. Stakeholders like Canopy and Audubon Society feel it's an issue, and so 29
does our Urban Forester. We respect that. We chose this alternative spot, which abuts 30
that neighborhood. When we did our public meeting in December last year, it brought 31
out a significant number of people. About 70 people came. About half were pretty vocal 32
about not liking the idea mainly for that reason, that we were right on the fence line, right 33
against neighbors' backyards. That was an unfair burden to them. It certainly wasn't our 34
first choice, but we tried to find a way to make it work. The next meeting, 2 days later, 35
was for Peers Park. This meeting wasn't as well attended; there were about 25 people 36
there, which isn't bad for a public meeting, but dog parks tend to draw in quite a few 37
people. This was about 25, and most of the participants spoke in favor of the concept. 38
They liked it a lot, mainly urging us to move forward. They've been patient for many 39
years but would like a dog park sooner rather than later. There was one family who 40
spoke out against the concept. They said they do have a dog, and they do walk it at that 41
park, but they didn't want the idea of changing that area. They liked that it was open, and 42
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they thought that would be a negative change. Let me talk to you briefly about the 1
budget as it relates to adding a dog park in the near term. There isn't any capital project 2
right now to fund this kind of thing. What we did was look at one of our existing CIPs. 3
This is a CIP, capital improvement project, dedicated to benches, signs and fences and 4
other park amenities. I had a surplus of $40,000, that I earmarked for this possibility. I 5
knew there weren't too many other options. We earmarked that and saved it in the hopes 6 that we could build a really basic, simple one. We could at least afford the fencing, a 7
double gate, and maybe dog bags, very simple elements. That we still have. We thought 8
it might be enough to take of care that. With a little further analysis, we learned there 9
would be some Americans with Disabilities Act requirements or ADA requirements that 10
would affect a dog park. It Peers in particular you would need an accessible pathway to 11
the dog park itself and have a landing inside, which would mean concrete. It adds 12
expenses that would probably push it past our capability of funding it with that limited 13
$40,000 that I referenced. However, there are other options. We submitted a capital 14
budget plan for this next fiscal year, 2018, for dog parks to be funded. Right now, that's 15
still in the proposed budget. When we find out if that money is approved by Council, it 16
would be available in July. We'd have ample funds to fully fund a near-term dog park at 17
Peers for example. When I met with the ad hoc committee in early March, they said, "Do 18
you have a Plan B? What if this doesn't get approved? What if there's just not enough 19
money to fund this dog park?" It's a great question and wise to be thinking about that. 20
I've got two options that we can consider. One is the $40,000 I referenced can roll over 21
to this new fiscal year, and I can earmark that. That same CIP—we haven't fully fleshed 22
out exactly where and forecasted all the different projects where that's going to be used. 23
We could probably earmark some additional money from that to get us close to cover this 24
cost. The other option is donations from our dog users. At those public meetings, I had a 25 number of people speak out and say, "I'd be glad to support this. Let me know how I can 26 help contribute." I also spoke with the Friends of Palo Alto Parks, who said they'd be 27 willing to coordinate with those dog owners, if there was enough that wanted to 28
contribute. They could help make that happen. Hopefully, that CIP gets approved, and 29
we'll have ample funding available July 1st. Those backup options may be enough to 30
carry the day and allow us to proceed. I will say that we met with the ad hoc committee; 31
this was March 8th. We asked the two Commissioners that are no longer on the 32
Commission and had served on the dog park ad hoc committee to join us and share their 33
perspective. They had so many years of working on this; they were intimately aware of 34
what the community wanted and had a lot of insight to it. Five us met and discussed it 35
and brought them up to speed. I'll turn it over to them in a moment if you have anything 36
you'd like to add. The way we concluded that meeting is there was general support 37
amongst the ad hoc committee that Peers Park seems like a viable option and something 38
we should pursue. Lastly, I'll just cover the process and approximately timeline if we 39
were to move forward with adding a near-term dog park. Design of the park would 40
probably take 1-2 months, and we would do it in-house using Peter Jensen, the City 41
Landscape Architect. In fact, he's already looking at it now preliminarily. We would 42
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come back to the Commission with a Park Improvement Ordinance. That's necessary any 1
time you're going to alter part of a park in a fundamental way. We call that a PIO or Park 2
Improvement Ordinance. The Commission would take a vote on it; it would be an action 3
item. You would recommend to Council to pass this PIO. If Council reviewed it and 4
liked it and approved it, it would move forward. Concurrent I think the whole process 5
would be this Planning Department review. The staff report mentions it could be up to 7 6 months. When I met with the dog park ad hoc committee, they said that seems excessive. 7
I got that figure by asking Planning staff. They said it's a range, but it could be up to 7 8
months. I realize that's a long time. I'm committed to doing everything I can to help 9
expedite that. Oftentimes, if you've done a good job on outreach, which I'll try my best to 10
do so, if you've done a good job of building consensus and submit a clean, solidly 11
investigated, best management practice plan for what you're proposing, oftentimes that 12
can expedite things with Planning. I'll do my best to do that. Lastly, once we get 13
Planning review and Council approval, we would solicit bids from contractors. I know 14
that's kind of a long process too, but it's realistic. We wouldn't get someone on overnight. 15
It typically takes 3 months to solicit those bids and hire a contractor and get them up and 16
