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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2017-07-25 Parks & Recreation Summary MinutesAPPROVED Draft Minutes 1 1 2 3 4 MINUTES 5 PARKS & RECREATION COMMISSION 6 REGULAR MEETING 7 July 25, 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: 16 Staff Present: Daren Anderson, Rob de Geus, Peter Jensen, Kristen O'Kane, Tanya 17 Schornack 18 I. ROLL CALL CONDUCTED BY: Tanya Schornack 19 II. AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, and DELETIONS: 20 Chair Reckdahl: We'll move on to Agenda Changes, Requests, Deletions. Does anyone 21 have any suggestions? 22 Kristen O'Kane: Chair, I actually have a suggestion mostly for future meetings. I 23 thought at this meeting it might be helpful as well to move the Department Report on the 24 agenda ahead of Oral Communications or after Oral Communications, either way. Just 25 so that members of the public who are here can hear the Department Report, and staff 26 who are reporting on the different things can do that at the beginning. 27 Chair Reckdahl: I'm happy with that. Does anyone have any … 28 Male: Great idea. 29 Chair Reckdahl: Let's move that up today. Department Report, we'll move up right 30 before Business, between Oral Communications and Business. 31 APPROVED Draft Minutes 2 III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS: 1 Chair Reckdahl: That bring us to—we do have Oral Communications. Jessica Brettle is 2 going to speak. 3 Jessica Brettle: Thank you, Chair Reckdahl, Commissioners. Thank you for letting me 4 be here this evening. My name is Jessica Brettle. I've met some of you. If not, I'm 5 upstairs on the seventh floor in the Clerk's Office. I'm here today, as we normally do, to 6 announce a recruitment that we have for a new committee. This committee is the Storm 7 Water Management Oversight Committee. As you guys might recall, back in November, 8 we held an election with property owners to increase our storm water management fee. 9 This new committee will be in charge of overseeing the budget and the disbursement of 10 those funds for the storm water management fee. We like to come to talk to all of you 11 because we know that you're well connected, and you know folks in the community. We 12 really encourage you to talk to them and encourage them to apply. The deadline to apply 13 for this committee is August 1st, which is next week. They can apply online or they can 14 give us a call in the Clerk's Office and apply via the internet or PDF. We make it easy on 15 them. If they have any questions, they can call us as well. As a side note, this committee 16 does not meet every month. It's probably once, twice a year. If you know someone who 17 wants to start getting involved but maybe doesn't have a huge time slot to be involved, 18 this is a good start for them to get involved in the community. I'm going to put some 19 flyers in the back if you want to take them home with you, if you know of anybody. I 20 appreciate your time this evening. Thank you. 21 Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. 22 IV. DEPARTMENT REPORT 23 Chair Reckdahl: Now we move on to the next, which is Department Report. 24 Ms. O'Kane: Good evening, Commissioners. Kristen O'Kane, Community Services 25 Department. I have two things to report, and then I'm going to turn it over to Daren 26 Anderson, who has some updates as well. The first is I just wanted to report back on our 27 aquatics program. Palo Alto Swim and Sport will be officially taking over the aquatics 28 program on August 14th with oversight by City staff. The contract with Rinconada 29 Masters is still not finalized, but we are very close. We just have a few things to work 30 out, but I do believe we are very close. We will get there soon. We are working with 31 Palo Alto Swim and Sport to get the website updated and to just make sure everything is 32 fine-tuned and ready to go on August 14th. The second thing I wanted to just report out 33 on is just a follow-up on an article that was in the Daily Post related to the San Francisco 34 Mime Troop. In May of this year, the San Francisco Mime Troop applied for a permit to 35 perform at Mitchell Park. In addition to performing, the permit application stated that the 36 Mime Troop would be soliciting donations at the event. The Council-adopted Park and 37 APPROVED Draft Minutes 3 Open Space Rules and Regulations prohibit the solicitation of donations in parks. Staff 1 informed the Mime Troop that they could have their event at Mitchell Park; they just 2 could not solicit donations at the event. The Mime Troop subsequently removed the 3 performance at Mitchell Park from their 2017 summer schedule. Just to follow up on 4 that, we are talking with the Mime Troop. I spoke with them today actually to see how 5 we can possibly get them to come to Palo Alto this summer and perform at Mitchell Park, 6 something that works for them but also complies with our Municipal Code and our Parks 7 Rules and Regulations. We're still determining how that might work. We are hopeful 8 that they will come and perform this year in Palo Alto. They've been coming for a 9 number of years. We are happy to have them. Unfortunately, we need to enforce our 10 rules and regulations at the park. We can't have a lot of discussion on this tonight 11 because it wasn't an agendized item. If the Commission would like to agendize not 12 necessarily this issue but maybe the specific rule that's in question or that came to light 13 for a future meeting, we would be happy to do that. 14 Chair Reckdahl; We're planning already next month to talk about the commercial 15 activity in parks. I think we could roll this into that. Do you think that's good timing? 16 Ms. O'Kane: Sure. Yeah, that would be great. 17 Vice Chair Moss: Did we pay them to come to the park to perform? 18 Ms. O'Kane: No, we don't pay them. They apply for a permit to come and perform. 19 They would pay the fees that are outlined in the Municipal Fee Schedule. Now, I'll turn it 20 over to Daren for an update on the Foothill trails. 21 Daren Anderson: Good evening. Daren Anderson, Open Spaces, Parks, and Golf. I 22 wanted to share the latest with our problem trails up at Foothills Park. This is close to 23 Costanoan Trail and Los Trancos Trail. I've got a couple of photos. This is a map of the 24 preserve that shows the various closure spots. I apologize; it's rather small. To fit it in 25 and give it context, it had to be. It shows a number of slides and washouts along Los 26 Trancos. It's got a closure of a little under 3 miles. This is the back side of Los Trancos 27 that's closed. The Costanoan Trail, this segment here that's just under a mile was closed 28 in March. It's all the result of this very, very heavy rain we received in this winter. We 29 received 23.5 inches in January and February. That's about what we get in an average 30 year. It was a year's worth of rain in one month. The result was a lot of these typically 31 problematic areas that have minor washouts that are problematic and usually could be 32 maintained without having to reroute or do much. It's just manual work. Sometimes our 33 trail contractor brings in a small piece of—it's heavy equipment, but it's very narrow and 34 can fit on the trails and fix things. This is beyond that scope. I've got a few photos to 35 show. The trail is right up here and the absence of the trail. You can see some of the old 36 header board, that had been part of a probably 1980s installment to support that edge, had 37 completely washed out, all the way down to the creek. This is Los Trancos right along 38 APPROVED Draft Minutes 4 the creek's edge. This is another section; I think the same washout, the same board. You 1 can just see the soils are so loose there's just no way of cutting back into that without 2 damaging and causing significant impacts to the creek. Some of these photos out of 3 context it's hard to even see where the trail is anymore. This isn't just a bunch of refuse. 4 This is uphill debris that slid down the trail far off screen now. This is the Costanoan 5 section of the trail. This was a bigger landslide in terms of the amount of land that 6 moved, but it's a little more localized. It wasn't on so many numerous spots. It's one 7 significant spot. The trail just slid out. They're unsafe. We closed those trails because it 8 was no longer safe for visitors to hike on them. This is another section. That is on top of 9 what was once trail. The same Costanoan spot. The actions we took is we met with our 10 trail consultant, walked the site with him, got his best opinion on what he thought we 11 should do. His suggestion was "some of this I can repair. Your significant washouts, 12 both the Costanoan and several sections of Los Trancos, your best technique would be 13 rerouting that trail away from the creek onto more stable soils." We also hired a 14 geologist to come out and hike the site with us and get his opinion too. He had the same 15 opinion. In those two areas, unless you're prepared to spend a significant amount of 16 money and very lengthy permitting processes, come out, excavate masses of some soil 17 down to bedrock and rebuild it, you're going to have to reroute. The environmental 18 impact of doing that would be so harmful I don't think we'd ever get permitted. It makes 19 so much more sense to reroute. The next step was to consult with our partners at Mid-20 Peninsula Regional Open Space District. They have 50,000 acres-plus of land that they 21 manage. They're installing new trails and rerouting trails far more frequently than we 22 have, which we haven't done in my tenure with the City. Ask them for their advice, 23 "what do you think we're looking at in terms of permitting, review processes, etc." Their 24 advice was if we're going to do the reroute, because there are sensitive species on Los 25 Trancos—you've got the steelhead potential and on the Costanoan you've got the dusty-26 footed woodrat—we should hire a consultant and go through the CEQA analysis, which 27 would be the Initial Study and the Mitigated Negative Declaration. That's the next steps 28 for us, to find that consultant, work with our trail contractor to confirm this realignment. 29 He eyeballed one in the field, but now it has to be hiked, measured out and, in 30 consultation with the consultant, work through that CEQA process. That's the next steps. 31 We're going to get bids very shortly and move forward with that one. We'll learn more 32 about what kind of timeframes that consultant says on the permitting. Hopefully, it's not 33 too difficult. That's where we are on that project. 34 Chair Reckdahl: It sounds like it's going to be many months. 35 Mr. Anderson: I think so, yeah. 36 Chair Reckdahl: That's unfortunate. Those are nice trails. Is that it for the Department 37 Report? 38 APPROVED Draft Minutes 5 Ms. O'Kane: Yes, that's it. 1 Chair Reckdahl: Sorry. I was waiting for you. 2 V. BUSINESS: 3 1. Approval of Draft Minutes from the June 27, 2017 Parks and Recreation 4 Commission meeting. 5 Approval of the draft June 27, 2017 Minutes was moved by Commissioner LaMere and 6 seconded by Commissioner Cribbs. Passed 4-0, Moss, McDougall, Greenfield abstaining 7 2. Parks, Trails, Natural Open Space and Recreation Master Plan and 8 Mitigated Negative Declaration. 9 Chair Reckdahl: We'll move on to Parks, Trails, Open Space, and Recreation Master 10 Plan. We do have one speaker card. Do you want to do a presentation first or the 11 speaker card first? Do you have a presentation to give? 12 Ms. O'Kane: I'll do the presentation first. 13 Chair Reckdahl: Generally, we like the presentation first. Sometimes, if it's a skimpy 14 presentation, we move straight to the comments. Kristen, you can take over. 15 Ms. O'Kane: Kristen O'Kane, Community Services. Tonight we have an action related 16 to the Parks Master Plan. It is specifically a recommendation for the Parks and Rec 17 Commission to recommend that Council approve the Master Plan and adopt the Mitigated 18 Negative Declaration, which is the CEQA document that was prepared for the Master 19 Plan. To my right, I have Barbara Beard from MIG with me to provide some information 20 on the public comments that we received during the public review period for the CEQA 21 Initial Study. Before we get into that, I wanted to review one change to the Master Plan 22 that is a result of the May 22nd Council meeting. At that meeting, Council made a 23 motion to request staff to rework a specific policy in the Master Plan. I would like to 24 review those changes, hear Commission feedback on those particular changes. Then, I'll 25 turn it over to Barbara to go into the CEQA comments. At the May 22nd Council 26 meeting, Council made a motion specifically to direct staff to strengthen the language of 27 Programs 6.C.1, 6.C.2, and 6.C.3 to minimize private, exclusive use and, when such uses 28 are allowed, charge significant fees and include specific outreach language. Staff 29 attempted to revise that policy, and also I did receive some comments from the ad hoc 30 that was put together not for the Master Plan but the field use policy ad hoc. I did receive 31 some comments from them. We did some rewording in that policy. I wanted to 32 specifically go over what was added to the programs in response to that Council motion. 33 They're all related really to Program 6.C.1, the new 6.C.1. That is to limit the number of 34 APPROVED Draft Minutes 6 days for private uses to a maximum of 5 consecutive days. That would include event 1 setup and breakdown. The reason that number was chosen was to avoid an event going 2 over a 2-weekend period. Five days would force the event to only be on one weekend or 3 the other or just during the week. The next addition was notice of the private event will 4 be made to the neighboring community and facility users 14 days in advance. We 5 originally had that all private events would have a public meeting associated with it, and 6 then we added "unless they were only 1 day." If it was a 1-day event, we wouldn't 7 require a public meeting. Anything over 1 day, we would include a public meeting in the 8 outreach efforts. We kept the statement that cost recovery including wear and tear on the 9 facility should be 100 percent. Those were the additions that were made to the programs 10 under Policy 6.C. If any Commissioners wanted to ask questions or provide feedback, I 11 could take those now. 12 Chair Reckdahl: Is this the change from what was in the packet? 13 Ms. O'Kane: This is a summary of the changes. The before and after is in the packet. 14 Chair Reckdahl: The current text is the same as in the packet? Do we have comments 15 and questions? Jeff. 16 Commissioner Greenfield: Thank you. I do have some comments. The new policy 17 update is definitely making progress in distinguishing between profit and nonprofit 18 events, closed versus public, and intensity of use. I think that's really what Council was 19 asking for. A primary role of ours as Commissioners is to help develop policies which 20 reflect the spirit of the law and make sure that's consistent with the letter of the law. 21 Actually, the SF Mime Troop is—the issue that came up is a good example of that. I 22 look forward to talking more about that next month. With that said, I think there are 23 some ambiguities remaining that I'd like to highlight. I will be making a motion for some 24 specific changes. First off, under 6.C, I'd like clarification if this policy is intended to 25 apply to the exclusive private use of part of a park or is it exclusive use of a park or an 26 athletic field. I think the answer is it depends on the scope. A larger part of a park 27 should be included as well. If that's the case, then the current verbiage is ambiguous on 28 that. Could staff provide an answer on the intent there? 29 Ms. O'Kane: I think it would apply especially for large parks, for example Rinconada or 30 Mitchell Park. If someone was reserving half of a park for—if they requested half of the 31 park for 2 weeks, this policy would come into play for that as well. We could include 32 that. 33 Commissioner Greenfield: That makes sense to me. What I would suggest then under 34 Policy 6.C, the first line, is a change of "booking an entire park site" to "booking a park 35 site." A "park site" could mean an entire park or a larger part of a park, depending on 36 interpretation. Again, I believe the intent of this policy is to apply to both parks and 37 APPROVED Draft Minutes 7 athletic fields. Under 6.C.1, the first bullet—under the line of 6.C.1, it says "exclusive 1 use of parks or athletic fields," which is what we want. The first bullet says "no 2 exclusive use of parks by private parties." It doesn't include athletic fields. If we omitted 3 "of parks" and just say "exclusive use by private parties," then that would imply parks 4 and athletic fields as stated in the line above that. I do support limiting the private use to 5 5 days as stated in the second bullet point. I think that's a good number. Under the third 6 bullet, I have some concerns about the ambiguities regarding the community message and 7 meeting requirements and the 1-day threshold. Part of it you've clarified. You're asking 8 for noticing to be done for any private event, even if it's less than 1 day. I'm not sure that 9 would be necessary depending on the scope of it. Perhaps we want the same 1-day 10 threshold to apply to both the community messaging and to the community meeting. 11 Regarding the community meeting, clarification on the timing of that needs to be made. 12 The verbiage now doesn't seem to mandate that it be 14 days before the permit is issued. 