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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2018-06-26 Parks & Recreation Summary MinutesAPPROVED Draft Minutes 1 1 2 3 4 MINUTES 5 PARKS & RECREATION COMMISSION 6 REGULAR MEETING 7 June 26, 2018 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: None 15 Others Present: 16 Staff Present: Peter Jensen, Kristen O'Kane, Natalie Khwaja 17 I. ROLL CALL 18 II. AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, and DELETIONS 19 Chair McDougall: Do we have any agenda changes, deletions, requests, reordering relative 20 to the agenda? Everybody's okay with that? 21 III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS 22 Chair McDougall: The next thing on the agenda is Oral Communications. These are oral 23 communications that are not specific to business items that we have on the agenda. I 24 believe that Herb Borock is not speaking to an agenda item, so I would invite him to come 25 and speak. 26 Herb Borock: Good evening, Chair McDougall and Commissioners. I came to the meeting 27 because I saw the agenda and some items of interest. When I entered, the copies of the 28 staff reports are not here. Recently I was at another meeting of the Commission when there 29 also weren't staff reports. You get a packet with printed staff reports and other items that 30 are on the agenda. The State's open meeting law, the Brown Act, requires that there be 31 copies of everything you got that's not confidential available for the public to review at the 32 meeting. Instead, all there is is a piece of paper with links to internet sites. As far as I 33 know, this is the only legislative body in the City, Council committee, board, commission, 34 APPROVED Draft Minutes 2 that does this. It's only been doing it recently. I request that it stop and that you go back 1 to what you did previously. Thank you. 2 Chair McDougall: Thank you. 3 Natalie Khwaja: If I may really quick? We were directed by the Clerk's Office to start 4 presenting the attachments and reports in this manner to save paper because often we would 5 print a lot and no one would take them. If you would like me to go back to how it was 6 done before, I have no problem doing that. 7 Chair McDougall: I'm not sure we should make that decision on the spot as opposed to 8 understand what it takes and why that recommendation. I think I can understand that 9 recommendation, but maybe there's a compromise, maybe there's some other way to look 10 at it. I don't think we should make that decision right now. We'll publish that decision. 11 Herb, I'll make sure that they send whatever answer we get directly to you personally. 12 Mr. Borock: (inaudible) 13 Chair McDougall: Pardon me? 14 Mr. Borock: And the name of the person in the Clerk's Office who said that because to my 15 knowledge there is no connection between that Council-appointed officer and the staff that 16 is here, who reports to a different Council-appointed officer who is the City Manager. I'd 17 be interested in the name of the person and, if it was in writing, to see that from that person. 18 Chair McDougall: We'll be happy to provide you with the conclusion of our investigation. 19 IV. DEPARTMENT REPORT 20 Chair McDougall: The next is approval of the minutes of the April 24 meeting. Am I 21 missing something? 22 Kristen O'Kane: The department report. 23 Chair McDougall: Yes. 24 Ms. O'Kane: Kristen O'Kane with Community Services. Daren is out sick today, so I'm 25 going to provide some updates from Parks and Open Space on behalf of Daren. The first 26 one is the Peers dog park opening was held on June 14. It was a very nice event. The dog 27 park was packed with people and their dogs enjoying the site. Daren wanted to extend a 28 big thanks to the Commissioners, especially Commissioners Cribbs, LaMere, McCauley, 29 and Chair McDougall, for attending and Chair McDougall for speaking at the event. The 30 next item, the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority flood protection project is 31 starting its final construction season on July 2. Expected project completion is spring of 32 APPROVED Draft Minutes 3 2019. The Friendship Bridge and the creek-side trails are expected to be closed for the 1 duration of the final construction season. For the Foothills Park trails, we have submitted 2 our application to the Planning Department for rerouting the trails, and we expect to get 3 approval in late August. Our trail contractor is available to do the work in August. 4 Hopefully, we can kick that off towards the end of the summer. The Lucie Stern brick 5 pathway project—I don't know if any of you have been to Lucie Stern recently. As you 6 know, the brick pathways, because they're really, really old bricks, are very worn. The 7 grouting between the bricks was very worn. We're actually in the process of redoing the 8 brick pathways around Lucie Stern. A certain percentage of the original bricks, because 9 they are considered historic, is being preserved and being put back into the brick pathways. 10 We're doing this in a three-phase approach so there are always two entrances and exits out 11 of the Lucie Stern Community Center. The final note from Daren is the Baylands 12 Boardwalk. This is going to Council on June 25, which was yesterday. This was awarded 13 last night for construction at Council. Construction is anticipated to begin in September 14 and be completed by January 2019, which is good news. I think that was all from Daren. 15 I just have one thing I would like to give everyone information about. On June 18, Council 16 approved our contract with a company called Concordia to assist with the Cubberley master 17 planning. Council also approved a cost-share agreement with the Palo Alto Unified School 18 District. The City and the School District will be sharing equally in the cost to do the 19 master planning effort. This is very exciting. We are going to use the summer time to get 20 them up to speed, to put together our community engagement plan, which will include 21 recruiting for what they call community fellows or citizen planners, who will be members 22 of the community and who will help us facilitate meetings, help us move the project along, 23 help us just be advocates for the project, and get people involved. I may be asking all of 24 you to help identify some people within the community that might be really good at helping 25 out with the project. The first community meeting will be in September. Commissioner 26 Cribbs. 27 Commissioner Cribbs: I was just wondering how the consultants are going to initially 28 interact with the Parks and Recreation Commission and if there will be some engagement 29 on the part of the Parks and Recreation Commission in the early planning stages. In 30 addition, it'll be interesting to see how a firm who comes from so far away understands 31 very much about the process of Cubberley and the history of Cubberley. Maybe that's not 32 important, but just curious. 33 Ms. O'Kane: They're in New Orleans. They have a lot of experience locally and are also 34 working on some other projects in California. There are two local partners that they have 35 on their team. One is at Stanford, and one is local. She's a consultant, but she used to be 36 in charge of the State's education department, for lack of a better term. They do have local 37 representation here in Palo Alto. This just happened on June 18, so I need to talk with them 38 on how we should get the Commission involved. I know there's either an ad hoc or liaison 39 group. I think it's specifically an ad hoc group for the Cubberley master planning process. 40 APPROVED Draft Minutes 4 Natalie sent that to me the other day because I was asking who those people are. There are 1 three of you. I apologize that I can't exactly remember who the three of you are. We'll 2 definitely have you involved from the beginning. Was there another question? 3 Commissioner Cribbs: That's probably enough. Thank you. 4 Chair McDougall: Jeff, did you have a question? Kristen, just quickly, is this idea of 5 citizen planners the same thing we've always done or is that an effort to be more locally 6 engaged? 7 Ms. O'Kane: It's different from what we have done. A lot of times there's a stakeholder 8 advisory group, and then there are community meetings that happen once in a while. We 9 decided not to have a stakeholder advisory group. Every community meeting is open to 10 everyone, and they're actually working meetings. They will not be in this style of meeting 11 where people are talking and we're getting questions. It's people sitting around tables, 12 working together, actually putting pen to paper. The community fellows will facilitate the 13 table discussion. They can have their own ideas, but they're not pushing a particular agenda 14 as that community fellow. But they're, of course, welcome to participate in the discussions 15 as well. It's just to have people who are really embedded in the community be advocates 16 … 17 Chair McDougall: Invested in the project. 18 Ms. O'Kane: … and invested and can help. We're hopeful we'll have a few hundred people 19 at these community meetings that are sitting around the tables working. We're going to 20 need help with those meetings. We're hoping the fellows can do that. 21 Chair McDougall: Hopefully, that will help address Commissioner Cribbs' question. I 22 think she might have another one. 23 Commissioner Cribbs: Thank you. I have just one more. The survey that Amy did to the 24 Cubberley tenants, when is that done and is it going to be public information, the results 25 soon? 26 Ms. O'Kane: When the consultant was here—they were here for the Council meeting—I 27 didn't mention the Board of Education approved the cost-share agreement the next night. 28 They came here for those two items. While they were here, they met with the existing 29 Cubberley tenants just to introduce the project. I think there was some concern that this 30 meant things were going to change for them. We wanted them to meet the consultants right 31 away. They sent out a survey for the tenants specifically to complete just about their 32 experience at Cubberley. That is due, I think, the end of this week or next week. We are 33 going to have, just like we did for the Parks Master Plan, a website that's going to have 34 APPROVED Draft Minutes 5 everything on it, all of the data that's collected, all the information, meetings, results of 1 meetings, things like that. 2 Chair McDougall: I know it's not directly related, but do you have a status of the Zoo 3 moving to Cubberley? 4 Ms. O'Kane: They needed to make some improvements. They needed to do some 5 construction at Cubberley to make it suitable for the Zoo. They're doing that right now. I 6 don't have an exact date of when that move will happen, but it's in the works. 7 Chair McDougall: That's fine. Thank you. (inaudible) and we'll invite Yuko Tanaka to 8 come and speak for a couple of minutes. 9 Yuko Tanaka: My name is Yuko Tanaka, and I play tennis, and also I volunteer as a Board 10 Member of Palo Alto Tennis Club. I would like to raise three points for your consideration 11 regarding tennis court usage. Recently, the level of frustration among the tennis players 12 who cannot access the public courts has been increasing. One of the most common reasons 13 that they express is that the City tennis court usage policy says that more than 50 percent 14 of the courts cannot be reserved at the same facility at the given day, given time. However, 15 the City has been giving the reservation for more than 50 percent of the courts for many 16 reasons. One recent experience was pickleball reserve three courts at Mitchell Park for 17 drop-in. In addition to that, there was a special senior event, and they reserve the additional, 18 so that was more than 50 percent. That was an all weekend event. People were saying that 19 this is violating the City policy. Also, the tennis side is not innocent either. We do hold 20 the USTA Junior Tournament probably seven, eight times a year. During that time, we 21 reserve six courts, one day the weekend. Of course, that's more than 50 percent. People 22 expressed concerns about more than 50 percent is against the City policy, but the City is 23 giving away those reservations more than the policy. What's going on? Those people send 24 an email to the City. City's answer is "we support senior event." That is not a good 25 response for them to hear. Right now, especially since the pickleball—there is no 26 designated pickleball courts. We probably have to have those circumstances for a long 27 time until we create a plan and survey and build. It takes time. I think, even if it's 28 temporary, we should address those policy to the level that we actually can comply or the 29 City can actually comply. Right now the City is really accommodating the senior events, 30 junior events. I really appreciate that for all of the racket players. At the same time, the 31 people's frustration is also valid. I would like to raise points that I would like to see the 32 policy to be updated so that we can do that. 33 Chair McDougall: Thank you very much. 34 Ms. Tanaka: The second point … 35 APPROVED Draft Minutes 6 Chair McDougall: I'm sorry. I said you could have a couple of minutes, and you've gone 1 on for 3 minutes. 2 Ms. Tanaka: Sorry. Two more points. 3 Chair McDougall: You've got 30 seconds. 4 Ms. Tanaka: One way to reduce the tennis courts reservation is look into the USTA team 5 reservations. I checked current USTA team reservations. Out of ten teams currently 6 reserved, only one team has more than 20 percent of Palo Alto residents as a player. Some 7 teams do not have even no Palo Alto residents as a roster player. Those people are 8 reserving Palo Alto tennis courts, and then the tennis players in Palo Alto community are 9 … 10 Chair McDougall: I'm going to have to ask you to stop. Thank you. I will tell you that we 11 do have both an ad hoc committee looking into the courts themselves. We do have an ad 12 hoc committee that's working with staff on the usage of fields and courts and into those 13 policies. We're not unaware. If you'd like to—I have your name. Potentially they can 14 reach out to you or others. You should know that we're not unaware of some of the 15 questions that's you're raising. 16 Ms. Tanaka: Ten seconds. The Palo Alto Tennis Club is not involved in that ad hoc group, 17 and we would like to ask that the Palo Alto Tennis Club be included in that ad hoc group. 18 Chair McDougall: Any time we have public meetings, everybody is invited, the tennis 19 club and everybody else. We'll just make sure that everybody is aware. 20 Ms. Tanaka: Thank you. 21 Chair McDougall: Thank you. 22 V. BUSINESS 23 1. Approval of Draft Minutes from the April 24, 2018 Parks and Recreation 24 Commission meeting. 25 Approval of the draft April 24, 2018 Minutes as presented was moved by Vice Chair 26 Greenfield and seconded by Commissioner Reckdahl. Passed 7-0 27 2. Renzel Pond Project Update 28 Chair McDougall: Next on the item is the Renzel Pond project update. Welcome, 29 Ms. North. It's nice to see you. 30 APPROVED Draft Minutes 7 Karin North: Nice to see you. 1 Ms. O'Kane: Good evening. Kristen O'Kane. I just wanted to introduce Karin. I know 2 she's been here before. There was a request, I believe, from Commissioner Moss, to have 3 her come back and give an update on what's happening at the Renzel Wetlands and answer 4 any questions any of you might have on the progress. I'll turn it over to Karin. 5 Ms. North: My name is Karin North. I'm the Watershed Protection Manager. I work out 6 at the wastewater treatment plant. I'm with Environmental Services in Public Works. 