running. Actual construction, once they're started, about 3 weeks. I'll turn it over to the 17
ad hoc, if they have any comments they'd like to make on the topic. 18
Commissioner Cribbs: First of all, thank you very much for all of that and for the 10-20 19
years that you have all been working on getting dog parks in northern Palo Alto. I'm 20
really excited that we have a path forward. Peers is a good solution, and I would very 21
much like to see how short we could make the timeline in getting through the process so 22
that we could get this done and have it done before the Master Plan gets accepted and 23
have it be a standalone dog park right now. I did have two other questions hearing the 24
comments about the dog urine and the oak trees. Can we look into that just a little bit 25 more? That would be really useful. Also I'm interested in the public art and if there's a 26 way to negotiate with public art in the parks and what happens to public art when it gets 27 placed. It's troublesome to me that we're in a situation where this might be a great place 28
for a dog park because it's right by the train and it's noisy anyhow; yet, we have a 29
situation we can't move something. Finally, your solution about accepting donations is a 30
great one. I was at the larger public meeting; there was a lot of enthusiasm by the dog 31
lovers that they would like to contribute. It's really important to make it easy for them to 32
do so. Friends of the Parks or Palo Alto Recreation Foundation are two vehicles that are 33
already set up. It should be easy for that to happen. Thank you very, very much. 34
Commissioner McCauley: I'll just very quickly say that I am a very big fan of the Peers 35
Park proposal. Well done. I know that you've dedicated a lot of time to this. Thanks for 36
all your efforts. 37
Chair Reckdahl: Before we go to the Commissioners, we will have eight public 38
comments. Brian Stell [phonetic] is first, followed by Freida Glass [phonetic]. 39
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Brian Stell: I'm Brian Stell. Briefly, you're a new Parks Commission for the most part. I 1
just want to say briefly why Peers Park. The area behind the tennis courts has low usage, 2
so that's a good thing. The houses to the west, toward El Camino, are about 300 feet 3
away. It's not right on top of somebody's house; there's a pretty good distance there. On 4
the other direction, there are houses—there's a set of tall trees, there's two railroad tracks, 5
there's a little bit of ground, there's four lanes of Alma before the houses on the other 6 side. It's not right in front of somebody's house again. There is one big feature why 7
Peers Park is good. We have a train, and the train is really noisy. I hear people in Palo 8
Alto talking about how the planes flying over are so obnoxious. Until somebody told me 9
there was a problem, I had never heard them because the train in comparison is so much 10
louder. It turns out all those houses that would see the dog park already have all their 11
windows closed because when the train comes by, not all the time but many times, it's 12
very, very loud. We're not adding some new thing which is going to change the nature of 13
my quiet backyard, my little spot of serenity. Suddenly, I have dogs barking. That's not 14
going to happen to people. The kinds of things that drive people crazy and get people to 15
come to your meetings and voice themselves, we're not going to change the character of 16
the neighborhood. That's briefly what I'm saying. I am very excited about a park. 17
There's a dog management issue that's pretty obvious. Older dogs and smaller dogs tend 18
not to be a problem. Older dogs don't move very fast; they don't do much. I love older 19
dogs. Little dogs tend to be for the most part, unless they're yappy, bouncing around and 20
doing things, but they don't really seem problematic. It's the younger, bigger dogs that 21
haven't quite learned how to behave and don't work on recall. What they do is they're 22
running around having fun, and they're running through the middle of somebody's soccer 23
game. It happens once, and everybody smiles. After the 15th or 20th time, the coaches 24
get really annoyed. I can totally agree with that. There's another set of problems. We 25 have a few dogs that chase because that's in their nature. They'll chase little kids. 26 They're not chasing the little kid to hurt the little kid; it's an instinctual thing for them. 27 The parents and the kids freak out. Again, a dog park is a really good thing. Having 28
open areas don't work well. I don't think anyone's enthusiastic about the concentration of 29
the dogs using the bathroom in an area, but that's just part of a natural thing. It can be 30
managed. The fact that we have irrigation is really important. If we just had dry ground 31
like Hoover, it's just all that stuff dried up. It doesn't go away other than it just blows in 32
the wind. We have irrigation; it's there for a specific reason. There are some trees where 33
the redwood seeds flew around in the space shuttle and were subsequently planted in that 34
area. They irrigate the lawn because of that. We have dedicated irrigation. That's a good 35
thing in terms of the park, having something to wash things out a little bit. We had a 36
December 15th meeting. Everyone was enthusiastic except one person. I see him several 37
times a week with his dog. We run across each other in the park. His only thing was it's 38
this beautiful open space; I wouldn't want it to go in a park. The answer for this one 39
particular person is his dog doesn't run around and chase anybody. No one will notice if 40
he just keeps his dog outside the park. No one will actually ever think about. I've talked 41
to him, and he's realized that and said it's not a problem. Even the one person who was 42
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concerned has retracted his thing. I changed my mind a little bit about one thing, should 1
we have a separate large dog area and small dog area. The small dog area is not so 2
critical as you need a place where people who have smaller dogs, especially older, 3
smaller dogs, don't feel like the younger, smaller dogs are too playful and too rough on 4
them. Having a separate small dog area would be beneficial. That's it. Thank you for 5
your time. 6
Chair Reckdahl: Thank you, Brian. Freida Glass is next. 7