13 I also think it's important to note that the public meeting should be before the permit is 14 granted. Finally, on that same bullet I'm not clear if the threshold for the private events 15 lasting longer than 1 day applies to events reserved for multiple calendar dates or for 16 more than 24 hours. If someone reserves it from 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday to noon on 17 Thursday, does this trigger this clause, which it should? In which case, maybe we should 18 call this—we can say that this refers to multiple days. Council has requested charging an 19 increased permit rate as noted for private events. Right now, the verbiage is cost 20 recovery should be 100 percent. My question is, is this the most we can charge. Is that 21 why that's stated? Is there some other wording that would apply? It seems to infer that a 22 new rate tier should be added probably for the private event permit as opposed to a field 23 permit. I don't know if that's implicit in the verbiage or we need to call that out. I'm 24 interested in staff's opinion on that. 25 Ms. O'Kane: Related to how much we can charge someone, that's outlined in the 26 Municipal Fee Schedule, which is approved by Council. That would be a separate action 27 by Council to revise the amount we can charge or to add another layer to a special event 28 permit fee, such as a commercial use or some other language like that. 29 Commissioner Greenfield: If I understand your answer correctly, we're probably fine 30 leaving it as it is, and Council can take it up and revise that further when the policy goes 31 to them as desired. 32 Ms. O'Kane: That's correct. 33 Commissioner Greenfield: As far as the need to call out a new rate tier for this, is that 34 implicit in the current verbiage or do we need to add something for that? 35 Ms. O'Kane: You're asking if this policy should include adding another rate category in 36 the Municipal Fee Schedule? 37 APPROVED Draft Minutes 8 Commissioner Greenfield: In the recent event that occurred, one issue was there was no 1 appropriate rate tier for that event permit. That calls out the need to add a rate tier. 2 Ms. O'Kane: I think we could add it here. Whatever motion you make tonight, if you 3 could include that you recommend that there be an additional tier added. 4 Commissioner Greenfield: I do have an updated policy, which I typed out. I can forward 5 it if that's easier than reading this as part of a motion. 6 Chair Reckdahl: I think we have to read it just because it's an action item. 7 Ms. O'Kane: We do. 8 Chair Reckdahl: If this was a discussion item, then that might be better. Let's do a round 9 if other people have comments on top of your comments, then we'll come to a consensus 10 at the end. Any more comments on this? 11 Commissioner McDougall: Beginning with the policy statement, it says "events by 12 outside organizations." I'm not sure what outside organizations implies. Is that 13 organizations that are in Menlo Park or in San Francisco but not in Palo Alto? If 14 organizations are voters apparently, then an organization that's in Palo Alto is really not 15 an outside organization. Even just calling out private organizations would be better. 16 Outside is stigmatizing in a way I don't think we want to do. I agree with many of the 17 other comments that Jeff said. Private users will be limited to 5 consecutive days. Again 18 because of the kind of organization that we're dealing with, I think it would be useful to 19 clarify whether that includes weekends or not. Some of these organizations may say 5 20 consecutive days is Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Monday, Tuesday. It's business days 21 that they're implying. I think we should clarify that weekends are included. The cost 22 recovery item, I would at least want to say that the wear and tear on the facility should be 23 not less than 100 percent. In fact, it could be more than 100 percent under whatever 24 terms we put in. I'd also worry at what point do we define what the wear and tear is. 25 Somebody has a party; somebody spills something noxious. It's not obvious at the end of 26 the party, but 6 weeks later all of the surrounding oaks die. How do we recover that? 27 How do we define that? Is there some sort of mitigation? Is there some sort of deposit? 28 Is there some sort of hold-back on funds? I don't know how you would do that. The 29 whole cost recovery on wear and tear scared me in terms of what you would do. Thank 30 you. I don't know how you want to address any of that in your … 31 Commissioner Greenfield: The change of outside to private is a good idea, and I would 32 add that and the first comment you made. Regarding the other comments, those could be 33 handled by staff in the policy phase. I'm not sure it's appropriate to include them in the 34 Master Plan policy. I'm interested in staff's opinion on that. 35 APPROVED Draft Minutes 9 Chair Reckdahl: I had two comments here. One was the full park is not obvious to me. 1 Right now if you look, it says "limit the exclusive use of Palo Alto parks." That to me 2 sounds like an entire park. It should have the same clarification there. Any part of the 3 park that's currently not reservable is considered a private event. The second, I wanted in 4 the cost recovery to put in addition to cost recovery including wear and tear on the 5 facility, we also should be charging a market rate for the opportunity cost. Now, your 6 comments make me think we're not allowed to do that. If the market rate for renting a 7 field in Palo Alto is X number of dollars, we're not allowed to charge that? We have a 8 ceiling on what we can charge? 9 Ms. O'Kane: We do have a ceiling. In the Muni Fee Schedule, there's a range of what 10 we can charge for a particular rental. 11 Chair Reckdahl: That's fixed in time or is that … 12 Rob de Geus: No. Kristen's right. That's reviewed every year by the full Council. We 13 can amend that. You could include a program here that we look at amending the 14 Municipal Fee Schedule to add a higher rate for this type of activity. We wouldn't say it 15 just like that, but so that we could charge a premium rate if there is an impact to 16 residents. 17 Chair Reckdahl: We're not forcing you to be excessive. What we want is something 18 representative, market rate. Something that's fair. We're not trying to squeeze people; we 19 don't want to be giving away our assets. 20 Mr. de Geus: We can add that as a program here. 21 Chair Reckdahl: Would we put that in that cost recovery bullet or would we put it 22 elsewhere? Should we say "amend the Municipal Fee Schedule to … 23 Commissioner McCauley: While Keith thinks about that for just a moment—excuse me. 24 I don't mean to interrupt you. 25 Chair Reckdahl: Please do. 26 Commissioner McCauley: Is there anything else that's driving the logic behind the 27 current language on cost recovery? I know in the past there's been at least a suggestion 28 that the City shouldn't be recovering or actually might be limited in recovering more than 29 its costs. Is that what's driving this or is there some other logic behind the current 30 language? 31 Mr. de Geus: We would have to check with the City Attorney's Office to make sure that 32 we're within the legal bounds. There are circumstances where we can charge more than 33 APPROVED Draft Minutes 10 the costs of a program. I believe this is one area where we can do that. We'll obviously 1 have to verify with the Legal Department before we take it to Council for review. 2 Commissioner McCauley: It's driven a lot of questions amongst this group. I'm not 3 opposed to including it, but I wonder if removing it might be a simpler way to go. 4 Obviously, the City's Fee Schedule is going to apply. 5 Chair Reckdahl: Yeah, that's true. 6 Mr. de Geus: It sounded to me like there was an interest, though, in staff exploring a way 7 to ensure there is a premium fee charged for a private group that uses a significant portion 8 of a park, that has an inconvenience to residents, which we don't have in the Municipal 9 Fee Schedule currently. I think the language could be to explore that and evaluate that 10 and bring it to Council for consideration as a program here. We would then work on that 11 when we go through the budget process and get the Municipal Fee Schedule approved 12 next fiscal year. They could approve that. That gives us the ability to charge that higher 13 fee should something like this come up. 14 Commissioner McCauley: I have no objection or reservation to putting a hook of that 15 sort into the Master Plan. I'm perfectly happy to see that there. I think it's slightly 16 different than the current bullet, which is the cost recovery one. 17 Chair Reckdahl: How about if we add another bullet after that cost recovery that says 18 "amend Municipal Fee Schedule to allow the City to charge market rental rates for park 19 facilities"? Is that … 20 Commissioner Greenfield: That might be too specific. 21 Commissioner McCauley: I agree. 22 Commissioner Greenfield: Adding the language of charging a premium fee, which is at 23 minimum cost recovery, and then leaving it to Council to further add to that if they so 24 choose to. 25 Commissioner McDougall: I would only argue that it needs to say fee structure as 26 opposed to just fee. I would still be interested in something that says the fee is $10,000 27 and you have to deposit an increment of $10,000 that we might give back to you if you 28 don't destroy the park. I'm really worried about the concept of—the wear and tear 29 brought to mind what if they spill something that kills all the oaks. Now, we've got to try 30 and get money out of them as opposed to we already have the money. That bothers me. 31 Chair Reckdahl: How about "amend Municipal Fee Schedule to allow city to increase 32 maximum fee structure for park rentals"? 33 APPROVED Draft Minutes 11 Commissioner Greenfield: I'm not sure that we should be directing Council to amend the 1 fee structure. It might make more sense to indicate what kind of fees we're looking for, 2 and then Council can make amendments as needed to address that. 3 Commissioner McDougall: Do we need to do more than leave this concept with staff? 4 Ms. O'Kane: My only concern is we were looking for a motion tonight that would allow 5 us to go to Council and request that Council adopt the Master Plan. It would be helpful if 6 the Commission could make a motion that included the specific changes and additions 7 that you wanted to this policy. 8 Chair Reckdahl; Normally, I would say that this is something that staff could take care of 9 in the implementation. The Council was pretty clear about what they wanted included in 10 the Master Plan. We have to address this, which you have done. Part of this also is 11 addressing the cost recovery aspect of that. Just because it's a Council directive we have 12 to at least specify our recommendation. We're not directing Council to do something; 13 we're recommending that the Council do something. Would recommended be more 14 palatable? 15 Commissioner Greenfield: I'm not clear how changing a fee structure for something is 16 applicable to be in our Master Plan. It seems like the fee structure is outside the Parks 17 and Rec Master Plan. That's why I'm hesitant to include it as part of this policy. 18 Ms. O'Kane: You could propose language similar to what Rob said, that the program 19 could start with explore. I know the Comprehensive Plan uses that, but it would be 20 explore updates to … 21 Commissioner McDougall: The Comprehensive Plan is full of explore and consider and 22 whatnot. "Consider appropriate fee structure" as a program in here under the policy 23 would give you the wording that allows us to move ahead but not be so specific that it 24 sounds like we're dictating. 25 Commissioner Greenfield: I can support that. 26 Chair Reckdahl: Do you want both language? What did you say? Consider … 27 Commissioner McDougall: I would say consider incremental or new or whatever cost 28 recovery fee structures that address the risk of wear and tear on the facility. Something 29 that … 30 Chair Reckdahl: I don't think it's just wear and tear. I think it's opportunity cost too. If 31 the City can't use this park for a week, how much is that worth to us? 32 APPROVED Draft Minutes 12 Commissioner McCauley: To tweak it slightly—Don, jump in here please—perhaps 1 consider fee structure adjustments that include but are not limited to cost recovery 2 (including wear and tear on facility). 3 Commissioner McDougall: I agree with something like that. 4 Commissioner Greenfield: Should this be part of the same cost recovery bullet or are we 5 first trying to indicate what kind of a rate tier we're looking for and then, separate from 6 that, if changes need to be made to allow for this rate, maybe that's a separate item. 7 Chair Reckdahl: In my mind, there's two bullets. One bullet is that we want to charge 8 the maximum we can or the maximum that's appropriate. The second is we should revise 9 or at least revisit the maximum that's set by the fee structure and see is that appropriate. 10 Ms. O'Kane: Chair, did you want to include in that last new bullet reference to market 11 rates? 12 Chair Reckdahl: That's what my initial feeling was, but I don't think we should 13 necessarily dictate that. We could say premium charge or increase the fee structure. I 14 don't think it necessarily has to be market rate. That's what's driving it. If we're going to 15 rent out the facilities, we should be charging market rate, particularly if it's a for-profit 16 entity. 17 Ms. O'Kane: I just wanted to make sure that piece wasn't lost, but that sounds … 18 Chair Reckdahl: I'm not wedded to market rate, but that's what's driving this desire. Go 19 ahead, David. 20 Vice Chair Moss: When I think of the Palantir event, they gave $50,000 to the City, and 21 they gave $10,000 to two different soccer clubs. They may have done that out of the 22 goodness of their heart, but in the future they may not. If they displace users, there has to 23 be a significant price. How do we make it so that what they pay is the least that they can 24 do? When you talk about market rate, I like the idea of a premium. I want you to have 25 the ability to charge a whole lot of money, and I don't know how to word it. If you just 26 leave this, Palantir can demand that we give them a public space for their use every year 27 for 5 days for very little money. I don't want that to happen. I don't know how we can 28 protect ourselves from—can they demand that we give them that public space? 29 Mr. de Geus: They can't demand that we give them public space. One thought I had here 30 is just an extra bullet that says "explore establishing premium deposits and fees for such 31 use," which relates to the language above. That gives us enough room to try and think 32 this through, about what kind of fee structure. Maybe it's a significant deposit if there is 33 risk to trees or other assets in the area. We can discuss that through the year with the 34 APPROVED Draft Minutes 13 Commission and have it be a part of the budget process as we update the Municipal Fee 1 Schedule. That would be fairly simply. "Explore establishing premium deposit and fees 2 for such use" seems to capture it. It'd put it out there as something to consider. 3 Vice Chair Moss: Do we have to—if they say, "Sure, we'll give you the money," do we 4 have to give it to them? Do we have to give them the public space? The reason you're 5 notifying the neighborhood—do they have any say in this? 6 Mr. de Geus; Ultimately, it's the City that has to issue the permit. We're evaluating the 7 impacts to residents and the community. If we think it's not in the best interest of 8 residents, then we won't issue the permit. 9 Chair Reckdahl: What do you think of Rob's text? I'm happy with that if other people 10 are. 11 Commissioner McDougall: I don't like premium as opposed to alternative or something 12 that doesn't start off with an argument. 13 Chair Reckdahl: Premium is a loaded word. Can you think of a better one? 14 Commissioner McDougall: I would have used alternative. 15 Chair Reckdahl: Or increased? 16 Commissioner McCauley: I don't mean to be too lawyerly, but I agree with Don. If that 17 actually is a concern, I'm not sure that it is really. If it is one, then I think you want to be 18 more ambiguous. 19 Chair Reckdahl: I guess we're saying we want the ability to charge a different rate, and 20 that's all we're saying. 21 Commissioner McDougall: If It's a private organization that's a nonprofit, there may be 22 a—if it's the San Francisco Mimes. 23 Chair Reckdahl: This only applies to private rentals. This is … 24 Commissioner Greenfield: Private, multiday rental. 25 Chair Reckdahl: We're saying explore, so I would say increased or larger. We're not 26 saying that we must explore whether we want to charge more for private people. We 27 certainly would not charge less for a private corporation compared to a nonprofit. 28 Commissioner McDougall: So let's use incremental. 29 APPROVED Draft Minutes 14 Mr. de Geus: Yeah, incremental or alternative. It does work. Obviously, this is 1 something that Council would approve, so we wouldn't be going forward with something 2 that's less. I think it works, incremental or alternative. 3 Chair Reckdahl: What's the distinction between incremental and increased? Incremental 4 to me is taking steps as opposed to we just want to say it's larger. Do you have a problem 5 with increased or larger? 6 Commissioner Greenfield: I like incremental. 7 Chair Reckdahl: You like incremental? 8 Commissioner McCauley: That's certainly fine by me. 9 Chair Reckdahl: We'll go with incremental then. 10 Commissioner McDougall: Rob, did your wording—what was the rest of your wording? 11 Mr. de Geus: Explore establishing incremental fees for such use. 12 Chair Reckdahl: Deposits and fees. 13 Mr. de Geus: Deposits and fees. Sorry (inaudible). 14 Commissioner McDougall: That's what I wanted to make sure, the idea that there's fees 15 and deposits. 16 Chair Reckdahl: Let's roll this up. That's one extra bullet that we are adding after the 17 cost recovery bullet. Jeff, do you want to outline yours in terms of a motion? 18 Commissioner Greenfield: Sure. The one area that I'm not clear on is a comment that 19 you made regarding the parks or part of parks. My question is if our first line is saying 20 limit the exclusive use of Palo Alto parks (booking a park site or recreation facility for 21 events by private organizations that are closed to the general public), is that sufficient to 22 include parks and parts of parks? 