7 Some of the benefit of our Renzel Pond was a water reclamation project back in the early 8 1990s to recycle and reuse a lot of our plant effluent. I'm just going to give you the aerial 9 view. Probably many of you know this area. It's that pond area down here at the bottom. 10 Some of this might be a repeat. Some of the Commissioners weren't here the last meeting, 11 so it's sometimes nice to know. This entire area is the ITT property; now, it's called the 12 Renzel Wetlands. It was cut off due to our landfill, which is now Byxbee Park. Back in 13 the early '90s, we tried to restore some of this. This was all previously upland, so we put 14 in a pipeline from the wastewater treatment plant, which is right here. About 5 percent of 15 our flow flows through the Renzel Wetlands. Currently, no flow is flowing through it. 16 There is another secondary pipe that during high tides saltwater, Bay water flows through 17 here and down along this channel and then it gets pumped into Matadero Creek. The 18 recycled water and the salt marsh were designed to complement each other, to balance out 19 the salinity going into Matadero Creek in the flooding basin. This is what the area was 20 back in the day, in 1991. Good thing we have all these Google images that we can pull 21 from, which is nice. This is what it was in 2002. You can see we had a few habitat islands. 22 It was designed to—we're trying to make it into a nice habitat for the environment. As you 23 can see, in this little corner that island is gone. The cattails are starting to take off in 2009. 24 We're not exactly sure. We think it's the berm deterioration. We had muskrats. We've had 25 it breaking down, subsidence over the years. You can see in 2014 it's basically turned into 26 almost two ponds. Last year, we know now that because of the cattails, when we started 27 to drain it, it did turn into essentially two ponds. We had over 16 breaches last summer 28 over here. We were spot fixing them, which was very challenging because you have to 29 mobilize equipment. You're going into the environment; you have to basically piecemeal 30 this berm back together. We decided that this was the year to fix it versus having another 31 year of going in there and just doing spot fixes. The last time I came to talk to you, I talked 32 about we were going to start draining the pond. We drained the pond. As I mentioned 33 before, it turned into two ponds, so we had to get this long-reach excavator in to dig a 34 channel to allow both the north end and the south end of the pond to drain. This is what it 35 was looking like during the draining. This is the pipe that actually drains out the pond. If 36 you guys haven't been out there, it's completely dry now, which is good because we needed 37 to let it dry out before we bring in the large, heavy equipment to move the silt. The silt 38 over the years, over 25 years, has basically silted up because of the cattail growth. When 39 it breaks down, that silt accumulates in the pond. We have to do—unfortunately this 40 APPROVED Draft Minutes 8 massive equipment needs to come in. We are limited with our season of when we can get 1 in there because it's in a previous wetland. We don't want it to go in while there's a rain 2 event. We're very limited, and it's a short season. It's not ideal. We understand people are 3 very concerned about the habitat out there. We're trying to be very mindful of that while 4 we're doing this project. This is part of our NPDES permit to discharge to the Bay. 5 Maintenance is a requirement. Shani Kleinhaus from Audubon Society was concerned 6 about birds. We had the Rangers out there regularly checking on bird habitat. They did 7 not see any. Because of her concern, we did hire a certified biologist. They went out, and 8 they did find six nests. Based on the recommendation of the biologist, we put a 30-foot 9 buffer around them. We are continuing to do the berm work because that's taking the 10 longest amount of time. We're building up the berm, making it wider, so then we can go 11 in and maintain that marsh in the future. Not ideal, but something we need to do. Last 12 night, the City Council approved O'Grady. They're going to come in starting at the end of 13 August. We were originally going to have them come in sooner, but we're pushing it past 14 the nesting season to come in. They're basically going to be moving dirt. They're going to 15 be pushing all the dirt from this side up to this area of the pond, and we're going to see how 16 much we can—maybe this will turn into an upland area. This will turn into a shallow 17 marsh, and then this will be an open marsh. We're doing a little bit of adaptive 18 management. We're trying to be mindful of our funds and see what we can get done. 19 Ideally, I don't want them coming in again because we also have plans potentially to expand 20 this wetland as well. If we're going to expand the wetland, I would say in 5-10 years' time 21 because of permitting, then hopefully we'd get in there and do it all once again. This is 22 what it looks like now. We have a silt fence up there. I know Commissioner Moss has 23 been out there. Have any of you guys driven past it? It's definitely not what it was before. 24 It's changing, and we're hoping that we can at least get it back to its natural habitat in the 25 fastest time possible. We do have a silt fence around it. We are bringing in a lot of trucks 26 with material. We had a soil brokerage contract with our landfill, so we're utilizing that 27 and capitalizing on it. That's only 'til 2019. This was our year to also get in the soil that's 28 free. We're building up the berm. We have signage out there for residents so they know 29 what's happening if they read it and wonder what we're doing and why we're doing it. We 30 have an active website as well. We've gone to all the Baylands Comprehensive 31 Conservation Plan meetings to let them know what's happening. We're coming to you to 32 talk to you as well. This is from June 2018. You can see it looks very different now. It is 33 dried out, but we don't know how thick that crust layer is, which is why we want to let it 34 dry as long as possible before we bring in the equipment to start moving dirt around. This 35 is what the contractor was awarded last night from Council. We're not sure how far this 36 will come down. We're hoping we can try and keep it as compacted as possible, but we 37 won't know until we're really in there moving the sediment and the silt around. This area 38 is going to be the drying beds for the cattails. We've also talked to Shani and Emily about 39 leaving some of the cattails, so we're not going to remove them all. That will be something 40 we'll do. We haven't made any decisions at this point in time. We have another meeting 41 coming closer to then. We can walk out to the site and try and identify cattails that we 42 APPROVED Draft Minutes 9 could keep. Obviously we don't want the cattails in this area, this pinch point, because 1 we'll just have that problem yet again. We're trying to do our best. Hopefully, it'll go back 2 to what it was in 1991 and then evolve, and the cattails will grow back and the habitat. 3 We're hoping we can do this. It's been once in 25 years. I'm hoping that I won't have to 4 do this again while I'm with the City of Palo Alto. Hopefully we do it right, and we can 5 maintain it, and we won't have to do this again. Feel free to ask questions. I think Shani 6 has some comments too. 7 Chair McDougall: Thank you, Karin. Shani. 8 Shani Kleinhaus: Good evening. Shani Kleinhaus with the Audubon Society, resident of 9 Palo Alto. This project makes me really, really sad. It started without CEQA because it 10 was a maintenance project. We were told, "We have to fix the leaks. We have to do it 11 now. It's a maintenance project. We don't need CEQA." I said, "What about the birds? 12 This is nesting season. This is the most sensitive area in the Baylands at the height of the 13 nesting season." I was told, "We're not impacting anything. We're only draining the water. 14 We need to do that because, when we come in after the nesting season and start doing some 15 work with dirt, then we won't have birds nesting there." I accepted that. I started getting 16 reports from birders going there saying, "Why are they covering all the reeds with dirt?" I 17 went to look, and that was what was happening. It turns out we were importing soil, 18 building berms, doing all this groundwork, and dumping the dirt on top of the reeds, and 19 there were birds in those reeds nesting. There were birds nesting on the areas where the 20 soil was dumped. When I was there, there was a killdeer—it's a little, ground-nesting 21 bird—that was running around and doing this game where they pretend to be injured so 22 you'll follow them away from their nest. The next day, there was a lot of soil on that site, 23 and the bird was not there anymore. Talk about sensitivity. What I ask you, one, is learn 24 about CEQA. A project like that should have gone through CEQA. There would be 25 mitigations necessary and biologists onsite. They did send a biologist after we started 26 screaming. I'm sorry. I know that you didn't intend to cause damage. When the process is 27 broken and there's no CEQA, because this is only a maintenance project for something that 28 started 30 years ago or 20 years ago, then you don't have the mitigations that are necessary 29 to protect our resources now. The public doesn't know, and they're surprised when they 30 see a huge project taking place when we were told that it's only the draining of the ponds 31 that is going to happen now. Another thing. When I asked then, I understand it is 32 emergency fixes, but you say you don't want to come back there again. The whole project 33 that you're going to hear next is about how do we design this area. This was an opportunity 34 to look at something in a much bigger framework. I'm not only doing maintenance on a 35 project and talk to me now about leaving some refuge for the animals so not all the reeds 36 will be gone and so on. This was an opportunity to actually look at how do we do a project 37 and enhance the environment at the same time. It wasn't. It's not going to be, but it's still 38 not planning to have a real ecological design team work on this project. It's a maintenance 39 project. I sent a letter about the next item, which is the Baylands Comprehensive Plan. 40 APPROVED Draft Minutes 10 You have at least 13 projects that are capital improvement, and three projects are 1 enhancements. We talk about balance. We need to start at looking at every project as how 2 do we balance this project. This was the ultimate opportunity that happened in a very sad 3 way as far as the birds are concerned. Again, I don't think there's anyone who means to do 4 something that is not necessary. Yeah, they needed to fix the leaks. There are things that 5 need to be done, but there are too many breaks in the system. All of you, please, if anybody 6 proposes a project whether it's Public Works or anybody and it touches on a park, insist on 7 CEQA so you know what's going to happen, so you make sure everything is right and 8 accidents to killdeer don't just happen. Thank you. 9 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Do people on the Commission have questions for Karin? 10 David. 11 Commissioner Moss: I went by the pond and was really surprised at how significant, how 12 huge this project turned out to be. I guess I didn't quite realize it. I want to emphasize 13 what Shani said about maintenance projects versus something that requires environmental 14 review. What's going to come out of this also is there's a path all the way around that could 15 become a path for people who want to walk or bike or walk their dogs or whatever around 16 there that didn't exist before. It really should be covered by the Baylands Comprehensive 17 Plan so that we deal with that new feature and others. I strongly believe that that pond 18 should be open to the public in some way to allow an observation or whatever to be able 19 to look out at that. I'd like to see birds there too. I've always wondered why it wasn't open 20 to the public for bird viewing. I would like to echo what Shani said about taking the broader 21 view with this project. I don't know what we can do at this point. As soon as it's done, I 22 want to put all the birds back. That's my comment. 23 Chair McDougall: Anybody else have questions, comments? Thanks, Ryan. 24 Commissioner McCauley: Karin, could you perhaps tell us what your plan is for mitigation 25 with respect to the birds? You've now put up these 30-foot—is it a barrier of some sort? 26 Ms. North: If you go out there, there are orange, 30-foot—they're 30 feet away from the 27 nests. That's what the biologist recommended that we hired and then to maintain those. 28 Before O'Grady comes into the area, we'll have a biologist come back again to ensure 29 there's no new nests and that the nests have been—basically the nesting season's over. 30 Then, we can go in and remove the reeds. I know we haven't done the CEQA, but we're 31 trying to do all the—since it's a maintenance project, I'm wearing my environmental hat. 32 We're trying to do our due diligence on making sure that we're looking for birds, looking 33 for nests, mitigating any potential impacts. The area around the pond for the maintenance 34 will be a road. It will be your decision to determine if that becomes part of the trail system, 35 but we do need a road for maintenance. Part of the reason why it was not opened up is it 36 was an ankle-turner with the berm. It was completely divots and falling apart. I just want 37 to respond a little bit to Shani's concerns. I originally had the plan of a larger vision. With 38 APPROVED Draft Minutes 11 the Baylands Conservation Comprehensive Plan, we wanted to incorporate it. That started, 1 and then we had all those leaks. We are still looking at the larger vision, but we also have 2 to maintain our current infrastructure. I know it's odd that a pond is infrastructure, but it 3 is. It's part of our treatment process. We do get some nutrient removal. It's in our actual 4 permit that requires us to have a certain percentage of our flow go there to reduce the flow 5 going into the San Francisco Bay. I would not say this is my favorite project. I'm just 6 trying to get it done and do it the most environmentally sensitive way I can. Keep on asking 7 me questions because it challenges staff to come up with strategies on how to do it. We 8 feel like we've talked to the biologist. We didn't have a biologist on staff. We were relying 9 on Rangers prior to that. We'll bring the biologist back out again. If you have any other 10 recommendations, we are open to them. We have talked to the consultants for the Baylands 11 Conservation Comprehensive Plan, that's who was our biologist for assessing the birds. 12 This is an adaptive management strategy. None of us has ever had to deal with a large 13 freshwater pond that was wastewater for maintenance. 14 Commissioner McCauley: I think we all appreciate that you're trying to be thoughtful 15 about all this. Are there other wildlife mitigation issues that need to be considered? 16 Ms. North: For full disclosure, we did find fish. Some of them got moved into the flood 17 basin before they died. CDFW, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, told us to 18 euthanize the rest of the fish. Any fish that were left were euthanized. 