Freida Glass: Good evening. I just wanted to add a few extra comments to what he said. 8
He was talking about the dogs going after the children sometimes and upsetting parents 9
and children. A lot of times the children go after the dogs. That brings up the second 10
point. Without offering us a dog park, you force us to break the law. You're not 11
supposed to have your dog off a leash. I go to Peers Park a lot, every day, twice a day. 12
Dogs are off leash. They are. They're not supposed to be. There is a man who does 13
occasionally come across and offer a ticket or whatever. You're going to find dog people 14
all over Palo Alto who will let their dogs off leash. Then, the little children love to run 15
toward them and play with them. It's a danger. I don't want to break the law. I don't 16
want to have my dog off leash and get a ticket, but I wish he could be free in a park. One 17
thing about Peers Park that is an excellent place to have a dog park, the area that you see 18
on the video. As I said, I'm there twice a day, in the evening and in the morning. That 19
area is never used. That whole blue area, never used. People might walk through it to 20
get to the other street as a shortcut. There are never people playing any games there. 21
There might be picnics outside that blue area at the top left. Otherwise, they use the 22
picnic tables at the bottom right. That whole area is absolutely vacant all the time. We 23
should have a dog park there. Thank you. 24
Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. Howard Hoffman is next, followed by Maduri [phonetic]. 25
Howard Hoffman: Hello. I'm Howard Hoffman; I'm the founder of Palo Alto Dog 26 Owners. I've been working on this for many years with your staff and predecessors on 27 the Commission. We're very happy with this plan and very happy to see it going 28
forward. I did want to address this issue of dog urine since it seems to be a little 29
controversial. I've got more than 35 years of experience as an environmental engineer, 30
treating wastewater and recycling water. Dog urine decomposes to ammonia. In that 31
state, it would be harmful to shallow-rooted plants like new grass. Once the grass gets 32
deep roots, the ammonia decomposes into nitrate. At that point, it becomes a fertilizer. 33
An example of this is the oak trees in the back of the tennis courts at Gunn High School, 34
where there's an illegal dog park pretty much all week long, certainly on the weekends. 35
Lots of dogs running around, the oak trees there show no signs of distress from the dogs 36
running around. I would like to thank the staff for this report and for all the effort that's 37
been put into this. We want to see more dog parks; we don't have to see this one. We're 38
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very happy that the Master Plan came up with the conclusion that we need more and there 1
are many good sites. This is the first opportunity. Thank you all very much. 2
Chair Reckdahl: Thank you, Howard. Maduri is up, and then Shani Kleinhaus is next. 3
Maduri: Good evening. My name is Maduri. I've been attending many of these 4
meetings over the last 3 years. I'm one of those people you guys referred to as begging 5
for a dog park particularly in north Palo Alto. This is a lovely proposal. Huge thanks to 6 Daren and all the Commissioners, especially Commissioner Knopper and the other lady 7
who was a Commissioner and who worked very diligently on this. Although this is not 8
as close as I would have liked it to be; I understand. This is a great start. I really hope 9
this works. I was also present at the December 13th public outreach meeting at 10
Middlefield at the Mitchell Community Center. I was one of the ones who wanted, and a 11
lot of my neighbors did not want the park at Pardee. It's really heartening to see parks in 12
Palo Alto, which are public owned and funded by our tax money, are actually—people 13
are striving to make them more useful to a larger number of the citizens and the taxpayers 14
that pay the taxes to keep this up. I hoped something similar could have happened for 15
Pardee, but it didn't. I certainly hope that it's not out of consideration, and we can 16
somehow continue to work through the objections that came up. I'd like to thank you all 17
once again for bringing this up. I hope it succeeds. Thank you. 18
Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. Shani Kleinhaus followed by Lisa Delong [phonetic]. 19
Shani Kleinhaus: Good evening again. Shani Kleinhaus with Santa Clara Audubon 20
Society, a resident of Palo Alto, and I own two dogs. I thought I might as well mention it 21
here. I would like to explain why Audubon opposed using the oak grove as a dog park. 22
There is an effort the Urban Forest Master Plan is looking at, which talks about recreating 23
a lattice of nature and re-oaking the City, putting in oaks again to try and connect it for 24
other species, not just us, looking at the benefits that nature brings to people when you 25 see birds. There's more and more research that shows how important nature is to people. 26 If we have a dog park under the oaks, the value of the oaks as a nature place and a serene 27 place for people to have a little bit of nature play inside the City is lost. The issue of the 28
dog urine, all I know is oaks do not need that type of fertilization. That could be harmful. 29
I heard from Canopy and from Walter Passmore that the urine is not good for the oaks. 30
For Audubon, I think the main thing was we need a place for nature play for children. 31
When I went there, I saw a group of kids that came with their teacher. I guess it was a 32
homeschool. They were playing in the oaks and collecting the acorns and doing things 33
there that you can't really do when it's a dog park because it needs to be cleaned in a 34
different way. Also, the leaves aren't that good on the paws of the dogs. I know that 35
because I take mine for walks. I thought I should explain that. The issue of nature and 36
regenerating an ecosystem in the City has its own benefits. I would love to take my dogs 37
to more dog parks. I take them to the shared one in Mountain View. I wish we did that 38
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here, more of these shared facilities. Since that's no longer discussed, that's okay. Please 1
consider nature play in parks. We would need more of those. There's all these 2
competing needs; nature is one of them. Thank you. 3
Chair Reckdahl: Thank you, Shani. Lisa Delong is up. Is Lisa Delong here? We'll 4