23 Chair Reckdahl: I was saying "or part thereof" I would add. 24 Commissioner Greenfield: Where would you add that? 25 Chair Reckdahl: Where it says "booking an entire park site or recreation facility or part 26 thereof." 27 Commissioner McCauley: Let me ask for staff's opinion again. There is a distinction 28 between renting an entire park and renting a quarter of it or renting a picnic area within a 29 APPROVED Draft Minutes 15 park for 3 days for perhaps a company meeting of 50 employees for a 3-day period or 1 something like that. The impact to the community is much lower, so then the question 2 would be do you think it's actually necessary to have the same requirements for that sort 3 of thing. Maybe there's a simple tweak which is just to say a significant portion of a park 4 or something like that. 5 Chair Reckdahl: I wouldn't mind that, "a significant portion." 6 Commissioner Greenfield: So booking a park site, recreation facility, or significant part 7 thereof? 8 Chair Reckdahl: How about in 6.C we just get rid of the word entire? When we go to 9 6.C.1, we specify. 10 Commissioner Greenfield: I already was getting rid of "an entire." 11 Chair Reckdahl: In 6.C? 12 Commissioner Greenfield: Right. 13 Chair Reckdahl: Read what you have, and I'll tell you if I'm happy or not. 14 Commissioner Greenfield: Limit the exclusive use of Palo Alto parks (booking a park 15 site, recreation facility, or significant portion thereof) or wordsmith that last bit if you 16 want. 17 Chair Reckdahl: I'm happy with that. 18 Commissioner Greenfield: For events by private organizations that are closed to the 19 general public. 20 Chair Reckdahl: 6.C.1 you wanted … 21 Commissioner Greenfield: 6.C.1 does not change. 22 Chair Reckdahl: In this text that you have on the screen, you use the term private use, 23 which I like better than exclusive use. 6.C.1, do you want to start that with private use or 24 are we losing something by … 25 Commissioner Greenfield: I guess it gets down to the question of does exclusive infer it 26 has to be all of a park or not. Since in 6.C we've stated that it can include a significant 27 portion of a park, I think we're covered. 6.C.1, exclusive use means exclusive use of 28 parks as we've defined it above. 29 APPROVED Draft Minutes 16 Commissioner McCauley: I take it to mean essentially private events that are closed to 1 the general public. That's my view as an exclusive use. 2 Chair Reckdahl: In 6.C.1, can that first line, the whole first line, be deleted and just 3 replaced with "private events that are"? Do we lose anything by making that 4 simplification? 5 Commissioner McCauley: Saying exclusive private events as opposed to—there might 6 be many private events that don't actually exclude the community (crosstalk). 7 Chair Reckdahl: The next line says "closed to the general public." 8 Commissioner McCauley: Do you mean in 6.C.2? 9 Commissioner Greenfield: 6.C.1. 10 Chair Reckdahl: 6.C.1. The second line says "closed to the general public." 11 Commissioner Greenfield: I guess I'm interested in staff's opinion, but I think 6.C.1 12 works as written. 13 Ms. O'Kane: Including the bullets or … 14 Commissioner Greenfield: Just 6.C.1 not including the bullets. 15 Chair Reckdahl: I think it's wordier than it has to be , but I don't object to it. 6.C.1 stays 16 as is. Now, next bullet. 17 Commissioner Greenfield: First bullet, just crossing out "of parks," so it says "no 18 exclusive use by private parties," etc. Do you want me to read the whole thing? 19 Chair Reckdahl: No. The first line we're just removing "of parks." 20 Commissioner Greenfield: That's right. No changes to bullet 2. Bullet 3 is replaced with 21 "for any multiday private event including setup and breakdown, notice of the private 22 event will be made to the neighboring community and facility users a minimum of 14 23 days in advance. In addition, at least one public meeting will be held a minimum of 14 24 days in advance and prior to a permit being issued." Comments? 25 Chair Reckdahl: Do you have a comment on that or is that … 26 Ms. O'Kane: No. We just didn't get all of that. Could you repeat it? 27 Commissioner Greenfield: I would be happy to repeat it. 28 APPROVED Draft Minutes 17 Ms. O'Kane: Thank you. 1 Commissioner Greenfield: Maybe I can even get it all out in one effort too. For any 2 multiday, private event including setup and breakdown, notice of the private event will be 3 made to the neighboring community … 4 Chair Reckdahl: Made to the neighboring community you said? 5 Commissioner Greenfield: "Will be made to the neighboring community and facility 6 users a minimum of 14 days in advance." 7 Chair Reckdahl: Wasn't there something about a permit? 8 Commissioner Greenfield: "In addition, at least one public meeting … 9 Ms. O'Kane: Could you repeat that last part please? 10 Commissioner Greenfield: Sure. The second sentence: "In addition, at least one public 11 meeting will be held a minimum of 14 days in advance and prior to the permit being 12 issued." 13 Commissioner McDougall: While you're on that point, I don't mean to be picky, but 14 don't you run the risk of sending out a notice and holding the meeting on the same night 15 because they're both 14 days? 16 Commissioner Greenfield: I'm open to suggestions from staff. 17 Commissioner McCauley: May I ask in terms of—so long as the permit is issued after 18 the public has an opportunity to provide feedback, does the 14-day timing for the meeting 19 really matter? My interest is just to provide the most flexibility to staff. I realize that 20 some of these things might at times be on slightly shorter notice. Fourteen days to me 21 seems sufficient giving the neighbors notice. If there's an opportunity to have neighbors 22 give that feedback to the City before the permit is actually issued, I think that 23 accomplishes the … 24 Commissioner Greenfield: I'm open to any tweaking of the numbers. I was just trying to 25 remain consistent with the policy as written by staff. Any change in numbers that people 26 would like to suggest I could be quite amenable to. 27 Ms. O'Kane: Typically I think just as practices when you notice something for public 28 review or public notice, you then wait a period before you have your public meeting so 29 people can digest whatever the topic is and also be made aware instead of doing it on the 30 same day. 31 APPROVED Draft Minutes 18 Chair Reckdahl: (inaudible) the numbers should not be equal. I'll either say make one 21 1 and 14 or 14 and 7 or something. 2 Commissioner Greenfield: Do we need a notice to call the meeting and then another 3 notice if the permit is issued? 4 Chair Reckdahl: I think that's excessive. What's staff's thought on the timing? Is 21 5 days advance notice excessive? 6 Mr. de Geus: I don't know if it's excessive. I think it's unlikely we're going to ever have 7 a private event in our park. I can tell you that. I wonder whether that's—there are 8 unintended consequences. 9 Commissioner McCauley: I agree that this is putting quite a few hurdles in the process. 10 That is appropriate at some level, but at some level it might be appropriate to allow some 11 private events in parks. Actually as we saw from the Palantir example, that generated a 12 large amount of money for the City and some charitable donations to the effected user 13 groups who, I think at the end of the day based on what you reported, were actually 14 happy with the way things had worked out. I think there can be win-win situations, but I 15 agree we shouldn't in these aspirational statements that go into the Master Plan make it so 16 difficult as to discourage any private use. 17 Chair Reckdahl: How about if we move the public meeting a minimal 7 days in advance? 18 Most of these things are planned months in advance. 19 Commissioner McDougall: How about we put the wording in "allow for public input"? 20 It really doesn't have to be a public meeting. It could be an online survey or something. 21 That might be a lot easier and that there be flexibility as to whether there's a meeting. 22 Mr. de Geus: Personally, I think that's better. 23 Commissioner Greenfield: Suggestions for an amendment here? 24 Commissioner McDougall: I would put "notice be made to the neighboring community 25 and facility users 14 days in advance. In addition, vehicles for public input should be 26 considered" or something like that. In fact, why not just say "facility users, a minimum 27 of 14 days in advance allowing for public input"? 28 Commissioner Greenfield: Prior to a permit being issued? 29 Commissioner McDougall: Yeah. That's by definition. That's fine. 30 Commissioner Greenfield: Let me read the bullet as I understand it. "For any multiday, 31 private event including setup and breakdown, notice of the private event will be made to 32 APPROVED Draft Minutes 19 the neighboring community and facility users a minimum of 14 days in advance, allowing 1 for public input prior to a permit being issued." 2 Chair Reckdahl: That works for me. 3 Commissioner Greenfield: I'm not clear exactly where you want to go on the cost 4 recovery bullet and the additional bullet. If you want to propose something, I'm happy 5 with that. 6 Chair Reckdahl: My only concern is the 100 percent. 100 percent of what? It's not 7 obvious. Can we say "100 percent of the maximum"? 8 Commissioner McDougall: I'm asking staff is there any reason why we can't say wear 9 and tear on the facilities should be no less than 100 percent? 10 Ms. O'Kane: I think that would be fine. 11 Commissioner McDougall: That statement would be okay with the "no less than." The 12 cleverly articulated Rob de Geus statement would be the final one. 13 Commissioner Greenfield: Do we need to include wear and tear on the facility when 14 we're talking about cost recovery? Can we just say "cost recovery should be 100 15 percent"? It seems that by including wear and tear on facility we're highlighting that and 16 emphasizing that in contrast to many other factors that constitute cost recovery. 17 Commissioner McDougall: To me those are the signal words that allow us and people in 18 the future reading this to worry about wear and tear. As opposed to simply saying the 19 rate table says $1 an hour, so they paid $1 an hour, but they destroyed the place. This 20 allows us to recover the wear and tear. I think it's important to have it there. 21 Commissioner Greenfield: Does that emphasize it over the opportunity cost that was 22 suggested? 23 Commissioner McDougall: We were adding another statement. 24 Mr. de Geus: Which I had as "explore establishing incremental deposits and fees." 25 Chair Reckdahl: For such use. 26 Mr. de Geus: I had for such use. I don't know if it's necessary because the other bullets 27 don't have that. We could add that. 28 Commissioner McDougall: For a Master Plan, I think that's a good statement that gives 29 us the policy, the program that we should be incrementally recovering costs. 30 APPROVED Draft Minutes 20 Commissioner Greenfield: Should we include that as a single bullet then? "Cost 1 recovery including wear and tear on the facility should be no less than 100 percent." 2 Then, a separate bullet. The next sentence, explore establishing incremental fees and 3 deposits or deposits and fees. 4 Chair Reckdahl: Kristen, do you have a handle on all the changes? 5 Ms. O'Kane: We do. 6 Chair Reckdahl: Is there anything more on that? You want to make a motion? 7 MOTION 8 Commissioner Greenfield: I'd like to make a motion to revise Policy 6.C in the final draft 9 Master Plan as we've just outlined. 10 Commissioner McDougall: I would second that. 11 Chair Reckdahl: Any discussion or … 12 Commissioner McDougall: Do we need to make it clear that we're amending Policy 6.C 13 including the—are the bullets in this programs or are they just bullets? 14 Ms. O'Kane: 6.C is the policy, and then C.1, C.2, and C.3 are programs. Any bullet 15 that's under like C.2 is included in that program. 16 Commissioner McDougall: We would need to say Policy 6.C and Program 6.C.1 to be 17 clear, wouldn't we? Isn't that what we just did? 18 Ms. O'Kane: Correct. You could say "policy and its programs." 19 Commissioner Greenfield: So moved. 20 Commissioner McDougall: So second. 21 Chair Reckdahl: All in favor. It passes unanimously. That was quite the sideline. Back 22 to the presentation. Do you have more? 23 The Motion carried unanimously. 24 Female: (inaudible) 25 Mr. de Geus: Yeah, I think we might have missed a step there. We didn't fully finish the 26 presentation. After the presentation, you were going to go to the public. It would be 27 appropriate to do that. 28 APPROVED Draft Minutes 21 Chair Reckdahl: We will have that motion on hold, finish the presentation, public input, 1 and then we'll revisit that motion. 2 Ms. O'Kane: Thank you for that clarification. Now, I'm going to turn it over to Barbara 3 Beard, who has been waiting patiently for her turn to discuss the public comments that 4 were received during the CEQA public review period. 5 Barbara Beard: Good evening, Commissioners. As you know, the Initial Study and 6 Mitigated Negative Declaration for the Parks and Rec Master Plan was circulated for 7 public review from May 8th to June 6th. The Commission held a public hearing on May 8 23rd to receive public comment. There was no public comment received at the hearing, 9 but the City did receive five comment letters. Those comment letters were provided in 10 your packet tonight. There was a letter from Caltrans, three letters from Santa Clara 11 County Departments, and one letter from the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society. Each 12 comment letter is numbered, and the comments within each letter is also numbered so 13 that we can track the responses and provide documentation as to how each comment was 14 responded to. We worked with City staff to come up with the responses for each 15 comment and prepared written documentation that's going to be part of the CEQA 16 administrative record that Planning Department will have. This also includes text edits to 17 the Initial Study that are in response to the comments received. Per the City Planning 18 Department's normal procedure for Initial Studies, we prepared a final Initial Study and 19 Mitigated Negative Declaration that shows text changes in red with strikeout and 20 underline. This document will be posted on the City's webpage for the project and will 21 be presented at the City Council hearing. The text changes, I can summarize them very 22 briefly. In response to the Caltrans letter, there was text added to the traffic section that 23 was going to talk about the City's need to prepare a traffic control plan if construction of 24 a park project were going to affect traffic or circulation on a Caltrans facility. In 25 response to Santa Clara County Parks Department's comment, the legend for figure 4 in 26 the Initial Study, which also is a figure in the Master Plan, was changed to indicate 27 designated Countywide trails. That was the comment the County Parks people were 28 hoping would be made. The County Environmental Health Department raised concerns 29 about historic soil contamination and the potential exposure of workers in the public to 30 future park projects that may disturb subsurface soil. Do you have a question? 31 Commissioner McDougall: Excuse me. Can I just ask a question? 32 Ms. Beard: Yes. 33 Commissioner McDougall: In the package, you did a very nice job of providing us with 34 the letters. As you pointed out, the letter, for example, from the County was divided into 35 B1, B2 and B3. In the package, you only talk about B2 and E1 and E2, I guess, or 36 whatever. Now, you're talking about some of the others. Is that right? 37 APPROVED Draft Minutes 22 Ms. O'Kane: The difference is what Barbara is referring to is changes made in the Initial 1 Study document. The changes that are called out in the staff report are changes that were 2 made to the Master Plan document itself. That's the difference. 3 Commissioner McDougall: For example, if I'm looking at A6 or whatever, sea level rise, 4 that's in the document from the Department of Transport. You acknowledge their 5 interest, but you didn't change anything in the document. That's why it's not called out 6 here. 7 Ms. Beard: Correct. 8 Commissioner McDougall: Every one of these organizations would have received a 9 letter back saying, "Thank you for your input. Here's what we did about A1, A2, A3." 10 Ms. Beard: The way the Planning Department responds to public comment for Initial 11 Studies is they come up with the City's responses. The CEQA Guidelines do not require 12 notification to the commenter of what those responses are. The text changes will be 13 available to the public via the webpage. When the City Council has the document in their 14 packet, it will be part of the public record. The Planning Department also has our written 15 responses for each specific comment, and they're going to keep that as part of the 16 administrative record. If you wanted to find out how the City was responding to the sea 17 level rise question from Caltrans, the document that the Planning Department has would 18 indicate that its comment is noted and that should a park project be located in an area 19 where there is going to be projected sea level rise, the planning of that project would 20 incorporate the current guidelines for sea level rise projections. There's no necessary 21 changes to the Initial Study text based on that comment, using that as an example. Many 22 of the Caltrans comments didn't require text changes to the Initial Study. They were "you 23 have to contact us if you work in our State right-of-way. You need your easements. You 24 need to prepare traffic control plans. You would have to conduct whatever studies are 25 necessary for hazardous materials." Very routine kinds of comments. None of them 26 requiring text changes. Is that a sufficient answer to your question? 