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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2019-07-23 Parks & Recreation Summary MinutesAPPROVED Draft Minutes 1 1 2 3 4 MINUTES 5 PARKS & RECREATION COMMISSION 6 REGULAR MEETING 7 July 23, 109 8 CITY HALL 9 250 Hamilton Avenue 10 Palo Alto, California 11 12 Commissioners Present: Anne Cribbs, Jeff Greenfield, Ryan McCauley, Don McDougall, 13 David Moss, and Keith Reckdahl 14 Commissioners Absent: Jeff LaMere 15 Others Present: Council Member Cormack 16 Staff Present: Daren Anderson, Kristen O'Kane, Natalie Khwaja 17 I. ROLL CALL 18 II. AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, and DELETIONS 19 Chair McDougall: Are there any comments, changes, deletions, or requests relative to 20 the agenda from anybody? If not, we'll proceed with the agenda as published. I would 21 like to not necessarily warn people but inform people that if you add up the 15, 45 22 minutes and so on, it adds up to about 10:00. I am going to make every effort that we 23 actually get to 10:00 and not 11:00 or 12:00. I hope I'm never rude, but I will be 24 encouraging as we go. 25 III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS 26 Chair McDougall: The first thing I'd like to do is have Oral Communications on topics 27 that are not on the agenda with one exception. I'll start with Winter Dellenbach. 28 Welcome. 29 Winter Dellenbach: Hi. I have concerned myself with tree protection and our tree 30 protection ordinance for many years. You'll see why this is relevant in a minute. At the 31 post office two blocks away from here is a dawn redwood tree, one of the three kinds of 32 redwood species on the planet Earth. It was planted at the post office on Arbor Day, 33 March 7, 1949, a very significant date as you will learn, 1949. In 1941, a tree fossil was 34 APPROVED Draft Minutes 2 discovered by a botanist in China of what he presumed was an ancient, extinct species. 1 In 1943, another botanist discovered a single tree in Szechuan Province he judged to be 2 450 years old. Finally in 1948, a third scientist went into the area's valleys, finding 3 hundreds of these trees, making the connections between the 1941 fossil and the 1943 4 tree, and the world was introduced to dawn redwood. With less than 1,000 in existence, 5 it was on the edge of extinction. The discovery fired the imaginations of international 6 scientists and the public. Seeds of dawn redwood were distributed internationally in 1949 7 through the efforts of Chinese and American scientists in order to increase the chances of 8 species survival. One of those seeds came to Palo Alto and was planted on U.S. 9 government land at our post office. We were doing our part to save the species, and we 10 still are. Dawn redwood remains a critical risk of extinction in the wild in China. This 11 year is our dawn redwood's 70th birthday at the post office. Until two years ago, dawn 12 redwood was thriving, and then the post office stopped watering the tree, and it started to 13 struggle. Today, it is in great distress not because of drought but because of neglect. The 14 City has no jurisdiction over federal land. It's been hard, but there may now be an 15 agreement negotiated to start to water again, maybe. March 19, City head of Urban 16 Forestry, Walter Passmore, spoke to you about the need for an ongoing community forum 17 such as your Commission that would concern itself with trees and urban forestry, a good 18 suggestion. There is no current City forum directly involved with any role or any 19 interface with urban forestry. Palo Alto, known as Tree City. I ask that you consider 20 being that forum and request staff to look into it. Also, I ask that you request staff to 21 contact Urban Forester Walter Passmore, City Manager Ed Shikada to see if they can 22 lend any assistance in getting a reliable water supply quickly to dawn redwood, which 23 may die. Thank you. 24 Chair McDougall: Thank you, Winter. I have a second card here from Rita Vrhel. Rita, 25 are you speaking to one of the topics or just in general? 26 Rita Vrhel: I wanted to speak to the Foothills Park and to the … 27 Chair McDougall: That is Item Number 3. I'm making one exception on that. If you 28 could hang on, we'd appreciate it. 29 Ms. Vrhel: I appreciate that. Thank you. 30 Chair McDougall: Thank you. The one exception that I'm making to speaking to topics 31 not on the agenda would be to invite Lee Levy to come and speak on Item Number 3 in 32 respect for his time. 33 Lee Levy: Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Two weeks ago, I went up to San 34 Francisco to attend a free concert at Sigmund Stern Grove of the San Francisco 35 Symphony. I obviously don't pay taxes in San Francisco, but I had no problem attending 36 the concert. Nobody questioned whether I was from in town or out of town. This past 37 APPROVED Draft Minutes 3 weekend, I was on the Stanford campus, and I had the pleasure of bicycling on their 1 extensive and very-well-kept-up bicycle paths. I also went into the Anderson Collection. 2 Again, it was free. Again, no one asked where I lived, where I was from. Over the years, 3 I've been to many parks locally, Huddart Park, Los Trancos Open Space District, San 4 Antonio, Sam McDonald, and of course spent a lot of time at Foothill Park. I admired 5 Foothill Park greatly and have appreciated how well the City has protected that park and 6 maintained it. I've also felt a little bit of a concern that I was there, but neighbors were 7 excluded. I appreciated the work of the ad hoc committee and their proposal that we test 8 a program to open the park somewhat more to our neighbors. It's a sensible program, I 9 think, and it's a test. If the test doesn't work, we go back. If the test does work, we in my 10 opinion go forward. A number of years ago, when I was more active in public affairs, I 11 used to write songs. One of the songs was about Foothill Park. It was taken from the 12 Woody Guthrie folk ballad, "This Land Is My Land, This Land Is Your Land." This 13 song, however, went "this park is my park. It is not your park." I have a couple of copies 14 of the song if you'd like to take a look at it. I won't burden you with singing it, but I do 15 hope that at long last this song can be laid to rest. Thanks very much. 16 Chair McDougall: Thank you. We'd like to thank you for your comments and for not 17 singing. If there are no other non-agenda items, I'd like to invite the Department Report. 18 IV. DEPARTMENT REPORT 19 Daren Anderson: Good evening. Daren Anderson, Community Services Department. 20 I've got a few updates for you. The first of which, I'd like to thank Commissioner 21 Greenfield for reporting some rockslides up at Foothills Park. I just wanted to report that 22 the Rangers found those on Los Trancos, have cleared the rockslides and the downed 23 trees. Thank you for that. I had a couple of Commissioners ask me about the Los Altos 24 sewage treatment plant, what was going on there. This is a City-owned property adjacent 25 to the Baylands Nature Preserve. Public Works has recently taken down some of the—26 it's one old building and several sheds that were adjacent to this property. They were 27 unsafe, unsightly, and falling apart, and so they had to remove them. That's just been 28 accomplished. They're regrading the area around those buildings, where they were. 29 Likewise, there was a drainage ditch that went down to one of the sections of the pond 30 that was ponding and creating mosquito habitat. They have cleared that and are grading 31 that for proper drainage as well. There's one other facility out there, and it's the digester. 32 That will remain onsite. They're going to repaint it because it's covered in graffiti. 33 They're going to put a fence around it and make sure people can't get in there and throw 34 more debris. It was clear there were people camping in it and other nefarious activities. 35 If you want additional information, we can set up a time for the ad hoc on the Baylands to 36 meet with Phil Bobel, Assistant Director, and get into more details. That's the 37 information I've got for you tonight. I also received a question about the fruit fly incident 38 that recently happened. This was on June 28 and July 2nd that the County and the State 39 APPROVED Draft Minutes 4 Department of Food and Agriculture identified and confirmed that we had two invasive 1 peach fruit flies in Palo Alto in the area of Embarcadero Road and U.S. Highway 101. 2 As a result of those confirmed detections, organic bait treatments were applied on 3 July 2nd within a 1.5-mile radius from where the fruit flies were found. Commissioner 4 McDougall had asked me if there were any concerns about the parks, are we seeing any 5 impacts. We are not seeing any impacts in the parks, and we did check with our 6 community gardeners to see if anyone had noticed anything. Unfortunately, it's the kind 7 of thing you only notice once you open the fruit that they affect, and you would find 8 maggots inside. No one's reported, but we asked them to keep their ears out. If they hear 9 anything, they'll let us know. In turn, we would report this to the County. The pickleball 10 project, an update on that. This is the Mitchell Park pickleball court project. It's 11 anticipated to begin in September of this year and be completed by November 2019. The 12 project's currently under concurrent review with both our Planning Department and our 13 Building Department. The contract is complete, and insurance bonds are in place. We're 14 ready to issue the notice to proceed as soon as we get those permits. The Cubberley track 15 and field renovation project is underway. We're under contract with O'Grady 16 Incorporated. Their sub on the project is Spin Turf. The work accomplished so far is the 17 removal of the turf and infill, which will be recycled. There's still some infill on the 18 process of the removal of the field that needs to be cleaned up. We're working with the 19 contractor to address that. Thank you, Commissioner Moss, for bringing that to my 20 attention. Between now and mid-August, they'll install the new turf. Between mid-21 August and the end of September, they'll remove the old track and put in the new all-22 weather track. Project to be completed by October 5. 23 Vice Chair Greenfield: Will the field be open while the track renovation is in progress? 24 Mr. Anderson: No. It'll have to be closed. The 101 bike/ped bridge schedule update. 25 Caltrans has approved the project design and issued the right of certification and an 26 encroachment permit for the project. We're now anticipating approval of the federal 27 funds authorization application in the next couple of weeks. Upon issuance of that, the 28 project is anticipated to go out to bid in August 2019 and begin construction in fall 2019, 29 to be completed in winter 2020. The existing undercrossing will be closed during the 30 bike bridge construction due to safety reasons and will be permanently closed for public 31 access post-construction. I was also asked about the status of the 3350 Lambert Avenue 32 property, the AT&T parcel, that we have been pursuing purchasing. This is the one 33 adjacent to Boulware Park. I just wanted to let you know the City's still in negotiations 34 with the property owner at this point. As soon as we have more, we'll bring that to the 35 Commission's attention. I was asked about the status of the interpretive signage project 36 for the Baylands Nature Center. This is the one that John Aiken has been working on. 37 This project adds interpretive signs to help the connection between the Baylands Nature 38 Preserve Interpretive Center and the Cooley Landing Education Center. The number of 39 signs will be determined during the design process and the stakeholder review, which the 40 APPROVED Draft Minutes 5 Parks and Rec Commission will be part of that. It will be coming to you. We've got 1 confirmation that the Friends of Palo Alto Parks will be giving $54,000 towards the 2 project. That'll go towards design and part of the fabrication. Right now, they're looking 3 at a few other grants to supplement that. The money hasn't come through with the 4 Friends yet; it's sort of pending some other grants that might be coming in. I'll have more 5 information for you soon. The tentative schedule is that the planning and ARB review 6 for this has been completed. The CEQA is underway, and the design will get going in 7 October 2019 through the following year, October 2020. Fabrication is somewhere in the 8 timeframe of November to May 2021, and installation in May 2021. Again, this project 9 will come to you for discussion, and we'll get far more into the details of that project at 10 that point. 11 Chair McDougall: Did you say it had already been to ARB? 12 Mr. Anderson: ARB has done a preliminary review. The Mercedes building application, 13 I think the last time we talked about this, Council had approved the project. They 14 approved the massing of the project, requiring as a condition of approval that the aspects 15 of design come back to the Architectural Review Board as part of a separate application 16 in order to improve the design of the project. The Mercedes project planner informed me 17 that the applicant is in the process of preparing to submit a subsequent application to the 18 ARB, but they don't have the timeframe yet. Lastly, the update on the Arastradero 19 community garden. This is our newest community garden that's coming online soon. 20 Park staff started the installation of the irrigation today, and we anticipate the garden will 21 be open for business at the end of August. That concludes the Department Report. 22 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Are there any questions? 23 Commissioner Moss: Where is the Arastradero community garden? 24 Mr. Anderson: This is at the Palo Alto Christian Reform Church. They formerly had a 25 common ground demonstration garden there. 26 Chair McDougall: If there are no questions or comments, thank you, Daren. 27 V. BUSINESS 28 1. Approval of Draft Minutes from the May 28, 2019 Parks and Recreation 29 Commission meeting. 30 Approval of the draft May 28, 2019 Minutes was moved by Commissioner Reckdahl and 31 seconded by Commissioner Moss. Passed 5-0, McDougall abstaining, LaMere absent 32 APPROVED Draft Minutes 6 2. Dog Parks and Park Restrooms 1 Chair McDougall: That takes us to the dog park discussion. We will be introduced by 2 Daren as a staff presentation of the review. After Daren speaks, we'll have comments 3 from the speakers who have cards here. 4 Mr. Anderson: Good evening. Daren Anderson again from Community Services 5 Department. Here tonight to discuss dog parks and park restrooms and get your feedback 6 on the recommendations and concepts that the ad hoc committee has regarding dog park 7 off-leash opportunities and appropriate locations for park restrooms. I'm going to start by 8 providing background information on our dog parks. Palo Alto's got four dog parks. 9 We've one in Greer, Hoover, Mitchell, and now Peers Park. Peers Park dog park, our 10 most recent one, opened in June 2018. That project was funded through a capital 11 improvement project—I'm going to call that CIP. The City's five-year Capital 12 Improvement Program has a CIP which provides funding, $150,000, for dog parks in 13 fiscal years 2020, 2022, and 2024. It's important to note that the funding for the CIP 14 comes from Park Development Impact Fees, which require that it be used for expanding 15 capacity. That is, new dog parks or taking an existing one and doing something that 16 would expand the capacity of use for that facility. What it may not be used for is 17 maintenance practices. For example, if we were to look at one of our existing dog parks 18 and say we want these other exercise amenities added, that would not be allowed. If we 19 wanted to move the fence or build new fence to expand that, that would be allowed. If 20 that makes sense. The Parks, Trails, Natural Open Space and Recreation Master Plan 21 provides guidance on dog parks. The Plan noted that all of Palo Alto's dog parks, except 22 for our newest one, Peers, are all located in south Palo Alto. The policy and program for 23 that dog park, which was included in your staff report, explains that we should pursue 24 dedicated, fenced dog parks equitably distributed between north and south Palo Alto, and 25 that we should have at least six dedicated, fenced parks. In addition to providing 26 potential sites for new dog parks, it also proposed expanding some of those existing dog 27 parks. The ad hoc committee and staff have been working to identify the best use of that 28 dog park CIP funding that's available in FY '20 and '22. The ad hoc committee 29 recommends using the FY 2020 CIP funds to expand those existing dog parks at Greer 30 and Mitchell Parks. The ad hoc committee will continue analyzing potential dog park 31 locations, particularly in north Palo Alto, and staff would conduct community outreach 32 prior to making any formal recommendation to the Commission regarding those dog 33 parks. In addition to dedicated fenced dog parks, dog owners in Palo Alto have 34 expressed an interest to both staff and the ad hoc committee about considering other dog 35 off-leash opportunities, such as the unfenced dog off-leash area model used by the City of 36 Mountain View. In this model, non-fenced sections of parks are used as dog parks for a 37 limited number of hours per day. The ad hoc committee and staff would like your 38 feedback on the idea of pursuing this option as a pilot program. 39 APPROVED Draft Minutes 7 Chair McDougall: If it's agreeable to the rest of the Commission, I would invite speakers 1 to respond or not necessarily respond but offer their comments on the dog park item. I 2 would start with Michel Callon [phonetic]. 