move on to Herb Borock. 5
Herb Borock: It's nice to hear so many people in support of the proposal and hopeful that 6 it's going to be approved. I've seen this before during the time period that Daren 7
Anderson talked about. Because of that and also because what the Commission has 8
previously said is they want more dog parks, not just this one at Peers Park in north Palo 9
Alto and not just in north Palo Alto as close to south Palo Alto as possible, I'd like to get 10
back to one possibility that was mentioned at the beginning of last year, which is a part of 11
El Camino Park, an undeveloped area. It's mentioned at that time that Planning staff 12
advises that it's included in future transit improvement plans. The staff will continue to 13
pursue the possibility, but there's nothing about that in the current report. That's a place, 14
as I understand it, that would be and has been talked about probably as long as the dog 15
parks have been talked about for an extension of Quarry Road to connect with the bus 16
island. Some of the buses using that bus island could enter or exit from that location to 17
get to El Camino Real rather than using University Avenue. As a place that could be 18
temporary dog exercise area until that happens, it's an area that doesn't need the elaborate 19
efforts of creating a vast capital improvement program or Park Improvement Ordinance. 20
It's just an area that can be fenced. It's not near any residences who might be a source of 21
complaint. It seems to me that area would be another place. It would be understood that 22
if some transportation project finally came through and was proposed and approved and 23
began being implemented and since it was temporary in nature, it would then go away. 24
At least it would be one more dog exercise area truly in north Palo Alto and would 25 implement at least the Commission's recommendation, not yet a Council policy, to have 26 not just one more but many more areas for dog exercise so we'd meet the needs of 27 residents and their animals in different parts of the City. Thank you. 28
Chair Reckdahl: Thanks, Herb. We have one last speaker, Jeff Sanders. 29
Jeff Sanders: Hi. I'm looking at the map of the proposed location at Pardee Park. Does 30
that encompass where the palm tree is? The one that's in the packet is a different location 31
than shown here. On this view, it's further left. Is this the correct proposed location or 32
this is the one that was not approved because it's under the oak trees? 33
Mr. Anderson: This is the non-oak tree area. 34
Mr. Sanders: This is the revised one. One other … 35
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Chair Reckdahl: The packet had some historical documents as attachments. They aren't 1
necessarily current. 2
Mr. Sanders: There's one other concern about that area under the oak trees that was 3
proposed. There's a large palm tree there, and owls have been using that tree since I was 4
a little kid. Duveneck students would go to Pardee Park on little field trips to pick up the 5
owl pellets and find critter bones and stuff. As long as it's not under that palm tree and 6 the oak trees, this is a better location. Thank you. 7
Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. We're done with public comment. We'll move on to 8
Commissioners. Jeff, do you have … 9
Commissioner Greenfield: I have just a couple of questions and comments. What is the 10
size of the proposed area at Peers Park? I know the previous drawing was .73 acres, but 11
this is a different configuration. 12
Mr. Anderson: It's a little less. I think we're approximately .63, something like that. 13
Commissioner Greenfield: Was there a specific reason for changing the configuration? 14
Mr. Anderson: It was to distance ourselves from the—first, it was to have a longer run. 15
Some of the stakeholders had expressed it would be nice along that fence line to let dogs 16
stretch out and run. We thought elongating that dog leg would make a lot of sense. At 17
the same time, keep ourselves out of the Challenger tree grove, which is up at the top, and 18
furthest away from the nearest residence, which is right over here. 19
Commissioner Greenfield: At what point do we need to decide on the big dog/little dog 20
area configurations? 21
Mr. Anderson: That's a very good question. During the design phase, it'd be wise to 22
discuss this with the public a little bit further, get some more opinions as well as from the 23
Commission. What we liked about this is it seemed to lend itself to a convenient option 24
to bifurcate the area right around here. You could have a smaller dog area and a larger 25 dog area. Of course, the consequence of that was you'd lose this long run that some of 26 the stakeholders wanted. You've got to choose. 27
Commissioner Greenfield: Thank you. 28
Mr. Anderson: I would add one thing to that point. If we started with it open, you could 29
always add that in the future and, I suppose, take it away too if feelings changed. Much 30
to the speakers point, I have heard that comment, you need to have a large dog/small dog 31
area, for many years from lots of people. Both are really valid points. 32
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Commissioner Greenfield: Do we have any additional funding projections for dog parks 1
next fiscal year? 2
Mr. Anderson: If that capital program gets approved, it'd be $150,000 in FY '18. It 3
would skip a year and be another $150,000 available the following year. That's if the CIP 4
gets approved. If that didn't happen, that other CIP I mentioned, which is benches, signs, 5
and fences, would have a new pot of money coming in July as well. Some of that I 6 could—again, I'm in the forecasting stages of exactly what projects that money will go 7
to—pull out and probably still make this happen. I need more time and analysis. As 8
we're working on this preliminary design, there's also a cost estimate being put together 9
that incorporates those ADA elements that will help answer that question. 10
Commissioner Greenfield: That's 150K for FY '18 and then for FY '20, skipping '19? 11
Mr. Anderson: That's right. 12
Commissioner Greenfield: If all of it wasn't used in '18, it would carry over into '19. Is 13
that why it's an every other year kind of thing? 14
Mr. Anderson: I think that's possible. 15
Commissioner Greenfield: I'm just wondering why it's set up that way? 16
Mr. Anderson: Why does it alternate years? With balancing project load, we'll have the 17