27 Commissioner McDougall: Yes, I understand what you said. I'm not sure that in all 28 cases not responding to the submitter of the letter, "Thank you for your letter. Here's our 29 response." By not responding, I'm not sure how polite that was I guess is my … "Thank 30 you for your input. We're not going to do anything about it," would have been a useful 31 response. 32 Ms. Beard: Our approach to this has been guided by input from the Planning Department 33 and also the requirements of the CEQA Guidelines. CEQA Guidelines don't require 34 written responses to commenters for an Initial Study. Planning Department's normal 35 procedures are not to respond directly to them. 36 APPROVED Draft Minutes 23 Commissioner McDougall: Thank you. 1 Vice Chair Moss: I want to make a comment. We are providing input to staff, but it's 2 staff's responsibility to respond when necessary. We don't have to respond to everything 3 that is in that CEQA note unless you find something that doesn't agree with our Plan. We 4 have to trust staff to provide the input to the different departments as necessary. We 5 shouldn't have to respond to all of this. 6 Commissioner McDougall: I'm not expecting that we would respond. That wasn't my 7 point at all. Thank you. 8 Ms. Beard: Sure. 9 Chair Reckdahl: Let's move on. 10 Ms. Beard: We were picking up where we were talking about where the text edits from 11 the Initial Study are coming from, where they were made. We did respond to all the 12 County Department comments by adding text to the Initial Study. We revised the legend 13 to reflect Countywide trails. We added text to reflect the County Department of 14 Environmental Health's concerns about historic contamination of subsurface soils. Their 15 primary concern was historic ag uses. This would be long ago because the City has 16 obviously owned and operated its current parkland for quite a long time. We responded 17 by inserting text that discusses the City's normal procedures for following existing 18 regulations when you undertake a new project where there is going to be soil disturbance. 19 You follow a certain set of procedures to identify whether you need to do a Phase I 20 report, environmental assessment report, or any other subsequent soil analysis prior to the 21 soil disturbance. If you're going to do a CEQA process for that project, that would fall 22 under the CEQA process for a specific project. We added text describing the City's 23 normal procedures to address the comments of the County Environmental Health 24 Department. The letter from the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society, we made text 25 changes to mitigation measure bio 2, which discusses preconstruction surveys for nesting 26 birds. We added text to indicate that surveys should be done—excuse me. I'm backing 27 up a little bit. To clarify the definition of an active nest, which includes a nest where 28 fledglings are still using it or where they're being fed in the nest or its immediate vicinity. 29 That would come into play if a park project was beginning—prior to its construction, a 30 nesting bird survey is required by California Department of Fish and Wildlife regulations. 31 This definition of an active nest would tell the field biologist when it would be safe to 32 allow construction if the nest was present. We also added language to Master Plan Policy 33 4.A in response to the comments regarding impacts to park resources from increased 34 access and from potentially allowing dogs on any new trails and open space preserve. 35 This sentence that was added to Master Plan Policy 4.A indicates that the protection of 36 biological resources should be the priority in open space preserves. That might have 37 been part of Kristen's presentation and text in your packet. That sentence was added both 38 APPROVED Draft Minutes 24 in the Initial Study and in the Master Plan. Finally, City Planning staff made edits to the 1 draft Mitigation, Monitoring, and Reporting Plan that was Appendix A of the Initial 2 Study. Those edits focused on clarifying the responsibility for implementation and 3 oversight of the mitigation measures themselves. The changes would be indicated in the 4 final Initial Study with red strikeout and underline, but you have the Mitigation 5 Monitoring and Reporting Plan in your packet tonight, which is the final language. The 6 changes are not indicated in strikeout or underline text. That was the sum total of the 7 City's responses to the public comment and is the final step in preparing for the action 8 that the City would like to take on the CEQA document. 9 Ms. O'Kane: I would like to point out two other changes that were made to the Master 10 Plan in response to public comments on the CEQA document. Those were in your packet 11 and are also projected on the screen. One was the reference to the Countywide trails 12 plan. Another one was a reference to the City Charter, Article VIII, which defines parks 13 and their limitations. The one that Barbara mentioned regarding protecting open space 14 preserves from visitor impacts. I'm just going to quickly go over next steps. Tonight, the 15 recommendation to the Commission is for the Commission to recommend that Council 16 adopt the Master Plan and also the Mitigated Negative Declaration. We are planning on 17 going to Council on September 5th with that, and your recommendation will be included 18 in our staff report to Council. We will be asking Council to adopt the Master Plan and 19 the CEQA document on that date. Just from a procedural standpoint, the final Notice of 20 Determination for CEQA needs to be filed within 5 days from the date that Council 21 adopts the Mitigated Negative Declaration. 22 Chair Reckdahl: Tight schedule. Let's go to public comments, and then we will have 23 Commission comments, and then we'll go to the vote. Shani Kleinhaus. 24 Shani Kleinhaus: Thank you. Shani Kleinhaus with Santa Clara Valley Audubon 25 Society. I'm also a resident of Palo Alto. One thing about process, CEQA does not 26 require that staff respond to comment letters, but many municipalities do. San Jose, for 27 example, any letter that we send them for any—whether it's a Negative Declaration, 28 Mitigated Negative Declaration, we'll get to see the changes that they make. It's only 29 right to do that because it's very difficult for me to try and trace all of this when I don't 30 have it well in advance. Especially today, all of that should be available already for the 31 public to review. When you say all of that will be before the City Council, it has to be 32 now. That's what we're responding to. I think this is a big misstep here from my 33 perspective. Some of the other projects that we comment on do engage us. I was on the 34 stakeholder group too, so I'm very familiar with the Plan. If I have comments on this, I 35 expect the respect of responding. I appreciate changing the mitigation bio 2 on nesting. I 36 do want to say that the theme of we care about nature was so strong throughout the 37 process. At least half, if not more, of the people said, "We care about nature." This was 38 translated in the MND to five categories, relax and enjoy the outdoors. That was not 39 APPROVED Draft Minutes 25 what people said. They said the words nature, wildlife, I want to see frogs, I care about 1 those animals whether I see them or not. People want to know that our nature is 2 protected even if they don't have access. They do want access, but this is why I 3 suggested another bullet on that, which was another need, conservation, restoration, 4 enhancement of nature and wildlife habitat and providing access to nature. It's not in the 5 MND. We have five other things. The only one that kind of hints at nature is this relax 6 and enjoy the outdoors. I don't think it's the same thing. It's not to me, and it wasn't to a 7 lot of the people who participated in public meetings, comments online, several surveys, 8 intercept events, etc. I expect to see something about nature here. You can consolidate 9 the two, but it needs to be there. The riparian corridor, I don't know why Palo Alto looks 10 only at top of the bank and not at the edge of the canopy. All the other cities look at 11 whichever is greater. It's either at the driplines, which means if you have trees along the 12 creek, we look at the dripline of the creek. We measure 100 feet from there. In Palo Alto 13 for some reason, we're only looking at the top of the bank, which is where the bank 14 flattens out. It's a lot narrower. I think we should look at other cities in that respect and 15 go to dripline instead of the 100 feet from the top of the bank. Where you have active 16 recreation, like a lot of lights in a sports field or something like that, go 200 feet like San 17 Jose does. They did a lot of study on that. If we can get the same protections for Palo 18 Alto creeks, a lot of them are concrete, and it won't help a lot but maybe some. One other 19 thing. In the new mitigation on visitor use, that's great but I would talk about activity too, 20 not just use, use and activity. I think use is a lot more general, but activity would be 21 important to have there. It's hard for me because I don't have it in front of me. If I had 22 the response, it would be easier to provide some language. Thank you for a long process. 23 I hope one of you will make a motion to include the nature, the need of conservation, 24 restoration, enhancement, etc., into the document. I think you should move it forward; 25 although, I would have preferred to not be on the spot like this. Thank you. 26 Chair Reckdahl: One comment I have is we have a whole Goal 4 that talks about protect 27 natural habitat, integrate nature, natural ecosystems and ecological principles throughout 28 Palo Alto. Overall, this is a very big document. Overall, we've done a very good job. 29 There's going to be some omissions that the wordsmithing isn't going to be perfect for 30 everybody. Overall, I think we've addressed all the issues. Comments, does anyone have 31 any comments before we move on to making the motion? Let's clean this up. Let's do 32 the motion that Jeff had just before. Do you want to re-move to have your motion? You 33 don't have to read the whole thing. Just say "as read before." 34 MOTION 35 Commissioner Greenfield: I'm looking for it. I'd like to move to modify Policy 6.C and 36 Program 6.C.1 as previously specified with one minor change on the last line. I'd clean 37 that up a little bit to "cost recovery including wear and tear on facilities should be no less 38 than 100 percent. Explore establishing an incremental fee and deposit structure." 39 APPROVED Draft Minutes 26 Chair Reckdahl: I'm happy with that. Do we have a second. 1 Commissioner McDougall: I'll second, but I thought we had those as two separate 2 statements. 3 Commissioner Greenfield: My understanding is at the end we combined them into a 4 single bullet. 5 Commissioner McDougall: Does staff have an opinion? If everybody's in agreement, I'll 6 second the motion. 7 Chair Reckdahl: In my mind, it's two separate issues. 8 Commissioner Greenfield: I don't have strong feelings about it. 9 Commissioner McDougall: I thought it was two separate issues. It was cost recovery 10 and then incremental. 11 Mr. de Geus: That's correct. It was two separate bullets. 12 Commissioner McDougall: I thought it was two separate items. 13 Commissioner Greenfield: My misunderstanding. Let's make it two separate bullets. 14 Chair Reckdahl: Two separate bullets then. 15 Commissioner McDougall: I'll second the motion as amended. 16 Chair Reckdahl: Any discussion? All in favor. Opposed. Now, Master Plan comments, 17 questions. Anne, do you have anything? 18 The motion carried unanimously. 19 Commissioner Cribbs: Just a question. What do you expect when you go to Council on 20 the 5th? It is the day after Labor Day. 21 Ms. O'Kane: That's correct; it is on a Tuesday. I expect—Rob, maybe you can chime in 22 after me—there will be discussion on Policy 6.C as amended. One of the other 23 comments that we heard from the Mayor was he would like in the staff report some detail 24 as to how we developed the list of high priority projects and programs. We're crafting 25 that language, and I expect there to be some discussion on that as well. I'm hopeful that 26 they will adopt the Master Plan. Whether they do that without a motion to tweak some 27 language, I'm not sure. I'm hopeful that the Master Plan would be adopted at that time. 28 APPROVED Draft Minutes 27 Commissioner Cribbs: Will we have any opportunity to review the staff report before it 1 goes to the Council? Maybe it's not appropriate; maybe it's not necessary. It just feels 2 like we've been all working on this for such a long time. I know you're anxious to get it 3 done. We're all anxious to get it done. 4 Mr. de Geus: We wouldn't typically have the Commission review a staff report 5 necessarily to Council. There is another meeting in August, but we're working on that 6 staff report. 7 Chair Reckdahl: Isn't the deadline for submission before the … 8 Mr. de Geus: It gets made public 10 days before the meeting. To answer this question 9 specifically, we wouldn't bring a staff report that staff is writing for Council for the full 10 Commission to review. 11 Commissioner Cribbs: I understand that. The tone of it or –I don't know. Maybe it's not 12 appropriate. I just would like to know in advance maybe something about what you're 13 thinking. 14 Mr. de Geus: We certainly can report on that and give you an outline of what we're 15 planning. Sometimes actually it's helpful, with the presentation in particular, to do a dry 16 run with the Commission. It's good feedback for us. 17 Chair Reckdahl: David, did you have any comments? Don, did you have comments? 18 MOTION 19 Commissioner McDougall: My experience in the Comprehensive Plan is it was, number 20 one, wordy of course. Number two, the repeating things in various places was sometimes 21 important. I'd like to support and actually make a motion that we add in 2.9.4 the 22 statement that Shani has recommended in what is labeled as E2, which is conservation, 23 restoration, and enhancement of nature and wildlife habitat and providing access to 24 nature. That would be the first part of the motion. The second part of the motion or we 25 can make it two motions—I do happen to believe that as a minimum we should at least 26 expand the riparian corridor to 100 feet from the dripline as opposed to the bank and even 27 200 feet per active recreation area. Basically, in the mitigation measure add that, from 28 the dripline as opposed to from the bank. 29 Commissioner Greenfield: I would second the motion. 30 Chair Reckdahl: You're modifying the Master Plan or are you modifying the … 31 Commissioner McDougall: I'm suggesting modification to the Master Plan. I'm 32 suggesting modifications to the modifications that we've been presented with here. I'm 33 APPROVED Draft Minutes 28 not going back to the original. What they've shown us tonight is a response to the input. 1 I'm asking that we further consider that input in the way I've suggested. 2 Chair Reckdahl: Can you repeat what you said? 3 Commissioner McDougall: Staff has a comment, I think. 4 Ms. Beard: I'm ready to respond in a very general sense just for your consideration. The 5 Initial Study exactly summarized what the needs and desired activities were as presented 6 in the Master Plan. The language of the project description in the Initial Study exactly 7 matches the language in the Master Plan. Any potential changes to the Initial Study text 8 related to a need would have to be made in the Master Plan. It's not just in the Initial 9 Study. The project description of the Initial Study is presenting Master Plan language. If 10 that makes sense. The whole needs section of the Master Plan is a very focused section. 11 If you read that carefully, the language that's suggested in Comment E2 might need to be 12 tweaked a little bit. We had a staff conference call about this particular comment and 13 whether to add it or not. At the time, there was thoughts that some of the language was 14 not necessarily reflecting a need but also touching upon management because its calling 15 for restoration and enhancement. Those are also management activities. The concept of 16 the comment may be worth pursuing, but the language might need to be considered 17 carefully so it fits that section well. 18 Commissioner McDougall: So it fits the needs section? 19 Ms. Beard: Yes. 20 Commissioner McDougall: Do you have a suggestion? 21 Ms. Beard: Not at the moment. Since I'm focusing on the Initial Study and the whole 22 Master Plan team has been working on this for years, I would defer to the Master 23 Planning team. My comment also regarding the riparian corridor definition, the Initial 24 Study uses the definition coming out of the Comprehensive Plan process. The draft EIR 25 for the Comprehensive Plan provided us a lot of language that we could use in this 26 document. This document uses the definition of riparian corridor, etc., that's in the 27 Comprehensive Plan. 28 Commissioner McDougall: Can I ask which Comprehensive Plan you're referring to? 29 Ms. Beard: The update, the Draft EIR. 30 Commissioner McDougall: The newest draft? 31 Ms. Beard: That's not yet adopted. 32 APPROVED Draft Minutes 29 Commissioner McDougall: There was a great deal of conversation in that. I think, in 1 fact, within the Comprehensive Plan Committee, the momentum was in the direction of 2 much, much larger offsets relative to riparian corridors. I think this is going back to the 3 wording that was in the 1986 Comprehensive Plan, aren't we? 4 Ms. Beard: The language that's used in the biology section to define riparian corridor—5 you're correct—is from the current Comprehensive Plan. 6 Commissioner McDougall: It's not from what I think is in the draft or was certainly 7 intended to be in the draft. I think in the draft it's much more aggressive. 8 Ms. Beard: The reasoning for that came from the Planning Department, which said that 9 current CEQA documents aren't allowed to use the draft language as adopted policy yet, 10 until the new Comprehensive Plan becomes adopted. 