3 Michel Challon: Dog ownership is a huge responsibility that I take very seriously. We 4 are the stewards of an animal that is devoted to us and whose entire life is pretty much at 5 our disposal. If we teach them basic good manners, socialize them to get along with 6 other dogs, and give them opportunities to play with members of their own species using 7 their natural instincts, I believe their life and ours is enriched. What happens to dogs that 8 have no such opportunities? They are erratic around other dogs, and they lunge and bark 9 wildly whenever they cross paths with other dogs, which makes walking them a 10 challenge. There are so many of these dogs that cross my path everyday when I walk my 11 dog. I see their owners crossing the street to the other side when they see my dog 12 approaching. Why is that happening here so often? I think the reason is clear. People 13 are busy; they don't want to get in their car after getting home from work and drive to a 14 far-away dog park, so a walk around the neighborhood is all they can manage. Who can 15 blame them? What's in it for them really? Standing alone at a dog park where you don't 16 know anyone is boring, and making small talk with people you don't see regularly is a 17 waste of time. Walking to your own neighborhood dog park, meeting and talking with 18 your neighbors, many on a daily basis, enriches our lives as much as those of our dogs. 19 Imagine moving to a lovely town with very high property taxes and having kids several 20 years later, only to find out that there were no playgrounds for them or that you got cited 21 every time your child played in an area that wasn't specified for kids, that you had to 22 schlep them out of your area for any park or field to legally play on. Wouldn't you fight 23 for a dedicated playground for your kids? For dog owners, their pups are part of the 24 family and deserve to have their own dedicated space. When law-abiding citizens need 25 to break the law in order to properly care for their charges, something is wrong with the 26 system. We are willing to work with you, fundraise for a dog park if we are approved 27 and the City does not have it in their budget; although, I hear you do have some. There 28 are many interim solutions for this ongoing problem in our neighborhood. We don't have 29 to start with a committed, fully funded, and fully featured dog park. We are also willing 30 to consider a temporary dog park that would be open for even as short as an hour or two 31 every day. If necessary, we can enclose the area under investigation with temporary 32 fencing and judge the impact over the following months. A group of us could be 33 stewards of the park and help the City maintain it. I think the other off-leash area—34 allowing an hour a day off-leash even in a schoolyard or at Pardee Park would be an 35 option as well. I hope you will consider a dog park at Pardee Park or at the very least 36 some legal off-leash hours somewhere else in the Crescent Park/St. Francis/Duveneck 37 area. Thank you very much. Thanks for the opportunity to speak. 38 Chair McDougall: Thank you. I would ask other speakers—I don't want to start setting a 39 three-minute clock because I let the speaker go beyond three minutes. Please try and 40 APPROVED Draft Minutes 8 respect the time in the direction of three minutes. Thank you. The next speaker would be 1 Sabrina Braham, and after that is Rita that I rejected earlier. Thank you. 2 Sabrina Braham: Hello. I'm Sabrina Braham. My son is sitting over there and may have 3 a few words to say. I am a physician. I grew up in San Francisco. I moved down here 4 12 years ago. I was kicking and screaming coming from the city, but I fell in love with 5 Palo Alto primarily because of the people and because of the outdoor spaces. Our family 6 got a puppy a year ago, and our use of the outdoor spaces and our interaction with our 7 neighbors has increased immeasurably since then. Our lives are so much richer, and our 8 appreciation for Palo Alto has increased 100 fold. I feel strongly that the more we can 9 encourage dog ownership and responsible dog ownership the better it's going to be for 10 our community, for good neighbors. These dog parks—I've met many of the people in 11 this room and many other neighbors that I hadn't met in 12 years since having the dog. I 12 just think it's an important part of our Parks Department. Finally as a physician, dogs 13 have been shown to improve both mental and physical health and in a time and a place 14 where we have a lot of stress and a lot of mental illness, I think this is only a positive to 15 increase the access that families and individuals have to a good life with a dog. Thank 16 you. 17 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Rita followed by Herb Borock. 18 Ms. Vrhel: Good evening. I wanted to speak to restrooms. I live near Eleanor Pardee 19 Park, and I understand that this is one of the largest parks in the City that does not have a 20 restroom. However, we have picnic benches, we have two children's playground areas, 21 we have soccer and baseball and camp all the time. We do not have a bathroom. We 22 also have a community garden. The park is extremely, heavily used throughout the week, 23 but we don't have a bathroom. Now, I understand that neighbors have objected to a 24 bathroom. I think the park is 9.2 acres. I think there is a place to put a bathroom that will 25 not be across the street from somebody's living room window or in their backyard. I 26 hope when you discuss the restroom part of this agenda item that you will seriously 27 consider that it is time for Eleanor Pardee Park to have a bathroom. Thank you. 28 Chair McDougall: Thank you, Rita. Herb Borock followed by Shuang Wang. 29 Herb Borock: Good evening. In the case of both dog parks and restrooms in 30 neighborhood parks, it may be the case that those who have lived and chosen over the 31 years to live in particular parts of Palo Alto chose to be in a part of town that did not have 32 dog exercise areas and did not have bathrooms in neighborhood parks. The uses are 33 changed in two ways. First with adult sports teams, a majority of each league from 34 people outside Palo Alto, and also people who feel if they spent a lot of money to outbid 35 people for a house it's their intention and right to change things despite the fact that they 36 bought in a place where there were already values and standards. I happen to be one of 37 the people who think that there should be a dog park—actually it's an exercise area—38 APPROVED Draft Minutes 9 within a park in north Palo Alto. Where we have one now, I'm not quite sure it's north 1 Palo Alto or west Palo Alto. We typically think of north Palo Alto, south Palo Alto, and 2 west Palo Alto. West Palo Alto is west of the Caltrain tracks, but usually you think of 3 that as also being south of Page Mill/Oregon Expressway. Nobody from that area, 4 Barron Park and all those, has been saying they want a dog exercise area there. I had 5 suggested using part of El Camino Park, which at one point was a community garden 6 which may sometime in the distant future be an extension of Quarry Road into the bus 7 island and that is near where the Hetch Hetchy lines come in, but there's been a resistance 8 of staff, I'm unclear why without any clear plans for the area, of using that area as a dog 9 exercise area. I think that would be a good thing. It is certainly better than having an 10 area that's close to people's homes so you don't have to drive there to exercise the animal. 11 There is one other thing, and that is the idea of making larger areas available for part of 12 the time for dogs to run free such as has been considered at Hoover Park and elsewhere. 13 There, I look at the tragedy of the commons, the people who violate the current off-leash 14 law in parts of a park that are not the exercise area so to self-police and are a small 15 number. Once you make it legitimate, you will find that it may destroy the area. You'll 16 also maybe find it's not a place just for the residents of the neighborhood but for dog 17 walkers with many dogs. In terms of fencing, I would hope at some point in the capital 18 budget, perhaps this year, that you'll restore the proper height of the fencing facing the 19 park for Hoover Park. When Hoover Park was expanded, they put a proper tall fence 20 against Matadero Creek, but the fence was lowered between the exercise area and the 21 park; although, that was never on the proposal that was before the Council. Thank you. 22 Chair McDougall: Herb, thank you. This is not an action item tonight. I expect more 23 discussion on this within the ad hoc. I would encourage the ad hoc to follow up with a 24 few of these speakers that have specific suggestions that would be useful. Shuang Wang 25 followed by Matt Greenberg. I am going to start setting a clock. Usually we don't accept 26 cards after we've begun a discussion. I keep getting cards, so I'm going to start with a 3-27 minute clock at this point. Thank you. 28 Shuang Wang: Thank you for having me presenting here. I'm also a dog owner and, 29 similar to other people's experience, I moved to Palo Alto about 10 years ago. Before I 30 had a dog, I never know there are so many people. After we had a dog, we come to 31 Pardee Park, and that is how I met so many people, and we have interactions. I just want 32 to give a little bit of feedback about the benefit that we can bring to the park, especially to 33 Pardee Park. I just want to give a few incidents. Like one year, there are some high 34 school kids having a party at the park, and they throw eggs all over the park. It was such 35 a mess. Most of this group of dog owners cleaned up. We spent so much time just pick 36 up all the eggs. The park was not pretty while the rotten eggs are all over. The other 37 thing is we also participated in clean up for the weeds. We actually care for the park. 38 We're not just taking care of our dogs. If we see there's other trash on the ground, if there 39 are other things on the ground that are not safe for people, we actually are very 40 APPROVED Draft Minutes 10 responsible and pick them up. The other thing is most of our dogs are very mellow in 1 personality. My kids often say that we should train our dog to go to visit hospitals and be 2 a therapy dog. I feel like we provide that kind of interaction with other kids and people 3 in the park anyways. Often, little kids just come over and say hello to the dog. 4 Teenagers come over and say hello, older people as well. A lot of good interaction there 5 is good for the overall neighborhood. Because we are there, we also keep an eye on other 6 children as well. Like little kids running away from their parents, and the group of dog 7 owners are very responsible. We say, "Who are you? Do you have adults to come with 8 you?" It's not just for the dog, it's for the community. It's for everybody living in Palo 9 Alto. We have so many neighbors. Even though they don't own a dog, they enjoy the 10 interaction with dog owners and dogs. I want to propose the priority for using the money 11 and then the priority on which location to have the dog park. I feel the money is better 12 spent to have a new dog park in Pardee Park instead of expanding the existing dog park 13 because they already have something to play with anyway. To the north part of Palo 14 Alto, there is absolutely nothing within walking distance. Thank you. 15 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Matt Greenberg followed by Madhuri. 16 Matt Greenberg: Hi. I'm here mostly for informational purposes. I'm from Redwood 17 City. I'm actually a member of the Park and Rec Commission; I'm a Commissioner in 18 Redwood City. I came mostly to hear you, but in hearing this discussion I figured I 19 would add some perspective. Feel free to contact me at any time. I can give my 20 information. We actually have a 42-acre park called Stulsaft Park. I don't know if 21 anyone's familiar with it. About one-third allows off-leash; two-thirds does not. It's a 22 great source. Not to repeat what everyone else said; I'm not speaking on behalf of the 23 Park and Rec Commission, again. I am an owner of a 3-year-old Australian shepherd, so 24 I go there almost every day. It's a great way not only for the dogs to socialize, and off-25 leash anyone would say is best. It's become like the Starbucks for dog owners. As 26 everyone says, you become friends. You're hanging around in the morning. The same 27 people come. Different people come on the weekends. It's also become a place where a 28 lot of families and children come to meet dogs. It's become an access point. We have 29 toddler programs where people will meet by our creek just designed to meet the dogs. 30 We also have a champions program, which is our Friends of the Park, where we have 31 clean ups and stuff specifically by dog owners to clean up. We have all these poop 32 stations and everything else. Of course, we police not only with this group in the Park 33 and Rec, but also the dog owners make sure that other not-good dog owners aren't 34 welcome, which is also part of it. Most dog owners and dogs are great. Like in any 35 group, there's always that 3-5 percent that cause problems for everyone, and you need to 36 self-control. We do it. I'm mostly here to say if you want to see an example of a place 37 where we certainly have our ups and downs, but it works great for a wide source of 38 people. Love to talk about it. Love to tour you around and show you where it's a true 39 APPROVED Draft Minutes 11 off-leash, non-fenced area. We have some dog parks, but it's a different place for bigger 1 dogs and people with bigger dogs with kids and families to just hang out. Thank you. 2 Chair McDougall: Thank you. I really appreciate you coming up and speaking. I hope 3 we have the opportunity to follow up. 4 Madhuri Chattopadhyay: Good evening everyone. I think I recognize many of the faces 5 because we made a concerted effort to get a dog park in the northern part of Palo Alto 6 about 3-4 years ago. We are back in front of you asking for the same thing. Daren 7 Anderson and many others put in a lot of work then, but we were not able to get it to go. 8 I'm going to try to keep this brief. People before me have explained way more eloquently 9 than I could as to why we need one. We are a community. We like to think of ourselves 10 as a village. A village needs a place, a hub to meet. I know so many people here, and I 11 get to know them only because we meet with our dogs either on walks or trying to find a 12 place for them to run around off-leash. I'm going to try to keep this brief. Some of the 13 setbacks we encountered the last time were extremely negative, NIMBY-type community 14 feedback from the people living in the immediate periphery of Eleanor Pardee Park, who 15 made the effort of extending their outreach to a block and had people come by telling the 16 City and the people here that they did not want a dog park there because of the noise and 17 the smell. We here have all been in dog parks. If anyone here has ever found a dog park 18 that is noisy or smells, please raise your hand. I do not see a single hand. If anyone has 19 found a dog park that is more noisy than a bunch of kids playing soccer or anything, 20 please raise your hand. I don't see any raised hands. Dog parks are not noisy, and they're 21 not smelly. They're a place for people to come together. Most dog owners in Palo Alto 22 are very conscientious. Please keep that in mind as we go forward and encounter the 23 usual routes of resistance. The second point I'd like to make is this is a need for all of 24 northern Palo Alto, not just the people living in the immediate vicinity of Eleanor Pardee 25 Park. If you want to solicit feedback, if you can find a way of extending that to all of 26 Palo Alto, particularly north of Oregon, so that everybody gets a say in whether they 27 want an off-leash dog park in this part of Palo Alto, that'd be great. I assure you that the 28 yeas will far outnumber the nays. Even the people who live in the immediate vicinity of 29 Eleanor Pardee Park and don't want a dog park there do bring their dogs off-leash early in 30 the morning to the park and let them run around. This should not be the case. We are not 31 asking for anything unfair. I do not have kids, but I live on Addison Avenue, and I see 32 wrappers and all kinds of things on my front lawn. It's fine. It's a choice I've made. I'm 33 not cribbing about the tax money that goes to support the schools. I need a dog park and 34 so do many others here. I would really, really, really appreciate it if you could figure out 35 some way of getting a dog park in northern Palo Alto. Thank you so much for your time. 36 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Rohini—I'm not even going to try and embarrass myself. 37 I have another card here from Winter. Is Winter planning on speaking again? 38 APPROVED Draft Minutes 12 Ms. Dellenbach: Yes. 1 Chair McDougall: Thank you. 2 Rohini Chakravarthy: I just wanted to add to everybody's comments about Pardee Park. 3 I would really urge you to consider that. We have a black lab called Rocky. He's a year 4 and a half old. He's actually my son's dog, and my son doesn't drive. If he has to be 5 exercised, he has to be walked. Living close to Pardee Park, I've gotten to know the 6 community through that. You do have to consider that there are people who don't drive, 7 who do have dogs. This would be a great benefit. I also want to urge you to think about 8 Pardee Park for a couple of reasons. One is in the agenda you mention that there's 0.4 9 acres being considered out of the 9.6-acre park. It's a park that already has many assets. 10 It has a little dog fountain, which gets well used. It has a community as Shuang and 11 others mentioned, where we will take care of the park for you, not just for the dogs but 12 for everybody. We would really like you to try the pilot project, which is let the dogs 13 have an hour a day to run around maybe with temporary fencing and see how it goes. 14 That's another way to overcome some of the resistance that has been experienced in the 15 past. Thank you for that. 16 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Winter. 