same thing with park restrooms. If that CIP for new park restrooms happen, they're 18
alternating because of how long it takes to get projects done and approved. Of course, 19
that's not the only park-related project. There will be multiple ones coming on. It's to 20
stagger it for staff availability too. 21
Commissioner Greenfield: My real question is obviously we've been working on the dog 22
parks for a long time, and the community has been engaged and investing. What kind of 23
expectations can we set for how many dog parks we can have over the next 2 years, 4 24
years, etc.? 25
Mr. Anderson: If the CIP is approved, a lot depends on the outreach for each individual 26 site. It all depends on how those things shake out. If the Bowden art thing becomes a 27 bigger issue and a challenge, perhaps we've got to look elsewhere. The Pardee issue ran 28
into some challenges. If we can find an alternative location there, maybe that one does 29
work. A lot of variables lie on the outreach piece. Frankly, that's probably the biggest. 30
The funding would allow us to do one every other year going forward for the next 5 31
years. It's a 5-year budget cycle, and that's what we submitted, alternating years, 32
$150,000. 33
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Commissioner Greenfield: Do you have a sense of where in the priority list the 1
reconfiguration at Greer or Hoover would fit in and when people could expect we might 2
be doing something there? 3
Mr. Anderson: I think it's probably more discussion with the ad hoc and maybe a little 4
more outreach. We've got good connections with Howard Hoffman, the president of the 5
Palo Alto Dog Owners group. He represents such a large group; I can better understand 6 the desires of the dog owners. We'll do a little more staff investigation by going out and 7
visiting sites and talking to the people at Mitchell, ask what they want. We've done that 8
before, but it needs to be refreshed to understand exactly what they want. The 9
Commission then weighing in and giving us some guidance. 10
Commissioner Greenfield: Thank you. 11
Vice Chair Moss: I think waiting 10 years is way, way, way too long. I got onto the 12
Commission about a year ago. We always seem to find an issue. I thought Bowden was 13
great. I thought Pardee was great. I think Peers is great. We need to squash each of 14
those issues, even if it means somebody's feelings are going to be hurt or a single 15
neighbor is going to be affected. Pardee, we could move the fence in 10 feet and still 16
have a dog park. Bowden, we could put a fence around that piece of art or cut the piece 17
off the pedestal, leave the pedestal there, move the piece of art over for 5,000, not 20,000. 18
With each one of these, there's a simple solution and then a perfect solution. I don't think 19
we have time ever for the perfect solution. I would love it if the dog owners would get 20
together on their own, come up with consensus that 80 percent of the dog owners are 21
going to like and 20 percent are going to hate. Every single one of these, people are 22
going to hate it. I want them to squash that issue and come to us. I hope the ad hoc 23
committee will help with this. There's money in three or four different places. When 24
we're talking about $20,000, that doesn't seem like that much. $150,000 seems like a lot. 25 That's all I have to say. 26
Commissioner McCauley: I'll be really quick. A couple of things we've talked about 27 offline, Daren. One is ongoing maintenance, making sure that dog park spaces are well 28
maintained. That's important for neighbors to understand we're not going to be leaving 29
them with some sort of mess. Relatedly, again something we've talked about is aesthetics 30
matter. We want fencing around dog parks to be as inviting as possible rather than 31
appearing, as Anne suggested, like a prison. Being good neighbors will go a long way 32
towards helping us advance the goal here. Thank you again. 33
Commissioner McDougall: I have no comments on Peers Park. Congratulations with 34
where we're at. I am interested, when we get to the point of decisions about more dog 35
parks, in being really transparent. I'm not sure I totally agree with the process that Dave 36
talked about in terms of making decisions. Transparency is what he was talking about. 37
That's really important. It's important to make public what decision factors we're 38
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interested in, what the surrounding is, what the access is, what the impact on the 1
neighborhood is, what the size and the cost of each of these things. You've done a good 2
job quantitatively putting those park by park, but it needs to be collective. I would warn 3
you that I'll come back and be really interested in the matrix or however you present that. 4
Relative to the dog urine conversation, particularly in some of the natural areas, I'm a 5
docent at Point Lobos. Our biggest concern is not whether the dog urine is going to kill 6 the plants. Dogs create urine because they need to. They also create urine in order to 7
mark their spot. When a dog marks its spot, it creates confusion for all the other animals 8
there. That's a serious consideration in some of these natural areas. Thank you. 9
Commissioner LaMere: Appreciate all your work on this. The one thing I would like to 10
say is echoing Commissioner Cribbs in speaking about Friends of the Park and funds that 11
might be available or people who are engaged to want to give. If there are some 12
budgetary constraints to designs or moving this forward in a timely fashion, if there is a 13
partnership to be struck and to be carried forward, I know there's a lot of people engaged 14
and wanting to see this project move forward. Some of her suggestions about enabling 15
that were very good. 16
Chair Reckdahl: When I looked at page 3 of the handout and saw the timeline, it floored 17
me. Everything takes so long in the City. One of the hopes when we started this 2 years 18
ago is that we could identify three spots, put a no-frills fence around it and just have 19
immediate dog parks. They'd be temporary and, if they worked, we would invest 20
something in that spot. If they didn't work, we didn't have to worry about having an 21
investment there. We could pull the fences and move on. Now, we're having 7 months 22
of planning and 3 months of hiring a contractor. Is there any way we can go back to the 23
