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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2019-09-24 Parks & Recreation Summary MinutesAPPROVED Draft Minutes 1 1 2 3 4 MINUTES 5 PARKS & RECREATION COMMISSION 6 REGULAR MEETING 7 SEPTEMBER 24, 2019 8 CITY HALL 9 250 Hamilton Avenue 10 Palo Alto, California 11 12 Commissioners Present: Anne Cribbs, Jeff Greenfield, Jeff LaMere, Ryan McCauley, Don 13 McDougall, and Keith Reckdahl 14 Commissioners Absent: David Moss 15 Others Present: Council Member Cormack 16 Staff Present: Daren Anderson, Natalie Khwaja 17 I. ROLL CALL 18 II. AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, and DELETIONS 19 Chair McDougall: Are there any Agenda Changes, Requests, Deletions from the 20 published agenda? One thing I will do with the agenda is—there's a couple of items on 21 here that are maybe 60 minutes, both the amendment to the park and the open space 22 regulations. I will try and manage those to be 25 or 30 minutes and, once again, see if we 23 can approach between 9:30 and 10:00 for an agenda. If there are no changes other than 24 my timing suggestion, I'd like to start with Oral Communications on subjects not on the 25 agenda. 26 III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS 27 Chair McDougall: The first speaker would be Liz Gardner. You'll have three minutes. 28 Liz Gardner: I have a thumb drive. I don't know if we can put that in to illustrate what's 29 going on. Good evening. My name is Liz Gardner, and I'm a volunteer Board Member 30 for the Palo Alto Little League. We're here tonight to ask the Commission for permission 31 to slightly alter the El Camino Real baseball infield line. Every year for the past three 32 years, the National Little League has been shortening the date of birth when players age 33 out of Little League. This has caused a larger number of players to be caught in an in-34 APPROVED Draft Minutes 2 between stage of baseball. Thankfully, there's a level called 50/70 or even a slightly 1 higher level called 54/80 that has been created. Currently, Palo Alto baseball fields do 2 not accommodate this necessarily larger playing field for these in-between players. One 3 park does have the flexibility to do so, and that's El Camino Park. The way it's currently 4 configured with 10 feet of grass baseline, players have to play on the grass. It prohibits 5 … 6 Chair McDougall: See if they can get the presentation up. Everybody's distracted by 7 everybody running around and looking at the screens. If you wait one minute, we'll 8 either do it or not do it. While we're waiting, I should explain that I appreciate that you 9 have come to ask, but this is not an agenda item. In fact, we can't logically even respond 10 to you in terms of nodding our head or saying "good idea." We can register this. It's 11 possible that during the staff report staff could comment on it. There's nothing we can do 12 tonight. We can take it to a committee. We can bring it back to the Commission, if that's 13 appropriate, or there can be action on it. We very much appreciate you're here raising an 14 important issue, but please don't expect that we're going to raise our hands when you're 15 done or something. 16 Ms. Gardner: Absolutely. No issue there. We just want to bring this to your attention. 17 Chair McDougall: The conclusion is we can't make it work, so I'll let you go ahead. You 18 can hold it up there if you like. 19 Ms. Gardner: I have a couple of photos that we can illustrate the baseline where the grass 20 is. The El Camino Park, the way it's currently configured with 10 feet of grass right 21 along the baseline, we're unable to host other cities for this in-between league. We're 22 having to go outside the City to do our games, which is great. We want to build those 23 partnerships and relationships with other leagues, but we would like to in the spring host 24 our own 50/70 and 54/80. At this time, we can't. We're very happy to have, as I said, this 25 partnership with our City Parks Department and are ready to help in whatever way 26 possible to make our young players' dreams to play this greatest American pastime 27 continue for them. 28 Chair McDougall: Thank you very much. We do have active subcommittees on this. 29 We have your email address here. If the subcommittee would like more explanation, we 30 know how to reach out to you. 31 Ms. Gardner: How would it be an agendized item in the future? 32 Chair McDougall: From the fact that you've presented this, our ad hoc cam review it, and 33 they'll propose it as an agenda item. We can move forward with considering what you're 34 talking about. Thank you for that. 35 APPROVED Draft Minutes 3 Ms. Gardner: Thank you very much for your time and consideration. 1 Chair McDougall: While you're still there, we can ask a clarifying question. 2 Vice Chair Greenfield: I wanted to ask real quickly to clarify. The request is to increase 3 the size of the dirt infield in order to accommodate the desired playing field sizes? 4 Ms. Gardner: There's a second parent volunteer coach here that has more of the logistics 5 in explaining that. 6 Craig Unagisella [phonetic]: The picture shows it very clearly now. By the way, my 7 name is Craig Unagisella. I've been a :Little League coach for over 10 years. I've also 8 coached Babe Ruth. My two sons went through Little League and graduated from it. I'm 9 retired now and continue as a volunteer coach. As you can see from the aerial view, it's 10 supposed to be a circular grass infield. As you can see, it's basically three straight lines. 11 The dirt around first base and third base is long enough for 54/80; although, the City 12 won't allow us to put the base anchors in. What's in contention now is second base. As 13 you can see, it catty-corners behind the pitcher's mound. Our proposal would be to 14 continue the straight lines on the two sides and to cut that corner so the total outfield 15 grass, I guess you would say, would be rectangular instead of three-sided as it is now. It's 16 about 10 more feet of grass right where the cursor is. We've asked Mark Mavario 17 [phonetic] to do this, and he's refused. The three reasons he gave us was maintenance, 18 irrigation, and playability, which I'd like to address right now. Maintenance, I believe, 19 would be easier because the lawnmowers would cut two straight lines instead of trying to 20 do a circular, which is not possible right now. Irrigation, if you blow that up, you see that 21 area right where the edge of the dirt is. That area is not getting covered by the one 22 sprinkler that's supposed to be irrigating that area. I have another picture. Her picture 23 shows it's brown now. My picture is about two weeks old, from the end of the summer. 