17 Ms. Dellenbach: I just thought since I was here. You have Bol Park down for restrooms. 18 I want to congratulate you. Bol Park needs restrooms. When this really comes to you 19 and becomes a real issue, you're going to have a lot of my neighbors, whom I love a lot, 20 come in here and just really disagree. I just want you to know I'm thrilled. We need it. 21 You're going to have to be really sensitive or whoever makes the final decision where 22 you put it. We think Bol Park is the most beautiful park in the whole City, so it needs to 23 have a sensitive placement of the restrooms, which we really, really need. I just want you 24 to remember what I'm saying and remember it is the most beautiful park in the City. 25 Sensitivity is needed. Thank you for being sensitive before you make your decision. 26 Chair McDougall: Thank you. I do have a card from Penny Proctor relative to the 27 bathrooms. Would you like to speak now or wait until after the staff report on 28 bathrooms? If you're willing to wait, I would prefer to have you speak after. You might 29 have a more interesting perspective. I'd like to open this to the Commission for 30 comments on the dog parks. Who is on the ad hoc? Anne, Ryan. Anne. 31 Commissioner Cribbs: Thank you very much. Thanks, Daren, for the staff report. It 32 says everything that we talked about in the meeting. We're excited to be able to use some 33 of the money to expand the existing dog parks and, I think, also very excited to see if we 34 could convince our fellow Commissioners and others to move forward with the pilot 35 program for the off-leash dogs in certain times of the day at specific parks. I look 36 forward to comments from Commissioner McCauley and the rest of the Commissioners. 37 APPROVED Draft Minutes 13 I'm excited that we're moving forward on this. We've been without dog parks for a long 1 time. It feels really good to get this going. Thank you very much, Daren, for your 2 efforts. 3 Commissioner McCauley: I'll try to be brief. I think Anne covered most all of it. A 4 number of speakers this evening articulated the point, which I heard from Don and Daren 5 and former Mayor Karen Holman when they were dedicating the Peers Park dog park, 6 which is that dogs tend to make us better neighbors, and they help build community. I 7 think this is something notable that we should be continuing to move forward. I am also 8 supportive of the idea of bringing a pilot proposal to the City Council, looking at doing a 9 study along the lines of what Mountain View did to allow one or two areas that have an 10 obvious need for an additional dog park to have off-leash limited hours during the day. 11 Chair McDougall: Keith, you want to comment? 12 Commissioner Reckdahl: I strongly support the dog parks. Dog owners just do not want 13 to have to get in the car, drive across town to exercise their dog. It makes it less pleasant 14 for them. It makes traffic for us, so it makes it less pleasant for everybody. We really 15 should be moving as fast as we can to expand dog parks at most major parks just to 16 minimize the drive. People can walk out their door to the dog park and not drive. It all 17 comes down to money. If we can have some fundraising and Howard can get some 18 money, we can speed up this process because that's what is slowing it down right now. 19 It's not anything else. With respect to the unfenced off-leash area, I'm not a big fan of 20 that. As one of the speakers mentioned, you have like 3-5 percent of the dog owners who 21 aren't watching their dogs, they're not cleaning up after their dogs. That's a hard burden. 22 It's unfortunate because the other 95 percent are doing their job. If you look at Hoover 23 Park, there's waste everywhere. When we lived next to Hoover Park, every night the kids 24 came home with dog waste on their shoes. That's a big issue. If we extend the unfenced 25 areas, I'm afraid that we're going to be spreading dog waste over that area, and it will not 26 be a good experience. 27 Commissioner Moss: About Eleanor Pardee Park, there's not a single Commissioner who 28 is against putting more dog parks, nor has the staff had any issues with that. Peers Park 29 was mainly going to the park of least resistance. The speaker that mentioned NIMBY-30 ism on Eleanor Pardee Park, it's a serious problem if we let five neighbors overrule what 31 20,000 people in north Palo Alto could benefit from. It's really important that we do a 32 conscientious job with staff to make sure there is a dog park in a less-sensitive part of the 33 park. Even if it were 5 feet away from the back fence instead of right up against the back 34 fence of these people who don't want the park there, that would be okay. I think it's 35 really important for staff to pick the right spot and not move on to the next park. We're 36 going to have that issue with every park that we recommend. Dog owners should be 37 aware that their neighbors can have an impact to stop progress, so they need to work on 38 APPROVED Draft Minutes 14 their neighbors. About off-leash, I walk and run the track at Cubberley. As the speaker 1 from Redwood City said, there are these 3-5 percent of people who have a problem, but 2 there are many, many people who use Cubberley and Greendell off-leash at night. As 3 long as they don't interfere with sports teams and runners and walkers, then they haven't 4 had a problem. I would support a pilot for off-leash, but it's really up to the dog owners 5 to help police those 3-5 percent because we and staff can't be there. It wrecks it for 6 everybody. That's what I would recommend for off-leash. I've been to Stulsaft Park in 7 Redwood City. It's amazing. I'm a little worried about the natural diversity and the 8 health of wildlife in that part that's off-leash. When we were there, there was very little 9 wildlife. I don't encourage off-leash on such a huge open space as they have, but I do 10 feel off-leash in certain areas and certain parks is worth a pilot. The last thing I want to 11 mention is in your staff report you talk about dollars for creating dog parks, expanding 12 dog parks versus maintenance. I know there is a dog owners association in Palo Alto, 13 and I encourage them to come forward with funds to improve the existing parks with 14 benches and other amenities, maybe even Astroturf versus turf, things like that. If there 15 is a way the dog owners association can help with that so that the vast majority of the 16 funds can go to creating new parks, I would prefer that. 17 Vice Chair Greenfield: I'd like to echo the comments of a few Commissioners speaking 18 before me. I do support reducing car traffic for dog exercise and for all exercise in 19 general. Pardee does seem like an ideal geographic location for a dog park, but we've run 20 into logistic issues. Maybe we can overcome them, maybe not. It's something we need 21 to pursue further. Regarding off-leash, I agree it's incumbent on the dog owners to make 22 it work. I'd like to better understand the rationale for recommending Mitchell and Greer 23 improvements as opposed to opening a new dog park. 24 Mr. Anderson: The one that jumps out to me is Greer. The potential is there to make that 25 a usable dog park, and frankly it's not. No one uses it. People complain about it and treat 26 it like it's a joke. It's almost a daycare, where you drop off your dog and go do a task, 27 instead of the vibrant dog park dog owners want. I think we've got space at that park to 28 expand it in a way that it could become that. It could be really useful and helpful and 29 create community. Likewise at Mitchell, the last time we did outreach about a dog park, 30 we heard from so many dog park users saying, "Mitchell is disgusting. I can't stand that 31 place. You need to do something different. The grass is always dead." It was the most 32 negative feedback I've heard about any of our facilities. I was astonished and 33 disappointed. We thought this may be a way to help address this. There's capacity on 34 passive turf adjacent to that dog park where you can double the size of grass. Maybe it'd 35 last longer. There's shade because there are trees adjacent to it. There are some 36 amenities there, blowing that out to take advantage of park that's not being utilized and 37 perhaps make that dog park better. 38 APPROVED Draft Minutes 15 Vice Chair Greenfield: Is this prioritized over a north Palo Alto dog park based on the 1 easiest option available? 2 Mr. Anderson: I think there's an element of that, that we could make it happen, I think, 3 sooner rather than later. We'd still have to do outreach certainly to the community and 4 the users of those facilities. The number of outreach meetings we've had to do in the past 5 is onerous and causes delays. I already have a lot of complaints about those existing dog 6 parks, and I want to be responsive to those concerns as well as the demand for new ones. 7 Those are some of the reasons. You can make a fair argument that the need is 8 everywhere. Finding just the right spot can be challenging. The ad hoc and staff felt like 9 that would be two good uses for the FY '20 funds. 10 Vice Chair Greenfield: That's helpful. Where are we considering off-leash dog usage on 11 a temporary basis? 12 Mr. Anderson: I think it's still a little bit early. The ad hoc would benefit from a little 13 time and perhaps some more site visits. Ones we've talked about anecdotally would be 14 Pardee, Heritage Park. I think it would be wise and prudent to look broadly at all our 15 sites to find out what would make the most sense in terms of a pilot. 16 Vice Chair Greenfield: That sounds interesting and something I'd be interested in 17 supporting. 18 Council Member Cormack: I'm not familiar with Kingsley Island Park. In fact, I've 19 never heard of it. Where is that located? 20 Mr. Anderson: It's not actually a park. It's a parcel that we thought, "Wouldn't it be great 21 if we could make it dedicated parkland?" It's not currently being used for anything. It's 22 just an open piece of grass, and it doesn't abut against anybody's backyard, which is 23 another kind of highlight area that we thought we would have less noise issue. This is on 24 Embarcadero at Kingsley. There are some trees there and a passive piece of turf. It's 25 relatively small, about 0.27 acres. 26 Commissioner McCauley: It's essentially the southern area at the intersection of Alma 27 and Embarcadero. 28 Council Member Cormack: It's the triangle. When you say pilot, does that mean our off-29 leash laws would not be enforced? Is that what a pilot means? 30 Mr. Anderson: I think we'd be seeking an exception to that for a temporary time period 31 to say the off-leash rules would not apply to this area. We'd treat it just like we would a 32 dog park for whatever the pilot length is and the duration of the times per day. It 33 wouldn't be all day but rather a certain time period. 34 APPROVED Draft Minutes 16 Chair McDougall: Council Member Cormack really liked your answer because she did 1 this project where she went to every park, and she was afraid she was going to have to 2 start over again. Rather than make my own comments, which I'll obviously interject, I'd 3 like to recount what I thought I heard. I heard several people talk about the importance of 4 the dog parks relative to socializing their dogs and exercise for the dogs and, by the way, 5 not wanting to get into their car to get to that. I brought Michel's card back out. When 6 she talked about fundraising, I would like to comment on that. There is Friends of the 7 Palo Alto Parks, which is a 501(c)(3). What they're perfectly willing to do is set up 8 subsections of that. If you wanted to put money into a 501(c)(3) rather than into a club or 9 something, that could be set up that way. If you're interested in talking about that, send 10 me an email, and I'll introduce you. I liked your comment about flexible times. There 11 were at least half a dozen other letters that came to the Commission, people who weren't 12 here and submitted letters. The concept of flexible times was important. Several of those 13 written inputs said, "Just give us a couple of hours someplace, some time." The idea that 14 we have all of these parks and maybe you could make every park. To comment to 15 Council Member Cormack, when you asked if our rules won't be enforced, our rules are 16 not being enforced at any park today. Heritage Park, Tuesday night, 5:00 to 7:00 is the 17 dog park at Heritage Park every week. Probably 30 people come to that, 30 dogs. I 18 know this is not the only park where that goes on. I think that's what people are asking 19 for as much as they're asking for a 7-foot fence and sawdust and whatever. I do hear the 20 whole idea that you have responsible dogs. I heard somebody talk about the fact that you 21 have responsible dogs. I'm not sure I heard as many comments about responsible owners. 22 To reflect what Commissioner Moss was saying, the professional dog walkers at 23 Baylands do walk their dogs with leashes, 20 at a time or whatever it may be. Every 24 individual that takes their dog to the Baylands, particularly Byxbee, let's it off the leash 25 the minute they get out of the car. We're really interested in maintaining the wildlife 26 there and growing the wildlife. Having off-leash dogs chase the rabbits through the 27 bushes does not help that. I'm totally in favor of this off-leash concept, but this idea of 28 responsible owners. I like the idea that several people mentioned, that dog owners could 29 become park stewards, even basically mini volunteers, you might say. That doesn't mean 30 we want to give you green jackets and badges or stuff. It might mean we would give you 31 a card, a pilot card that says, "Here are the regulations. If you encounter somebody, it's 32 not your responsibility to be a policeman." In fact, it might even be dangerous for you to 33 be a policeman. It wouldn't necessarily be bad for you to hand somebody a card and say, 34 "By the way, are you aware that this is the circumstance?" Back to the letters we got, I 35 would say every letter we got talked more about the community value, the people they 36 meet than the letters talked about any of the other items. I do believe before this off-leash 37 thing went even to trial, we would have to make sure that we were talking to City legal 38 staff to make sure things are okay. Carmel by the Beach is totally dog friendly; there are 39 no leashes on the beach, so it must be possible. We have no jurisdiction over schools. I 40 would discourage dog owners from going into the schools. I think that would be a 41 mistake. The question about the two new—when I hear the problems with the existing 42 APPROVED Draft Minutes 17 two that we're going to try to fix, I'm not sure if I'm hearing maintenance versus 1 expansion or expansion as an excuse for maintenance. I don't mean that to be pejorative. 2 On the other hand, we could look at it as we don't have any dog parks right now. Instead 3 of saying we have four, you might want to say we have two because two of them are not 4 usable. Fixing these two would give us four. I would encourage the ad hoc to look at 5 that. I'd like to hear back from the ad hoc very quickly about if we are going to pursue 6 the idea of an off-leash trial, how quickly could we do that. I would really not like to 7 have a pickleball episode where six years later—I know I'm exaggerating. I would like 8 us to see if we could do that trial sooner rather than later. I'd like to thank everybody, 9 especially Matt Greenberg for coming from Redwood City to talk about what they're 10 doing there. We'll probably take him up on his invitation to visit that. This has been a 11 good discussion. I'll send it back to Daren and/or Kristen if they would like to make any 12 further comments. 13 Mr. Anderson: I don't have any additional comments on dog parks but rather continue on 14 with the park restroom discussion. On the topic of park restrooms, the Parks Master Plan, 15 much like the dog parks, illustrated that residents strongly support additional restrooms in 16 parks. The community highlighted the need to include security measures such as 17 automatic locking mechanisms and lighting, which have helped address some of the 18 concerns related to adding restrooms in parks. The Parks Master Plan has a park 19 restroom policy and program, and that is that the City will actively pursue adding park 20 restrooms in parks that are approximately 2 acres or larger, have amenities to encourage 21 visitors to stay in the park, have a high level of use, and have no other nearby restrooms. 22 Fifteen of our parks and open space preserves have restrooms. By the criteria defined in 23 the Parks Master Plan, the Plan recommends adding restrooms in seven other parks. I 24 need to mention that, much like the dog parks, we would need to perform the community 25 outreach for each of those sites prior to taking an action or making any recommendation 26 to add a restroom at those sites. Similar to dog parks, there's a CIP, which provides 27 funding in this case of $350,000, for park restrooms in fiscal years 2020, 2021, and 2023. 28 The ad hoc committee and staff have been working on identifying locations where we 29 should add those park restrooms, especially for the funding available in FY '20 and '21. 30 The committee recommends Ramos Park be considered the site for the FY '20 park 31 restroom project. Ramos Park, which is identified in the Parks Master Plan as one of 32 those potential sites, is scheduled for its own capital improvement project that same year, 33 FY '20, and that improvement project would replace the existing playground, benches, 34 drinking fountain, and resurface the basketball court. Community outreach for that 35 project, the Ramos improvement project, is tentatively scheduled for August 2019, and 36 construction would start in approximately February 2020. It'd be about a 3-month 37 construction project. As I noted, the ad hoc would continue to look at where the next 38 park restroom would be, do some more outreach, and look at all our sites again with fresh 39 eyes. With that, I conclude my presentation, turn to the ad hoc for any additional 40 comments they'd like to make on park restrooms. 