11 Commissioner McDougall: We could put in the Master Plan that the riparian corridor 12 should be as defined in the Palo Alto current Comprehensive Plan. 13 Ms. Beard: We could. 14 Commissioner McDougall: Assuming the current Comprehensive Plan addresses what 15 I'm talking about. If it doesn't, too bad I lose. If it does, we get what's appropriate as 16 opposed to the old one. 17 Ms. Beard: We could make that change, yes. 18 Commissioner McDougall: That would be my recommendation. Relative to the first 19 one, the need, it says conservation and restoration and enhancement. If we change that 20 too conserve, restore, and enhance natural wildlife habitat, is that not rewording it as a 21 need? 22 Ms. Beard: I'm trying to find the needs section in the Master Plan. 23 Mr. de Geus: Commissioner, did you have a page number that you were looking at on 24 the Master Plan? 25 Commissioner McDougall: I don't. I would ask if Ms. Kleinhaus has a page number that 26 she would refer us to. I don't. 27 Vice Chair Moss: Page 11. 28 Chair Reckdahl: My page 11 doesn't have it. 29 Commissioner McCauley: That's not it. 30 APPROVED Draft Minutes 30 Ms. Beard: I believe it's page 30 of the Master Plan, starting with relax and enjoy 1 outdoors play for children, throw a ball, exercise and fitness, and gathering. Those are 2 the needs identified in the Master Plan that were brought into the Initial Study. 3 Commissioner McDougall: Why can't we just simply say access to nature is a need? 4 Ms. Beard: I defer to staff. 5 Commissioner McDougall: That wasn't in your list, was it? Why can't we add access to 6 nature as an additional need? I agree certainly all our experience with the 7 Comprehensive Plan and everything else was nature was a big deal. I think it's a big deal 8 that it's been much more sensitive today than it was 15 years ago. 9 Ms. O'Kane: There is language on page 34 of the Master Plan that says additional 10 geographic analysis evaluated access to experiences. These include the experience and 11 preservation of nature. 12 Vice Chair Moss: That was going to be my comment. The comment that Shani made is 13 many, many places in the Master Plan, and many programs and many policies. I don't 14 think you have to make the change here because it's many other places. I'm worried that 15 we are changing the Master Plan that we have spent months hashing and rehashing at this 16 very last minute. I would rather see us adopt the Master Plan the way it is right this 17 minute after months and months and months of hashing and rehashing than to nitpick 18 individual pieces at this very late date. 19 Commissioner McDougall: I'll accept that argument relative to the need, but relative to 20 the riparian corridor, I'd sure like it to have wording that was relative to the current 21 Comprehensive Plan where the effort went into that, which was also years of effort. 22 Ms. Beard: That is a change that would just primarily occur in the Initial Study. It 23 wouldn't necessarily affect Master Plan text that I'm aware of right now. That is a change 24 that we could make before this goes to Council. 25 Commissioner McDougall: Thank you. 26 Chair Reckdahl: There was no motion associated with that. She's going to (inaudible). 27 Commissioner McDougall: Do you need a motion relative to that or can you accept that? 28 Can staff accept that as something that they will do for us? 29 Ms. Beard: I would approach it by developing a more robust response to the comment 30 letter itself, which would be—what comment letter is it? Comment E3. Working that 31 into the text changes of the final Initial Study. 32 APPROVED Draft Minutes 31 Commissioner McDougall: Thank you. That would be … I'm done. 1 Chair Reckdahl: Ryan. 2 Commissioner McCauley: Forgive me for not being sensitive to this previously when it 3 was first inserted into the Initial Study and the Master Plan early in May. I'm looking at 4 Program 4.A.1. 5 Chair Reckdahl: What page is this? 6 Commissioner McCauley: This is at page 65 of the Master Plan, the added sentence. I 7 certainly agree with Goal 4 generally. I certainly agree with Program 4.A.1 generally. 8 I'm a little bit concerned by saying that the production of biological resources from 9 visitor use is the priority in the open space preserves. I think it would be better to say "a 10 priority" or "a significant priority." I'm worried about tying the City's hands in that 11 manner particularly when there are other considerations that have to be brought into 12 effect in every instance. I would propose that we amend that to be, rather than "the 13 priority," "a significant priority in open space preserves." 14 Chair Reckdahl: I agree with that. What's the impact if we make that change? Is that 15 just simply a vote and you can go and edit it or is there more ripples to that? 16 Ms. O'Kane: With respect to the Master Plan document, you can make a motion to 17 change that. I don't know if it has an impact on the CEQA. I'll defer to Barbara for that. 18 Ms. Beard: The same change would be made in the Initial Study that would reflect the 19 changes in the Master Plan. It wouldn't affect the analysis per se. Just be aware that 20 throughout the Initial Study the Initial Study document says that each open space 21 preserve will have its own Master Planning process. In that Master Planning process, you 22 would develop the goals and priorities for that particular open space preserve. However, 23 the Parks and Recreation Master Plan should be considered the big umbrella that all open 24 space preserves are managed and developed under. Any guiding policies in this 25 document should filter down into the individual open space preserve master plans as they 26 are developed. 27 MOTION 28 Commissioner McCauley: Thanks. I'll move to amend it in that manner. 29 Chair Reckdahl: Do we have a second? 30 Commissioner McDougall: Second. 31 Chair Reckdahl: Any discussion? All in favor, say aye. 32 APPROVED Draft Minutes 32 Ms. O'Kane: Can you state the revised language you would like? 1 Commissioner McCauley: It's just to change "the priority" in that added sentence to 2 "shall be a significant priority." 3 Ms. O'Kane: Thank you. 4 Vice Chair Moss: I oppose. 5 Chair Reckdahl: Let's go back. All in favor. Opposed. 6 Vice Chair Moss: I oppose. 7 Chair Reckdahl: It passes 6-1. 8 The motion carried 6-1. 9 Chair Reckdahl: Do you want to explain? 10 Vice Chair Moss: I don't want any more changes to it. 11 Chair Reckdahl: For me, the threshold for the programs is lower. The threshold for the 12 front matter, I think, is quite high. We should not be touching that unless there's 13 something egregious. 14 Vice Chair Moss: I believe that this is going to be a living document, and we should be 15 able to adjust the programs and actions over time without disturbing the overall 16 document. 17 Chair Reckdahl: Any more comments? 18 Commissioner McCauley: No further comments. 19 MOTION 20 Chair Reckdahl: Jeff? I have no other comments. That moves us to making a motion to 21 … I move that the Commission recommends that the Council adopt the Master Plan and 22 the CEQA Mitigated Negative Declaration. 23 Commissioner McDougall: Can I ask a question before you do that? 24 Chair Reckdahl: Okay. 25 Commissioner McDougall: We've now had a motion to make one change. Tell me again 26 why we shouldn't change the riparian corridor in here. Go back through your … 27 APPROVED Draft Minutes 33 Chair Reckdahl: Is that defined in … 1 Commissioner McCauley: It's not actually in the Master Plan. 2 Commissioner McDougall: It's not in the Master Plan is your point. 3 Ms. Beard: Right. 4 Commissioner McDougall: Thank you. 5 Chair Reckdahl: It probably should be defined in the Master Plan. At some point, you 6 just have to call it a day. Any discussion? 7 Commissioner McDougall: I'll second your motion. 8 Chair Reckdahl: All in favor. Opposed. Passes 7-0. Do you have any more or should 9 we move on to the next item? 10 The motion passes unanimously. 11 Ms. O'Kane: We're ready to move on. 12 Chair Reckdahl: We're an hour-plus behind. That was an action item. That was 13 important to do right because it was an action. We still have a couple of hours' worth of 14 work here. Let's try and trim down, really keep the questions to a minimum. These are 15 all discussion items coming forward, so we will get another shot at these. Only major 16 questions if possible. 17 3. Highway 101 Pedestrian/Bicycle Bridge Preliminary Design Update. 18 Chair Reckdahl: We move on to the Highway 101 pedestrian bike bridge update design. 19 Commissioner McCauley: Keith, forgive me. Would it be possible to determine any 20 community members if they're planning to speak on these discussion items, that we could 21 take them in the order that people are present here. 22 Chair Reckdahl: We have two people for this item. 23 Commissioner McCauley: We do, great. Thank you. 24 Chair Reckdahl: We will have the presentation. After the presentation, we have two 25 speaker cards, and then we'll move on to Commission questions. 26 Megha Bansai: Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Megha Bansai. I'm Project 27 Engineer with Public Works. Tonight, we are providing you with an update on Highway 28 APPROVED Draft Minutes 34 101 pedestrian and bicycle overpass project. From our team, we have Elizabeth Ames, 1 Senior Project Manager, sitting in the audience. To my right, our consultant Roy 2 Schnabel from Biggs Cardosa Associates. Before we get into the details of design, a little 3 background. Back in November 2016, Council selected certain elements of the project 4 including the bridge structure type, pathway width, and alignment for the project to meet 5 the total project budget. Subsequently, we presented the design to the Commission back 6 in March 2017 and to Architectural Review Board and Planning and Transportation 7 Commission. We have advanced the design further based on input received in those 8 meetings that we will be presenting to you tonight. We would really like to focus on our 9 discussion and get your input on certain elements including overlook, refinements, 10 trailheads, landscaping, and habitat restoration, lighting, location of amenities, and 11 location and type of signage. With that, I turn it over to Roy Schnabel. 12 Roy Schnabel: Good evening, Commissioners. This first slide is basically a project map 13 that shows the areas for the individual elements that Megha introduced and shows 14 basically the areas they involve. We'll start with a brief update on the overall project. 15 We're looking at placing a steel structure over the roadways, East and West Bayshore and 16 the freeway, with 8-foot safety fencing. The following access ramps will be concrete 17 structures with a 4-foot safety railing. Over the confluence of Barron and Adobe Creek, 18 we have a steel truss similar to the existing one on the other side that basically leaves this 19 path to one of the initial connections at the Adobe Creek Trail connection at West 20 Bayshore. One of the project elements that was included by Council was an overlook, 21 but they wanted something fairly minimal. We looked at providing a seating area with an 22 ADA-accessible area in front. This is basically a minimal approach to the overlook. We 23 had a couple of design charrettes and some input from the various Commissions and 24 Commissioners. We looked at some of the enhancements that could be made to make 25 this area more functional. One of that was to expand the area to include a bicycle storage 26 area so that it wouldn't clutter the space and make it less ADA accessible and the 27 incorporation of art elements in architectural features like the benches and the railing at 28 this location. We have three main trail connections. The first one is at West Bayshore, 29 located at the confluence of the sidewalks and the existing Adobe Creek Trail, which is 30 currently closed to the public. The Water District is amenable to opening this up to 31 improve safer access to this area. They also are amenable to expanding the confluence 32 area, the area that all of the traffic meets at, into their right-of-way. We've reviewed an 33 expanded area. Some of their conditions from what we originally had shown. They 34 didn't like the amenities at this location because they were fearful that their maintenance 35 operations would run into the amenities, and they would be responsible for having to 36 replace those or update them. They also wanted a wider entrance to accommodate their 37 vehicles. They also requested the addition of at the end of that area a 20-foot lockable 38 fence so that, when they were performing their maintenance operations, they could lock 39 their maintenance vehicles inside the trail during those operations. The other end of the 40 trail is at Meadow Drive. We have coordinated with the Transportation Division in the 41 APPROVED Draft Minutes 35 City, who is also doing a bike boulevard project in and around the area. They've asked us 1 to provide a raised crosswalk and some chicanes, which are similar to what they're 2 providing in their project. We've accommodated that at the East Meadow trailhead. At 3 the nexus of the Bay Trail and this project, we have the connection at the Bay Trail circa 4 to East Bayshore Road. One of the comments that we had originally received from this 5 Commission was the original alignment had a T-intersection. You had asked us to take a 6 look at a possible revision to that to provide something that would improve safety, 7 especially with the mixing of the pedestrians and the bicyclists. We developed this 8 roundabout idea, which is becoming popular especially in areas where we have bicycle 9 and mixed use. We worked with PABAC and Transportation to develop this 10 configuration. We're still resolving some circulation issues and some circulation 11 questions. This is the current approach for this connection that we're looking at currently. 12 With regards to the landscaping, we're affecting 28 trees all on the West Bayshore side. 13 We are not able to replace all of the trees on that side, so we're looking to mitigate some 14 of the tree impacts on the East Bayshore side within the Baylands. We're also looking at 15 restoring some of the nonnative habitat areas that we're impacting with native grasses and 16 native plant species. On the other side, we worked with the Urban Forester and the City 17 Landscape Architect to identify some tree revisions to the other side to replace some of 18 the species of trees that we're impacting with some more native plant species. With 19 regards to lighting, the goal for the lighting is to minimize the amount of spillage onto the 20 natural environments and still provide safe, lighted walking paths . Most of the lighting 21 is very low level. We have some areas with pole-mounted lights. Those are limited to 22 the West Bayshore side and only on 12-foot tall poles. We've revised the pole standard 23 based on some comments from the other Commissions and are looking at more capped-24 style lights that reach over the pathway for the pole-mounted lights to improve their 25 efficiency and their look. Most of the lights are mounted on the rails and railings, so 26 they're fairly low-level. Here's an image of what they potentially will look like during the 27 day and night. With regards to the amenities, we've resolved to minimize the number of 28 amenities and the locations of these amenities. We're only looking at fairly limited 29 amenities, a hydration station, a bike rack, a bike repair stand, and some trash receptacles. 30 We also have some benches. They're located at two locations. One is the overlook, 31 where we'll locate the benches and the bike racks. There will also be some interpretive 32 signs at the overlook, that basically—we haven't identified what the information is that's 33 going to be there. On the Bay Trail adjacent to the traffic roundabout, we're going to 34 have trash and recycle receptacles, the bike repair station, and then the hydration station. 35 These are the two locations where we have all of the designated amenities. With regards 36 to signage, the sign on the top left is the standard that transportation is using for the bike 37 boulevard project and what they've recommended that we utilize for our wayfinding. 38 One of the comments that came from the other Commission was that it was very bike-39 centric and include some information with regards to or some inclusion of the 40 pedestrians. In lieu of putting all that information, what they recommended that we put 41 on the signs is basically direction, destination, and distance, and not necessarily the 42 APPROVED Draft Minutes 36 duration it's going to take to get there because it's different for a bicyclist than a 1 pedestrian, and it was getting fairly busy. The other thing is they asked us to look at 2 custom trail options instead of just the bike standard, included both the bicycle and 3 pedestrian symbology. With regards to wayfinding, we've worked with Transportation to 4 get an understanding of what informational and etiquette signage. We're going to 5 probably use a combination of signs and pavement markings. These are some of the 6 examples that were delivered to us by Transportation in coordination with PABAC. 7 They're trying to develop some standards for the City that are for these shared-path 8 situations. These are some of the standard etiquette and pavement markings that we 9 potentially foresee on this project. With that, questions, comments? 10 Ms. Bansai: We are planning to come back to the Commission with a Park Improvement 11 Ordinance in September. I just wanted to point that out. 12 Mr. Schnabel: The first slide basically shows the project elements. These are the 13 locations of … 14 Ms. Bansai: Locations of signage. We wanted to highlight and wanted to get your input. 15 Mr. Schnabel: Currently, we're looking at placing the signage at locations of decision-16 making, so basically at all the trail connections and at the "Y." We're going to be limiting 17 it to those areas so we don't overpopulate the bridge structure with signage. With regards 18 to pavement markings, similarly we're envisioning pavement markings which are 19 informational to slow down the bicyclists in those areas where they potentially will meet 20 with pedestrians. 