19 Commissioner McCauley: Is there any plan to restock fish or something like that? 20 Ms. North: The fish probably were not naturally there. They probably got stocked over 21 the past 25 years. We're not sure how they got there because it's not hydraulically 22 connected to the creek. The water flows into the creek, and creek water should not be 23 flowing back. It's been a fun project, let me tell you. 24 Chair McDougall: You don't have fish that come from the wastewater treatment plant? 25 Ms. North: No. We're failing miserably if we have fish coming from the wastewater 26 treatment plant. 27 Chair McDougall: David mentioned the inevitability or suggested the inevitability of there 28 being a path around there. You said there would be a road whether it became an open path. 29 I would see at some level that area is just not that big. Wishing for the birds to be there but 30 allowing your dog to be there at the same is a little bit of a contradiction. 31 Ms. North: That's what I'm saying. The Parks and Rec Commission can determine if it's 32 going to be a maintenance road or a path. That has not been determined at this point in 33 time. We're just trying to create a maintenance road. Obviously, we know that people may 34 APPROVED Draft Minutes 12 take that path, but there are ways to deter folks from going there if we do not want people 1 going down around that pond. It's really up to you guys to make that decision. 2 Chair McDougall: Would that decision be made in the context of the Comprehensive Plan 3 or would that be made separately? 4 Ms. North: No. This is part of what's looking into the Comprehensive Plan. 5 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Any other questions? Jeff. 6 Vice Chair Greenfield: Thank you. I appreciate that there was no ill intent. In all this, the 7 intentions were well founded. Proceeding without a CEQA study because this was a 8 maintenance project was legally permitted. My question is what we have learned from this 9 and how can we improve in the future and is there a policy change that we should be 10 considering to protect against something like this happening in the future. I'm interested 11 in the staff perspective. 12 Ms. North: Definitely. If someone was to tell me that we're under a maintenance 13 exemption, I would now based on my knowledge absolutely say no. Now that I'm a wiser 14 staff individual, I would require us to get this. This was something that we've learned from. 15 We're doing the mitigation as we go. I don't think it would have really changed the outcome 16 of what we would have planned on doing, except maybe we would have had a biologist out 17 there sooner. 18 Vice Chair Greenfield: Help me out here. For a maintenance project, is a CEQA study not 19 officially required? 20 Ms. North: That was our interpretation. My interpretation has changed since we started 21 the project. 22 Vice Chair Greenfield: We now believe that a CEQA study should be required? 23 Ms. North: If I did a future project just for—that way if Shani asked me questions or other 24 people asked me questions, just for my own basis, I would require it. I don't think it's 25 necessarily required by law; I just would do it regardless. Does that make sense? 26 Vice Chair Greenfield: Sure, that makes sense. My concern is … 27 Ms. North: Am I being clear in terms of—we were going under the premise that it was not 28 required for maintenance. Now what I know and with my knowledge base, I believe still 29 legally it's not required for maintenance, but I would probably still require us to do it. 30 Vice Chair Greenfield: It seems very clear that you're once bitten, twice shy. You would 31 certainly not proceed in the same manner. What's to stop someone else? If someone else 32 APPROVED Draft Minutes 13 is in a similar situation and a CEQA study isn't officially required, is there something that 1 we should be doing as a body to consider a policy change (crosstalk)? 2 Ms. North: I think the policy change has already happened. I don't think this will happen 3 again. 4 Vice Chair Greenfield: Where has the policy change occurred? 5 Ms. North: We've been told that if we were to do any other future projects, because of 6 concerns from public, we would do CEQA documentation. It will happen. I work for Phil 7 so, yes, it would be happening again. 8 Vice Chair Greenfield: Thank you. 9 Commissioner Reckdahl: What was the reason for not doing CEQA? Was it a cost issue 10 or a schedule? 11 Ms. North: Cost issue, time issue, maintenance. We were under the gun of trying to get 12 this completed during the dry season when we were trying to do the larger aspect of it. We 13 realized we didn't have the cost to actually go out and do the larger study of the whole 14 region. We are trying to limit costs and get it done. As you know, our Council is trying to 15 limit every cost angle. We're trying to do our best as City staff of not spending money 16 when we don't need to spend money. 17 Commissioner Reckdahl: Every dollar that you spend is something that maybe could be 18 used elsewhere, but you also don't want to overlook important things. It's a tough situation. 19 Ms. North: Which is why in my mind we're doing all the mitigation that would be required 20 anyway for CEQA, which is why when I was wearing my hat we were getting the Rangers 21 out there. We had the biologist go out there. Those are all the mitigations that would have 22 been laid out in a CEQA document anyway. 23 Commissioner Reckdahl: Do you have a rough estimate of how much money it would 24 have cost and what kind of schedule it would have impacted? 25 Ms. North: It probably would have added about a year and probably around $100,000. 26 Commissioner Reckdahl: Could the berm have lasted another year or would we have to 27 … 28 Ms. North: No. We had 16 breaches in the berm the previous summer. No, it couldn't 29 have lasted another year. 30 APPROVED Draft Minutes 14 Commissioner Reckdahl: In hindsight, if we wanted to do CEQA, would we then have 1 gone in and fixed that berm for that final season, or what would we have done? What 2 would have been the best option in hindsight? 3 Ms. North: We could have just drained the pond and left it and not done any kind of work. 4 That would have been two seasons with the water being out. This is where we're stuck, as 5 staff, trying to make the right decision. We couldn't have left it in there and kept on going 6 and patching it while we were trying to do our CEQA. We have the cards that we're handed. 7 We try and do our best decision-making process. I have a master's degree in environmental 8 science. I wear my environmental hat. I've been with the City since 2001. We are trying 9 to do the best we can. We consult with our consultants as well because they're part of the 10 Baylands Conservation Comp Plan. Our experience getting through procurement and 11 getting CEQA done is a much lengthier process. It's at least a year if not longer. Just to 12 get the consultant on board for the moving of the dirt took around 4 months. It's timing 13 unfortunately. I wish things could go quicker, but that's the City process that we're in. 14 Commissioner Reckdahl: You mentioned these cattails and reeds. Are they all native 15 vegetation? 16 Ms. North: No. 17 Commissioner Reckdahl: They're not native? 18 Ms. North: No. It's a freshwater pond. Cattails are going to grow wherever they come. 19 Commissioner Reckdahl: This is naturally occurring. If you had a freshwater pond 100 20 years ago … 21 Ms. North: If you had a freshwater pond, then cattails naturally occur. Boronda Lake has 22 cattails in there. They have a maintenance—they go in every year, I think, or every 5 years 23 and clean out the cattails. We know we're going to have to do some more maintenance on 24 it similar (crosstalk). 25 Commissioner Reckdahl: That was my next question. What prevents these from doing the 26 same thing that just happened? 27 Ms. North: One, by having a road around the perimeter, we can keep better access to it. 28 Before our guys were using goats and machetes to actually get to the interior of the pond. 29 Commissioner Reckdahl: If we start having a choke point now with cattails, what would 30 we do? 31 Ms. North: We would hire the—do it from the water similar to what they do at Boronda. 32 They go in and harvest a certain percentage of it but not remove all of it. That would be 33 APPROVED Draft Minutes 15 our next strategy. Prior to doing that, I would probably get a full—another CEQA 1 documentation with maintenance agreements built into that. 2 Commissioner Reckdahl: You mentioned the saltwater pipe. What's the condition of that? 3 Is that … 4 Ms. North: That's why it's part of the Baylands Conservation Comp Plan. That is another 5 part of the wetland that needs some maintenance because it's silted up. We've historically 6 had our operators go out there and hand dig the channel. We need to actually dig it out 7 properly. That will be part of the next stage, which is why I say it's 5-10 years to see when 8 we can get money to look at the entire area. You see the remnant slough, which is right 9 here. We also want to see if we can connect that. That's part of the Baylands 10 Comprehensive Plan. We're trying to look at the area holistically. Ideally, we would have 11 done the whole thing and then done CEQA and done the entire pond at the same time. As 12 I said before, our timing just didn't match up with the breaches and the leaks. 13 Commissioner Reckdahl: When you talk about what's going down in 10 years, do we have 14 a good idea of what we want to do or our options are open and we have do to a lot of 15 planning? 16 Ms. North: We have some options available. AECOM, the consultant, is laying out some 17 and looking at what makes the most sense for that area, utilizing their experience. We're 18 not there yet. It's coming up in the timeline. They have it on their agenda to talk to you 19 about it. 20 Commissioner Reckdahl: Thank you. 21 Chair McDougall: David. 22 Commissioner Moss: One more comment based on what we've just heard. The pond was 23 always considered just a part of the wastewater treatment plant. As we now know after the 24 fact, it is not just part of that like your cement-lined tanks over on the left. It is now part 25 of the Baylands Open Space Preserve and must be treated with the respect that that 26 deserves. What you're doing now is building this pond for the next 25, 30 years before the 27 Baylands Comprehensive Plan is complete. I would like to address do we put an island or 28 two in the middle there. That maintenance road, do we make sure that you have those 29 metal barriers with a lock and key so that only maintenance workers go back there and that 30 we allow that other part of the road to be a path sooner rather than later? All of these things 31 for the 25-year plan is covered in the Baylands Comprehensive Plan that won't be 32 completed for another year, but you're working on it now. I worry that you might have to 33 go back and do this all over again. I don't want that to happen. 34 Ms. North: If we do, we do. 35 APPROVED Draft Minutes 16 Commissioner Moss: We're between a rock and a hard place. Can we get the Baylands 1 Comprehensive Plan—can we do some work on that ahead of time regarding that part of 2 the Baylands before you're done? 3 Ms. North: The consultants have been out prior to the work, during the work. They're 4 planning on incorporating it in. They're also looking at the larger vision. If we wanted to 5 increase the pond size, what makes the most sense for that area? It will definitely be 6 incorporated. 7 Commissioner Moss: I would like the Baylands Comprehensive Plan ad hoc committee to 8 have a discussion in the next month or two just to hear what is going to be—what the pond 9 is going to look like after they're done even though the Comprehensive Plan is going to be 10 done for a year. 11 Ms. North: It's going to be done by the end of the year. It's incorporated. 12 Chair McDougall: I think we're going to have a discussion on the Baylands Comprehensive 13 Plan in a few minutes. Hopefully we can address that problem there. If nobody else has 14 any questions, I would like first to thank you not just for your presentation, but I thank you 15 for your very conscientious efforts to look after the environment. I think everybody's aware 16 that you have not been doing anything malicious here. In fact, you've been working hard 17 to protect it. In fact, you're dealing in a difficult situation that we have in the whole 18 Baylands, all parts of it, where it's been re-engineered and re-engineered. In several cases, 19 we're trying to protect nature that isn't even nature. That provides a double challenge. I do 20 agree that anything we can do to holistically look at what's happening so that we're not 21 making individual decisions is important. I hope we'll hear more about that in a minute. 22 On the question of the cattails, the only thing that came to mind there was if in fact there 23 is culling going on, how do we—if in the meantime birds have come back hopefully—24 make sure we're not culling where the birds have come back. I don't know that you need 25 to answer that question. 26 Ms. North: I think I'm learning a lot about this habitat. The plan would be to do a water 27 culling of the cattails during non-nesting season. We unfortunately couldn't do everything 28 during non-nesting season just because nesting season is during the dry season which is 29 when we need to be out there. That would be my strategy. 30 Chair McDougall: The last comment I'd like to make is I share Ms. Kleinhaus' enthusiasm 31 for CEQA. When you say that policy has been made, I think when you mention Phil's 32 name you're saying that Phil's now decided we're going to do that all the time. I'm not sure 33 how we would have that as a policy. Is it a policy if we're dealing in more than an acre or 34 more than 3 acres or if we're dealing in wetlands or saltwater. I don't know how we would 35 have that kind of policy. I think it deserves more discussion to make sure it's everybody's 36 deliberate awareness of when to ask or when to say can we trust you to do this analysis or 37 APPROVED Draft Minutes 17 the consultants you bring in versus CEQA. I think Shani's right; getting it on the tip of 1 everybody's tongue is probably more important than it being a specific policy. 2 Ms. North: It's definitely on the tip of everyone's tongue now. Thanks to our project, it's 3 on the tip of everyone's tongue. The Planning Department and the City Attorney's 4 Department—it's definitely been a policy change. I can assure you that the Public Works 5 Department will not be doing anything again if they think CEQA should be potentially 6 there. We are going to be cautious and not (crosstalk). 7 Chair McDougall: It is a policy that the City has put in place. Maybe at some point we 8 should just ask if somebody would come and inform us of how that works. That would 9 probably be useful. 10 Ms. North: We have two very strong CEQA folks in the Planning Department, actually 11 many in the Planning Department and our City Attorney's Office as well. 12 Chair McDougall: Thank you for that. Thanks for that clarification. With that, I'd like to 13 thank you for your, as I said, appearance tonight and the work that you've done. 14 Ms. North: We can come and give you guys, if you want, an update. As I said, this is an 15 adaptive management since we aren't sure exactly once we bring in the heavy equipment 16 at the end of August. I'd be happy to come back again and tell you guys where we're at. 17 I'm hoping that we can fill the pond by October. That's my goal. During the dry season, 18 get it done and then fill the pond up again. 