41 APPROVED Draft Minutes 18 Chair McDougall: Before I go to the ad hoc, I'm going to give Rita and Winter 1 Dellenbach the opportunity to speak. Rita, and after Rita, Winter. 2 Ms. Vrhel: Again, Eleanor Pardee Park is a very large park. You have two children's 3 playgrounds. You have picnic tables. You have soccer teams, baseball teams, camp 4 during the summer, park play. I don't know how big Ramos Park is, but Eleanor 5 Pardee—in addition we have a community garden, which is very successful. We need a 6 bathroom. The dog owner people were talking about neighbors running their dogs in the 7 morning and objecting to a dog park for the rest of the community. I know this is true. 8 Some of the people who are objecting are actually friends of mine. It's a public park. 9 When the public park was built and designed by Helen Proctor, Penny Proctor's mother, 10 apparently a bathroom could have been put in at no charge, but the neighbors were afraid 11 of undesirables. Reported in the paper was La Doris Cordell's idea of a bathroom, and 12 apparently Mexicans and Blacks would come from East Palo Alto. We are living in a 13 time where there is racial divide fomented by our President. Palo Alto is better than that. 14 To have a park as large as Eleanor Pardee Park with as many people who visit that park, 15 you know the kids are going somewhere. Having human waste in a proper receptacle, 16 being a public health nurse, would be a good idea. I would really encourage you to do 17 public outreach for both the restroom and the dog run and certainly make it beyond the 18 people that live right next door to the park. I live right next door to a school. It's okay. 19 Things can work out. We just need all to realize that it's not all about us. Thank you. 20 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Winter. 21 Ms. Dellenbach: I thought I spoke on this because somebody said, "You should just get 22 up here and speak all the same …" 23 Chair McDougall: Did you speak on the restrooms? You spoke on the restrooms. 24 Ms. Dellenbach: Weren't you listening, Don? I thought you listened to me. 25 Chair McDougall: I'm sorry. I even have notes. 26 Ms. Dellenbach: Do I have to remind you? I spoke of sensitivity, and I thanked you for 27 your sensitivity. The other thing about Bol Park that I will say, they've put in a rain 28 garden there because of the … 29 Chair McDougall: I don't deserve this, or I do. 30 Ms. Dellenbach: We may be getting bioswales as part of the green infrastructure. You're 31 going to have to negotiate that too. I'm just saying. This is a good thing; it's not 32 insurmountable. Again, who does this? Who makes the decision about this? Do you 33 make the decision or does City Council make the decision? 34 APPROVED Draft Minutes 19 Chair McDougall: We make recommendations. 1 Ms. Dellenbach: The Council makes a decision. I'll save that for them. It's a little 2 sensitive because it is the most beautiful park. 3 Chair McDougall: That part I remember. Penny Proctor. Penny, thank you for being 4 patient. 5 Penny Proctor: I'm Penny Proctor on Greer Road, and I'm a community gardener at 6 Eleanor Pardee Park. We would really love to have a bathroom there. As you know, it's 7 a big park, heavily used. There's a picnic area, and there's a couple of areas adjacent to 8 the community garden that are used as a toilet, which is not good. One of my gardeners 9 had to quit and give up her plot because she couldn't make it home in time. For a couple 10 of people with various medical problems, it's a problem. The master gardeners have 11 events that the public comes to; although, most of them are pretty short. It would be 12 really wonderful to have a bathroom there. In the past, some of the neighbors have 13 expressed concerns. Maybe it could be tried out with a port-a-potty for a couple of 14 months and see if there are problems or not. It would also be nice to have the dog park, 15 so they aren't running right around the garden. Although, that's okay. Thank you. 16 Chair McDougall: If there are no other cards, I'll invite the Commission members to 17 speak. Thank you, Penny. 18 Commissioner McCauley: My thought is that a pilot is the theme of the day. I think it's 19 exactly the right thing to do. I thank the last speaker for mentioning it. It's something the 20 committee has been talking about. Bathrooms these days have a lot higher technology 21 than they did 10 years ago. The ability for them to be secured in a way—also for them 22 generally to be resilient—for them to be secured overnight and even during the day if 23 needed. They can essentially be remotely controlled. Many of the concerns that we had 24 about restrooms, again, even 10 years ago have been addressed in large part by 25 technology. Back to the pilot idea, it would be a particularly good thing to have a fairly 26 high-end portable restroom facility. It's something we did at the golf course while the 27 golf course was under construction. We could do something similar, and Pardee Park 28 would be a great place to start with a pilot of that nature in order to see how the 29 community responds to it. I hope it would be favorable. 30 Commissioner Cribbs: I agree with Commissioner McCauley about the trial basis for 31 some portables, which tend to be very nice these days. I'm very much in support of 32 bathrooms in the park and moving as quickly as possible to get them installed in the 33 places where they need to be. I also think it's going to be important when we do the 34 community outreach to talk about the things that Daren talked about, that bathrooms are 35 different now. They can be locked at night. They have particular designs that enable 36 them to be kept clean. The old objections probably aren't as strong. I'm really glad to 37 APPROVED Draft Minutes 20 hear the number of people in the audience tonight who are supporting bathrooms in the 1 park and supporting the use perhaps of portables. That's great. We need to do a good job 2 of educating the public about what bathrooms look like in 2019 because they're really 3 different than they were when we were all growing up. 4 Commissioner Moss: Like with the dog parks, I don't think there's any Commissioner 5 who hasn't consistently supported more bathrooms in the parks. It is precisely because of 6 what Commissioner Cribbs said about an increase in security and cleanliness. You can 7 lock the bathrooms at night and things like that. When we have an outreach meeting, it's 8 really important that neighbors talk to neighbors about the importance of these bathrooms 9 because that was probably the reason why we didn't move faster 2 years ago. It's a health 10 issue that the City is responsible for. I don't know if legal will have any issue with that. 11 As we have older gardeners and young kids who cannot make it home to the bathroom, 12 this is a health issue. When we have an outreach, we have to make it clear that there is an 13 exposure there. A pilot is not necessary. We should have a set schedule that every time 14 we redo a park, if they don't have a bathroom, we should be putting one in. If you want 15 to put port-a-potties in in the meantime for health reasons, please do, but don't call it a 16 pilot. Just put the port-a-potties in for health reasons. 17 Commissioner Reckdahl: These temporary toilets that would go in as the pilot project. 18 What percentage of a real bathroom would that be? Is it 10 percent? Is it half the cost? 19 Mr. Anderson: We rent them. The only experience I've got with it was the recent one we 20 did at the golf course. It was appreciated. People seemed to like it. It was very clean. 21 Commissioner Reckdahl: If it's a small fraction, I see the benefit. If it becomes 22 significant, then you're delaying effectively a real bathroom because you're renting this 23 temporary for a while. 24 Mr. Anderson: I can tell you on the ad hoc discussions we had. It was one of those 25 things to keep in the back pocket. If we're confronting a lot of opposition to it, it's a tool 26 we could say, "Let's see if your fears are realized. Let's put a restroom there without the 27 enormous cost or the permanency." You can put it out there for a limited amount of time 28 and see if these things are true. There's another argument to be … 29 Commissioner Reckdahl: This would be similar in size and style to what we're talking 30 about for Cubberley, just less sturdy? 31 Mr. Anderson: I wouldn't say it's similar to a brick-and-mortar restroom. It's a port-a 32 potty. 33 Commissioner Reckdahl: It's more like a port-a potty. 34 APPROVED Draft Minutes 21 Mr. Anderson: There's a ramp going up to it. 1 Commissioner Reckdahl: We'd have to price it out, but I'd be inclined not to spend the 2 money on that and try to accelerate the real toilets as quickly as possible. We talked 3 about problems. When I go to the parks, they seem to be in pretty good condition, the 4 bathrooms do. Are there complaints about the bathrooms? 5 Mr. Anderson: The complaints are typically on really high-use days. If you had a park 6 like Greer, for example, and very heavy tournament play, the complaint would be either 7 the restroom didn't have supplies or wasn't clean. In fact, on those kind of weekends, we 8 have two servicings. It's not like it's waiting through the weekend. That's one. Another 9 one might be some of our restrooms—I'm thinking about the one in Mitchell Park next to 10 the tennis courts. This one is used by both the Magical Bridge Playground and the tennis 11 users. I think it's undersized for the number of people who are using it. We get 12 complaints about either it's availability or its cleanliness. 13 Commissioner Reckdahl: That's one bathroom I've heard complaints about. People are 14 saying it's not big enough. Their kid is dancing around, waiting in line, and they wish it 15 was a bigger bathroom. Are there any plans to expand that? 16 Mr. Anderson: There aren't currently. The ad hoc's discussed the need for that. We're 17 certainly pursuing options with our own Public Works facilities to see if we can enhance 18 it because it's not working well right now. 19 Commissioner Reckdahl: The list that you have on page 2, that lists the different parks, if 20 you had to rate them by the number of youth athletic games that were in there, would 21 Ramos be the highest one? What would be the … 22 Mr. Anderson: I don't think I could say definitely. I can get back to you. It's something 23 maybe I could work on with the ad hoc to categorize it. 24 Commissioner Reckdahl: That is the common need for bathrooms when you have youth 25 soccer or baseball games because you're constrained. You can't go home because it's in 26 the middle of a game. I would put a lot of weight on the parks that have a lot of youth 27 sports. Ramos is a reasonably good choice because there are soccer games there. I know 28 there are baseball games. I want to make sure we're not overlooking something. 29 Chair McDougall: Council Member Cormack, do you want to comment? 30 Council Member Cormack: If you're contemplating temporary restrooms, I want to be 31 sure they're accessible. I heard Mr. Anderson mention a ramp. It's something to keep in 32 mind. It won't be necessarily the normal one, the straightforward one. We want to be 33 sure that it's accessible for everyone. 34 APPROVED Draft Minutes 22 Vice Chair Greenfield: If I understand correctly, we're looking at using CIP budget for 1 restrooms in fiscal 2020 and 2021. 2 Mr. Anderson: That's correct. 3 Vice Chair Greenfield: Are we looking at one bathroom per year? Is that what the 4 budget supports? 5 Mr. Anderson: Yes. 6 Vice Chair Greenfield: We've selected Ramos as the priority for 2020 at this point. 7 When we're talking about a pilot restroom, that would be targeted for the 2021 choice or 8 are we … 9 Commissioner McCauley: Potential, subject to the comment that Daren made, which is it 10 may not be necessary, but it would be an option potentially. 11 Mr. Anderson: If I could add one little caveat. Again, the CIP I don't think could be used 12 for that temporary one. We'll have to secure funding. The ad hoc had asked me to get 13 the cost for that; I don't have it yet. I'm looking into it. That would be another hurdle to 14 overcome. 15 Vice Chair Greenfield: The portable toilet you're talking about, is this going to have 16 smell issues that we commonly associate with port-a-potties? 17 Mr. Anderson: These are significantly nicer than your traditional port-a-potty that you'd 18 see on a construction site. I don't think that was an issue at the golf course at all. I 19 frequented it during the construction just to check on it and make sure it was working 20 well and being cleaned. That wasn't an issue. I think it comes down to the servicing 21 schedule. That's probably the chief thing that's going to address the smell issue. 22 Vice Chair Greenfield: I'm concerned that if we're trying out something like this as a 23 pilot program and it has some impacts on the site that a permanent restroom wouldn't 24 have, are we doing ourselves a service in this trial and is it an accurate representation to 25 the community of what a restroom would be like? We want to avoid shooting ourselves 26 in the foot on that. What are the most recent restrooms that we've added at parks the last 27 couple of times around? 28 Mr. Anderson: I think it's Briones. The next one that's coming up, even before whatever 29 the Commission recommends to Council and whatever Council chooses, is the field 30 restroom at Cubberley. That one will be trail end of that project that's coming. It's a 31 standalone CIP and not part of this project. 32 APPROVED Draft Minutes 23 Vice Chair Greenfield: I'm looking forward to that. I support the work for the restrooms. 1 We just need to get community buy-in and funding and keep moving forward. 2 Chair McDougall: In summary, I agree with the concerns about doing a trial in terms of 3 how legitimate it would be and the concern of if it's $10,000 a month or whatever it 4 might be, have we a year later used up the $150,000 that we were planning. I can't 5 remember where I've encountered this. I didn't see the one at the golf course. These 6 were amazingly comfortable in terms of the amenities and clean and easy to keep clean. 7 They did have a ramp so they were accessible. If those are rentable, I would guess that 8 they're also purchasable. Is there some possibility that we could, instead of spending 9 $150,000 to build a new one, buy those for $75,000 and populate two parks at the same 10 time or something? I would like to think about that. If the issue is they're painted white 11 and they're quite visible, there's no reason why we can't repaint them and make them 12 blend into the landscape much better. It's important that we move ahead with this 13 aggressively. Both the Comprehensive Plan and the Parks Master Plan go on and on 14 about our aging population. Once you've got this aging population doing their gardening 15 and has to get home, I can understand how somebody would give up their garden. It's 16 just more and more evidence that that kind of thing is becoming a real problem. I 17 understand that the CIP is put in place, $150,000 for a dog park, but we also know it's 18 flexible in terms of things being moved out. I would hope that it's flexible in terms of re-19 examining even the concept of a dog park every other year and a bathroom every other 20 year. If it were to have to stay that way, I'd be in favor of 3:1 or something like that for 21 the bathrooms. I say that because Council Member Cormack is right to question whether 22 people are out there breaking the dog rules by having their dogs off-leash, but we're not 23 likely to run screaming too badly about that happening. If people decide they've got to go 24 in the bushes, then we are going to scream about that. Trying to address that problem is 25 important, and we should move on it sooner rather than later. The table you sent out 26 relative to potential parks included Heritage Park and the idea that there's going to be a 27 bathroom in the museum. I have no idea what the status of that is and whether that's 28 anytime soon, that that would be the solution to a bathroom in Heritage Park. It's again in 29 an area where you have density of aging population that you need to deal with. It's a park 30 that's used by people Downtown. This is an urgent problem, and I hope we address it 31 quickly. Thank you. 32 Commissioner Cribbs: These portable restrooms that we're speaking about are not the 33 construction restrooms, but they're the ones that you would see at any special event at 34 Pebble Beach and have the accessible ramps, hand washing stations that are lovely. 35 Some even have flowers planted outside. I would assure you that these will not be 36 eyesores. They will not be smelly, and they will be serviced on a regular basis. It's a 37 great opportunity to give it a shot for a couple of months and see how the neighborhood 38 reacts to it. 39 APPROVED Draft Minutes 24 Commissioner McCauley: The point about not wasting money on a pilot program is very 1 well taken and totally appreciate that. Daren is probably the best equipped to speak from 2 experience about instances where there was some negative pushback against bathrooms. 3 The idea of a pilot would be to, as Daren was saying, essentially see whether those fears 4 materialize or not. I hope they wouldn't be, but it would be a study. It's a great thing to 5 have in the back pocket. 6 Chair McDougall: If we have no other comments on that, I would suggest we move onto 7 the next topic, which is access to Foothills Park. 8 3. Access to Foothills Park 9 Chair McDougall: Unlike most of our topics where we have staff make a presentation, 10 we have the luxury of having the ad hoc speak to this. I invite Ryan to introduce the 11 topic. 