21 Vice Chair Moss: Everything looks great. I only have one questions, and that's the 22 circle. Somebody's coming down from the bridge at full speed at night, is there some 23 way for them to see the circle? Is the circle flat or is it raised? 24 Mr. Schnabel: There is a little bit of a raise, but it's mountable. It's basically … 25 Vice Chair Moss: They could come right off the bridge and go right on top of that and 26 not crash. 27 Mr. Schnabel: You could come right over it. You might crash into the fence that's on the 28 other side of it. We had originally a more substantial curb, and Transportation gave us 29 this curb detail, which is basically a mountable curb, that they're using on some of the 30 other traffic circles in the City. 31 Vice Chair Moss: That's all I have. 32 Chair Reckdahl: Can you explain that more? This is the curb around the inner circle. 33 APPROVED Draft Minutes 37 Mr. Schnabel: There's a detail for it so we can actually see what it looks like. You can 1 see the image on the left. It's basically an inch high where it meets the pavement. 2 Chair Reckdahl: This is the tan portion, or beige? 3 Mr. Schnabel: Yeah, the beige portion covers that detail that's on the left. You can see 4 the curb. I don't know if it's clear. 5 Chair Reckdahl: Do we want any curb at all there? 6 Mr. Schnabel: We're discussing that with Transportation. If you don't put a curb there, 7 people will just go across it. The question is how do we make it functional and not force 8 people to cheat. That's one of the things that we had discussed, the circulation issues. 9 That's one of the circulation issues because they feel like some people will try to cross on 10 the other side, and that will decrease safety instead of improve it. 11 Chair Reckdahl: If you could just make it rough, so it's not pleasant. A curb, I think, 12 seems like a safety issue. There's experts in the field that can have more (crosstalk). 13 Ms. Bansai: We will also have some trail etiquette signs there, at the circle. 14 Mr. Schnabel: On all three corners we'll have trail etiquette signage to remind people to 15 be safe. Thankfully, you guys have a very informed bicycle community, and a lot of 16 those guys self-police. It's pretty good. 17 Chair Reckdahl: Is that it? Are you done with the presentation? 18 Ms. Bansai: Yeah. 19 Chair Reckdahl: We have some public comment. We have Shani Kleinhaus, and then 20 followed by Jeff Saunders. 21 Shani Kleinhaus: Good evening. Shani Kleinhaus again. I wanted to thank staff for a 22 very, very extensive outreach to the community, getting a lot of comments, sharing the 23 process with us. That was a very, very good process. That's all. Thank you. 24 Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. Jeff Saunders. 25 Jeff Saunders: I like the way that this is evolving. I think it's great. Keep moving 26 forward. I want to continue to raise awareness to people that after this is done we should 27 look ahead to extending this to Sterling Canal to take the bicycle and pedestrian traffic 28 off of West Bayshore up to Greer Park. Also, looking at this design, I had one question 29 about the trail intersection at Meadow. If bicyclists are going along Meadow, there's 30 nothing really south of there. The trail would go along behind (inaudible) and Kehillah 31 APPROVED Draft Minutes 38 High School, and then it kind of dead ends. I'm not sure where that would go with that 1 raised sidewalk going across. Bicyclists shooting out onto Meadow might encounter 2 traffic. It might be a good idea to put a barricade there, so that bicyclists can't go directly 3 out into traffic. Thank you. 4 Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. We're done with public comments. Commissioners. Jeff. 5 Commissioner LaMere: I think it's a really great plan. Just a quick question. The one 6 concern that I do have is I think it's going to be heavily used. It's in a great location. It's 7 a great idea, the usage and the mixing of bicyclists and pedestrians, obviously, the 8 importance of signage of etiquette and whatever we're painting on the pavement. A quick 9 question. Is it wide enough that you could have designated bike lanes and designated 10 pedestrian lanes? It probably is not, but I'm curious about that. 11 Mr. Schnabel: When we first looked at this, one of the options was to look at dedicated 12 bike and pedestrian lanes, but that required a fairly wide structure and was fairly costly, 13 had more environmental impacts. Council selected the option to provide as much width 14 as they could but not dedicated lanes. Basically, the bicyclists, when they would have to 15 pass, would probably have to go to the open lane or slow down before they could pass. 16 Commissioner LaMere: My other comment would just be I'm not sure if the bike racks 17 that you showed here are the ones that you guys intend to use. To me they look 18 aesthetically very pleasing. They don't look super functional to lock up different types of 19 bicycles. That'd be my only comment. 20 Mr. Schnabel: We're still working out the kinks with regards to the bike rack. We did 21 include—that was the one that the architect selected as it evoked some of the same things 22 that they wanted to evoke at that location. I think we still need to work with 23 Transportation because they have some very, very good ideas with regards to what's 24 functional in the City with regards to bicycle racks all over the City. 25 Commissioner Greenfield: Thank you for a very comprehensive plan. As I've said 26 before, there's lots to like about it. I like the addition of the roundabout, and the 27 bike/pedestrian dual signage is a good step as well. My primary question and comments 28 center around access to the western approach to the bridge. In looking at the plan, it's 29 very difficult to figure out what the intended paths are for bicycles and pedestrians from 30 the various access points. Within the presentation, the trailhead slides help that a lot, but 31 they weren't included in the packet. I think it would be very helpful to have a table set up 32 that talks about the various ingress/egress points to the western approach. On West 33 Bayshore we have the northbound and southbound approaches, and we also have the East 34 Meadow access to the Adobe Creek Reach Trail. A question which I asked previously, 35 which I don't have a clear answer to is what happens when there's a maintenance closure 36 from Santa Clara Valley Water District. What is closed, and then what are the new 37 APPROVED Draft Minutes 39 recommended paths from each of these three points? Really, it applies to two of the 1 points. Included in the table should just be a clear explanation. If a pedestrian just wants 2 to walk along Bayshore without accessing the bridge, make it clear where they're going in 3 and out. A question I have is, which I think I understand it, on West Bayshore when you 4 are southbound, pedestrians would access from one point on the ramp, but bikes are not 5 intended to go on that ramp. Bikes are intended to continue on the bike path to the 6 second intersection point. There's really two intersection points on the west side. 7 Mr. Schnabel: Yeah, that's correct. The access ramp, the pedestrian ramp, at the "Y" was 8 basically—there was a desire to put a staircase, a secondary access point, there for 9 providing easier access or closer access for pedestrians and also for fire response. We 10 looked at the staircase, and the ramp option had so many advantages to it in continuing 11 the sidewalk and some of the other things that putting the bike lane back into sole use on 12 the street from a safety perspective that we went towards the ramp option. We're not 13 going to exclude bicycles from using it. Bicycles have to dismount, though. There will 14 be dismount signs. Bicyclists who do want to use that path as a secondary path access 15 can do it. We made the path wider than a standard sidewalk to accommodate them. 16 Commissioner Greenfield: If a table could just be set up that explains all these details, 17 that would be a lot clearer when someone's looking at the plan, trying to understand it. 18 Mr. Schnabel: With regards to maintenance, we're still working with the Water District 19 as to the requirements. Currently, what they want is when they do their maintenance 20 every 3-5 years for several weeks, their plan is to close the trail and to lock their 21 equipment inside the trail during those periods. They typically don't utilize this area as 22 often as the area on the other side. We don't think it's going to be used as often as they 23 think it is. It's probably going to close the trail for that duration. That area in front where 24 pedestrians will be continues to remain open. That wider area where bicyclists can turn 25 around will still be open. 26 Commissioner Greenfield: When the trail is closed, then northbound traffic, which is 27 basically on the sidewalk on West Bayshore, would continue up and would be able to 28 access … 29 Mr. Schnabel: They'd have to take a left into that area and then to that trailhead and go 30 up that, which they can do now. Transportation has asked us to put bicycle markers 31 similar to what's on the other side to indicate even currently when we finish the project 32 that bicyclists will be allowed. We just feel that more bicyclists will utilize the Adobe 33 Creek Trail because it's safer. 34 Commissioner Greenfield: At the 15 percent presentation, there was a question about 35 whether that access point would even be open for bicycles and pedestrians with the 36 potential that they'd have to continue down to the ramp. 37 APPROVED Draft Minutes 40 Mr. Schnabel: As we meet with the Water District, we're continuing to get more and 1 more definition on the limitations of what they want. At some point, we're going to need 2 to start negotiating maintenance agreement-type and cooperation agreement-type 3 information. That'll get more solidified as we get closer to those conversations. 4 Commissioner Greenfield: That seems pretty critical to sort out. 5 Mr. Schnabel: It's all in their right-of-way. We're trying to get as much as we can. 6 We're also trying to negotiate early access to the trail as one of the Commissions wanted 7 to access that earlier. 8 Commissioner Greenfield: Between the new Adobe Creek bridge and the trailhead, 9 where the Adobe Creek Reach trailhead meets West Bayshore, is that just a single path? 10 There's no sidewalk besides—that access path is the only way to move along. 11 Mr. Schnabel: No, there's sidewalks. Our project will widen that sidewalk, which is 12 nonexistent right now, and basically put it into that trailhead. There's an existing 13 sidewalk on the other side. There will be a continuous sidewalk on both sides of their 14 opening. 15 Commissioner Greenfield: This is south of the bridge. There would be a sidewalk. 16 Mr. Schnabel: There is an existing sidewalk there that basically ends at the current 17 Benjamin Lefkovits underpass connection. 18 Commissioner Greenfield: There will be both a sidewalk and the path, which is 19 connecting to the bridge. 20 Mr. Schnabel: Yes, and it'll widen there for the combination of pedestrians and bicyclists 21 on the (crosstalk). 22 Commissioner Greenfield: That's real hard to see in the current drawings. 23 Mr. Schnabel: It is. 24 Commissioner Greenfield: Last question and then move on. The 20-foot lockable area, 25 is that intended to be on the Reach Trail? 26 Mr. Schnabel: Yes, yes. 27 Commissioner Greenfield: That's why the Reach Trail is closed. 28 APPROVED Draft Minutes 41 Mr. Schnabel: We located it further back so we could get that space as wide as we can 1 and as big as we can based on what they're looking for. They want to have the ability on 2 both sides to lock the trail up, prevent access during those maintenance operation periods. 3 Commissioner Greenfield: Thank you. 4 Commissioner McDougall: Just a few comments. The last time there was a presentation 5 here my question was had there been any attempt to create a use case. The document 6 says a facility may be used for both commuting and recreational. Do we have any idea at 7 all of is it 50/50, is it intended to be 80/20? How will we know we've been successful in 8 the end if we don't have some sort of estimate? 9 Mr. Schnabel: We tried to approach that right after the last meeting. I think we're still 10 trying to get our arms around how to do that with regards to evaluating. We've asked 11 Transportation to give us some information with regards to how to understand the overall 12 use. 13 Commissioner McDougall: You want to even have maybe three cases, 50/50, 80/20, 14 20/80 or something because a lot of the questions that are being asked about access and 15 what not, the answer almost depends on are you talking about commuters in spandex or 16 whatever or are you talking about a biker with a trailer behind with kids in it. The answer 17 almost depends on it. Even the question of the outlook. I think you have to force 18 yourself at some point to be able to say, "We're estimating this use case." You don't have 19 to be right in the end, but we really have to consider that. 20 Mr. Schnabel: I think we've considered it because we've heard from a number of those 21 users. We've heard from the commuters; we've heard from the recreational users; and 22 we've heard from the moms who are carting around their trailers. Hopefully we've 23 accommodated all of those users and usages in this plan. I thought your—forgive me for 24 not understanding. I thought what you had originally asked for was in regards to the 25 signage. 26 Commissioner McDougall: Signage is part of it. I think that's what instigated the 27 thought. My thought is throughout the whole project, access, signage, outlook, even the 28 roundabout, we should have some understanding of what is it we're expecting. Even if 29 you look at what you've got now and say, "What we ended up with is not necessarily 30 good for everybody." I like what you've said, that you've asked everybody and you've 31 tried to get all the points, but I kind of doubt it. I won't push that further. I appreciate 32 that you remembered, and I appreciate you continuing to think about it. The one picture 33 that shows on the east side at Bayshore where there's all that vegetation, habitat, I think 34 that's very important that it be habitat. I like habitat restoration. Somewhere else it says 35 landscaping. Considering its proximity to the Baylands, habitat restoration is more 36 important than landscaping. The other thing I would worry about here is, if we're going 37 APPROVED Draft Minutes 42 to put native plants in there, what we run the risk of is nearby are all sorts of invasive 1 species that have the opportunity of immediately getting into this restored habitat area. I 2 hope that's taken into account, that it's not just the immediate area but maybe there's some 3 proximity that we have to worry about in order to preserve our restoration. 4 Ms. Bansai: To respond to that, we are working with stakeholders and with our biologist 5 and landscape architect and arborist. We will come up with a plant list that will be 6 suitable for that area. 7 Commissioner McDougall: All of the planting. I hope that all the stakeholders consider 8 what used to be Acterra is now … 9 Ms. Bansai: Grassroots Ecology. 10 Commissioner McDougall: I hope they're included. I hope the Audubon people are 11 included. Maybe Environmental Volunteers, which are new. I hope they all get 12 included. My other comment would be about the lighting. It just seems like there's an 13 awful lot of lighting. I'm not sure what's too much and what's not enough. One of my 14 questions would be is the lighting—would the lighting be on all night or would it be a 15 triggered lighting? 16 Mr. Schnabel: The plan is to have control systems. There will be occupancy sensors. 17 When there are no occupants utilizing the pathway, the lights will dim down. As it 18 senses occupants, it will raise. We're still working out for how long and what duration 19 those are. The plan is to include control systems for the lights. 20 Commissioner McDougall: Thank you. My last comment would be as we move 21 forward—we're all obviously enthusiastic about moving this forward as quickly as 22 possible. I would sure like to see something like complete 35 percent design, which now 23 says fall of 2017. As we get closer, I'd like to see that become a month. Can we say 24 October? Can we say November or whatever? Fall could be any time between 25 September and March of next year. The only problem with having a fiscal or annual 26 quarter as a measurement device, when you slip 3 months, you've really only slipped one 27 quarter, so it's not a big deal. You get my point. I'd just like to see us get more 28 (crosstalk). 29 Mr. Schnabel: Project delivery is very important. We've heard it from every 30 Commission and a number of the community. We are dedicated, both staff and project 31 team, to trying to expedite delivery. Some of those things are outside our control; that's 32 why it's sort of a seasonal thing. We still have to wait for CEQA clearance and 33 environmental clearances to occur. That date hasn't been completely solidified yet. 34 APPROVED Draft Minutes 43 Commissioner McDougall: If I wouldn't slow you down by asking a bunch of questions, 1 you'd get there faster. Thank you very much for what you're doing. 2 Chair Reckdahl: David. Anne. I just have a couple of questions. First, West Bayshore 3 is just a mess. It's not your design; it's just that's a bad situation. 4 Mr. Schnabel: It's not ideal. There's just not a lot of space to fit anything that is better. 5 Chair Reckdahl: Can we have a dedicated crosswalk or marked areas? 6 Mr. Schnabel: I've discussed some of the—we put a lot of thought into it because we 7 struggle with the same issues, us and Transportation. We sort of worked out what would 8 be best in that. We talked about potentially raised crosswalks here too. They felt leaving 9 it as minimal as possible was going to be the best solution. 