19 Chair McDougall: We'll just fill you in for a permanent spot on the agenda for the next … 20 Ms. North: That's totally fine. I would much rather have you know that we're full 21 disclosure. We have nothing to hide. We put everything on our website. We're not trying 22 to do anything under the radar. It's a very visible area that we all drive past or walk past. 23 I'm not hiding anything. 24 Chair McDougall: Look forward to seeing you soon. 25 3. Baylands Comprehensive Conservation Plan 26 Ms. O'Kane: A natural next agenda item is an update on our Baylands Comprehensive 27 Conservation Plan. I'd like to introduce Petra Unger and Diana Edwards from AECOM, 28 who have been working closely with Daren and a lot of stakeholders who are interested in 29 the Baylands on moving this forward. I'll go ahead and turn it over to you. 30 Chair McDougall: Good evening and welcome. Nice to have you with us, Daren. 31 APPROVED Draft Minutes 18 Petra Unger: Good evening, and thanks for having us. We're happy to provide an update 1 on where we've been with the Baylands Comprehensive Conservation Plan and where we're 2 going and what the schedule is and how that interacts with Karin's project and others. 3 Chair McDougall: Thank you. 4 Ms. Unger: My name is Petra Unger. I'm the project manager at AECOM; we're the 5 consultant preparing the Comprehensive Conservation Plan. With me is Diana Edwards, 6 who is the deputy project manager. Both of us have been very involved in this from the 7 very beginning and on a day-to-day basis coordinating with Daren. As you heard, we were 8 planning on having Daren here presenting with us, but he's out today. I believe he's been 9 giving updates to the Commission on a regular basis on where we've been. On today's 10 agenda, I'll give you a brief overview on what the Baylands Comprehensive Conservation 11 Plan is, our planning process, steps completed to date, ongoing activities, and also the 12 timeline. What is the BCCP? It's a comprehensive conservation plan to manage the Palo 13 Alto natural Baylands for the next 15 years and beyond. It's supposed to be ecosystem-14 based and comprehensive, incorporating both the habitat and the natural resources out there 15 with environmental education, art, and uses that are out there now. It's also supposed to 16 take your current and future projects into account. There are a lot of projects going on 17 around it and in the area as we've already heard today. We've heard updates on San 18 Francisquito Creek and on what's going on at the Renzel Wetlands. There are other projects 19 as well. There are current things and new trends that we're taking into account such as 20 climate change and other opportunities. It also includes some site-specific aspects for two 21 of the properties in the Baylands, one of them being the Renzel Wetlands/ITT property and 22 the other one being Byxbee Park where we're doing some site-specific planning. Overall 23 this is supposed to be an 18-month process, and we got started about a year ago, last June. 24 Other aspects of this, we're incorporating the 2008 Baylands Comprehensive Master Plan 25 Update. Over the years, there has been a lot of work out at the Baylands and a lot of work 26 going into that Master Plan. There's a lot of excellent information in there. There's also a 27 lot of new data and new trends and new projections that we're incorporating. Stakeholder 28 and public outreach is an important aspect of this planning process, as I understand is with 29 pretty much any project in Palo Alto, which is great. Our scope of work included 12 30 distinctive tasks that we're completing. The first task we did was to complete a work plan 31 that laid out what those steps are, what timeframe they would be completed in, and what is 32 part of each of those ones. Our first deliverable to the City was the existing conditions 33 report, where we basically documented what is out there now, what are the habitats, what 34 kind of species use the Baylands. We did some original habitat mapping. We interviewed 35 the Rangers. We spent a lot of time with Daren, who knows the Baylands inside out like 36 no one else. We talked a lot to the folks doing the restoration out there, the Rangers, people 37 eating, the nature walks. We read all the literature, and then we produced the existing 38 conditions report. We also developed a stakeholder engagement plan that laid out at what 39 stages in the planning process we would engage the stakeholders and what that would look 40 APPROVED Draft Minutes 19 like, their meetings. There is an opportunity to review interim deliverables and provide 1 feedback. We started with our first stakeholder meeting last October, which was 2 basically—you can see pictures of that here—a kind of early brainstorming, determine 3 different people's vision for the BCCP, what it should look like, and what should go in 4 there. We then completed a summary of the first stakeholder workshop that was shared 5 with the stakeholders and also posted on the website. We became aware that these projects 6 were being planned at the Renzel Wetlands, so we pulled that particular part of the 7 Baylands Plan forward so we could incorporate that and coordinate with Karin. Just as 8 you've been directing, you were hoping that would happen now. Prior to our second 9 stakeholder workshop, we had a tour at the Renzel Wetlands where we invited the 10 stakeholders to join us out there and did a comprehensive tour, walked around, looked at 11 the issues at there with the marsh and also the ITT buildings and the property that has 12 become parklands recently and that we're addressing in more detail here. We have a 13 stakeholder workshop specifically on Byxbee Park and the ITT property and also develop 14 the themes from that as kind of a meeting summary. We also launched the project website 15 where we're posting this themes paper and interim deliverables that have been completed. 16 If somebody cannot attend the meetings or chooses to review the deliverables, they can go 17 on there and get an idea of what's been completed. We had our third stakeholder meeting 18 in February of this year. That one was an evening—by the second workshop, we opened 19 it up to the public because we wanted to get a broader input. There was some desire by 20 several of the stakeholders to have this open to anybody who wanted to come. We also got 21 a request to maybe hold an evening workshop instead of daytime to enable a broader group 22 of people to come. That was well received. A lot of people thanked us for doing the 23 evening workshop as well. Also, we were trying to get some broader input from some of 24 the users out there, so we launched a survey, which has some very simple questions about 25 what do you like at the Baylands, what do you like to do out here, how often do you come 26 out, what are your favorite things, what are your issues of concern. That was administered 27 onsite by the Baylands Rangers. We've gotten some pretty good feedback from that as 28 well. With all of that and the input received from those stakeholder workshops, we 29 developed a draft vision, goals, and objectives document, which basically lays out the main 30 themes that people want to see for the Baylands and how we would go about developing 31 that. As you may be aware, the City has a stipend for some artists-in-residence that was 32 allocated to this planning process. They have been recently brought onboard. In fact, 33 they're here tonight, Mary O'Brien and Daniel McCormick. That is the City's art program 34 led by Elise DeMarzo. They came onboard to provide an art overlay or art aspect that 35 interacts with the Baylands Comprehensive Conservation Plan. When they came onboard 36 last month, we had a meeting with them at the Baylands and a tour where we shared 37 information about what we are each doing, what stage of the Plan we're at and how we can 38 interact. We met with them again this afternoon onsite to discuss some ideas and such. 39 We also have conducted site visits to explore some of those issues at the ITT and Byxbee 40 Park. We're doing this presentation today as an update. Ongoing activities. On a very 41 regular basis we coordinate with the Rangers or with the stakeholders. They've been 42 APPROVED Draft Minutes 20 providing feedback on some of the deliverables we've had. We incorporate those 1 comments and feedback. We've also been coordinating with the Historic Resources Board 2 because, as you may be aware, the former ITT property has the buildings that are of historic 3 significance. There's some discussion as part of the BCCP what should happen with those 4 buildings. We're coordinating with the artists-in-residence. Kathleen Jones, Head Ranger, 5 has been a guest instructor at a local community college where they did parks planning. 6 They chose a plan for the ITT property as their class project. She shared some of the project 7 results that we've gotten from that class. We're looking at those for ideas too, just to see 8 what the local students came up with. Here are some examples from the artists-in-residence 9 materials and some ideas. The general feel is that whatever art is out there as an overlay 10 should be natural and in nature and fit well into the whole theme of the Baylands. This is 11 all the things from Elise DeMarzo with the City who has been leading that artist-in-12 residence overlay. Next steps. Right now, we're preparing another chapter of the Plan 13 that's called the draft and final opportunities, limitations, and best management practices. 14 This is where we present, based on everything that's out there and what people would like 15 to see, what are some of the best management practices that should be implemented out 16 there. That can be anything related to habitat and wildlife and invasive species 17 management, user impacts, user opportunities, also with the art, and so on. We're also 18 working on a chapter on sea level rise and climate change. That's currently underway. 19 Then, we'll develop from all this material a draft action plan saying now that we know all 20 this, how do we move forward and implement some of those parts. We will put all those 21 chapters together and have a draft BCCP and a final BCCP. Both of those will be presented 22 to the Commission as well. The timeline for those. You see the sea level rise paper will 23 be done by July. The draft Plan should be done by September, and then the final Plan will 24 be done by the end of the year. In terms of the ITT and Renzel Wetlands, the use scenarios, 25 you were asking what we're doing there. We're currently in the process of developing three 26 alternative scenarios that explore what could happen at the ITT property. We're looking at 27 different options for access, trails through there, reuse or even removal of the buildings, 28 what are the options there, what kind of habitats can be expanded or created there and also 29 what kind of connections to Byxbee Park could be done there. We visited last month when 30 we toured with the artists. We had our landscape designers and restoration ecologists visit 31 the site and look at it firsthand and come up with some ideas. They're now translating those 32 ideas into some conceptual drawings. I believe Daren will be sharing those with you in the 33 not-so-distant future. I already touched on the draft and final Plan outline. As far as 34 Byxbee Park, there's an interim management plan for the park. There are some aspects that 35 we're supposed to complete as part of this Plan, and that relates to habitat management and 36 invasive weed control to parking and circulation to the interpretive signage and also to the 37 use of the composting facility parcel that's part of Byxbee Park. With that, I'd be happy to 38 answer any questions. Diana as well. 39 Chair McDougall: Should I assume everybody might be interested? I'll start at one end. 40 Jeff. 41 APPROVED Draft Minutes 21 Commissioner LaMere: I'll begin. Appreciate all the work that's been done with this, and 1 excited to get this going. It's such a beautiful area. 2 Chair McDougall: I'm sorry, Jeff. Do we want to do the Commission comments or do we 3 want to do the public comments? Shani, would you like to comment please? Sorry, Jeff. 4 Ms. Kleinhaus: Shani Kleinhaus, again, with Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society and a 5 resident of Palo Alto. In the last 2 years, I had the opportunity to participate in three 6 stakeholder groups for parks master plans, the one that Palo Alto did as well as San Jose 7 and Cupertino. Those are not done yet; I'm still participating in that process. In all of the 8 surveys and everything that the cities have asked, all the residents always prioritize nature 9 as the highest priority that they want to see in their parks, not only in parks that are natural 10 like we're very lucky to have, but in every city park. They want to see butterflies 11 everywhere. The reason I'm saying this to begin with is because it's really hard to 12 implement. It's very difficult to know because people are not trained how to create and do 13 nature. They know how to do landscape ecology, landscape architecture, how to put trails 14 in a place, how to do all these things that bring people. How to bring nature back and 15 regenerate it is not that simple. This Plan is called a comprehensive conservation plan. It's 16 not called the comprehensive access and trails plan. It's not called art plan. It's a 17 conservation plan. I'm not saying that it's not important to look at those things, but art 18 suddenly is an overlay that was (inaudible) upon us. I'm not opposed to art necessarily, but 19 I don't know that that's the best place for it. It's so beautiful; why don't we have art where 20 it's less beautiful? We can do both, but I think it needs a lot more consideration of detail. 21 Connectivity is not always good for nature. You connect something in nature for people, 22 you disconnect it from nature often. You connect it for people, the creatures now have to 23 find a way across. As we talked about the project before, we need those gates that 24 Commissioner Moss said. We need them now before we expose the whole perimeter of 25 the pond to traffic. Yes, we want people to get there. We want them to enjoy the ponds, 26 but maybe only half. They go and see half of it, and the other half is for the wildlife and 27 the birds. Which half, I don't know. These are things we need to think about already. When 28 you look at all these things and you have all these inputs, sometimes you get—everybody 29 wants to do something. In the stakeholder meetings that I participated in, the ultimate wish 30 of the people that have the background and history with the Baylands was to really think 31 about how to minimize the intrusion, the segmentation, the fragmentation of the habitat, 32 how to really create a very viable ecosystem and allow people to glimpse in and enjoy it, 33 but not build it for the people. Build it for the wildlife because they have almost nowhere 34 to go anymore. We've been developing the edge of the Bay so fast and the sea is rising, 35 there's very little area for them to still go into. The focus on the ecology really needs to 36 be—it speaks to people. People understand it. Even when they want access, if you tell 37 them there's no access here because there's something going on here—the gray foxes need 38 a place to breed, the birds need a place to breed—they understand that. They accept it, and 39 APPROVED Draft Minutes 22 they love it. Comprehensive Conservation Plan and restoration plan, not BCDC, not a 1 development and conservation. Thank you. 2 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Jeff, I'll let you start over again. 