model where we put up a fence and have the City employees do it and be done? We have 24
a PIO; I understand that. Is that breaking the rules? 25
Mr. Anderson: I will look into it, to see if there's way to expedite it. I'm not sure if it 26 behooves us, but I can look into it. If we were to look at this as a trial, does that allow 27 some shortcuts or make this process move a little faster? I'd be glad to ask Planning that. 28
My hunch is it probably won't help us. It maybe costs us more in the long term. I'm not 29
sure, so I'll be glad to look into that. Your question about could we do it with staff efforts 30
instead of contractors. There are somethings I could do. The irrigation adjustments, we 31
can do all that. We can install certain elements like trash cans and benches. We can't 32
pour the pads; we can't pour the pathways. The fence installation is really a specialty job. 33
My parks team probably wouldn't do that. What I can do is commit to trying my best to 34
expedite it where I can, institute our staff to doing elements that might make it go faster. 35
Be glad to do so. I wanted to give you a realistic one. When we first looked at the Parks 36
Master Plan, we also had a realistic schedule, and we went way past that. It's the nature 37
of things that require environmental permitting and review; they take a lot of time. The 38
golf course process took 2 years longer than we thought to get going. Unfortunately, it's 39
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the nature of the business. I am committed to seeing what I can do to expedite it as 1
quickly as I can. 2
Chair Reckdahl: I feel sorry for the dog park people; they have been so patient for so 3
many years, and they've gotten nothing out of this. Even if we could get a quick and 4
dirty dog park and say this is going to be temporary for a year or two, and then we'll plan 5
in parallel and go through all the hoops for that, that would be a much better solution. I 6 understand it's not your say. You've got other hoops you have to jump through. Any 7
more comments or questions on the dog parks? Let's move on then. 8
5. Upcoming PRC Retreat, May 19, 2017, 9:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m. 9
Chair Reckdahl: The retreat. Kristen's going to talk about the retreat for a few minutes. 10
Ms. O'Kane: We'll be very brief. I just wanted to give everyone something to think 11
about before the retreat. It's scheduled later than we normally would. We would 12
normally do it earlier in the year, but we got a late start, and we had a hard time finding a 13
time that worked for everybody. The retreat is set for Friday, May 19th. It's going to be 14
at Mitchell Park Community Center. We will provide lunch. What might be helpful, 15
especially for the new Commissioners, is to take a look at the Minutes from last year's 16
retreat and see how the meeting was structured and the types of things we discussed. 17
We'll review our accomplishments from the previous year. Then, we will look at and 18
discuss areas of focus and priorities for the current year. We will also decide what 19
projects or policy issues might require ad hoc groups, and then we will assign those as 20
well for those we don't already have. We have a dog park ad hoc currently. We have a 21
Baylands Comprehensive Conservation Plan ad hoc. There could be others that we need. 22
We'll be discussing that as well. Chair Reckdahl, you and I should work closely on that 23
agenda and planning the meeting. I wanted to give everyone a brief update on how the 24
meeting will be organized. It's still a public meeting; it's just a little less formal than this 25 structure. 26
Chair Reckdahl: You said it's at Michell Park? 27
Ms. O'Kane: It's at Mitchell Park Community Center. 28
Chair Reckdahl: The one thing that people should think about, if there's a particular area 29
you're passionate about and you really want to be on an ad hoc, think about which areas 30
you'd prioritize. We can talk about that then. 31
Commissioner McDougall: Do all the ad hocs get dissolved and then start over? With 32
the Library Commission, we had a problem of you could only keep an ad hoc together for 33
a certain period of time, and then you had to dissolve them. It was an understanding we 34
had. 35
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Ms. O'Kane: As long as the issue is still relevant and the Commissioners are still present, 1
we pretty much just continue with that. If you are interested in looking at last year's 2
retreat Minutes, you can find it on the Commission's website. It was February 5, 2016. 3
Chair Reckdahl: We're planning 9:00 a.m. start or was there … 4
Ms. O'Kane: 9:00 a.m. Tanya just said she would send a link to the Minutes. 5
6. Other Ad Hoc Committee and Liaison Updates. 6
Chair Reckdahl: Ad hoc. David, you met with the Friends of the Library. Do you want 7
to give an update? 8
Vice Chair Moss: We're going to get a calendar eventually? 9
Ms. O'Kane: It'll be in the Department Report. 10
Chair Reckdahl: I mean Friends of the Park. 11
Vice Chair Moss: There's three things I did since the last meeting. One is I went to the 12
Friends of Palo Alto Parks monthly Board meeting. They would love to help with the 13
purchase of the AT&T property next to Boulware Park. I understand there's nothing 14
going on with it or it's going very, very slowly. I told them they should work with Rob 15
and with the Ventura Neighborhood Association. They're all talking now. There's also 16
the Fry's property that's going to be made into apartments. Sobrato is going to develop it. 17
They should have an interest in that. There is a limit that AT&T is willing to think about. 18
It's really important that we move on that property as fast as possible. They're willing to 19
help. The second thing is I met with the Palo Alto history person, several people about 20
the ITT property, which is the antennae farm at the corner of Embarcadero and 101. It's 21
been there since 1921. There's two pieces to that. One is the land, the marsh, and one is 22
the building. Daren feels that a very short-term thing we can do is make a walkway from 23
the top of Byxbee hill into the property just to give some access. The second thing is 24
what do you do with the building. The building is in terrible shape, but it is a historical 25 landmark. They would like to help with that. I'd like to get some momentum on that as 26 well. The third topic is I am very, very interested in the connections between Palo Alto 27 and all the open spaces. My son walked from the Arastradero parking lot to the top of 28