10 Chair Reckdahl: Right at that corner, it's just such a bad situation. Could we slide it 11 down and have the crossing—the people who have to cross West Bayshore, have that 12 further north where the ramp comes down and have the crossing there and make that a 13 bike path coming up the ramp as opposed to pedestrians? 14 Mr. Schnabel: I'm not sure how to make that safe. The southbound bicycles have to 15 make a fairly large U-turn. Trying to do a sharp turn like that closer to the ramps might 16 not be ideal. The northbounds have to make a left turn. The street is pretty tight with 17 regards to the traffic, and the traffic is going pretty quick in that area. That's why … 18 Chair Reckdahl: I don't want to belabor it. I agree with Jeff that we have to really look at 19 how people are going to get to that west crossing. There are kids; kids are going to be 20 crossing, using this bridge to go down to Baylands or going over at Twister's Gym. 21 There's going to be kids here, and I really feel uncomfortable with that corner right there. 22 It's just a bad situation. You know that, and we need to work on that. Bike racks on the 23 overlook I don't understand. I don't see anyone locking their bike on the overlook. I can 24 see them maybe stopping for a minute or two. 25 Mr. Schnabel: What we had originally planned was the bikes would just be leaned on the 26 rails. As we looked at the spaces with the architect, they tended to clutter the areas that 27 were available for the ADA ramps and access points. If they put it up near the bench, 28 they would—we only had 4 feet between the bench and the railing, so that's basically the 29 ADA minimum. If somebody put a bike there, we would basically be non-ADA-30 compliant. The thought was to identify an area to store bikes, whether that's a bike rack 31 or just something that's sticking up where bikes can be leaned upon. We just wanted to 32 identify an area that was more functional to keep it away from access points and in front 33 of the benches. 34 APPROVED Draft Minutes 44 Chair Reckdahl: I just think it'll be used more often for strollers and things like that. 1 Having bike racks in there will make it hard, make it less usable. I like the benches on 2 the overlook. The seniors and other people need that break. If we can get another bench 3 over on the West Bayshore side somewhere, it doesn't have to be right at the stop. 4 Somewhere in that general area near the Reach Trail a bench just so people can rest. For 5 someone who's elderly, that's a long hike. You're going up elevation and over. We don't 6 view the elderly world through our eyes. We ignore that. We need benches for the 7 elderly. That's good enough. There's no staircase on the east side? That's been deleted? 8 Mr. Schnabel: That's been replaced by the access ramp. 9 Chair Reckdahl: On the east side? 10 Mr. Schnabel: On the east side, no. 11 Chair Reckdahl: It'd be nice to have but not required. Thank you. Thank you. I 12 appreciate your work. We're a little rushed to catch up here. It's good work. I'm looking 13 forward to having it built. You said you plan to come back in September for the PIO? 14 Mr. Schnabel: Yes. 15 Ms. Bansai: Yes. 16 Chair Reckdahl: Thank you. 17 Mr. Schnabel: Thank you very much for all your comments. 18 Ms. Bansai: Thank you very much. 19 Chair Reckdahl: Let's move on. We are still behind schedule. 20 4. Proposed Dog Park Design at Peers Park. 21 Chair Reckdahl: Dog park, Peter Jensen is going to talk that. Again, this is just a 22 discussion item. We'll come back for a PIO later. Try to get the highlights for your 23 questions. 24 Mr. Anderson: Good evening. I'm Daren Anderson with Open Space, Parks and Golf. 25 I'm with my colleague from Public Works, Peter Jensen, Landscape Architect. We're 26 here tonight to discuss with you the draft design for the Peers Park dog park. I'll briefly 27 discuss the background regarding how we got to where we are at this point. Then, I'll ask 28 Peter to walk you through the key elements of this draft design. The background is that 29 in December 2016 we hosted two community meetings to discuss the option and collect 30 feedback from the public about the idea of putting a dog park in either Pardee or Peers 31 APPROVED Draft Minutes 45 Park. The outcome of the first meeting, which was Pardee, was a number of concerns 1 and a lot of opposition to the concept for a number of reasons. One of the predominant 2 ones was the location we were forced to use was so close to the residents' house lines. 3 There were concerns about impacts to those homes and privacy and noise. A week later, 4 we had the public meeting for Peers. There was a much more positive reception to the 5 idea. There was very little opposition. After we analyzed it a little bit, some of the—in 6 addition to the feedback, once we started looking at design, there was enough space at 7 that site to have a 0.72-acre dog park. Very large and considerably larger than the 8 options at Pardee. In addition to that, you have the ability to place it right along the train 9 track side, so the noise issue gets mitigated to a great degree because you already have 10 trains. At the March 2017 Commission meeting, the Commission expressed support for 11 the concept and for proceeding with adding a dog park at Peers. Staff has done so. 12 We've created this draft design using feedback both from the Commission, from the ad 13 hoc committee, from our public meetings, and prior public meetings going back several 14 years where we have notes about things people wanted. For example, separating big dog 15 and small dog. I'd add to that that we've also learned from staff experience of the three 16 existing dog parks we have what's working and what's not, and what elements we should 17 add. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Peter to walk you through the elements of this 18 draft design. 19 Peter Jensen: Good evening, Commissioners. Peter Jensen, Landscape Architect for the 20 City of Palo Alto. Like Daren was saying, the park is advantageous to having a dog park. 21 I think one of the difficulties with locating a dog park in our current park system is 22 actually dedicating that large of a space to a specific use as a dog park. It turns out, 23 though, that Peers Park does have an optimal place for it. As Daren was saying, there is 24 an unused buffer that's in the rear of the park, that's up against the Caltrain tracks, that 25 supplies a good space that is sort of a pseudo dog park right now, that's just basically not 26 fenced off well. The graphic that you're seeing up there, the red outline is the proposed 27 location of the dog park. This graphic is more of a construction document. What it starts 28 to do is define the spaces between the large dog park and the small dog park. This line is 29 dividing the smaller location. The longer, linear part of it is the small dog park. The 30 location behind the tennis court that has a little bit more of a larger open space for larger 31 dogs is the larger dog park. A few other amenities. The main point of the project is 32 fencing and defining that area. The idea would be to start to use a black, vinyl-clad, 33 chain-link fence in that area to mitigate the chain link as much as possible. It is 5 feet 34 tall. One of the feedback we heard along the way is the double entry gate to each zone. 35 The small dog and the large dog would have the setup where you would have two gates. 36 There would be space between that would allow dog owners to collar their dogs before 37 they leave the dog park. Water bowls for the dogs as well or dog drinking fountains, 38 picnic tables that are dispersed loosely through the dog park, that allow some flexibility 39 and movement of seating out there, and then maintaining the surface area out there. Most 40 of it is grass, but there are areas of mulch as well. Having that diversity of surface 41 APPROVED Draft Minutes 46 material works out very well for the dog park itself. There is flexibility in the plan. 1 There is a sliding 12-foot gate between the two dog parks. If it's seen one day that maybe 2 it's just better to have the whole space as one dog park, we do have the opportunity to do 3 that as well and give us some flexibility of using that space. There will be new concrete 4 walks specifically adjacent to the tennis courts that connect the existing concrete 5 walkway to the main entries of the dog park. There's easy access from those locations. 6 In a nutshell, that's pretty much it. There's not too much complex about a dog park. 7 We're basically just defining an area. I think we'll move on and take questions. I think 8 our goal is –going back, this is the setup in the seasons again as far as schedule goes. 9 Most of it is definitely concentrated right now, so we would like to get feedback from the 10 Commission, of course, but we would like to start to put a construction document 11 together, bid it out, and actually get a dog park installed. The dog park goes back way 12 before even my work here, maybe a decade or more of trying to get a dog park in Palo 13 Alto. We're very close now. Let's just get to the finish line, and it'll be great. I know the 14 dog owners are very eager to have a dog park, a new facility that we don't have yet, 15 especially in the north of Palo Alto, which does not have a dog park currently. 16 Mr. Anderson: The only thing I'd add to that is if the ad hoc who's been so generous with 17 their time and support has anything to add, now is maybe a good time. 18 Chair Reckdahl: (inaudible) anything to add? 19 Commissioner Cribbs: Yes, I do. First of all, I'm excited to see this. I think it's great. 20 I'm glad we have the money for it now as part of the CIP. I'm disappointed and dismayed 21 at 2018 in the winter time. It just seems like a really long time from now. It would be 22 great if we could accelerate that somehow. I know there are processes and all of that, but 23 I think we'd really like—it's been 10 years. It'd be great if it could go faster than that. 24 Specifically about this particular dog park, it's a great location. There's a lot of good 25 work done on it. There was some questions about the budget and if there were 26 opportunities in the budget for the dog owners who offered at a number of community 27 meetings to support the budget. Maybe we could identify some of those places, and have 28 a vehicle to raise the money and all of that. Can you think about that and maybe the ad 29 hoc can think about that as well? Two other questions independent of that. In the last 30 report, there was that discussion of the public art in one of the parks. There were 31 restrictions on the public art, so we couldn't have a dog park in a place that you thought it 32 might be good. Can we find out specifically about what that kind of restriction is? 33 Secondarily, the whole issue of the trees, the dog urine underneath the trees, and that kind 34 of tension because it's limiting the places that we can put a dog park. The last thing is 35 what's the next dog park on the list. Thanks very much. It's exciting. 36 APPROVED Draft Minutes 47 Commissioner McCauley: I'll be very brief. Thanks to Daren and Peter for pushing this 1 forward. I agree that it'd be great to have it constructed as soon as possible. I know 2 you'll work towards that. Please continue to push. Thanks. 3 Commissioner McDougall: I'm sorry. I'd like to make a couple of quick comments. I 4 recently spent a bunch of time in New York and went around to all the dog parks in New 5 York. One of the things they didn't do is they said there was a mixed dog space and then 6 a small dog space. It wasn't big dogs and little dogs. People could say, "It's my option to 7 take my little dog into this space." I think that might help us going forward. We talk 8 about dog water bowls. They were much more aggressive in terms of fountain space and 9 whatnot. I don't know if we can approve that, if we have the budget for that or not. I 10 would encourage that we be more aggressive than just water bowls. It also says picnic 11 tables for seating. Are those picnic tables inside the dog area or are those the existing? 12 Mr. Jensen: They're inside. 13 Commissioner McDougall: Why would it be picnic tables as opposed to benches? 14 Mr. Jensen: The picnic tables, they can sit loose without being tethered. A bench would 15 need some type of pad to be attached to. We felt just for the space itself and having the 16 flexibility and because of the terrain out there right now of the grass and the mulch that 17 picnic tables would work well, but we can look at benches. 18 Commissioner McDougall: My other comment is concrete paving. In so many of our 19 projects we immediately say concrete paving. I was over there today, and I'm not so sure 20 that you couldn't put some ADA kind of path in that was just simple hardscape of some 21 kind, that wasn't concrete. I'm not sure if more concrete in our parks is necessary. I 22 would discourage that. 23 Chair Reckdahl: At El Camino Park, they have that concrete that at least the water … 24 Mr. Jensen: The permeable. 25 Commissioner McDougall: I think that's important. In terms of the schedule, I would 26 wonder if there's some way to phase it. It's not a big project. I was over there today. 27 Phase I is—the tennis court is the current dog park. I'm sure you're aware. I was there; 28 six dogs were inside the tennis court having a good time. It seemed to me that it wouldn't 29 take much to put up a fence quicker and get even one part of it so that it was available, 30 and we started to have some experience with it. I agree with Commissioner Cribbs that 31 the winter of '18 seems like a long way away to put up some 5-foot fence. I realize we're 32 minimizing all of the other issues. I think that's important. I was worried when it said 33 picnic tables, that that meant the picnic tables that are already there. Any access that we 34 APPROVED Draft Minutes 48 can provide that doesn't encroach on the current picnic tables is probably a good idea to 1 keep them safe. 2 Commissioner Greenfield: I support all of the comments to reduce the timeline. Good 3 stuff otherwise. 4 Chair Reckdahl: I understand when you have construction put out for bids and stuff, but 5 the planning. What exactly is Planning doing? Checking ADA compliance and other 6 things like that? 7 Mr. Anderson: They'll end up doing an environmental review as well. There may be an 8 Initial Study that's required; we'll see as we go through the process. Originally, we were 9 looking at a longer process even. It can be onerous. You see on this revised staff report 10 it says up to 4 months, and that was some negotiation and convincing on Peter's part as 11 we negotiated with the staff and the Planning Department to see if we can't expedite as 12 our ad hoc and Commission has advised in the past. We're going to do our best to drive it 13 forward. 14 Chair Reckdahl: It looks good. I think it's a great place for a park. I think it's nice and 15 long. They'll be able to get the speed up. I think it's really good. Thank you for your 16 work. 17 Mr. Jensen: Thank you. 18 5. Update on Cubberley Community Center Master Planning. 19 a. Draft Scope of Work for Consultant to Assist with Master Planning 20 Effort. 21 Chair Reckdahl: Let's move on to the next item, update to Cubberley Community Center 22 Master Planning. 23 Ms. O'Kane: Kristen O'Kane, Community Services. We added this to the agenda in 24 response to a request to have the draft scope of work be sent to the Commissioners. We 25 decided to just put it on the agenda. There's no action tonight; it's just an update on what 26 we are doing with the Cubberley Master Plan process. Just a brief background. As you 27 probably know, the City owns 8 acres of the Cubberley site, and the School District owns 28 27 acres, which the City then leases. The Community Services Department operates the 29 entire facility including the athletic fields as the Cubberley Community Center. The 30 current lease will expire in December 2019. Included in the lease agreement is a 31 provision that the City and School District will jointly develop a Master Plan for the 32 entire site by the end of the lease term. In March of 2016, both City Manager Jim Keene 33 and Palo Alto Unified School District Superintendent Max McGee signed a Cubberley 34 Futures Compact to demonstrate the two entities' commitment to collaboratively plan for 35 APPROVED Draft Minutes 49 the future of the 35-acre Cubberley site. Since then, both staff from the City and the 1 School District have been working together to develop a scope of work. The scope of 2 work was developed jointly by City and School District staff and has been reviewed by 3 Superintendent Max McGee and his staff as well. The intent of releasing this Request for 4 Proposals is to enter into a professional services agreement with a consultant who is 5 experienced in creative and effective public engagement and design thinking, who can 6 assist the City and School District staff in an efficient Master Planning process. Staff 7 presented the scope of work to the Policy and Services Committee on June 13th. The 8 Policy and Services Committee approved the recommendation, which was for Council to 9 direct the Community Services Department to release a Request for Proposals for a 10 consulting firm to assist the City and School District with Master Planning of the 11 Cubberley Community Center. They added additional language, which was "including a 12 negotiated cost-sharing agreement, and that the negotiation will not cause a delay to the 13 RFP." Following our presentation to Policy and Services, the School District staff 14 presented it to the School District Board of Education. They also expressed their support 15 for embarking on this RFP process. The scope of work that we presented to Policy and 16 Services was slightly revised between that meeting and the Board of Education meeting. 