3 Commissioner LaMere: Just appreciate all the work that's gone into this, and excited for 4 this project and gaining a better understanding. One of my main comments is also about 5 the art. Understanding the permanence when there's installation of art, be very judicious 6 or very careful or having an understanding of both future use of a place but also impact to 7 the environment, I think is extremely important because, as we've learned, with these art 8 installations, especially the permanent ones, when they are there, it's very difficult to adjust 9 or change or do something else or modify. As we move forward with the thought of art, 10 especially the permanent art, how we study that and how we think about that is really 11 important. 12 Ms. Unger: Point well taken. In meeting with Mary and Daniel, it's very clear that they 13 have a very soft and natural touch, that they're very aware of the sensitive nature of the 14 habitat and how that all relates. I am a scientist by training; I'm a biologist by training. As 15 I was telling them today, I think sometimes when we in our conservation science or biology 16 write policies and best management practices, that echoes with a certain kind of audience. 17 An artistic interpretation or relation to something echoes with a whole other type of 18 audience. There can be a very subtle overlay and a way to meld those two together. 19 Commissioner LaMere: Just to underscore. If it's a permanent installation, what 20 permanence means. We've gained a greater understanding of permanence with artistic 21 installations. 22 Commissioner Cribbs: I just wanted to ask—first of all, it's great that you're doing this. 23 The project is big, and it's very important. It's certainly important to everybody in Palo 24 Alto and outside Palo Alto as well. Thank you. I think we talked a couple of months ago 25 about engaging along with the stakeholders that exist now the youth of the community, 26 going out to high schools, perhaps the environmental classes at high schools, both private 27 and public schools, and also the Youth Council. I just wondered if there had been an 28 opportunity to do that. 29 Ms. Unger: We have not gone out to the public high schools or anything like that. The 30 closest we've come to that is the input from the community college class. 31 Commissioner Cribbs: I saw that in the report, and that's good because it's a great source. 32 I'd really like to see the youth in our community have a voice to talk about this at least 33 because they're the ones that are going to be using it in the future. They always have good 34 ideas about things, and it's a different perspective. If there's an opportunity to do that, I 35 would really support that. The second question is just about when do you know about the 36 APPROVED Draft Minutes 23 cost of the Comprehensive Plan. Will you ever put a price tag on it to say if we do these 1 things or we don't do these things, this is what it's going to take to keep the Baylands the 2 way the stakeholders want it to be? 3 Ms. Unger: As far as our scope goes, the only part that has a price tag is the implementation 4 of those different opportunities or scenarios at the ITT property. If we went with Option 5 A, this would be a ballpark. If we went with Option B, this would be a ballpark. A good 6 way to do that is by unit. If you build X feet of trail this way or that way, that's going to 7 have a cost. If you want to rebuild a building and do that sort of thing. Those concept 8 scenarios are supposed to have some ballpark costs associated with them. 9 Commissioner Cribbs: That'll be good. Thank you very much. 10 Commissioner McCauley: Thank you very much for the presentation. 11 Commissioner Reckdahl: Were you at the stakeholders meetings? 12 Ms. Unger: Yes. 13 Commissioner Reckdahl: Can you give us some flavor? Was there a uniformity of opinion 14 or were people pulling in all directions? 15 Ms. Unger: I would say what you heard from Shani. The majority of the stakeholders that 16 attended those meetings is very interested in maintaining the natural side, leaning towards 17 the restoration and protecting the wildlife. Keeping them natural or making them more 18 natural again is definitely reverberating with the majority of the stakeholder outreach. 19 There was some interest in access for the users as well. We also had a couple of people 20 from the City airport join us on a couple of the meetings. They certainly had some ideas 21 of other things that could happen in the larger part. My feeling for what I've heard so far 22 is that people are basically very happy with having this resource out there and wanting it 23 preserved. We haven't heard anybody even from the user survey saying you have to do 24 this totally different. Everybody really likes to have this at their doorstep and wishes to 25 see it preserved and wishes to see it in a natural state, much like you've heard. 26 Commissioner Reckdahl: I really have a love/hate relationship with Byxbee Park. The 27 views are wonderful up there, but it's so artificial. What are your thoughts of Byxbee? 28 What options do we have for Byxbee? 29 Ms. Unger: Byxbee, as you know, is a closed landfill and, as such, comes with a lot of 30 stipulations that are beyond wishes of what can and cannot happen out there. Most of that 31 is related to the depth of the soil out there and the cap and what is allowed to grow and not 32 to grow. It's somewhat limited in that. There have been the habitat islands installed out 33 there, and they're providing a little bit of variation. In some areas of the park, where they 34 APPROVED Draft Minutes 24 have the engineered soils there's a little bit more opportunity for having a broader range of 1 plants grow with a little bit deeper roots. We're exploring those concepts for those areas. 2 Overall, it's a very regulated environment. It's a tough choice. Before it was built as a 3 landscape, it was a bayfront marsh. I don't think it'll ever go back to that, but there's 4 definitely some opportunities for some enhancements on habitat. We've been discussing 5 potential habitat for owls and other things that have been out there, what can be done in 6 terms of maybe more shrubs, a little less manicured. We're going to look at the whole 7 regime of mowing and all of that. 8 Commissioner Reckdahl: Have you come up with any options that we haven't thought of? 9 I know Daren has the plan of possible things in the evolution of Byxbee. Are there any 10 new options that you've come up with? 11 Ms. Unger: I wouldn't say entirely new like this will be very different than it used to be. 12 There's definitely opportunities for enhancing some of the habitats out there. Like Karin 13 mentioned, to maybe reconnect that dry wetland next to the creek, because of all the 14 infrastructure that has been built over the years, it's a very engineered system even though 15 a lot of it looks very natural right now in terms of the flow and the flood basin and saltwater 16 and freshwater and using it for treatment. It's not a natural system. 17 Commissioner Reckdahl: What about the ITT property? We have this big area of marsh 18 that's been neglected. To do it would probably be very expensive. Are there some ways 19 that we could use that and improve that without breaking the bank? 20 Ms. Unger: There are some areas of the ITT property that flood at times. There's saltmarsh 21 in areas beyond the channel. With some of the infrastructure that has been taken out 22 associated with the buildings, there are some opportunities there. We're also looking at 23 connecting the little lake as well. We've been discussing those options that Karin is 24 interested in, expanding the Renzel Wetlands over time. There is an opportunity for 25 invasives control as well; some of it is very weedy. That one has more potential for natural 26 sites than maybe Byxbee. We're exploring what we can for Byxbee. 27 Commissioner Reckdahl: Thank you. 28 Vice Chair Greenfield: Thank you for all your efforts on this comprehensive project. It's 29 very detailed. This is a cherished resource for the community, so it is well appreciated. I 30 do look forward to seeing your recommendations to balance recreation and art 31 enhancement within the natural environment while maintaining the priorities of the natural 32 environment. I echo Anne's concerns about costs. We have a lot of projects now that are 33 underfunded. I hate to see this one fall onto the stack of unfunded projects. There are lots 34 of great things we want to do, and we need to figure out how to take action and make things 35 happen. I echo Jeff's concerns as well in terms of the sensitivity of the art enhancements 36 within the natural environment. One question I have is are there any trail additions that 37 APPROVED Draft Minutes 25 you're looking to recommend? One thing I appreciate is when walking a loop around the 1 Baylands area, like starting where the bike bridge underpass comes from 101 and walking 2 along, the walk back is along the Bayshore Boulevard. It's the least natural part of the 3 walk. If there were some way to have more of that loop walk be off the highway, perhaps 4 walking along one side of the road in the Renzel Pond area that's being redeveloped right 5 now, that would be an improvement. I do appreciate that we want to limit access sensitively 6 to maintain the natural environment. If there were some way to improve that part of the 7 loop, that would be an appreciated enhancement. 8 Ms. Unger: We are looking at the back side, at those businesses along Embarcadero. 9 There's a narrow strip of restored or enhanced outdoor space, and we are looking at the 10 potential to put a trail connection through there. You would have a more natural connection 11 to the backside of Byxbee. We're also exploring as one of the options for the ITT property 12 to have a connector. If you put a trail through the ITT somewhere to have one that would 13 cross the saltwater channel and go into Byxbee Park, that is controversial. Not all the 14 stakeholders are supportive of that, but we're exploring that as one of the scenarios. There 15 are some constraints associated with that because of the saltmarsh providing habitat for the 16 saltmarsh harvest mouse. 17 Vice Chair Greenfield: That's great. That analysis of the options and the pros and cons 18 will be much appreciated. 19 Ms. Unger: I heard somebody, maybe Shani, say concerns about landscape architecture. 20 Our landscape architects are working on this. They're both restoration ecologists as well, 21 so they're more on the restoration side. They've done a lot of work on levees and open 22 space and that balance. You need not worry that we're creating a hard-surface, urban 23 landscape design for your park. 24 Commissioner Moss: This is a question for Kristen. We have had three people on the 25 Commission who are on the Baylands Comprehensive Plan subcommittee. It would be 26 good to get more regular updates than in this forum. A number of the questions that have 27 been asked here could have been answered or discussed outside of the meeting ahead of 28 time. I'm a little bit worried that the subcommittee is not being utilized to the fullest that 29 it could. We've only got 6 months left on this 18-month project, and already we're talking 30 about final drafts. I would like to see some drafts before then privately or in that 31 subcommittee. If that's possible, can we get that to happen? 32 Ms. O'Kane: I can certainly pass that message onto Daren when he comes back. I 33 appreciate that. We do have an ad hoc, so we should be utilizing them. We would still 34 want to hear from all the Commissioners. It may be the same questions that the ad hoc has. 35 I'll pass that onto Daren. 36 APPROVED Draft Minutes 26 Commissioner Moss: I've been on this Commission for 3 years, and I've been on a number 1 of subcommittees for other subjects, and we've had a lot more behind-the-scenes discussion 2 than has been afforded to this particular project. That's why I brought it up. 3 Ms. O'Kane: I just wanted to add that a lot of the information that we're collecting and that 4 they're using is coming from the stakeholder group and from the users of the Baylands. 5 There are some projects, like the dog parks, where the ad hocs will be more involved. For 6 projects that there's a lot of data being collected and a lot of community involvement, the 7 ad hocs may be less involved. I'll certainly pass that along to Daren. 8 Commissioner Moss: The two examples that I want to bring up specifically, that have 9 already been brought up here, are the artist walk. We were not aware of that artist walk. 10 It would have been nice for some of us to be on that walk. The second thing is, going back 11 to what Commissioner Reckdahl said, what is the natural potential for Byxbee Park. I 12 would look towards Coyote Hills, San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge on the other 13 side of the Dumbarton Bridge. They have pretty pristine environments unlike our dump, 14 which is covered with dirt. The weeds just land there. If we could replicate Coyote Hills 15 or the Bay Wildlife Refuge, those places have not only hills that are natural but also 16 freshwater marsh and brackish water marsh and the connection to the creek. I can't 17 remember which creek it is, but it's a huge creek like our San Francisquito Creek. They've 18 got all the features that we have. If we could just replicate that, that would be fantastic. I 19 would love a tour with your group to those places so we could point them out. Either one 20 or both places would be a wonderful model. That's all. 21 Ms. Unger: Thank you. Great suggestion. We can look into that. On the point of having 22 concerns about how far along we are and not having seen any part of it, maybe I didn't 23 make it very clear. All those chapters that we've been delivering, the existing conditions 24 and the draft visions, goals, and objectives and the future projects, are all chapters of the 25 BCCP. As we've completed them, they have been shared for interim review with the 26 stakeholder committee. People have had the opportunity to comment on those. What you'll 27 see when it's all put together won't be entirely new. Those chapters have all been shared. 28 As we complete additional draft chapters, they will also be shared. 29 Chair McDougall: I'd also like to make some comments. My first comment would be to 30 thank you for your work and effort. In your presentation, you talked about the fact that at 31 the second meeting you had developed some themes for the third meeting. As you know, 32 I was at all those meetings. To answer Commissioner Reckdahl's question, the general 33 theme was we don't want balance. That's really important to remember as we start saying 34 we want balance between recreation and nature. The theme of those meetings was no 35 balance. This is a situation where we want total imbalance. We want everything to go 36 towards nature. I'll go back and say there is no nature there. There's a landfill and a bunch 37 of Baylands that have been re-engineered. It's really hard to create nature out of that. That 38 APPROVED Draft Minutes 27 doesn't mean we shouldn't try to do it, but it's a double effort that we have to make. The 1 only way we can make that effort is to remember we don't want balance. We want that 2 imbalance. I obviously need to ask what's the status of the CEQA? 3 Ms. Unger: There is no CEQA currently. It's a plan. The BCCP will have 4 recommendations and in the action plan ideas for future projects. As they move forward, 5 they would have to go through CEQA. In our best management practices, we will 6 definitely have some call-outs saying before you implement any of these, here's what you 7 have to consider, here's what you need to implement before you move forward with any 8 project. It's really a plan, not an action. 