12 Commissioner McCauley: The purpose for tonight's discussion is to hear from the public 13 and the Commission about the access policy for Foothills Park and for the Foothills ad 14 hoc committee to then digest that and come back to the full Commission with a more 15 complete proposal. This dialog within the Parks and Recreation Commission has been 16 going on for a couple of years. I know that there's been recently more press attention to 17 the issue of Foothills Park access, but this is something—it's important for the public to 18 know—that's been discussed within the Commission several times in our annual retreats 19 in the last couple of years. Obviously, it's been a topic which has been raised publicly 20 over the decades. I'm going to turn it over to Daren to provide us some of the historical 21 context, and then Daren will pass the baton back. Don maybe will have a couple of other 22 prefatory comments and then welcome public comment, I think. 23 Mr. Anderson: Good evening, again. Daren Anderson, Community Services 24 Department. Just a brief history of Foothills Park. In 1941, Dr. Russell Lee, one of the 25 founders of the Palo Alto Medical Clinic, and his wife, Dorothy Lee, bought the land that 26 is currently Foothills Park. In 1958, the Lees offered that land to the City at the special 27 price of $1,000 per acres so it would be preserved as open space rather than subdivided. 28 In May of 1959, an election was held on the proposed purchase. 6,542 people voted to 29 buy the park, and 3,997 voted against it. With that 62 percent of the voters supporting the 30 purchase of the land, the City bought the property for $1.3 million. The park was 31 dedicated on June 19, 1965 as a place of beauty, simplicity, and serenity that would be 32 conserved to protect its natural features and scenic values. The public vote regarding the 33 purchase of the land did not include whether or not the park should be limited to residents 34 only. That was a Council decision that appears to be based on two factors. The first is 35 that Palo Alto fully funded the purchase of the land. Palo Alto approached other cities, 36 both Los Altos and Los Altos Hills, about sharing the expenses of the property, and both 37 cities declined. The second is some information I recently found in an article from 38 APPROVED Draft Minutes 25 December 10, 1980 in the Stanford Daily that discusses the purchase and the price. The 1 article states some residents believe the City had no business creating a regional park, and 2 a group called the Citizens for Good Government formed to oppose the plan of buying it. 3 They filed a taxpayer's lawsuit in Santa Clara County Superior Court alleging that Palo 4 Alto City Council had violated the City Charter by approving the land purchase without 5 waiting the 30 days for public examination of the expenditure. The lawsuit was rejected 6 by the California Supreme Court after a referendum of the park purchase was approved 7 by Palo Alto voters. In what former Palo Alto City Manager Jerome Keithley termed an 8 attempt to salvage the project and to appease the regional park concerns of the Citizens of 9 Good Government, City Council announced in 1959 that the park would only be open to 10 Palo Alto residents and their guests. It wasn't until 1969 that the City added that 11 residency requirement to the Municipal Code, which limited admission to the park to 12 residents and their accompanied guests. Over the years, there's been interest in opening 13 the park to nonresidents. In 1973, the City Council unanimously reaffirmed the 14 residents-only policy, pointing out that the park's acquisition was paid for with City 15 general funds, and no federal funds were used. The residency requirement was brought 16 up again in 1991 and 2005, and both times Council again reaffirmed the residency 17 requirement. In 2005, in exchange for a $2 million grant for funding the purchase of 13 18 acres adjacent to the Pearson-Arastradero Preserve, City Council voted to allow 19 nonresidents to enter Foothills Park via the Bay to Ridge Trail. Hikers may enter 20 Foothills Park via the Pearson Arastradero-Preserve and from the Los Trancos Preserve. 21 Though your memo also included some information on visitation, I've got some 22 additional visitation information that might be helpful. It is estimated that 153,670 23 people visited Foothills Parks in 2018. This is an increase of 1.8 percent from the 2017 24 numbers. This is down from the 15-year high of 202,538 people, which was experienced 25 in 2011. With the exception of the two higher than average years in 2011 and 2012, 26 visitation levels have basically remained very constant and consistent around that 27 150,000-per-year level. The number of vehicles entering Foothills Park in 2018 was 28 72,949, 2.3 percent higher than the previous year. Monthly visitation during the summer 29 of 2018 was a little higher than the median for the prior years. You can see a drop in 30 visitation in November, which is a month when we usually see a little spike around the 31 Thanksgiving holiday. This was due to the smoke from the fires of 2018. The number of 32 nonresident vehicles being turned away fell from the previous year by 7.5 percent. It was 33 3,482 nonresident turn-aways. The median annual number of nonresident turn-aways per 34 year for the last 5 years has been about 2,800. We've got two very low years in 2006 and 35 2007. I don't have good data for why those were so low. There were 311 dog turn-aways 36 for 2018. As you know, dogs are not allowed in Foothills Park on weekends and 37 holidays. That concludes my presentation. 38 Commissioner McCauley: Just a few other brief comments and then, Don, if you think 39 it's appropriate, we'll go with public comment and then we can perhaps come back. The 40 ad hoc committee has considered a number of different options. I want to stress that 41 APPROVED Draft Minutes 26 they're not exclusive options. Some combination of one of these options might be a path 1 forward. They're laid out in the memo from the committee to the Commission. I'll talk 2 about them a little bit after we hear public comment. Before we hear public comment, I 3 just wanted to recognize and appreciate that there is history with Foothills Park and this 4 particular policy. It's been a thorny issue in the past. I've had many conversations with 5 members of the community. I've found that there are a number of items of consensus, 6 which I think will help guide us to what I view as a better policy. Foothills Park is a very 7 special place. Anyone who might speak to that issue would definitely hold that in 8 common with all of us. Personally, it's where I proposed to my wife, where she accepted 9 my marriage proposal, so it is near and dear to my heart. Part and parcel, the discussion 10 in some part is what motivated the implementation of the current policy in the first 11 instance. It's not to diminish that conversation at all. There are probably a number of 12 different reasons for the implementation of the policy. My own view is the current policy 13 uses a fairly rough tool to accomplish a goal, and we might have other tools available to 14 us today that would allow us to do the same thing, which is to ensure that we have the 15 right balance between number of people using the park and preservation of the park. We 16 have a number of good tools available to us. We've tried to lay some of those out in the 17 memo, but there may be others as well. The third point of consensus I found is that 18 practice and the Municipal Code are not aligned. As we've talked about with the Council 19 itself a couple of months ago, there is a problem in that we have made it a misdemeanor, 20 made it a crime, for someone who's not a Palo Alto resident to step foot or at least drive 21 into the park. They can walk on the Bay to Foothills Trail, as we know. The next point 22 of consensus that I've found is that the park can reasonably support more visitors without 23 degrading its resources. This is probably particularly true on weekdays. If anyone has 24 questions about weekday and weekend visitation, Daren has this incredible trove of data. 25 I hope that will be helpful to the entire Commission as you think about different options 26 here. Don't hesitate to turn to them for information where you need it. The next point is 27 we have an opportunity to build a better policy that's more inclusive and uses some 28 technological means in order to advance the community objective. This is what I was 29 talking about before. With that, unless there are any initial questions from Commission 30 members, it might make sense to take community comment. 31 Chair McDougall: Before we go to comment, the menu of options that you have here 32 includes updating the current Code so that it's not illegal to be there during the week, 33 number one. Number two, focus on student programs relative to various school 34 constituencies as a basis of opening the park more. The third is a reservation system 35 that—the word here is dynamic reservation—can be implemented. Number four is a 36 combination of the above and maybe others that we haven't heard about. It's worth 37 understanding that there are those options. I would invite speakers. I would start with 38 Robert Roth with Barbara Millen next. I am so happy to see that Winter's going to 39 submit a card because I was going to invite her to speak anyway. Thank you. 40 APPROVED Draft Minutes 27 Robert Roth: My name is Robert Roth. My wife and I are charter members of the 1 Friends of Foothills Park. For the last 25 years, we have been digging invasive weeds to 2 make the park a more beautiful place. When it comes to widespread access to the park, 3 you can color me smallish, not that I feel superior to the people who live in Los Altos 4 Hills or Los Altos or Menlo Park. It's just that I live in a town where the government 5 purchased the park, and they developed the park, and they provided a staff to create a 6 beautiful place. The park has limited parking facilities. Would you want to cut down the 7 trees and spread gravel in the meadows so that we could accommodate more cars in the 8 park? It follows that if the park is overused, the magical experience of coming upon a 9 flock of quail or 30 or 40 young turkeys or seeing a coyote or any of the experiences of 10 the birds and the beasts and the flowers in the park could be lost. There's also a need for 11 a bit of quiet. People in the community need a place for, say, a mental health day, where 12 they can walk for 15 minutes and enjoy a very, very quiet place. I encourage you to 13 continue to limit access to the park. Thank you very much. 14 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Barbara will be followed by Kristine Zavoli. 15 Barbara Millen: I'm Barbara Millen. I'm glad to have this opportunity to thank Mr. and 16 Mrs. Roth for all their work that they've done. I go to the park quite a bit, and I see these 17 two. They're in there when it's 90 degrees, and they're pulling out the weeds. I admire 18 them so much I feel very guilty because I just go there to hike. I do other things to help 19 the community, but they're special. I hate to go against him, his ideas, but I'm not really 20 against his ideas. Also, I hope my husband's not listening because he won't let me in the 21 house tonight. I'm just going to read this. Foothills Park is an open space preserve. 22 According to the City's website, it's mission is to protect and interpret the resources and 23 wildlife entrusted Palo Alto for enjoyment and the future generations. Being a public 24 open space means it needs to be open to the public. Palo Alto is a city, not a gated 25 community or a country club. Keeping people out because they don't have the right ZIP 26 Code goes against the principles of many if not most of the City residents. There are real 27 concerns that the park would be overused. One way to deter usage is to take out the 28 picnic tables and the grills and the group picnic area. That does not seem to me to be part 29 of the mission of the open space. The last time I had a little picnic there with a couple of 30 friends about a month ago, there was a party of about 50 people or more from a company, 31 not in the group area but in the main picnic area. I don't really see that as valid usage for 32 the park. There are many parks and open space preserves with wonderful hiking trails 33 near local cities. In general, people go where it is convenient. If the usage of the park 34 matched the mission of the open space preserve, the park would be less desirable, and 35 overuse would be less of an issue. Upkeep costs of paths and facilities may increase. Is 36 it possible and/or desirable for the park to become part of POST, Peninsula Open Space 37 Trust? Would that lessen the financial burden on the City? Would it be useful in some 38 way? Daily usage could increase beyond capacity, especially on weekends. Other cities 39 have found ways to control crowds, and you've mentioned some ideas. As much as I 40 APPROVED Draft Minutes 28 enjoy the solitude and grumble with the crowds when they're there, exclusivity of this 1 wonderful resource is undemocratic and unjust. 2 Chair McDougall: Barbara, thank you, and thank you for the comment about the Roths 3 and all of their work. It should have been on us to thank them very much for them and all 4 of the other Friends for the work they've done. Barbara, I'm sure we can find you a place 5 to stay tonight. Kristine followed by Ralph Levine. 6 Kristine Zavoli: Good evening. My name's Kristine Zavoli, and I have lived in Palo Alto 7 for 47 years in the same house, having been raised in the military where I went to 17 8 schools. I've been very happy to live here. My husband I both love hiking very much, 9 and we love Foothill Park, and we love hiking there. I understand the history that we've 10 been reminded of. A gentlemen who was alive at that time told me what happened. He 11 said the City asked Los Altos and Los Altos Hills to help pay. They said no. The 12 response was this will be for Palo Alto residents only. That seems like tit for tat, when 13 you consider we have 1,400 acres in Palo Alto. I think back to 1959, when Palo Alto was 14 much more diverse economically. It certainly was more diverse economically when we 15 moved here in 1972. It is no longer economically diverse. To me, this policy is one that 16 makes me embarrassed to be a resident of Palo Alto. I agree with the prior speaker as far 17 as equity issues. We go there often. I know people can come in during the week, so 18 that's already been settled. I've been stymied for so long by this exclusive policy. In Palo 19 Alto, it's one I cannot defend. I thought the first speaker was very eloquent when he said 20 what other City park won't let nonresidents in. We say that they're welcome during the 21 week, but that isn't what the sign says. It says Palo Alto only. I am aware of the guards, 22 and I understand that we don't want it overrun. The stats suggest it won't be overrun. 23 There are ways to control that, and it looks like the Commission is working on that. Set a 24 limit to the number of cars, maybe charge a fee to nonresidents. If you've been around 25 long enough, you might remember the humorous columnist Herb Caen with the San 26 Francisco Chronicle, who wrote in one of his columns one day I finally figured out why 27 Foothills Park is Palo Alto residents only. They don't want the riff raff from Los Altos 28 Hills to get in. It seems like that really was the policy, but what about the—what I hear 29 about are the people—most of us do have a garden. We have many parks, but we do 30 have nearby residents who do not have that. We have this beautiful space, and even with 31 the proposal to let children come, why wouldn't we want adults to come also? They 32 probably need the mental quiet more than we do. Most of us can afford to go somewhere 33 where there's a lot of peace and quiet. A lot of the people near our community cannot do 34 that. As a resident, I'd especially like to share our parks with those who live nearby, who 35 don't have everything we have. I fully accept increasing access to Foothills Park. 36 Chair McDougall: Thank you, Christine. Ralph Levine followed by Herb Borock. 37 APPROVED Draft Minutes 29 Ralph Levine: Foothills Park is one of the great perks of living in Palo Alto. I love to go 1 up there, the serenity, the safety. I notice there's no one checking IDs on weekdays. I 2 hope that doesn't get too publicized, that it's open to the world. Palo Alto has 37 parks. 3 We shouldn't have to feel embarrassed that we're discriminating, that only 36 of them are 4 open to everyone. All the parks are open to everyone's dogs. Los Alto and Los Altos 5 Hills were invited to join with Palo Alto and not other places, not out of any bigotry but 6 because those two cities are even closer to Foothills Park than Palo Alto is. Palo Alto 7 [sic] is in a remote area. It's different from all our other parks. There are safety issues. 