17 Those changes are identified in the at-places memo that was provided today. A majority 18 of those changes were with respect to the School District's position on their 27 acres of 19 the Cubberley Community Center. The next step is we are planning on going to Council 20 on September 5th and requesting that they direct staff to release a Request for Proposals 21 for a consultant. This would be a joint effort between the School District and the City to 22 start a Master Planning effort for the combined site. 23 Chair Reckdahl: That's it? 24 Ms. O'Kane: That's it. 25 Chair Reckdahl: Do you have any questions? Jeff. 26 Commissioner Greenfield: Is the joint effort to be joint funded? 27 Ms. O'Kane: The intent is for us to put together a cost-sharing agreement that would be 28 funded by both the City and the School District. 29 Chair Reckdahl: Is that going to be 50/50 or is that still up for negotiation? 30 Ms. O'Kane: It's still up for negotiation. The initial discussions have been that it will 31 likely be 50/50. It's not for certain yet. We need a completed agreement, but that's, I 32 believe, where it would be going. 33 Chair Reckdahl: I could see some of the tradeoffs in wanting more recreation, if we 34 wanted a swimming pool, things like that. The School District may not want that. The 35 APPROVED Draft Minutes 50 bells and whistles may end up being on the City's dime just because they are City needs. 1 I'll wait for my turn. Was that it? Don, do you … 2 Commissioner Cribbs: Is there an option B if it's not going to be a joint project? Is the 3 study going to be about a joint project? If all of a sudden the demographics change or the 4 landscape changes or the School District wants something different, are we back at 5 square one in 5 years? Is there something that we're thinking about that could be option 6 B where the City just develops the land that's available to us? 7 Ms. O'Kane: Our goal with the Master Planning process is the School District will still 8 retain their 27 acres, and we'll retain our 8 acres. The intent of the Master Plan is the 9 School District have their property representing their needs, and ours representing our 10 needs, but those would intermingle and would be possibly joint uses. They would 11 complement one another. If the School District—you made a good point. When we get 12 done with the Master Planning effort, we may be in different places as far as building that 13 property out. We would still need to find funding for that. There could be various 14 options, so it could be that the City and the School District try to obtain funding jointly or 15 it could be that we obtain funding separately. I think that's going to be something we're 16 going to need to look at, at the end of the Master Planning process depending on what the 17 outcome of the process is. I don't think the City has necessarily a plan B. There could be 18 an opportunity for the City to find funding on our own if the School District's not ready 19 or vice versa or we could find funding together as two organizations. Does that answer 20 your question? 21 Commissioner Cribbs: It's complicated. 22 Ms. O'Kane: It's very complicated. 23 Commissioner Cribbs: I'm wondering if it wouldn't be an exercise that would be at a 24 pretty high level. You already probably know this from what the recreational needs are 25 for the City. What would it look like to just have the land that's available to us to develop 26 and how much would it cost? Not to say we're going to go it alone or anything, but just 27 to say should we look at this as a community with that as an option. 28 Mr. de Geus: I think that's likely something we'll look at as part of the Master Planning 29 process. There will be different conceptual plans that are going to be developed. I do 30 think it's likely that the City's interests and needs around a multigenerational community 31 center with a variety of things is going to be more defined likely than what the School 32 District is going to be able to do. I think that's going to be one of the options that will be 33 part of the package. 34 Commissioner Cribbs: It's just a thought. How does it fit into the property that could be 35 developed for recreation over by the golf course? That's all I have. 36 APPROVED Draft Minutes 51 Chair Reckdahl: When you go to Council, they will be directing you to hire the 1 consultant to outline the process? We have a Phase I and Phase II, but this is Phase 0 that 2 they're directing, right? 3 Ms. O'Kane: This is just directing staff to release an RFP. It's similar to what we did 4 when we released the RFP for the aquatics program. We went to Council to—one, it's to 5 raise the process that we're going through, particularly because we're doing this combined 6 with the School District. We really want to raise their awareness that this is the direction 7 that we're heading, and we would like their support and approval to do that. 8 Chair Reckdahl: This is an RFP. It's not for Phase I; it's for the planning. 9 Ms. O'Kane: This is an RFP to get the consultant onboard. 10 Chair Reckdahl: Different consultants will say what they can do and their expertise, and 11 we'll choose from that. That consultant will … 12 Ms. O'Kane: Into Phase I. 13 Chair Reckdahl: We do have a speaker card, Penny Ellson. 14 Penny Ellson: Good evening. Thank you. I just have a couple of questions. I'm a 15 former member of the Cubberley Community Advisory Committee. I just want to make 16 the point that teacher housing, which is included in this report, was never vetted in any of 17 our discussions. As a representative of my neighborhood, I never brought that question 18 to our neighborhood. I have no idea what their opinion is on it. I'm guessing that would 19 bring it to a level of density that might cause some consternation. If we're talking about 20 doing a school and a community center and housing, it's a lot at a location that is pretty 21 intensively used and would be. I noticed in here that you refer to the community asset 22 evaluation, which we referred to in the committee as a community needs assessment, 23 which is a rather different thing. If you're looking at the existing community assets, that's 24 one thing. What we talked about was a survey or a way of studying what the community 25 needs or deficits might be. What do we not have that perhaps we need, not just what do 26 we have that we need more of. I just want to make sure that—maybe that work was done 27 as part of the community Master Planning. I don't know. That's what was in our minds. 28 We felt there was a big gap in our knowledge, and we didn't know what it was that the 29 community needed. Finally as always, Safe Routes to School is big in my mind. As this 30 process moves forward, I hope that the people who are working on it will give careful 31 thought to how much traffic this site and all the approach streets can handle at certain 32 times of day and how it's going to manage bicycles because it's going to be an afterschool 33 destination, I imagine. It might be a school destination. To the School District, one of 34 the things I'm going to say—I'll say it publicly now—is we need to think very carefully 35 about whether or not that should be a choice school or a neighborhood school because 36 APPROVED Draft Minutes 52 that's an area that is already impacted by traffic from a nearby private school that draws 1 about 500 kids a day from outside of the community, all driven to school. Hoover 2 Elementary School, a choice school, very high volume of car trips. Greendell, of course, 3 draws a mixture. It's got kids from all over the community, and many of them are driven 4 but also many bicycle. There are a lot of nearby schools. It's a very sensitive area with a 5 lot of congestion in the morning. Traffic's going to be a key concern. Thanks. 6 Chair Reckdahl: Thank you, Penny. Do you have any last comments? We're moving on. 7 6. Other Ad Hoc Committee and Liaison Updates. 8 Chair Reckdahl: The next is Ad Hoc Committee and Liaison Updates. Does anyone 9 have any updates? I guess we have the grid this month. Does anyone want to talk about 10 their updates? We have a status update for all the ad hocs. If anyone thinks a verbal 11 explanation would be better; otherwise, the grid will do. 12 Commissioner Cribbs: I like this process. It was really helpful to me to see where other 13 ad hoc committees are and what we needed to do. I think it was helpful to the 14 committees that I'm on to be able to request from the staff the things that we felt we 15 needed to get our work done or more information. I'm excited that we've tried this. 16 Thank you for putting it all together. I think we should let it run for a couple more 17 months and see how we all feel about it. 18 Chair Reckdahl: I agree. There's some added benefit. 19 Vice Chair Moss: I like this process very much. The good and the bad of it is that I've 20 got lots of things I want to do right now. We need staff to do them right now. It focuses 21 us like a laser. You've got ten different committees all wanting to focus like a laser. 22 What do you suggest for getting staff time for these items? Do we make a 30-minute 23 appointment with you? What would you suggest? 24 Ms. O'Kane: In all of those, there is a staff liaison assigned. I would reach out to the 25 staff liaison, which I think is pretty much me and Daren. Whoever is assigned, you can 26 reach out. We can just have a conversation about timing. There may be something that 27 staff knows would be more appropriate to include the ad hoc in a few months or maybe 28 there's a reason to include the ad hoc sooner. Don't hesitate to contact us and just ask us. 29 We could talk through it and see what the best role for the ad hoc is at that time. 30 Chair Reckdahl: Don, do you have anything? We move on. The Department Report is 31 done. 32 APPROVED Draft Minutes 53 VI. COMMENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS 1 Chair Reckdahl: Comments and Announcements. Do you have any comments or 2 announcements? Does anyone? 3 Commissioner Cribbs: I do. I'm sorry; go ahead. 4 Vice Chair Moss: The Friends of the Palo Alto Parks have invited us to their next 5 meeting, which is in September. Don and I are going to represent the Commission. 6 Chair Reckdahl: Is there anything specific or they just want contact with us? 7 Vice Chair Moss: That was the thing. One of the things they were very interested in was 8 the AT&T property, but Daren has said that that's a very slow process. I wish there were 9 a way to speed that up. We have 2 months before we have to go before that committee. 10 If there was any way we could get something before then, that would be great. That's one 11 of the things. 12 Commissioner McDougall: I think their outreach was just a general "we'd like an update, 13 come and talk to us." 14 Chair Reckdahl: Interaction with them is always very good. We need to stay tightly 15 connected. The AT&T property, they have not redrawn the lines yet? It's a no go until 16 they do that. Have you heard anything new? 17 Ms. O'Kane: I believe that AT&T and the City are still working on the lot line 18 adjustments. 19 Chair Reckdahl: Are we talking directly with AT&T or are we talking through the lot 20 line people? What's the route that the parks people are talking to AT&T? 21 Ms. O'Kane: Our Real Estate Department is mostly working with the company that 22 AT&T has hired to do the lot line adjustment. We're also directly communicating with 23 AT&T as well. 24 Chair Reckdahl: If it goes up for sale, we will know quickly? 25 Ms. O'Kane: We would. 26 Vice Chair Moss: One more question. When I reviewed the transcript of the May 22nd 27 meeting with the City Council about the Master Plan, they had many, many comments. 28 Foothills Park, opening it up, and bicycles and many, many items. Do you feel that we're 29 going to get some pushback from the City Council for the—the reason I wanted to push 30 for this version to go is I'm worried that there's going to be some last minute changes or 31 APPROVED Draft Minutes 54 issues, and we'll never get this approved. What's your take on getting this approved by 1 the Council in September? 2 Mr. de Geus: I think we're on track to get it approved. It's not uncommon for the 3 Council—it's their prerogative to make final adjustments and revisions. That's okay. I'm 4 confident we've done a good job here, the Commission, the staff, and the many members 5 of the public. Helpful to have the Commission there and speak in support. I think it'll get 6 approved. 7 Chair Reckdahl: The last Council meeting, I thought they'd have 20 or 30 comments. 8 They only really had one where we had to go back and change. I think that's good news. 9 Commissioner Cribbs: I had another comment about the chili cookoff, which I thought 10 was great fun. Thank you for getting me in to be a judge. I think Jeff and I both felt like 11 it was great fun and great fun for the community. We'd love to see more chili teams next 12 year. We'd like to have the Commission challenge ourselves to find some chili teams, 13 either to have our own or do some outreach. If we each brought in one or two chili 14 teams, we'd get back up to the 25. It could be really good. I didn't want to lose sight of 15 that, so I have this. If we could address that in the agenda maybe in November or 16 something, we could start to do that. 17 Ms. O'Kane: That'd be great. Thank you for … 18 Chair Reckdahl: Did Pat Markovich have her team? 19 Commissioner Cribbs: She was there, but she didn't win this time. She wanted to win, 20 but she didn't. 21 Ms. O'Kane: Thank you for being a judge. It is a fun event for staff and for everyone 22 who attends. Thank you for being there. 23 Commissioner Cribbs: It was great fun. It was great fun for the community. People of 24 all ages were enjoying the music and the dancing and the Bowl and everything. It's was a 25 great 4th of July in Palo Alto. We just needed more teams. 26 Commissioner Greenfield: I think we also wanted to encourage the other Commissions 27 to reach out to try and get participation. 28 Vice Chair Moss: One other thing is the Midtown—what is it called? 29 Commissioner Cribbs: The ice cream social. 30 Vice Chair Moss: I encourage everybody to participate. 31 APPROVED Draft Minutes 55 Commissioner Cribbs: I have one more question. Rob, could you talk to us about your 1 tenure and what's going on and when you're moving to the Manager's Office and all of 2 that? 3 Mr. de Geus: I thought about whether to bring it up. We can talk about it next month as 4 well. We have begun the recruitment for my replacement. We're working with a 5 company, Terry Black. They'll do a national search. We're almost finished with the 6 brochure, so that will be out hopefully next week. It'll be open for a month. I have 7 already moved to the City Manager's Office, so I'm up there now, and have been doing 8 both jobs for this month. I fly to Australia on the weekend to see my family for 2 weeks. 9 That also marks a transition for Kristen to step in as interim while we go through the 10 process. The City Manager, Jim Keene, will make an announcement formally about that 11 change. That's the plan. It'll take 2-3 months to get through the process of recruiting. In 12 fact, I invite some of the Commissioners to participate on the interview panels that we'll 13 have for hiring the new director. If you're interested in that, let me know. 14 Chair Reckdahl: Ed helped out last time. He has expertise in that area. If you can get 15 Ed, I think … Go ahead. 16 Commissioner LaMere: Just one quick question. We've talked about the AT&T 17 property. The ITT property, is that on anyone's radar still about some of the direction of 18 that? Daren took me out there maybe 3 months ago. Someone else came out from the 19 City and made it seem like there's some simple things that could be done to kick start it. 20 There doesn't need to be any response now, but just something to keep on our minds or 21 maybe some agenda item in the next month or two just to get an update on that. Thank 22 you. 23 Chair Reckdahl: There's so much work that we could do out there. If we had a big 24 budget, we could do something really good. We, unfortunately, don't, so I think it's just 25 going to sit for a long time. 26 VII. TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR AUGUST 22, 2017 MEETING 27 Chair Reckdahl: Let's move on to next month. We have four things. We have JMZ is 28 going to come back with a PIO. That's going to be an action item. We'll have three 29 discussion items, one of them being park dedication, what activities are prohibited and 30 park activities. I want to talk about this whole mime issue and what can you do and can't 31 you do in a park. The next is Rinconada, the long-term plan. The final is the Buckeye 32 Creek hydrology study update. Is there anything else? 33 Ms. O'Kane: There's not unless we discuss the Master Plan that's coming to Council as 34 Commissioner Cribbs recommended. I will say these four items could possibly be very 35 lengthy items. We may want to consider even moving one of these out. 36 APPROVED Draft Minutes 56 Chair Reckdahl: If it hadn't been for this mime issue, I would have said push out park 1 dedication. That was for information only. Rinconada long-range plan. Is there 2 anything new on that or is that just an update? That's with the JMZ, isn't it? They 3 dovetail together. Let's either bump out park dedication or Buckeye Creek. Let's figure 4 out with Daren if there's news. 5 Commissioner McDougall: I would be willing to let the Chairman work with staff to 6 determine the agenda. 7 Commissioner Greenfield: Just one question. Regarding Buckeye Creek, is there a 8 schedule to share that with Council that would be impacted by pushing that? 9 Ms. O'Kane: It was supposed to go tonight, and we moved it to August. As Rob said, I 10 think it's fall, but I'd have to check with Daren on that. Probably October is the 11 timeframe. 12 Chair Reckdahl: Let's pencil in and confirm in a couple of weeks. Let's pencil moving 13 the park dedication 1 month back to September. We'll see how we feel in 2 weeks. 14 VIII. ADJOURNMENT 15 Meeting adjourned on motion by Commissioner McDougall and second by Vice Chair 16 Moss at 10:07 p.m. 17