9 Chair McDougall: At some point, CEQA has to be a part of it. Even if that wasn't specific, 10 it was anticipated on your calendar. It would be a good reminder of the discussions we've 11 had earlier tonight, particularly if it's now a policy. 12 Ms. O'Kane: Chair? I'd like to add onto that. Just like we did for the Parks Master Plan, 13 we will be doing a high-level programmatic CEQA document. It's not part of their scope 14 because we wanted all of the funds to go towards development of the Plan. There will be 15 a separate CEQA process. Just like the Master Plan, it's high level and programmatic. Any 16 future things that are more detailed, any projects that we would do that require CEQA, 17 would have a separate CEQA document under that. 18 Chair McDougall: Thank you. The only other thing I want to mention is the habitat islands 19 on Byxbee were mentioned. I agree with Commissioner Reckdahl that it's not a natural 20 environment. They have constructed these habitat islands. When Daren was here at the 21 last meeting and talking about what was happening with Byxbee, his point was it's nice 22 that we put in those habitat islands, but there's a heck of a lot more space up there that is 23 full of invasive plants, and it won't take long for the invasive plants to eat up the habitat 24 islands. I met with Daren and the Rangers to discuss that. I propose that it would be an 25 interesting idea to not try to get one organization, Environmental Volunteers or Audubon 26 or Acterra, to take over the whole place to maintain them. It would be interesting to 27 actually allocate an island to a different group. It could allocate an island to Audubon, one 28 to Environmental Volunteers, and one to the local Audi dealership. There was a fair 29 amount of skepticism. I can tell you that at this point the Rangers have already arranged 30 for all of the gloves, bags, and pickup that would be necessary. They've embraced this 31 idea. My point would be to invite my fellow Commissioners to contact me whether they 32 would like to have the Commission as a whole adopt one of the islands. Nobody needs to 33 talk about that now. You can send me a note later. It would be a good idea for us to go 34 ahead and adopt an island and do what Daren was talking about, which is do what we can 35 to protect those islands and help them grow as opposed to watch them shrink with nothing 36 happening. With that, I'd like to thank you very much for your presentation and discussion 37 and the effort tonight. Thank you. 38 APPROVED Draft Minutes 28 Ms. Unger: Thanks for your time. 1 4. Boulware Park Update 2 Ms. O'Kane: Next we have a familiar face in the room, who hasn't been here in a while. 3 Peter Jensen, Landscape Architect, with our Public Works Department, will be providing 4 an update on Boulware Park. 5 Peter Jensen: Good evening, Commission. Peter Jensen, Landscape Architect, City of 6 Palo Alto, here to present Boulware Park. It's our most recent park renovation project. I 7 want to walk you through what has been proposed for the renovation elements, discuss a 8 little bit about the community meeting we had, and give you a rundown of the schedule of 9 the project to date. This is an aerial view of Boulware Park, very close to the Fry's location. 10 It has some potential to be incorporated into that overall design in the future. For our 11 purposes, we have a capital improvement project with a construction budget of $475,000. 12 The renovations mostly look at the playgrounds and replacing the play equipment. The 13 last time the playgrounds were renovated was 1993. We usually change out that equipment 14 in 15-20 year timespans. It's getting time to do that. 15 Commissioner Reckdahl: What year was that put in? 16 Mr. Jensen: '93. Along with renovation of the playground, it does take up a majority of 17 the budget. Not only do we have to do the equipment, but we also have to bring it up to 18 ADA standards, which the playgrounds do not meet now. If you have seen the 19 playgrounds, they are very large sand areas with equipment that floats in the middle, not 20 much access to the equipment from the sides. One of the playgrounds has an elevated step-21 lip around it that doesn't allow any kind of access. We'll have to work on those ADA 22 limitations as well as a few others that are in the park. We want to look at the irrigation 23 and planting that's out there and make sure it's brought up-to-date and working efficiently 24 as well as the site furnishings, the benches, tables, barbecues, trash receptacles. All of them 25 are a little antiquated and need to be replaced. I would like to look at a little turf reduction. 26 I think that will be a bid alternate item, but there are locations in the park that have small 27 areas of turf, are not used, could be converted, and made to be native areas. I address some 28 of the ADA improvements that have to be made for the playground. Within the park, there 29 are no direct crosswalks or ramps that meet ADA standards and that get you to the park if 30 you're across the street. There is one ADA parking stall on the street that has some slope 31 difficulties that need to be addressed. Some of the walkways around the park don't meet 32 ADA standards due to their cross-slopes being greater than 2 percent. The graphic shows 33 the proposed renovations to the park. Because the tot lot and the children's playground are 34 fairly significant in size and because of the fairly limited budget, we looked at combining 35 the playgrounds into one location. To demolish one of the playgrounds and replace it with 36 something new would take the entire budget. We're going to maintain the playgrounds. 37 We're going to employ a tactic that we used at Bowden Park and the Ventura Community 38 APPROVED Draft Minutes 29 Center where we utilize the existing poles for the play equipment, repaint them, and then 1 put new equipment onto the poles, which saves a significant amount of money. I was 2 looking at the construction drawings the other day, and the footings for some of the 3 playground equipment are quite significant and would be a chore to remove. 4 Economically, it would behoove us to use what we have. The community does like the 5 play equipment and how it's set up now. They were supportive of that. Irrigation 6 improvements in the central turf area, just reconfiguring and changing some of the heads 7 to make that work more efficiently. There's a very large ivy hedge that needs to be 8 addressed. I don't think it started out as a hedge, but it's grown to be a hedge. That's another 9 area to change the planting to more native vegetation. There's an unused turf space that 10 could be renovated to more native landscape. We're going to propose two curb cuts and 11 get a direct crosswalk. One crosswalk currently gets you into the park from this side of the 12 road. Unfortunately, it uses someone's driveway apron as the ramp, which it shouldn't do. 13 We're eventually going to abandon that crosswalk and build a new one. Site furnishings, 14 picnic tables, barbecues, trash receptacles, drinking fountain, need to be changed out. The 15 asphalt walkway along the rear portion of the park dead-ends into the basketball court. 16 Unfortunately, a good amount of that doesn't meet ADA standards. Instead of removing 17 that entire walkway and redoing it, we're proposing to connect the walkway to the existing 18 walk and to maintain an ADA-accessible loop within the park. You will be able to walk 19 along here and access the basketball courts. Currently, the walkway ends at the basketball 20 court, so you have to use the court as the path. If someone's playing out there, the 21 connection is awkward. Making that one connection will address some of our ADA needs 22 and make the flow and connection of the amenities better than they are now. A picnic table 23 exists back here in the corner; it is not totally visible from the street and has had incidents 24 in the past. People have used it to sleep and to jump over the fence. We would like to 25 move that picnic table to the other picnic tables. This was brought up in the community 26 meeting and by staff. The accessible parking stall needs to be re-graded. All the paving in 27 the park is asphalt, so we will be refinishing the asphalt surfacing to clean it up and remove 28 the cracks. These are some images of the playground equipment. In Palo Alto, we use a 29 lot of Ross Recreation equipment. In situations like this, they have the original plans from 30 1993. I can use that information, and it was very easy for them to re-clad the poles and 31 new items. It is very similar to the existing equipment. We've toned down some of the 32 color, but I would like to get rid of some of the oranges and blues to make it more natural. 33 We will work on that some more. When we went to the community the first time, we didn't 34 specifically talk about each piece of equipment, but that is a conversation they want to have 35 at the next meeting. Any questions or comments from the Commission? 36 Chair McDougall: Does anybody have any questions? Jeff. 37 Commissioner LaMere: I was out there the other day, a weekday morning. I saw maybe 38 three or four separate seniors walking the loop and cutting through the basketball court, as 39 you mentioned. I know we're really tight on money. As we move forward on some of 40 APPROVED Draft Minutes 30 these projects and we look at different playgrounds for the youth and tot lots, what is out 1 there for seniors? Are there other elements to parks that we can incorporate, especially 2 when the Master Plan talks about the aging population? I'm not an expert but just 3 wondering are there other elements within a park or things you can add besides a nice 4 walking path and a bench that could potentially be appealing. 5 Mr. Jensen: There is the option, which they've had for a while, of adult fitness equipment. 6 I can't say it's built for someone that wants to be a weightlifter. Especially for older adults, 7 it does gear itself toward that kind of user group. We can look at adding some of that 8 equipment in the areas. Like I said, the play areas are quite large. There is maybe some 9 possibility of incorporating that stuff in there. We also discussed having open, rubberized 10 surface areas that you could do low-impact physical activity on, whether that be yoga or 11 some type of stretching activity. That's another possibility to do. Again, proving the 12 walking path is always good. Providing seating that's inviting and under shade are key 13 features as well. There are some things we can address. 14 Commissioner LaMere: Was the community meeting well attended? It seems like a fairly 15 dense area. Is that correct? 16 Mr. Jensen: The Ventura community is not a large overall space but one of the most 17 densely populated as far as housing, mostly apartments. We did have ten people come to 18 the meeting. Most of them were young families. They provided good feedback on the plan 19 and what they wanted to see there. Of course, it's ten people in an area of a lot of people. 20 We did the best at capturing what the community wanted. 21 Commissioner LaMere: Thank you so much for all your work. It's great to see something 22 like this move forward. 23 Commissioner Cribbs: Totally agree it's great. Thanks for doing that. I'm glad to see the 24 community meeting still on the schedule. How did you publicize them? 25 Mr. Jensen: We do it in a couple of ways. I think the most successful is the mailer. 26 Technically, we're only supposed to do within 600 feet or 1,000 feet; I don't know what 27 that is. We always do a lot bigger. We actually captured the entire Ventura community 28 area. We mailed out 1,500-1,800 postcards to residents. It was signed within the park for 29 a few weeks about the meeting. It is pushed out on all the City's social media platforms, 30 Twitter, Facebook. There was an ad in the newspaper that ran the two Fridays before the 31 meeting. We try our best. We try to use all the avenues that we can. For most of these 32 meetings now, I usually ask at the beginning of the meeting how people heard about it 33 because that is interesting to me. It was mostly the postcard. I think someone saw it on 34 Facebook. A few people saw the signs in the park. 35 APPROVED Draft Minutes 31 Commissioner Cribbs: Does it make sense to do anything through our summer camps and 1 also through the School District or is that not possible? 2 Mr. Jensen: I think through the School District definitely. For those entities that have 3 mailing lists, they can help out. Any avenue of pushing out information is always good. 4 Commissioner Cribbs: Maybe the PTA Council as well. 5 Commissioner LaMere: I would quickly make one comment on that. There's a website, 6 Nextdoor, and I see sometimes Planning and Transportation meetings on that. That's 7 becoming more and more popular to use, whether it's for our own Parks and Recreation 8 Commission to shoot something out on that or other avenues. 9 Mr. Jensen: I'd have to confirm, but I believe we do push information on that platform. 10 Commissioner McCauley: Peter, first off, kudos again on the dog park. 11 Commissioner Cribbs: Oh, yeah, me too. I wanted to say that. 12 Mr. Jensen: I'm sorry I wasn't there for the opening of it. I would have like to have seen 13 that. 14 Commissioner McCauley: It was a great crowd. It seems like it has been well received 15 and well used. 16 Mr. Jensen: Yes, it was well used before the fence was put up. 17 Commissioner McCauley: From the first community meeting—I know that it's a small 18 sample size—was there any consensus on improvements or was it just "we want you to 19 update the playground equipment"? 20 Mr. Jensen: The majority of the conversation centered around the playgrounds and making 21 sure the playgrounds were going to stay there or the size was going to stay the same and 22 the equipment was going to be fairly the same. We're not proposing a lot of change to the 23 park. I think everyone was comfortable and understood the aspects of the renovation and 24 the things that needed to be addressed. 25 Commissioner McCauley: Something I know you take into consideration all the time and 26 we talk about sometimes up here as well is diversity of amenities within parks. The tot 27 playground at Boulware Park is a great example of that, where you have a park that has a 28 specific type of amenity that would be good for young families. Daren had raised the adult 29 fitness equipment just as a general matter maybe one or two meetings past, thinking about 30 where we might integrate additional adult fitness equipment. That would be a great idea. 31 APPROVED Draft Minutes 32 If there's an opportunity and if you have some money available, you might take a look at 1 places within Boulware where that could be added. Thanks again. 2 Commissioner Reckdahl: I used this park or my kids used this park quite a bit. It was 3 within stroller radius, so we made the trip over there quite a bit. Even back then, it was in 4 bad condition. I'm glad to see that we're repairing things. That back corner is just 5 problematic. It's kind of tucked away. We're taking the picnic table out. What are we 6 going to do back there, just have grass or … 7 Mr. Jensen: I think we're going to leave it like it is now, a mulched area, because of the 8 incidents that have occurred there and the lack of view. It's probably best to leave it open 9 as much as possible. One thing that was brought up in the meeting was a request for better 10 fencing in that corner because of the … 11 Commissioner Reckdahl: Against the creek? 