8 There are fire issues even though there's a fire station up there. It's a big expense for the 9 City. I love to go up there with guests and go as high as we can and have a picnic or 10 watch a sunset and not worry about my car, not worry about my safety. It's a fabulous 11 resource. I hope it continues to be one. We have a lot of free concerts; there's four this 12 summer. I don't think we have to feel like other places are doing things that we're not 13 doing. Stanford doesn't, even with the misconception of so many people that Stanford 14 isn't Palo Alto. Let Palo Alto residents have the same access as Stanford people. To use 15 any of the Stanford facilities, a Stanford person has to go to one of two places on campus 16 and pay $10 for a daily pass, and then a guest can come into the building. Lots of places 17 have restrictions on entry. I hope that the restrictions on entry to Foothills Park remain as 18 they are. Thank you. 19 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Herb Borock followed by Rita. 20 Mr. Borock: When I visited a relative in Great Neck on Long Island in New York, there 21 was a sign that said the park was for residents only, so it's not just here. The various 22 proposals that have been suggested all violate the Municipal Code. Therefore, if any of 23 them are implemented, even if it's called a trial or if it's just for students or it's for the 24 environment, it requires an ordinance to amend the Municipal Code that is subject to 25 referendum. One of these suggestions about students may already have been 26 implemented or ready to be implemented because there was a Request for Proposal 27 issued for a contractor to provide three buses to leave in the mornings during the summer 28 to take students to the park to spend the day there. There's no indication that was limited 29 to Palo Alto residents. Perhaps staff knows about that Request for Proposal or what kinds 30 of programs there have been this summer. The current rules are that one car can bring in 31 two more cars for a total of 15 people. You can get more than 15 people on one bus. 32 Former Mayor Levy mentioned a number of the parks he's gone to. I've gone to some of 33 them as well, ones in the Open Space District such as Rancho San Antonio, Montebello, 34 Los Trancos, Earthquake Trail Preserve, also parks in San Mateo County, Huddart and 35 Wunderlich and Edgewood. The one thing I note is that Foothills Park is not the same 36 Foothills Park it was in 1965. Since then, the Open Space District has been founded with 37 63,000 acres in three counties. Not too far away from Foothills Park is the exact same 38 habitat in the Open Space District. What is so special—who is it that feels they're being 39 discriminated against that really wants to go into Foothills Park? I suspect it's the faculty 40 APPROVED Draft Minutes 30 and staff housing at Stanford. They could have had a direct trail up to Foothills Park if 1 Stanford, during the previous Use Permit, was willing to put a required trail straight 2 through the Dish to connect with the Arastradero Preserve, and they refused to do that. In 3 past years—it may have changed by now—looking at census data, the median income in 4 the Stanford faculty housing was higher than the median income in any Palo Alto census 5 tract. It occurred to me that the people who live there think it's unfair that they can't go 6 into Foothills Park, but there is clearly the exact same habitat and the exact same 7 opportunities to go to places nearby. It's astonishing why this keeps coming back. In the 8 past it came back from Council Members with direct connections to Stanford, which was 9 what my suspicion was about. Over time, the number of Rangers has been reduced over 10 the decades at Foothills Park, which accounts for the fact of not checking on entry during 11 the weekdays and also accounts for the neglect of maintenance in the park. Right now, it 12 is a safe place, but it could be better maintained. Opening it up, I think, would be a 13 mistake. If it's necessary to address the issue, the only way it could be addressed is with 14 a change to an ordinance. Thank you. 15 Ms. Vrhel: I wanted to apologize. I think I put Judge La Doris Cordell's quotes for the 16 bathrooms rather than Foothills Park. Now, I'm going to disagree with her. Foothills 17 Park to me is a very special place. It's a fragile environment, and too many people going 18 up there could have irreparable harm. I didn't realize we had 37 parks in Palo Alto, but 19 36 of them, I'm sure, are open to the public. I know the Eleanor Pardee Park and the 20 Rinconada Park have many, many visitors from other cities than Palo Alto and are 21 heavily used. It's okay to have someplace special for people. Palo Altans paid for the 22 park and are continuing to pay for the park. I think it's okay if they take their friends to 23 the park. To open it to anyone and everyone every day, all the time would be a mistake. 24 It again is a very fragile environment. We all know that people can cause damage to 25 fragile environments. I'm against opening it up to everyone. I'm glad that Herb has 26 reminded us all that if you are going to recommend that, there would have to be a 27 referendum. Maybe that is the fairest way to settle the issue. If the residents of Palo Alto 28 voted to open the park up, then I would go with that. This issue continuing to come up 29 and getting various levels of support and then being discussed, I'm not sure why it has to 30 keep continuing. If Stanford wants to open their beautiful museums to the people of Palo 31 Alto, that's very gracious of them, but I don't think life has to be a quid pro quo. Thank 32 you. 33 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Jerry Underdal followed by Mike Lee. Several of these 34 cards that I'm now getting were submitted after the discussion started, and so I am going 35 to start keeping track of 3 minutes. 36 Jerry Underdal: Good evening. My name's Jerry Underdal. I'd like to say how happy I 37 am that it looks like you're going to address this finally and remove something that I feel 38 is an embarrassment for the City. When I became aware of this regulation—I've been 39 APPROVED Draft Minutes 31 living here for over 40 years, and I use Foothill Park and Hidden Villa and a number of 1 things. The context for me was Palo Alto has something special that no matter what 2 somebody else wants to do, if they're not a resident of Palo Alto, you don't get to. 3 Membership is there. It's not economic. At the time I first came here, it wasn't exclusive 4 economically because there were a lot of pockets of people here in Palo Alto who would 5 not qualify as being or be considered in an economically advantaged position. That's not 6 the case now by and large; there are exceptions. I want to second what Lee Levy said. 7 It's time to make this change. It is an embarrassment. I remember in 1991 when Ron 8 Anderson first brought this up, it doesn't smell good. It doesn't look good. My sense is 9 that awareness of the details of 50 years ago of "you didn't kick in your money back then 10 and so we keep this absolute privilege." How many people, who are currently residents 11 in this town now and were here 50 years ago, have any idea of that particular back-and-12 forth between those communities? It's there, but it's trivial in the overall picture. You 13 look at how Palo Alto is seen and represented now. It does not look good. It's time to 14 drop it. You guys go and explore the most effective way to do it that doesn't harm the 15 environment, that doesn't harm the park, that works, all of those things. A rule, even if 16 not enforced, is still there. During the week, is it policy that they can't get in or just that 17 we don't enforce it? That's a real question I don't know. 18 Commissioner McCauley: The latter. 19 Mr. Underdal: You don't enforce it. That's terrible. The rule is there, but what's the big 20 deal? You can get around it; just come during the week. It doesn't work. It's time to 21 drop it and do it well so the park is maintained. Improve those bathrooms. There's a lot 22 of maintenance that needs to be done out there. It's not the shiniest place in the area for 23 going as a park experience. 24 Chair McDougall: Thank you, Mike. Karen Holman. Did I miss Mike Lee? I'm sorry. 25 Mike Lee followed by Karen Holman. 26 Mike Lee: My name is Mike Lee. I've been living in Palo Alto for 20 years. My wife 27 and I in the past 10 years go to Foothills for hiking. The reason we go there is—we 28 actually explore the many hiking area in the neighborhood, Cupertino, Saratoga, things 29 like that. We end up here realizing that it's only for Palo Alto. You have to drive over 30 there. One of the major reason we like it is the beauty of the nature. We try all these 31 place and feel that that's probably the best thing we found. We utilize that every week. 32 Also, you feel safe. The structure is (inaudible) in design and will accommodate a lot of 33 people. We also realize that you can get a friend to visit. I don't know how many people 34 go there. Every weekend I go there, they have to check your ID, whether you're a 35 resident or not. After that, I feel safe because we're living—recently it's even more 36 concern because that's the only place you're checked, a list of who you are. You feel safe 37 there. The friends come here and give the feedback and wish their city can have 38 APPROVED Draft Minutes 32 something like that so they can feel safe. With the limited control, it never feels 1 crowded. Now, I learned the history and learned (inaudible) many years ago. This is 2 good heritage to leave to the current generation. It's perfectly okay. We maintain it that 3 way because they paid it. You don't have the open water park. I urge do not change that 4 because whenever you change it to open, there'll be more people. It will be an impact. In 5 the past 5 years, we're also realizing, seeing a pattern, it's not as good as before. I urge 6 you maintain it as is. I urge the City and Council spend the energy on other (crosstalk). 7 Thank you. 8 Chair McDougall: Karen Holman followed by Winter Dellenbach. 9 Karen Holman: Good evening and thank you. Foothills Park compared to Rancho San 10 Antonio, they're very adjacent to each other. Rancho San Antonio on an annual basis has 11 700,000 visitors. The Open Space District visitorship is growing every year, especially 12 as we increase our population. Be careful what you ask for. I refer to Herb Borock's 13 comments about ordinances and that sort of thing. East Palo Alto and the school groups 14 there, I absolutely agree with access, education, and experience. I wonder if you'd 15 consider a volunteerism program, and maybe you can earn a pass with a volunteerism 16 program. I charge the Commission to create and foster a new generation of Friends of 17 Foothills Park as the Roths have been. It's a definite need that has to happen. If there are 18 going to be tours and shuttles to the park, there needs to be a rule that dictates what the—19 I hate the word dictate. There needs to be a restriction on the size of buses. I've been out 20 there and seen very large tourist buses out there. They're jarring visually in that setting, 21 and also they can't make the turn from the vista point to the meadow even though they try 22 to. It's very dangerous. There needs to be a size restriction. To me, it's also a matter of 23 prioritization. There are costs associated with anything you do that is different, trails 24 management, staffing costs especially during the week, waste management, restrooms. 25 No one is being denied access to parks in Palo Alto. No one is saying, "We can't get into 26 a park." What I think the priority should be is creating dog parks where there is demand, 27 creating restrooms in parks where there is demand, creating new community gardens 28 where there's demand. There's actual demand because there's lack of those kinds of 29 things. That's where I think the priority should lie. I want and have wanted for quite 30 some time, probably 3 years—several people in the community have wanted this 31 Commission to look at the dedication of several areas in town. There's a list that exists. I 32 think staff has it. I think you all have it, at least most of you have it. A list of places that 33 are used as parkland in Palo Alto but are not dedicated as parkland. They are vulnerable 34 to other functions, other uses, being developed. I hope you will prioritize that. That's 35 charge number two. Thank you very much. If you don't know how Foothills Park 36 actually came to be, it's just a quick, short story. Russell Lee was going to sell the lands 37 that are now Foothill Park to development. Some of you know this, I can see. Dorothy 38 Lee, his wife, said, "No. This is going to be open space. I own half of that land." He 39 APPROVED Draft Minutes 33 said, "Which half?" She goes, "Every other acre." That set the tone for it not being 1 developed. Thank you. 2 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Winter Dellenbach followed by Peter Biffer. 3 Ms. Dellenbach: I want to associate myself with Karen's comments and Herb's 4 comments. Nobody's mentioned what actually distinguishes this park from others in that 5 there's a 1,000-person cap. We've mentioned the 1,000-person cap but not with enough 6 importance. Whatever is being thought about being done, there's a 1,000-person cap. 7 We're talking about excluding Palo Altans ultimately. I usually go into forums at City 8 Council where we're talking about development, much more development, much more 9 population coming to Palo Alto. There's going to be more need for places such as 10 Foothill Park and all of our other parks by Palo Altans, much more use. Also, the 11 population is expanding everywhere. We have a 1,000-person cap. That's important to 12 keep in mind. It's also important to keep in place because this is what it is. It's unique in 13 Palo Alto, Foothills Park. I'm in favor of keeping it as it is, no changes, as it is. The first 14 time that a Palo Altan is kept out of Foothill Park because we've reached the 1,000-15 person cap, that's too bad. That's a shame. That is wrong. It's not a matter of racism. 16 That is not what this is about. There has been race-baiting about this issue currently, 17 which is terrible on the internet. It's stupid. I've lived up in those hills for 23 years of my 18 life. I know it like the back of my hand. I know Foothill Park like the back of my hand. 19 There is one place in Palo Alto that we can go that is really quiet. That's not hyperbole. I 20 don't feel guilty about that. I don't feel bad about that. I spent my entire professional life 21 as a civil rights attorney. I dealt with issues of discrimination all the time. I do not feel 22 bad about this. To have one place that is peaceful in a place that is going to get more and 23 more crammed with people, more and more frenetic, and more and more stressed out, this 24 is a jewel we should be stewards of and that we should preserve. We should share 25 everything else. This we should just keep as it is. We have 45 percent—we worked 26 really hard to set aside a good piece of Palo Alto. About 45 percent is protected Baylands 27 open space and all of the parks that we have. We didn't just do it. We took really big 28 risks. We went to the U.S. Supreme Court twice when we downzoned our Foothills, 29 twice before they said it's constitutional, so that we don't have a lot of houses in our 30 Foothills and preserved most of that habitat. We decided to get rid of our boat harbor at 31 the Baylands and preserve most of our Baylands. We have taken risks, we have 32 committed money, we have worked at preserving it. It wasn't easy. We did this with 33 great intention over 70 years. I'm hoping and depending that you are not going to think 34 let's just do this because it's going to feel good. We have some sort of abstract ideal. It's 35 a wrongly thought out and easy, feel good thought. Thank you. 36 Chair McDougall: Peter. 37 APPROVED Draft Minutes 34 Peter Biffer: My name is Peter Biffer. I'm actually from Los Altos Hills. I appreciate 1 very much that you do have the discussion. I understand that Palo Alto was upset 50 or 2 60 years ago because Los Altos Hills made the mistake not to participate. In today's 3 time, it's a potential negative PR timebomb you potentially may be sitting on. I also 4 appreciate very much the way you look at the data. There may be one level of data one 5 can look at. It's also how many people actually go hiking, how many people do just the 6 barbecue. I like the approach to say there are certain peak times there need to be limits. 7 First dibs go to the residents before it goes to other people, which may be the reservation 8 system you're talking about. I don't think it necessarily needs to be the time of week, 9 basically on the weekends only residents. There could be a layer of hours because very 10 often early in the morning there are very few people. They come out for barbecue later in 11 the day. The months are very different. I know all this because I hike through 12 Arastradero into the park many times, and very many times there's not a single person 13 there, especially more in the winter months. There's one other point, which I was 14 surprised. Palo Alto divided it by residents, but there are a lot of people who contribute 15 to Palo Alto. For example, as Los Altos Hills, Palo Alto School District, we do pay 16 money for the schools, which is beneficial to Palo Alto, maybe not of this group but 17 certainly for the Palo Alto School District. I'm also a part owner of a business which is 18 run and operated out of Palo Alto, so that brings commercial value to Palo Alto. Even 19 with all these restrictions, I feel I'm a resident of Los Altos Hills, which is correct, but I 20 contribute at least as much as someone who rents an apartment in Palo Alto and lives 21 here. I think it's a great idea to look at it. There are good solutions you can find to give 22 the peak times preference to Palo Alto citizens, and at the same time, as I said, to 23 potentially solve some longer-term PR issues. Thank you. 24 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Finally, Linda LaCount. 