Black Mountain on public trails, which I never knew existed. I would love to get more 29
people interested in understanding that and mapping it and making it part of our 30
inventory. You can walk from Arastradero Preserve to the very top of Foothills Park, and 31
then enter Los Trancos open space all the way up to the top of Black Mountain. From 32
there, you can actually walk to Saratoga Gap, and from there to the ocean, to Waddell 33
Beach, which is an incredible thing to be able to walk from Palo Alto to the sea. I would 34
like to continue to mark those connections and make them well known. That's all I have. 35
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Chair Reckdahl: I don't think we have any other ad hocs going on, so we can move on. 1
V. DEPARTMENT REPORT 2
Chair Reckdahl: The Department Report. 3
Ms. O'Kane: I will again try to be brief. Kristen O'Kane, Community Services 4
Department. I have some things that Daren provided from Parks and Open Space, 5
updates on projects that I'll read to you. The first is the Byxbee Park hill renovation 6 project is about 95 percent complete. That includes adding 2.3 miles of new trails, 14 7
new park benches, 6 interpretive signs, a group meeting area, and 4 native planting 8
islands. Burrowing owls have started to use the site. The second is the Baylands Nature 9
Center facility improvement project is complete. The grand reopening of that facility is 10
scheduled for Earth Day, April 22nd. I also wanted to mention the Baylands 11
Comprehensive Conservation Plan. We expect to start working on that with our 12
consultant in March. We're currently developing the contract with the consultant and 13
hope to get started on that soon. It is March, so we'll say April since March ends Friday. 14
We'll say that will start in April. The Foothills Park trails, as you know, we've had some 15
trail closures there. We have an additional trail that was recently damaged in the storms. 16
That's the Costanoan Trail. About .83 miles has been closed due to damage. Hoover 17
Park, the basketball backboards, hoops, and nuts will be replaced in April. Park benches 18
are on the playground. Planters will be replaced when funding is available. We are 19
working with Friends of Palo Alto Parks to hopefully fund that. Bowden Park, both the 20
gates to the playground need to be repaired. We're having some problems with our 21
contractor to get that work completed. We're hoping to get that done soon. You can also 22
expect an email tomorrow with possible dates the week of April 3rd to do tours. If you're 23
interested in tours of our facilities, Daren is an amazing tour guide. We'd be happy to do 24
that. You can't all go at the same time; otherwise, it's a public meeting that needs to be 25 posted. We'll have to do it in small groups. We'll send that email out tomorrow. I 26 wanted to go over the calendar quickly. It's the important dates that's in your handout. 27 Particularly, I wanted to talk about May. In addition to the 95th Annual May Fete 28
Parade—Commissioners are VIPs at the event. If you you'd like to come and walk in the 29
event, we would be more than happy to have you. We would really appreciate if you 30
would come and be part of the parade. I'll have Tanya send out an email asking who 31
would like to participate. You get some special treatment when you're there. 32
Chair Reckdahl: Historically, we've had the biggest show of any Commission. Last year 33
was a lull. We had some scheduling conflicts. Every year before that, we always had the 34
most Commissioners of any Commission. We need to keep that up. 35
Ms. O'Kane: In May, we have a lot going on. We have the retreat on the 19th. We are 36
tentatively scheduled to bring the Parks Master Plan to Council on Monday, May 22nd. 37
Again, it's tentative. This will be an action for Council. It's also likely the same meeting 38
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will be a joint Study Session with the Commission and Council, not related to the Master 1
Plan, just related to the Commission overall and what priorities the Commission has, any 2
hot topics that you would like to share or talk about. Typically, that's a presentation by 3
the Chair, but any Commissioner is welcome to speak to Council as well. We can talk 4
about that more at the retreat. It is only an hour, and the time needs to be very well 5
managed if we have seven people talking. We can talk about that more, Chair Reckdahl, 6 and how we want to do that. 7
Chair Reckdahl: In the past, we split that up. The Chair would do something, and we'd 8
split it into pieces. We don't have a lot of time to talk because the Council gets to talk. 9
That's the most important thing, to hear what they're thinking. It is maybe only 20 10
minutes of our time. 11
Ms. O'Kane: It's important to be prepared. 12
Vice Chair Moss: I want to make one comment about that. I want to make sure in that 13
meeting the very first thing we do is approve the Plan. The Study Session shouldn't be 14
about the Plan. 15
Ms. O'Kane: It's not. They are two separate … 16
Vice Chair Moss: We should approve the Plan first, and then do Study Sessions about 17
the Plan after, what do we do next or what do we do first. 18
Ms. O'Kane: The Study Session is not about the Master Plan. It's about … 19
Vice Chair Moss: I just want to make sure we approve the Plan because it was supposed 20
to be approved. 21
Chair Reckdahl: In general, the Study Sessions are before, and then they have the 22
Council meeting. 23
Vice Chair Moss: Wait a minute. The approval is in the Council meeting? 24
Ms. O'Kane: It's an agendized item that's an action, and then there's also the Study 25 Session at that meeting with the Palo Alto Youth Council. 26
Vice Chair Moss: That's what I was worried about. Once you get into Study Session, 27 you may never come out. I just wanted to make sure there was an opportunity to approve 28
the Plan, that it wasn't going to get bounced or whatever. 29
Ms. O'Kane: The timeline will be managed. 30
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Chair Reckdahl: In the past when we've had Study Sessions, we've gone 5, 10 minutes 1
over but not an hour. They've kept the time—they have the regular meeting following 2
up. 3
Ms. O'Kane: I wanted to mention on the next day, the 23rd, is this meeting. That's three 4