12 Mr. Jensen: Yeah, against the creek. There's one house that backs up there as well. People 13 have gone into the backyard before. Enhancing the fencing back there, probably using the 14 Caltrain style of fencing that we just put up along the line. Architecturally, it looks better 15 than chain link, but it's very difficult to climb, almost impossible. That might help the area 16 because it would close down that access point. What I heard mostly is people are using the 17 creek as a hidden pathway to move around. The community was concerned, and they 18 would like to limit that as much as possible. The part they're identifying is that back corner. 19 I think we will probably address that with some upgrades in the fencing. Putting anything 20 else back there, I'm not quite sure. Maybe a horseshoe or bocce court, something that 21 provides a lot of visibility and another amenity. 22 Commissioner Reckdahl: It's hard because you don't want to have something that's going 23 to attract a nuisance and you don't want it to be unused. It's tough. 24 Mr. Jensen: It is a tough one, and it is extremely close to the house back there. It's hard to 25 squeeze something else in there that's going to be close to someone's house. At this time 26 and with the budget we have, it's going to stay open. Some way of linking the Fry's 27 development over to the park and re-creating that edge along there would be interesting to 28 look at. 29 Commissioner Reckdahl: That back corner could be used as a bridge access. That would 30 not be a bad idea. 31 Mr. Jensen: Or restoring the creek. 32 APPROVED Draft Minutes 33 Commissioner Reckdahl: During the Master Plan, we mentioned that. If we had the money 1 to do that, is that still of interest to us, to restore the creek at that point and provide access, 2 or would we not want to do that? 3 Mr. Jensen: I think we would want to do that. It's always best to restore the creek where 4 possible. I know the County had visions of doing that and was trying to locate funding to 5 set up a grant to do that. The cost of doing something like that is not small. When they 6 started to do that a few years ago, we did talk about the area in Mitchell Park around the 7 Adobe Creek bridge and restoring Adobe Creek in Mitchell Park to what it was before. 8 They seemed open to that. They haven't figured out the funding for their grant yet. We 9 were waiting on that. It's going to take something like that to make that happen or a 10 development that's large enough to funding something like that. 11 Commissioner Reckdahl: Do you think the neighbors would be receptive to that or do you 12 think … 13 Mr. Jensen: Again, it's mostly about design. No, they wouldn't if it was an overgrown 14 place for people to hide out and camp. If it was developed more natural, open, and 15 accessible, that's a possibility. 16 Commissioner Reckdahl: My kids love Shoup Park in Los Altos. We spend a lot of time 17 in the stream up there. If we had something local, that'd be very nice. 18 Mr. Jensen: When we started to talk about the Mitchell Park Adobe Creek segment, some 19 people in Public Works who have grown up here talked about that as the favorite thing. It 20 would be nice to get those areas back in there. 21 Commissioner Reckdahl: Thank you. 22 Vice Chair Greenfield: Thank you for your efforts on this. It's great to see us working to 23 enhance our parks. You mentioned the cycle that the parks are typically refurbished. Did 24 you say 15-20 years? 25 Mr. Jensen: For play equipment, yes. That kind of dictates our renovation schedule 26 because the playgrounds usually are a larger part of the project budget. We usually 27 renovate a park every 15 or 20 years, mostly looking at the playground. 28 Vice Chair Greenfield: My sense is it seems to run more than 20 years. 29 Mr. Jensen: That depends on the budget and working the projects in there. I would agree 30 with you. We do start at the 15-year mark to try to get the projects on the books as quickly 31 as we can. Sometimes that takes longer than other times. 32 Vice Chair Greenfield: Do you know which parks are up next? 33 APPROVED Draft Minutes 34 Mr. Jensen: I know that Bol Park is on the list. are a few. Over the next few years, there's 1 five or six parks that are going to go through the same renovation style. I don't recall 2 offhand what they are, but they are in the capital budget. 3 Vice Chair Greenfield: Did you mention the sand is going away and will be replaced with 4 … 5 Mr. Jensen: That's something we'll talk about more with the community. I'm sure there is 6 a desire to keep some of the sand. We probably will keep some of the sand in the tot lot 7 area. The way that it's set up now, the front half of it has all the equipment, and the back 8 half is a sand play area. Probably the sand in the big kids' area will go away. 9 Vice Chair Greenfield: As a general policy, we are continuing to keep sand in some cases? 10 Mr. Jensen: In a limited fashion, yes. We don't have a policy of eliminating it altogether. 11 It does seem, just from experience and community meetings, the community likes it and 12 wants to maintain it as much as possible. 13 Vice Chair Greenfield: I certainly support the idea of removing turf and converting to 14 native plants where appropriate. I'm wondering if the back corner would be appropriate to 15 add some nature. 16 Mr. Jensen: Perhaps some trees just to keep the ground plane clear. It's a possibility, 17 planting some small oak trees. It is a good space for it. It's sad that we can't develop it just 18 because the value of the land is … 19 Vice Chair Greenfield: Just one more comment, and there's probably nothing to act on. 20 There's been a lot of discussion about the desire to add the AT&T property to Boulware 21 Park. I'm wondering, if you knew that property was going to be added in the next 5, 10, or 22 20 years, is there anything you would do differently. 23 Mr. Jensen: That's based on the budget. If you had unlimited, I would probably start from 24 scratch and lay it all out again like we did for Scott Park. It was just so small we could do 25 it with the budget we had. I think that would be a longer conversation about the road and 26 if it stays or goes away to make the connection of the space. There is a prime opportunity 27 in the development of the Fry's location to make that connection all the way across. There's 28 possible funding that could happen there. I haven't really thought about the design, so I 29 can't say if there's anything I'd do differently. Most likely it would be a larger, more active 30 turf space that would start to extend itself with more native planting around the outside in 31 the edging if we could eliminate the road because it's not overly used. That is a point of 32 concern for the community because the road has been used for long-term parking for people 33 living in their cars. 34 APPROVED Draft Minutes 35 Vice Chair Greenfield: Thank you. 1 Commissioner Moss: Most of my comments have been covered. I'd like to make a 2 comment about each of those comments. First of all, it's absolutely essential that whatever 3 you do on the side that's not AT&T property should be something when you add AT&T 4 you don't have to redo a lot of what you're doing here. If you want to add more turf, if you 5 want to add more native areas, that's great as long as you don't mess with what you're doing 6 now. It looks like the road—it's pretty self-contained, the stuff on the left side of the road. 7 You're doing a great job. I want to make sure you don't too much that's going to go away 8 if you add AT&T. 9 Mr. Jensen: Looking at the long run, that was a consideration, the idea that the AT&T part 10 could be developed. We would not want to build anything, a bathroom or something like 11 that, along the edge that would have to be torn down to reconfigure it. That area is 12 maintained just the way it is. 13 Commissioner Moss: I had the exact same suggestion that Commissioner Reckdahl had 14 about making a bridge from the Fry's property to that back corner. That seems like a perfect 15 place for a bridge similar to Magical Bridge in Mitchell Park. That gives you access to the 16 creek; you get to look at it and everything like that. It's very nice. You get a tie-in to Fry's. 17 When you had that stakeholder meeting, I wanted to make sure that the ad hoc committee 18 for park amenities is specifically invited. Commissioner Reckdahl is on the Ventura 19 Coordinated Area Plan, and he should have been invited specifically for that. Maybe he 20 was. For any future park re-dos, that park amenities ad hoc committee should be invited 21 specifically by name. I really like the idea of whatever you can do for Adobe Creek in 22 Mitchell you could do for this creek here. Some kind of interface with the creek, even if 23 it's a hill overlooking the creek and maybe not access to the creek, some nice transition 24 would be great if we can do it. I'm assuming with the turf reduction and irrigation changes, 25 you're going to try to use that purple-pipe water that's going to the Stanford industrial park. 26 Mr. Jensen: If that was a possibility, yes. If we could get the water over there, we would 27 want to do it. Our City policy for renovation of parks is we do install recycled water 28 products. One day probably all the parks will operate off recycled water. 29 Commissioner Moss: That's all I had. Thanks. 30 Chair McDougall: The first thing I'd like to do is repeat the dog park thing. That was an 31 exciting event. It was well attended and well done. You talked about repairing asphalt. Is 32 there any consideration to any of those places where we would take out asphalt and put in 33 gravel or something that is more permeable? 34 Mr. Jensen: It's just about cost. The asphalt is not in bad shape. Over time, it cracks 35 because of the material. It's pretty easily fixed. Northing has been considered to replace it 36 APPROVED Draft Minutes 36 with another material. I would consider it semi-permeable because it does sheet flow off 1 to landscaped area, not just the street. At least it has that going for it. 2 Chair McDougall: You mentioned cost. I think I heard you say there was something like 3 $400,000-and-some involved as you went through it. I'm not against doing things that are 4 ADA, but it sounded to me like an awful lot of the effort is to comply with ADA. I'm not 5 objecting to that, but is there anything we've ever considered or is there any opportunities 6 to get ADA funding for any of these projects in our parks? 7 Mr. Jensen: For this park in particular, the budget was set before we had our ADA review. 8 I actually have now a little book that talks about every park and every little area in every 9 park that needs to be addressed. When we put the budget together for future projects, we 10 will be adding a sum of money to address those issues in the parks. That will be part of 11 the renovation, so we can cover those. There has not been a conversation that I'm aware 12 of about setting up a separate stream of annual funding to address things. 13 Chair McDougall: I was thinking of Federal funding or something that could be used. 14 Mr. Jensen: No, there's nothing now. It's on us to address shortfalls in the parks. 15 Chair McDougall: In terms of the stakeholder and outreach meetings, I would like to echo 16 what Commissioner Moss said in terms of inviting—I would go so far as I don't think there 17 would be any Brown Act violations if the whole committee was invited, as long as we're 18 not having specific meetings. If more than the ad hoc showed up, that would be good and 19 not bad. I've done that in some of the Cubberley park stuff, and it's always interesting. I'm 20 interested in at some point—Keith, I think you're our representative to the Ventura park 21 project or whatever—maybe coming back. I don't know how much progress has been 22 made. The tie-in to here would be interesting to hear. 23 Mr. Jensen: There's a green space there. Capitalizing on what we have already and 24 building on it would be a good idea. 25 Commissioner Reckdahl: Ventura's first meeting was supposed to be about a month ago, 26 and they have delayed it. It's about a month from now, the first meeting. 27 Mr. Jensen: For this project and for some in this price range, to stretch the dollars as much 28 as we can the design and the construction drawings are all done in-house by myself and 29 staff. If you look at the capital improvement budget book, there's $450,000 for 30 improvements and another $45,000 for design. We're going to take that $45,000 and move 31 it to the improvement part. We do try to stretch as much as possible, especially with the 32 market we're in now. Everything we have proposed we can do with the budget we have 33 now. 34 APPROVED Draft Minutes 37 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Any other questions? If not, we can let Peter go. 1 Commissioner Cribbs: I have one. 2 Chair McDougall: Sure, Anne. I'm sorry I missed that. 3 Commissioner Cribbs: Are there AEDs in all of our parks? Do you know? 4 Mr. Jensen: I do not believe so. 5 Commissioner Cribbs: In some of the bigger ones but not the smaller? 6 Mr. Jensen: The regional parks, Mitchell Park, Rinconada Park, and Greer Park, have them 7 by the restroom facilities. I do not believe any of the other parks have them. 8 Commissioner Cribbs: It might be interesting to think how we could do that because there 9 are some programs around that … On this project schedule, I was confused because maybe 10 you meant to say 2019 for the second meeting and the third meeting and the adoption. 11 Mr. Jensen: It should be '19, not '18. The Parks and Rec Commission meeting in January 12 would be January 2019. The PRC meeting for the park improvement adoption would be 13 in February '19 as well. 14 Commissioner Cribbs: Since we have these park improvements going on and we're starting 15 to meet with all the potential stakeholders and people are giving their impressions, is now 16 the time to start thinking about Friends of the Parks, not in the foundation way but people 17 who live close to the park, trying to formalize in a really nice way about taking good care 18 of the park once it gets reinstalled and celebrated? I think we've talked about that in the 19 past but maybe never really did it. I don't know that it's a staff thing. It's something that 20 might organically spring up about "we have a new park, and let's see what we can do to 21 take care of it." Just a thought. 22 Mr. Jensen: It's a good thought. I know there's an ad hoc group associated with Friends of 23 the Parks now. We should have further conversations offline with staff and the ad hoc 24 about better ways that that group can be used to help us preserve the parks, fund the parks, 25 all those fun things. 26 Commissioner Cribbs: It might be fun to try with this particular one when it gets done. 27 Mr. Jensen: They've expressed that some want to financially help fund some of the picnic 28 tables or the amenities. That would be low-hanging fruit they could help with in the short 29 term. That group has the potential to impact the park system in a large way over a period 30 of time. 31 APPROVED Draft Minutes 38 Commissioner Cribbs: Some things are more fun to fund than other things. When we had 1 that itemized sheet from the dog park, there were some things that looked like opportunities 2 for people to fund. If we could look at a park and say, of this $459,000, what are some 3 things … 4 Mr. Jensen: Besides benches and tables, probably a much more exciting item for people 5 to donate to is some of the play equipment. That's mostly about marketing and what people 6 are excited about. 