25 Linda LaCount: I've lived here for 30 years. I think no one is denied access to this 26 sensitive part, and I say that because I want it to stay the way it is. I say that because I'm 27 part of the San Jose dowsers. I've just arranged for us to have our every-other-year picnic 28 up at Foothills Park. Out of the people that we wanted to invite, only three people were 29 Palo Alto residents. That means that we could get 45 people into the park just because 30 there are three of us from Palo Alto. I have people coming from Sacramento, the Sierra 31 Nevada dowsers organization, and I have people from Marin, and I have people from 32 Monterey. People are coming from all over because this is a day they get to get in. 33 There's plenty of access, but how you get access is because people in Palo Alto want to 34 invite or make arrangements so people can come in. You have to turn in a list of all these 35 people you've invited, who are going to come, one week before your event. I'm just 36 going on and on. This is different from the way anybody else has talked. It's very 37 personal how it's been for me. I have found the Rangers and the people who can fax the 38 Rangers for me can fax all the people's names that I want to bring in. I keep finding them 39 willing to update my list of who they're going to let in the park. I think Palo Alto is 40 APPROVED Draft Minutes 35 extremely friendly. We're very generous about letting people in during the week. That's 1 just the way it is. All people have to do is know Palo Alto residents who can get them in 2 the park. It's very simple. Thank you. 3 Chair McDougall: Thank you. With that, I think we've covered all of the community 4 speakers on that subject. I'll turn it back to Ryan. 5 Commissioner McCauley: Let me highlight a few statistics. Daren can go into much 6 more detail on these sorts of numbers if needed. When the park was founded, based on 7 the historic records we have, the visitation was much higher, two times as high as it is 8 today or it may have been more than two times. In 1969, the visitation was about 9 292,000 people. A few years later in the early 1970s, it was 372,000 visitors per year. 10 Our current visitation level is much lower than it was previously. I thought that was 11 worth note. Based on staff's observation in more recent years, in the 2011 year, staff 12 definitely observed a little bit of an uptick when we had approximately 50,000 more 13 people in the park than we do on an average year, but they didn't note any negative 14 effects on the park other than it was a bit busier. A couple of the speakers mentioned that 15 the City Code also has the cap of 1,000 persons in the park at any time. Again, the 16 feedback from the Ranger staff is that that cap was only reached once in the last 20 years 17 during a special event, which I believe was a concert in the park. We have not come 18 close to reaching the 1,000-person cap in the park at any time in the recent history. The 19 two busiest days—this is noted in the memo—are Father's Day and Mother's Day, which 20 is great. I love that fact. As we start thinking about the different potential options for a 21 pilot, I wanted to note with what we're calling this dynamic advanced pass option, this 22 provides a perfect example. On a weekend day in October, when it's relatively low 23 visitation, you might have 50 passes available, but on Mother's Day you might not have 24 any. That's the beauty of that particular option; you can dial it in based on this trove of 25 data that Daren and his team have. A couple of last comments, then I will shut up. I look 26 forward to comments from everyone else. A couple of people spoke about safety issues. 27 It is entirely fair to think about the balance between the preservation of the park's 28 resources and affording an opportunity for members of the public to enjoy the park. I get 29 very concerned when folks start to say that they're worried about people from outside of 30 Palo Alto creating a safety risk of some sort. We have to be pretty clear in saying there 31 are a lot of good reasons for why the current policy might be in place, but saying that 32 people from outside of Palo Alto will either pollute more in the park, leave more trash in 33 the park, or that they somehow create a safety risk should be an argument that's off limits. 34 Last, all of the commenters uniformly, both those who spoke in favor and against, noted 35 that they want to try to maintain the character of the place. All of the pilot options 36 actually are directed to exactly that. We're not opening the gates and having hundreds of 37 thousands of people. We're talking about probably a few dozen extra visitors on any 38 given day. With that, I will turn it over to others. Let me also say if the Commission 39 would like to weigh in, it would be helpful to know your preference for any of these 40 APPROVED Draft Minutes 36 potential options and other options that you might have in mind. With respect to the 1 student-focused proposal, I think it's the view of the ad hoc committee members that 2 students are a group we definitely want to reach. If there are other communities that you 3 have in mind and would be appropriate to target in a way with this sort of policy, that 4 would be good to know as well. Last, if we were to advance a proposal for the dynamic 5 pass program, would we want to charge a fee? My personal view is we probably would. 6 We could generate some income, and there would be benefits to generating that type of 7 income. It's something I'd be interested to hear feedback on. That way the committee 8 would have a little bit more direction on that point as well. 9 Chair McDougall: Jeff LaMere was the other ad hoc member. Would the rest of the ad 10 hoc committee like to comment? 11 Vice Chair Greenfield: Yes, please. A lot has gone into this. As a member of the ad 12 hoc, I've spent a number of hours researching and discussing ideas and assessing ideas to 13 increase Foothills Park access. It's a very complex, multifaceted issue. It's a conundrum. 14 No surprise many residents support increased access, and no surprise many residents 15 prefer to keep things as it is. It's a hot-button issue within the community. I'd like to 16 share some of my thoughts on various aspects and nuances of the process and potential 17 pilot plan that I've gone back and forth on, frankly. Just to re-summarize the goals. The 18 first thing we're trying to do is clarify what problem it is we're trying to solve. We want 19 to identify a straightforward, palatable, ideally noncontroversial pilot plan, and then we 20 want to minimize financial impact including staff time. We want to minimize 21 environmental impact, and we want to maintain a quality visitor experience. All of this is 22 a step towards potentially developing a compelling plan to recommend to City Council 23 for consideration. Let's start with the problem analysis. This is important. First, we need 24 to decide and articulate what is the problem we're trying to solve. This is ultimately 25 going to drive a policy change recommendation. Is this a social justice issue? Is this 26 increased access to natural environments for underserved communities that we're trying 27 to address? Are we looking for equitable access to Palo Alto resources for Palo Alto 28 school children? Is this a common sense, good neighbor to surrounding communities 29 concern? Can multiple problems be addressed without confusing the focus and diluting 30 the solution? As far as a pilot program consideration, we want to identify a plan to 31 address the prioritized problem. This is ultimately going to become an implementation 32 recommendation of a proposed policy change. We want to keep things as simple as 33 possible. We want it to be easy for the public to understand. We want it to be easy for 34 staff to implement and manage, including entrance gate staff. We want it to be easy to 35 monitor and assess impacts of. We need to look at the risk and impacts and assess them. 36 We're striving for a net zero cost impact, likely required for near-term acceptance. We 37 want to consider requirements to maintain and protect natural environment and park 38 improvements. Let me go through the pilot program options in a little more detail, the 39 pros and cons as I see them. Here's where it gets complicated for me. The first proposal 40 APPROVED Draft Minutes 37 to formally permit nonresidents on non-holiday weekdays. This formalizes the de facto 1 current practice. That's a good thing. It removes a typically unenforced misdemeanor. 2 That's a good thing. It potentially compromises future compensation from neighboring 3 cities by formally opening it up to the neighboring communities. That's a potential issue. 4 It potentially removes a useful Code enforcement mechanism that's not used frequently. I 5 see this like the alcohol codes in parks regarding consuming alcohol. Go out to a concert 6 in the park, and you're likely to find a lot of people consuming alcohol. It's against the 7 Code of the City. It's not enforced, but the Code exists there to enforce at the discretion 8 as needed. That's something to consider. Also, we need to recognize if we do formally 9 permit nonresidents on non-holiday weekends, we are going to gradually increase 10 weekday visitation rates as word gets around. It's something that's going to ramp up. 11 The second proposal is to allow access to PAUSD and Ravenswood students. The pro is 12 providing access to students and families from local underserved communities and the 13 Palo Alto School District. It's generally consistent with Community Services Department 14 policy to treat Palo Alto students the same as Palo Alto residents. Consistent with that, 15 we would want to have no entrance fee associated with entrance for these groups. On the 16 downside, there are operational complexities associated with this. Not all schools issue 17 IDs, so student verification is very complicated. This becomes problematic at the 18 entrance station where quick through-put is desired, and we want to have it simple for the 19 entry-station staff. Passes at libraries is a possibility we talked about. This is also 20 complicated and not simple in terms of how many there are, how do they get back from 21 Foothills Park to the library. It's something that's possible, but it's not simple. This 22 solution also excludes private schools in East Palo Alto and Palo Alto. This would 23 exclude Eastside College Prep and the Chan Primary School in East Palo Alto as well as 24 multiple Palo Alto private schools. In talking about the online reservation system, an 25 advantage is this is definitely the easiest from an operational standpoint, as the staff has 26 commented. It's an adjustable system. That's great. It's simple at the entrance station 27 with no cash involved in the event that we do charge nonresidents using this. I would be 28 in favor of that. It's also easy for strong, trial program data collection. That's a definite 29 plus. The downside is permitting access to all communities is not well aligned with the 30 goal of increasing access to underserved communities as it's likely to be more highly 31 utilized by the affluent neighboring communities. Also, the online reservation system 32 could set an access bar, which would be an issue for some. It could potentially 33 complicate offering free admission to PAUSD and Ravenswood student families versus 34 nonresidents from other communities. I consider the potential impact of the incremental 35 cost for CSD and Foothills Park staff time that are going to be incurred. The overall 36 impact depends on pilot program scope. There's going to be new, associated staff work. 37 Either additional staff resources would be required or staff focus on other projects is 38 going to be reduced. There are potential capital expenses. For example, a new entrance 39 gate or exit gate monitoring equipment depending if it's needed to figure out how many 40 cars we have in the park at a given time. We may need to improve marking or securing 41 of parking spots. We may need to further secure fencing at the maintenance shop. 42 APPROVED Draft Minutes 38 Considering the natural resources impact. For habitat, as we increase the usage in the 1 park, there's going to be increased impact on the habitat. Hopefully this is moderated. As 2 far as wildlife sightings, these are likely to decrease as we increase the population of 3 people in the park. Trails should have fairly minimal impact; although, there have been 4 some concerns about more bikes on trails. That's something staff should be able to keep 5 in check. 6 Commissioner Moss: Time out. He has several more pages. I don't think this is fair. 7 This topic, as you mentioned, is very complex. We probably should have three … 8 Vice Chair Greenfield: With all due respect, I'm trying to provide input for the 9 Commission to consider. I have another page to go through. 10 Chair McDougall: Jeff is an ad hoc … 11 Commissioner Moss: I'm overwhelmed. 12 Chair McDougall: … member, and I'm willing to allow him to continue. 13 Vice Chair Greenfield: As far as the overall experience for the park, I don't think we 14 want to be approaching 1,000 visitors in the park very often. We need to be careful about 15 that. I don't think the pilot programs proposed will address that, and that's a good thing. 16 As we get to that size of group, parking management for large crowds becomes difficult 17 since parking is spread out through the park and not necessarily where people want to be. 18 We want to avoid turning cars away, resulting in parking on Page Mill Road. There will 19 be increased operational and maintenance environmental stress. To summarize, in 20 addition to the assessment of potential risk, there's are some big-picture financial 21 considerations. We're all aware that the neighboring communities did not contribute to 22 the purchase of Foothills Park, and that's contributed to how we got to where we are 23 today. If or when Palo Alto increases access to Foothills Park, it's an opportunity for our 24 neighbors to contribute to Foothills Park. There are lots of different ways this could play 25 out. For example, we have an unfunded $10 million Buckeye Creek restoration project. 26 This certainly won't be lost on City Council. We need to make sure we don't compromise 27 our position for these financial considerations by how we approach a pilot program and 28 opening up the park. Timing is an issue. Council is busy, but one could observe they're 29 always busy. This isn't a primary concern. For me, providing access to PAUSD families 30 is a core goal of this project. I really appreciate that aspect as well as the Ravenswood 31 School District families. Stanford families are likely to be the largest group to take 32 advantage of allowing PAUSD access. I'm concerned about our timing with the Stanford 33 GUP currently under negotiation. The City is on record disagreeing with the GUP's 34 impact assessment on open space preserves including Foothills Park and park and 35 recreational facilities. I'm concerned that offering increased access to Stanford during the 36 GUP negotiation is highly problematic. As far as the Master Plan, there's no question 37 APPROVED Draft Minutes 39 that we support the high-quality, accessible facilities and services and integrate nature, 1 etc. The Master Plan doesn't specifically delineate it's target scope. Is this Palo Alto 2 residents or is it all local communities? It's not addressed. We do have a new 20-year 3 Master Plan. Increasing access to Foothills Park was considered by the Parks and Rec 4 Commission for inclusion in this Master Plan. It's noteworthy that increased Foothills 5 Park access was not included as a Master Plan goal, policy, or program. This discussion 6 comes down to priorities. Realistically, pursuing a plan to increase access to Foothills 7 Park is going to consume significant political capital for the Commission. We must 8 decide as a Commission is this a top priority to pursue, given that it's outside our Master 9 Plan. We may decide that we do want to do this. We may decide not. We need to 10 consider this. I appreciate the public's interest in increasing access, and I appreciate the 11 concerns about the impacts of doing so. I'm interested in identifying how to 12 incrementally increase access without creating more problems than we solve. We have 13 lots of ideas. I'm struggling to find a balanced solution to pursue. Whether it's a hybrid 14 or alternative pilot plan or another approach altogether, I'm interested in hearing what my 15 colleagues have to say. 16 Commissioner Reckdahl: With respect to the Friends of Foothills Park, the people who 17 are not Palo Alto residents, they can't enter the park on their own? 18 Mr. Anderson: If they were to come in with the Friends, which occasionally happens, 19 that has happened, nonresidents. 20 Commissioner Reckdahl: If they just want to go hiking on an off day, they can't access it. 21 Mr. Anderson: That's correct. 22 Commissioner Reckdahl: To me, that's the most compelling reason to change this. The 23 people who spending hours and hours digging out weeds and invasive species can't go up 24 there on their own on their off days and hike. If I were to open Palo Alto Foothills Park 25 to one group, it's the volunteers. What Mayor Holman said was if you volunteer, you can 26 get in. That would be a compelling way of making people earn the ability to go there. If 27 you're either a student or an adult and you don't live in Palo Alto but you go to the Palo 28 Alto library and spend hours shelving books, you should on your off days be able to go 29 up on your own and access Foothills Park. I'm not eager to expand Foothills Park access, 30 but that would be a good way of doing it. That would be a self-selection. If you want to 31 do it, if it meant a lot to you, you have a way of doing it. With respect to the whole 60 32 years ago you didn't pay for it, we have to let that grudge go. To me, the most 33 compelling reason to limit it at all is environmental. We don't want to ruin—I think the 34 first speaker was saying, if you let too many people in, you'd ruin the experience. We 35 have to worry about the environment and also the experience for the people who go in it. 36 That's a really legitimate concern. If we open it up to anyone going in, we could lose the 37 recipe to Foothills Park. The most compelling need to me would be incorporate it for 38 APPROVED Draft Minutes 40 volunteers. The second most compelling would be for the students. When Jeff was 1 mentioning about losing leverage with the Stanford GUP, Stanford says, "We don't need 2 to build parks because we can use Palo Alto parks." During the GUP negotiations, I don't 3 think we should be doing anything that's going to undermine our negotiations. I would 4 take it slow on that aspect. 