big things right in … We may want to talk about rescheduling the meeting on the 23rd. 5
Chair Reckdahl: We'll talk about that. 6
Ms. O'Kane: We'll talk about that. 7
Vice Chair Moss: I don't think you should change it. We'll have a lot to talk about. 8
Chair Reckdahl: That's true. We'll think about it. 9
Ms. O'Kane: That's all I have. 10
Commissioner Greenfield I had one follow-up question on the Costanoan Trail closure. 11
Is that noted on the Foothills Park webpage? 12
Ms. O'Kane: It is. Thank you. 13
Chair Reckdahl: I went there this weekend and was planning to do Fern Loop coming 14
down. I couldn't do Fern Loop (inaudible). They had it posted at the entrance and also 15
the signs there blocking the trail. It sounded like it was significant. They gave a list of 16
things that were broken. 17
Vice Chair Moss: One more thing. Is there any chance we could have one of the tours be 18
the following week? Have most of the tours on the week of the 3rd, but have one tour the 19
following week. 20
Ms. O'Kane: I can check with Daren on his availability. 21
Commissioner Greenfield: I'll be away that week. That is spring break for PAUSD. 22
VI. COMMENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS 23
Chair Reckdahl: Any comments and announcements? That was the comments and 24
announcements, or do you have … 25
Ms. O'Kane: That was the Department Report. I did want to mention—we can talk 26 about this as well, Chair—today was a pretty packed agenda, and we went pretty late. 27 Normally that's not ideal, and we try not to do that. A lot of what happened is because 28
we had an early meeting in December; we had no meeting in January, and then last 29
month … 30
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Chair Reckdahl: All three of those things had to be covered tonight. 1
Ms. O'Kane: The next couple of months are pretty heavy. We should talk about that too. 2
Chair Reckdahl: The wild card is how many people come. When you pick your time, 3
you don't know how many people are going to come for public comment. We lost a lot 4
of time tonight for public comments, which is a good thing. It also changes the schedule. 5
VII. TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR APRIL 25, 2017 MEETING 6
Chair Reckdahl: Agenda for next month. 7
Ms. O'Kane: For April, we have possibly the Parks Master Plan. It will come possibly as 8
our public hearing for the environmental document. It's possible we may have to have a 9
separate public hearing for that, but we're going to try to do it at the April 25th Parks and 10
Rec Commission meeting. In April, we will also have a presentation on the golf course 11
parking lot solar panel project. It's a proposal from Utilities to put solar over the golf 12
course parking lot. That'll be a discussion in April. We'll come back in May for possible 13
action for a Park Improvement Ordinance. Those are the only two things I have right 14
now for April. 15
Chair Reckdahl: How about the AT&T property? Can we have an update from Rob or 16
Daren or whoever? 17
Ms. O'Kane: We can. I can give you a quick update right now. I spoke with our real 18
estate staff today, who's in communication with AT&T. It's not up for sale. They need to 19
do a property line adjustment because the building on the property is going to stay. They 20
need to do a lot line adjustment to separate the parcel. Right now it's one parcel. It'll 21
need to become two parcels. They have not done that yet. The status is nothing has 22
happened. 23
Chair Reckdahl: Until they do that, there's no way we can buy it. 24
Ms. O'Kane: What we're doing internally, just so you know, is I'm working with Rob and 25 Daren to prepare a memo to our City Manager looking at the benefits and risks of 26 acquiring this property and what we want to do. We have limited funds. Is this where we 27 want to spend those funds? We have the 10.5 acres. We have the 7.7 acres. There is a 28
lot of other things that are waiting to be done. If you have a certain amount of money, 29
what is the best place to spend it? It's not for discussion now, but that's something we're 30
looking at internally and will be presenting that to the City Manager. 31
Chair Reckdahl: That's not an easy problem. 32
Ms. O'Kane: No, it's not. It's a tough question, real tough. 33
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Vice Chair Moss: My only comment about that is when we talk about the 20-year plan 1
and being able to acquire property, they don't come up very often. You may never get 2
that property. Whereas, the 10.5 acres or the 7.5 acres, if we wait a year or even two, it's 3
going to happen. I would rather get the inventory into the park system and then work on 4
it over time. The same with the ITT property. 5
Commissioner McDougall: As a next month topic and we're talking about things we'd 6 like to try and do quickly and would address a certain audience, we got an impassioned 7
group of pickleball people here tonight. I would like to hear from staff at the next 8
meeting what is the status, what could we do, what are the alternatives. I think it would 9
be remiss of us not to address that. 10
Ms. O'Kane: Thank you for bringing that up. We'll put that on the agenda. 11
Chair Reckdahl: I've heard complaints from tennis players who would like to reserve a 12
court, and they can't. Do we want to consider allowing people to reserve courts ahead of 13
time or not, is that worth our effort. 14
Ms. O'Kane: We can include that in the overall discussion. Right now, the tennis court 15
reservation is just for tournaments. You can't reserve it just for private games. 16
Chair Reckdahl: If the pickleball people could reserve a tennis court, they'd be happy 17
because now they could reserve and meet at that time and use that tennis court for 18
pickleball. 19
Commissioner Greenfield: Did pickleball reserve the courts for their tournament they 20
were talking about having in the first week of May? I was wondering about that. Is that 21
planned at Mitchell Park? 22
Male: (inaudible) not a U.S.T.A. match. 23
Chair Reckdahl: We have to evaluate whether we change the policy. 24
Ms. O'Kane: It would have to be an overall change to the policy to allow both tennis and 25 pickleball to reserve. 26
Chair Reckdahl: Do we want individuals to be able to do it or do you have to have some 27 type of group. It's a lot of thinking. Any more comments? Go ahead, Don. 28
VIII. ADJOURNMENT 29
Meeting adjourned on motion by Commissioner McDougall and second by Vice Chair 30
Moss at 10:49 p.m.31