7 Ms. O'Kane: I wanted to add that in the Parks Master Plan there is a program that talks 8 about establishing community neighborhood groups that participate in cleanup and 9 maintenance of parks. You have a neighborhood park maintenance day, and neighbors can 10 come out and help do the work that staff would do, which gives them a sense of ownership 11 of the park and would make them want to take care of it a little bit more, not that people 12 aren't. Daren and I have talked about it a little bit and how we can get that going. I'd like 13 to explore that a little bit more. 14 Mr. Jensen: I've also found that using our local nonprofits, especially Canopy, is beneficial. 15 It doesn't have to be associated with the project. At the end of the project, it would be nice 16 to do a tree planting out there. It involves the local community to be more in touch with 17 the park. They can look at the park and say, "I planted that tree," and they can watch it 18 grow for a long time. 19 5. Other Ad Hoc Committee and Liaison Updates 20 Chair McDougall: As a quick update that would go into the next section of ad hoc 21 committee or liaison updates, we have had recent meetings with Friends of the Palo Alto 22 Parks on various conversations. I will be meeting with them again next Thursday, taking 23 them into the field so they can get a better view of what the opportunities are. Peter, I know 24 you mentioned at one point we should work on developing the relationship. With Kristen's 25 support, we're working hard at that. 26 Commissioner Moss: One comment along those lines. Just like we told the Friends of the 27 Palo Alto Parks about the dog park, in community meeting two and community meeting 28 three they could be there with a table and a little card or envelope that says, "If you want 29 to contribute towards some of the amenities for this park." We should make that a regular 30 feature of a community meeting for a particular park for a particular community because 31 that's the best way to get the community to be part of it. 32 Chair McDougall: Are there any other ad hoc committee or liaison updates? I don't have 33 the chart in front of me. 34 APPROVED Draft Minutes 39 Commissioner Reckdahl: I have one question for Peter while he's here. You did a nice job 1 a couple of years ago leading that Bol Park planting alongside the path. Some of those 2 plants have died obviously. Overall, they're doing well. Is there any plan to replant the 3 ones that have died? 4 Mr. Jensen: We replanted in the fall. I think we planted eight or nine plants. I looked at 5 it the other day, and some other plants have died. We're doing pretty good. We are 6 planning on re-installing the plants this fall. This is the last year that we'll be replacing the 7 plants. The VA in the last few weeks has started their planting along that wall. 8 Commissioner Reckdahl: When they take the fence down, there will be some extra space 9 between their wall and the park. Are they going to put stuff where that fence is right now, 10 the construction fence? 11 Mr. Jensen: I'd have to look at this again. I believe they put the fence back up, so there's 12 an alleyway between a fence and the wall, but they planted it. 13 Commissioner Reckdahl: They planted between there. 14 Mr. Jensen: They put the fence back. I think their original plan was to plant all redwood 15 trees along there. We had a conversation with them about planting native oak trees, so they 16 did change their plant palette. It's not the easiest (crosstalk). 17 Commissioner Reckdahl: We didn't want redwood because … 18 Mr. Jensen: It's just not … 19 Commissioner Reckdahl: It wouldn't do well in that area? 20 Mr. Jensen: No. When you walk through that area, it is mostly an oak woodland. It does 21 have a lot of oak trees, especially coast live oak. We wanted to maintain that (crosstalk). 22 Commissioner Reckdahl: In Bol Park, there are some redwoods along the creek. 23 Chair McDougall: Places like Stout Park that have redwood groves, all those redwoods 24 are dying. 25 Mr. Jensen: The redwood requires irrigation. El Palo Alto lives in a unique micro-26 environment. It was next to the stream and had access to water and was able to grow. The 27 specialty around it was it was the only one. Everything else that grew around it was oak 28 trees, so it stood out even more. Over time, it is a very easy tree to propagate and to grow. 29 We have grown a massive redwood forest on the lowlands. If you take the irrigation away, 30 they only live for 5 or 6 years until they start to decline or die. You can even see that in 31 the Magical Forest in Rinconada Park where there's not a supplemental irrigation system. 32 APPROVED Draft Minutes 40 Chair McDougall: The hydraulics in those trees will only move water up 60 feet. The 1 reason they can live on the coast is they get the water from the mist above 60 feet. 2 Otherwise, they just die off. 3 Mr. Jensen: The majority of water intake by a redwood, unlike other trees, is absorption 4 through its leaves, mostly through fog. If you don't have the fog, then it's a problem. The 5 redwoods around here will max out at the same height. That's the height they can push up 6 to in the drought and the heat of the area. In prolonged periods of drought, the tops will 7 die. For Bol Park, we wanted to make it more native. Hopefully by the time the VA system 8 stops functioning, those trees will be established and can live without any more 9 maintenance. 10 Vice Chair Greenfield: Just one more note. I believe Palo Alto has three protected tree 11 species, redwood, coastal live oak, and valley oak. My understanding is there's a 12 movement that the redwood might not be protected because it's not appropriate for most of 13 the locations here. 14 Mr. Jensen: That's been discussed, but it's more of a political question. If Palo Alto wasn't 15 called Palo Alto and Redwood City wasn't called Redwood City, it would probably be 16 easier to make those changes. 17 Commissioner Reckdahl: Going forward, if you have another planting like you did on Bol, 18 please invite the Commission. That was a very good way to spend a morning. 19 Mr. Jensen: That was a very successful planting. That was the biggest planting I've done 20 with Canopy to date. I think it was 60 trees and 40 plants. 21 Commissioner Moss: I have an update on an ad hoc committee. It's not necessarily for 22 Peter. 23 Mr. Jensen: The replacement of the bridge in Mitchell Park will start July 9, and it is going 24 to be a logistical challenge because the bridge will be closed from July 9 through August 25 30. I'm hoping it will be done by the time school starts, which is August 14. 26 Commissioner Moss: How will they get to Magical Bridge? 27 Mr. Jensen: I have a detailed plan that shows the access route. It's very difficult to get 28 there. I haven't gotten all the agreements from the adjoining parties yet, so I'd rather not 29 say how that's going to happen. Hopefully, it's going to go down Middlefield and then into 30 the playground. 31 Commissioner Moss: There's no way to create the new one just to the left of the old one 32 and leave the old one up until … 33 APPROVED Draft Minutes 41 Mr. Jensen: Our idea was we would do the bridge at the same time as Magical Bridge. 1 Unfortunately, we had a funding gap, and the bridge stayed. We built the pathways on 2 each side to meet the new bridge. Now, we've just got to put the new bridge. Installing 3 the bridge will be very quick; it's mostly demolishing the old bridge and building the 4 abutments. 5 Commissioner Moss: Why did you pick summer instead of the dead of winter? 6 Mr. Jensen: For the school. 7 Commissioner Moss: The major access to JLS. 8 Mr. Jensen: It's used by hundreds of students in the morning going to all the schools around 9 there and commuters as well. The logistic hurdle is getting the detour plans out to the 10 public. We decided on July 9 because of the July 4 celebration in the park. 11 Vice Chair Greenfield: Have we notified the pickleball community about this closure? 12 Mr. Jensen: I just got approval today of my alternative parking plan to give them. I will 13 be emailing them tomorrow probably about the—they know about the project, but they 14 don't know the access and the route to get into there. The tennis courts and the playground 15 will remain open. I'm working with Friends of the Magical Bridge to get the information 16 on their website. 17 Commissioner Moss: What about the back parking lot of the Unitarian Church? 18 Mr. Jensen: I haven't reached out to them yet. They've been doing work in the area, and 19 it would be best to do the parking and close that area. There is no ADA ramp that goes 20 from their property, and you still have to go out to Charleston and down the pathway. There 21 is some street parking on Charleston that we're going to make available and show parking 22 there. 23 Chair McDougall: Thank you, Peter. I'm going to assume you have no more bad news. 24 Mr. Jensen: That's it. 25 Commissioner Moss: I didn't hear earlier in the department report about the golf course 26 opening. That was a really big deal since our last meeting. I just wanted to make sure 27 everybody knew how incredible that opening was. We tried to make a reservation for a 28 slot this week, and it's full. It's getting a lot of great traction. It's just a great job you guys 29 did. 30 APPROVED Draft Minutes 42 Ms. O'Kane: Daren is going to be coming either next month or the month after to give an 1 update on the course. It's great to hear that you couldn't get in. I hope that you do find a 2 time to get in. I was able to play the course, and it's really fun and beautiful. 3 Commissioner Moss: One of my favorite subjects is connections to other open space. I 4 went to the Mid-Peninsula Regional Open Space board meetings the past couple of months. 5 One of them had a very nice new addition from the City of Saratoga into all of their open 6 spaces. It reminded me how lucky we are to have all the connections that we do to their 7 open space preserves. On July 1, I will be walking from Palo Alto to the sea, 39 miles, on 8 public trails from Arastradero Preserve through Foothills Park through Los Trancos Open 9 Space to Black Mountain to Portola State Park to Gazos Creek. We should probably 10 publicize that connectivity that we have and that other towns wish they had. In order for 11 us to have an official trail, it has to be open to pedestrians and bikes. I had a conversation 12 with Daren about the connectivity between Arastradero Preserve and Skyline. The only 13 section that doesn't fit that is Foothills Park and the Los Trancos Open Space. They've 14 already said they would open the Los Trancos Open Space Preserve to bike traffic if we 15 would open up Foothills. There is no way at this particular time—there's no connection 16 from Arastradero. The public can walk from Arastradero Preserve through Foothills Park 17 to Los Trancos, but they cannot bike. 18 Commissioner McCauley: Not as a technical matter because this park is not open to the 19 public. 20 Chair McDougall: David, I'm going to suggest that this could be an interesting topic at a 21 future meeting where we could actually spend time discussing it. It's a good topic. I'd like 22 to make a note and explore it that way. Does anybody else have anything that they would 23 like to bring up or add? 24 Commissioner McCauley: I was just going to ask where David is camping on his trek. 25 Commissioner Moss: At the top of Black Mountain (inaudible). 26 Commissioner Cribbs: Could I ask one more thing before we go? 27 Chair McDougall: Sure. 28 Commissioner Cribbs: I was really intrigued with the whole conversation about the 29 environment and the CEQA today. It just occurred to me that I didn't know as much as I 30 should know about it. If I could answer the question of when does a maintenance project 31 become a construction project—is it the amount of area that is affected or is it the cost or 32 something else that I don't understand? Is there an easy answer to that or not? 33 APPROVED Draft Minutes 43 Chair McDougall: I'm betting that there's not an easy answer; although, Kristen's about to 1 prove me wrong. 2 Ms. O'Kane: Are you asking with respect to CEQA? 3 Commissioner Cribbs: In general, when does a maintenance project that doesn't need 4 CEQA become a construction project? What's the trigger there or is there no trigger? Is it 5 a cost? Is it an acreage? 6 Mr. Jensen: The maintenance project was set up to be done over periods of time. They 7 did not do that, and it became a bigger project. That project was established from their 8 permit, and that's why it became maintenance. It was operating on a permit that they hold. 9 It wasn't a construction project. A construction project would require a new permit, and 10 that permit would trigger the CEQA aspect. 11 Commissioner Cribbs: That helps. 12 Ms. O'Kane: If the Commission as a whole is interested in understanding CEQA better 13 and not necessarily for a specific project, we could add that to the agenda. 14 Commissioner Cribbs: That would be nice at least from my perspective. Thank you. 15 Commissioner McCauley: This isn't an ad hoc item, but it was raised by one of the 16 speakers. It might have been the Commission that asked not to have unnecessary paper 17 materials at these meetings and also not to have advance paper-printed packets delivered. 18 It probably makes sense to have a few copies available for the public in case people need 19 them. Maybe there is a hybrid. If that's possible, that might be the easy route to resolve 20 that question. 21 Ms. O'Kane: There was some confusion as to the City Clerk's direction. Moving forward, 22 we'll provide paper copies of the staff reports. That's the appropriate thing to do for the 23 public. 24 Commissioner McCauley: Try and right size it so you don't have a whole bunch of extra 25 copies that go unused. 26 VI. COMMENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS 27 None 28 VII. TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR JULY 24, 2018 MEETING 29 Ms. O'Kane: Did you want to go through the agendas? 30 APPROVED Draft Minutes 44 Chair McDougall: I've got a list of the golf course, connectivity, the Foothills, CEQA. 1 Ms. O'Kane: You have in front of you the agenda items schedule. For July, Jack Morton 2 from Parks and Rec Foundation is coming to give a basic talk on their role. You can share 3 with them what you think the Commission's priorities might be. Daren will be giving an 4 update on the Foothills Park Trail reroute project. The other two items are budget related, 5 and we're adding one which is an update on Municipal Fees for the Community Services 6 Department and any changes for fiscal year 2019. We'll group that into a fiscal year '19 7 budget update now that Council has adopted the budget. 8 Commissioner Reckdahl: Jack Morton, is that Palo Alto Recreation Foundation or did they 9 change their name to Parks and Recreation Foundation? 10 Ms. O'Kane: It should be Palo Alto Recreation Foundation. 11 Chair McDougall: Remind me who has the liaison with them right now? Jeff. I may spend 12 a few minutes talking to you about the kind of presentation and what we had with the Palo 13 Alto Friends of Parks. 14 VIII. ADJOURNMENT 15 Meeting adjourned on motion by Commissioner Reckdahl and second by Commissioner 16 Moss at 9:48 p.m. 17