5 Commissioner Moss: I have comments on pretty much everything that Jeff went through. 6 As far as the limits of cars and limits of people and limits of shuttles and limits of not 7 buses and number of barbecues and people per party and weekday versus weekend versus 8 holiday, I want to know from staff how do we work through these issues? I don't think 9 we can work through these issues in one meeting. I also don't believe it's right that the 10 subcommittee has to do all the work and come up with the exact way we're going to deal 11 with this. I would like an opportunity as well. How do we do this over the next six 12 months? 13 Mr. Anderson: My perspective, Commissioner Moss, is this is a Commission-led 14 endeavor and initiative. The ad hoc's leading this, and the Commission will support it. 15 I'm here as a staff person to support the ad hoc, to provide them good information, to 16 provide realistic impacts that would—for each proposal, I've tried to analyze it and reach 17 out to staff who used to manage Foothills Park going back 30 years and say, "What do 18 you think of these proposals? What do you think would be some of the implications?" 19 and share that with the ad hoc, share that with the Commission. That's what I've tried to 20 do. 21 Chair McDougall: Excuse me, David. The purpose of this session is for us to give some 22 direction. The only appropriate way, because of the Brown Act, is to send it back to the 23 ad hoc with comments from the Commission about what they might want to look at to 24 come back to us. This may come back a couple of times. The Commission's opportunity 25 is to comment on what the ad hoc brings back the next time and to give them direction of 26 what to do now. The only way structurally that we can do this is send it back to an ad 27 hoc. Otherwise, we're violating the Brown Act. 28 Commissioner Moss: There is one other way. You have another breakout session like 29 we have once a year—the public is invited—where we spend a morning going through 30 this. It's that big and that complex. 31 Chair McDougall: That's a good thought. Let me work with staff to give that some 32 consideration. I don't know that we can decide that now, but that's a reasonable idea. 33 Commissioner Moss: The only other way is—I probably have half-an-hour's worth of 34 comments. Do you want them now or can I give them to you in writing or can we have a 35 session? What would you suggest? Or we come back for three months in a row and I 36 give 20 minutes, 20 minutes, 20 minutes. 37 APPROVED Draft Minutes 41 Chair McDougall: At this point, if it's legitimately half an hour, it needs to be given real 1 consideration. I would suggest give it to us in writing. If you'd like to give some 2 directional comments now … If your comments are that deep and meaningful, which I'm 3 willing to accept, I would prefer that you submit them in writing. 4 Commissioner Moss: I do have comments about limits. I do believe with Commissioner 5 Reckdahl that environmental impact is huge, and safety is a big consideration not because 6 of different people from different cities. If we regularly have 1,000 people—I've never 7 been in the park where there's been more than maybe 300 people. I don't come on 8 Father's Day. Do we have 1,000 people on Father's Day? Maybe we have 500 or 400. I 9 have a significant issue with limits. When I look at barbecues, the number of places that 10 have barbecues, and I see them in far-flung places that have no business having a 11 barbecue, I feel that we should be taking barbecues away. There are silly things like that, 12 fire danger, not because of the type of people that would come here, but the sheer volume 13 of 1,000 people coming here weekend after weekend after weekend. What Karen 14 Holman said about Rancho San Antonio, it's unbelievable the number of people. These 15 are just the tip of the iceberg. 16 Commissioner McCauley: I don't mean to interject, but I do want to provide a little bit of 17 comfort. 18 Chair McDougall: Let him finish, and I'll let you come back. 19 Commissioner Moss: The other issues that I want more clarity on are costs, Rangers, fire 20 protection, trail maintenance, invasive species, restroom redos, dealing with people who 21 want to bring in dogs, dealing with people who want to bring in bikes, reservation and fee 22 collection systems, many more volunteers and the costs of managing volunteers and 23 attracting volunteers, maintenance of facilities, poison oak. All these things have to be 24 paid for. How do you deal with that? The other thing is what Herb Borock said about 25 requiring a referendum. That's a big deal to require a referendum, even to do a pilot. The 26 other thing is that Palo Alto is growing. If we put a limit of 1,000 people, the mix of Palo 27 Alto versus non-Palo Alto is an issue that's going to bite us soon. That's good enough for 28 now. 29 Commissioner McCauley: I don't think anything we're talking about—to be more 30 concrete, we're talking about on the lowest visitation day, weekend day, you might have 31 50 passes available. We're not talking about hundreds of additional people in the park on 32 a given day. I don't think. It's important to note that we're talking, I think, about very 33 low impact in terms of number of people in the park on any given day from a pilot like 34 this. 35 Commissioner Cribbs: I'm really glad the ad hoc put together the discussion and the 36 report. I appreciate everybody's really thoughtful comments. I've been around this place 37 APPROVED Draft Minutes 42 for a long time and have been through the comments about Foothill Park opening, 1 closing, and all of that over the years and the history and that kind of thing. It's 2 appropriate we're having this discussion once again. It's a really important community 3 discussion. So many questions raised by people, so many definitely complex issues, I 4 would love to see it go back to the ad hoc and have some really long and serious 5 discussions about it, especially in view of including school children from disadvantaged 6 and underserved areas and also Palo Alto School District and our private schools and how 7 we really could serve the future generation while keeping control and really 8 understanding what the ecosystem can embrace. 9 Council Member Cormack: I'll touch on each of the options that have been suggested. 10 The first is the update to the Municipal Code. It does concern me if our Code does not 11 match our practice. Not just here, everywhere. It's worth learning more about that and 12 getting the advice of our City Attorney if appropriate. With respect to the student-13 focused program, Commissioner Greenfield may be unaware that the PAUSD cards are 14 issued to everyone, and they actually function as a Palo Alto library card. Every single 15 student has that available. With respect to number 3, the passes at the libraries was an 16 idea that came up during the interviews for the Library Advisory Commission from a 17 person who had lived in Chicago. It was a way that the museums in Chicago, which are 18 quite pricey, would be available to everyone. That's interesting. It's always helpful to 19 learn from other places. Those are my comments on the three suggestions. 20 Chair McDougall: The $1.3 million and even the operating expenses since then. Over 21 the last 50 years, any depreciation table would tell you that it's been depreciated. 22 Reminding everybody that we paid for it, so nobody else should come, which is what 23 some of the letters that we were sent do, I just don't think that's right. Daren, is this a 24 park or a preserve? What's the difference? 25 Mr. Anderson: It's all dedicated parkland. We've qualified it as open space. Our four 26 open space preserves, the Baylands Nature Preserve, Pearson-Arastradero Preserve, 27 Esther Clark Park, and Foothills Park, all qualify under that open space category, but 28 really it's all dedicated parkland with the same protections. 29 Chair McDougall: It's dedicated park, but it's not within the State definition of a reserve 30 versus a park. 31 Mr. Anderson: That's correct. 32 Chair McDougall: The State has parks, go have a good time, do what you want, don't 33 worry about the trails, climb the trees, throw your Frisbee. Go to a reserve, stay on the 34 trails, don't throw your Frisbee. That's not the differentiation? 35 APPROVED Draft Minutes 43 Mr. Anderson: Correct. I would look towards the Comp Plan and to our Municipal Code 1 where we're got specific rules for specific areas. 2 Chair McDougall: I understand that. In terms of what problem we're solving, I have a 3 personal belief that giving particularly school children the opportunity to be in nature is 4 going to result in—you can't expect people to become stewards of nature, if they don't 5 care about nature. They can't care about nature, if they've never been in nature. So many 6 of the particularly Ravenswood School District kids haven't had that opportunity. 7 Everybody agrees this is a special place. You can say, "What about Arastradero or 8 whatever else?" These other parks don't have the quail, the flat space, and whatever. 9 Giving those kids the opportunity to experience nature, maybe you can get them to 10 understand nature, maybe you can get them to then love nature and become stewards. In 11 fact, that's what Environmental Volunteers is all about, and you shouldn't be surprised 12 that I'm saying that. Relative to Karen's challenge to the Board, Elliott Wright, who's the 13 executive director, when asked has already said they would be happy to lead the effort to 14 become the stewards, to look after the kids, to do the education. In fact, you could 15 probably go further and ask them to be the equivalent of a mini Ranger so that they do 16 have some ability to be stewards of the park. They want kids to be stewards. I think they 17 would act as stewards. There's the basis of that. The current Friends of Palo Alto Parks 18 does pull weeds. It is incredibly admirable. The things they've done to look after the 19 park is just great. Increasing that particular organization or enveloping that organization 20 into something bigger needs to be done, and it needs to be done in the context of what 21 we're doing. I think it can be. The thing about exposing kids, it's also a question of 22 exposing adults as well. There are lots of studies. This guy, Peter Wohlleben, wrote The 23 Hidden Life of Trees. The Hidden Life of Trees goes through a whole series of things 24 including what the Japanese call forest bathing. They deliberately make sure that they 25 get into parks and then they experience the forest. In fact, it's come to the States. You 26 can go the University of Santa Cruz and take courses in forest bathing because of the 27 belief that that's valuable. We owe it as a generous community. We talk about generous 28 community. The Mayor talked about outreach and being good neighbors. We ought to 29 be good neighbors and provide that opportunity to our neighbors. In terms of the 1,000-30 person cap, I'm sorry that that got mentioned, and every conversation since then has been 31 we can't allow 1,000 people in the park. What was the quote? We can't allow everyone 32 every day and all the time. I don't think any of Ryan's proposals go anywhere near 33 proposing that this should be 1,000 people every day. The issue about the Stanford GUP 34 negotiation is beyond this Commission. We should come up with our recommendation. 35 That doesn't mean anybody else should execute our recommendation if, in fact, it's 36 damaging something else. That's a legitimate concern. The comments about can we 37 reduce the number of barbecues, can we move the barbecues somewhere else, it occurred 38 to me if we're still trying to find a use for the 7.7 acres, maybe that should become the 39 group stuff. In terms of logistics like IDs and stuff, I truly believe in this day age a 40 community like this can solve the logistics problems of IDs and so on. I encourage the ad 41 APPROVED Draft Minutes 44 hoc to see what they can do to distill what they heard tonight, but to continue to be 1 aggressive to move forward with a proposal of some sort, whether it's simply to fix the 2 fact—Council Members today listen to this and say, "What do you mean it's not open? 3 It's open. Anybody can go there on any day of the week." The answer is no, they can't. 4 It's against the law. Either that needs to be fixed and nothing else, or we need to find a 5 way through Environmental Volunteers and some other organizations as long as they're 6 not conflicting with our City plans and the Junior Museum plans and whatever, their 7 plans would be during the school year. Junior Museum does things there in the summer. 8 As long as that's not conflicting, that's a possibility. Beyond that, we should move 9 forward with every possibility we can. That would be the conclusion of my charge to the 10 ad hoc. 11 Vice Chair Greenfield: I want to apologize if I went into too much detail. I recognize 12 this process is constraining and awkward. There were a lot of details that I felt compelled 13 to share. There's no other forum or method to share these. That was just trying to get 14 them out. I was really trying to encourage Commissioner input on the ideas and get your 15 feedback because this is the way that you can give feedback to us. There was a question 16 about volunteers entering the park. We had some discussion about vouchers being issued 17 to volunteers who participate in some process. Daren, do you recall that? 18 Mr. Anderson: That was more of a one-off … 19 Chair McDougall: I'm going to suggest that we not at this point go into details like that. 20 I am going to ask Commissioner Greenfield to make his notes available. That might help 21 Commissioner Moss in writing his comments. It looked to me like it was particularly 22 well done and shared. Within that context, some of the other specifics we can address. I 23 did say I'd try to end by 10:00. We've taken almost 2 hours on this particular topic. The 24 individual questions, like the one you were just suggesting, could go back to the ad hoc 25 before they come back here. 26 Commissioner McCauley: Do you mind if I ask for—I'm a little bit reluctant to do this, 27 but nonetheless I'll do it—a little bit of a straw vote amongst the Commission members? 28 I'm interested to know if we think … 29 Chair McDougall: I'm going to ask you to distill what you heard. 30 Commissioner McCauley: Fair enough. 31 Chair McDougall: Each of the Commissioners was explicit. I'm going to guess that your 32 straw vote was which of the alternatives. I suggest that's an interesting topic the next 33 time this comes up after the alternatives have been more distilled. Commissioner 34 Greenfield has adequately described the complications of each. David will add further 35 APPROVED Draft Minutes 45 complications to each. A straw vote at this point I would not recommend. With that, I 1 would like to move to other ad hoc committee and liaison updates. 2 4. Other Ad Hoc Committee and Liaison Updates 3 Chair McDougall: Anything beyond what the handout has for us? 4 Commissioner Cribbs: Chair, I'm going to say goodnight. 5 Chair McDougall: Thank you very much for being here. We wish you continued 6 recovery. The fact that you're still here with that tonight is—we're impressed. 7 [Commissioner Cribbs left the meeting at 10:03 p.m.] 8 Chair McDougall: Are there any other additions or comments relative to any of the ad 9 hocs? 10 Vice Chair Greenfield: I wanted to note that I did meet with Sylvia Star-Lack, the 11 Transportation Manager, regarding a Safe Routes liaison role. A couple of quick things 12 that came out of that. She's very interested in working with us to develop a Safe Routes 13 to Parks map, also integrating potentially libraries and schools and referring to this as 14 Safe Routes in general. More specifically, we talked about the Mercedes development, 15 which Daren mentioned in his report. We were talking about the additional bike lane 16 that's being put in and how this is helpful, but it's something Parks and Rec is interested 17 in as it is directly Safe Routes to Parks. A question was raised about the connection 18 between the Embarcadero bike overpass connecting across the street. This is something 19 that Sylvia considered a significant issue. This is on the Transportation Department, but 20 she's very interested in this becoming a priority that we could raise. It would be some 21 sort of signal, whether it's flashing lights across the highway or an actual signal of some 22 sort that got put in. I'd like to request that staff pursue this. 23 Chair McDougall: Excuse me. Karen, as you're walking out, I'd like to point out your 24 comment about dedicating various park spaces. You should know that we have an active 25 ad hoc committee that's addressing that issue. Trying to be responsive to our important 26 citizens. 27 Vice Chair Greenfield: If staff could pursue that, that'd be really helpful. 28 Chair McDougall: I would add a comment particularly relative to the Mercedes situation 29 and the bike path and everything else. That went through the ARB but didn't come in our 30 direction in any way that allowed us to comment before it was too late, where we were 31 commenting outside of the committee. Your comments and interaction with 32 Transportation people is totally appropriate. Does anybody else have any incremental 33 APPROVED Draft Minutes 46 comments on any of these things? If not, I'll move on to whether there are comments and 1 announcements or tentative agenda items for the next meeting. 2 VI. TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR AUGUST 27, 2019 MEETING 3 Chair McDougall: I believe Kristen has a laid-out agenda over the next couple of 4 months. We'll circulate that rather than trying to address it here and have everybody 5 scratch their heads about what ought to come next. 6 VII. COMMENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS 7 None. 8 VIII. ADJOURNMENT 9 Meeting adjourned on motion by Commissioner Moss and second by Commissioner 10 Reckdahl at 10:07 p.m. 11