24 It's pretty much brown, so the water's not getting there. As far as playability goes, the 25 outer edge of the grass, no one plays there. The outfielders are well past that. The 26 infielders, the ball is coming from in front of them. That edge, it doesn't matter whether 27 it's circular, linear, or any shape. For instance, the Palo Alto High School field, the outer 28 edge is rectangular. If it's good enough for high school, it's good enough for recreational 29 baseball. 30 Chair McDougall: Thank you. We have one more question. Did we get your name? 31 Mr. Unagisella: Craig Unagisella. 32 Commissioner Reckdahl: My son played 50/70 down at the Baylands on the skinned 33 field. You can't use that? 34 APPROVED Draft Minutes 4 Mr. Unagisella: Right now, we don't use that. It's being retrofitted, and the backstop is 1 like 10 feet behind home plate. It's really not good for any kind of Little League baseball. 2 Chair McDougall: With that, I'll say thank you to both of you. Another non-agenda 3 item. Shani Kleinhaus. 4 Shani Kleinhaus: Good evening. Shani Kleinhaus with the Santa Clara Valley Audubon 5 Society. Last week, there was an article, a paper published in Science magazine. That is 6 a respected magazine. It showed that almost 3 billion birds have disappeared in the past 7 50 years. That is birds that are not getting replenished. They're gone. There are 3 billion 8 fewer breeding birds in North America today as opposed to 50 years ago. Even common, 9 very beloved species are disappearing. Landscapes are losing their ability to support 10 birds. There are some things we can do about it. Birds are the most studied creatures 11 because there are so many in cities and science and always has been. People are out 12 there; they see them. Some of the questions I get asked by Palo Alto residents is "what 13 happened to our song birds, where did they go." People notice. They notice that they're 14 gone. They notice they don't hear them in the morning. The birds that come in winter to 15 their yards, there are fewer and fewer of them. They put the seeds out, and the birds that 16 come are smaller flocks. I can put it to a lot of different reasons to why they're 17 disappearing. There are a lot of reasons. The increasing number of crows is one. 18 Migration hazards is another. Buildings and collision is yet another one. One of the 19 things that came out really strongly in a symposium that the Native Plant Society had this 20 last weekend is that they're losing their food resources. There was a massive die-off in 21 Alaska year after year in the past five years because the birds are starving. They just 22 don't find enough food either for themselves or for their nestlings and their young. We're 23 losing them. We lost a quarter of all the birds of North America in 50 years. What can 24 we do about it in Palo Alto? We can't save them all the way to Alaska where they go 25 breeding. We're limited in what we can do, but there are things we can do. Most of the 26 insects, the lepidopterans that have caterpillars, are the most important food source for 27 chicks, for the baby nestlings. Those have a very specific relationship with native plants. 28 They don't just eat anything. They use specific native plants partially because the plants 29 have a lot of protection from being eaten. Those specific species of insects have learned 30 to overcome those, either metabolically by having certain enzymes or behaviorally. What 31 we need to do is provide bugs essentially. How do we do that? In every project that you 32 look at, try to see where can we put some native plants, where can we put trees. How are 33 we going to do that? There is more and more available in nurseries. If we're planting a 34 native plant garden in a City park, it doesn't have to be locally collected seeds. You can 35 be a little more flexible. There are ways to do it. We should be doing it. We should 36 rebuild Palo Alto as a native plant city where the trees that we plant and the trees that we 37 recommend to residents to plant. There is plenty of really beautiful, drought-tolerant, 38 local and California-native species. We really need to start focusing on that because 39 we're losing the most beautiful thing on earth, our birds. They're rock stars. They dress 40 APPROVED Draft Minutes 5 up; they sing; they're just lovely. We don't want to lose them, so please in every project 1 you see, see how can we increase native plants to 80 percent, put only native trees. I can 2 provide you with lists of trees, if needed. Thank you. 3 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Not often we have people come before us and say, "We 4 want more bugs." I'd like to also mention—this should maybe go at the end—we did 5 attend with Daren an ice cream social. We did get people coming and talking to us about 6 various things. Based on that, we received an awful lot of letters about the Eleanor 7 Pardee dog park and the Eleanor Pardee bathrooms as well. I have not counted them up 8 one way or the other. I think it's worth noting that we did get citizen engagement through 9 that event, and we do have citizen engagement input that we should follow up on later. If 10 there are no other speakers, we'll go to the Department Report. 11 IV. DEPARTMENT REPORT 12 Daren Anderson: Good evening. Daren Anderson, Community Services Department. 13 I've got really good news. The Birch Street property, 3350 Birch Street, I'm pleased to let 14 you know the sale of that property across from Boulware Park is complete, and the City 15 now has the title. That is going to be our newest piece of parkland. The next step is to 16 dedicate the property as parkland. We'll begin drafting the ordinance very soon. Peter 17 Jensen, my colleague from Public Works, is planning a community meeting on 18 October 17 for what the community would like to see on that parcel of land. Meeting 19 details will come soon. I'll be sure to alert the Commission. Just a reminder, the Black 20 and White Ball is scheduled for Friday, October 4, 7:00 p.m. to midnight. Tickets are 21 still available as I understand it. We had some lighting issues at Stanford/Palo Alto Park. 22 The work is scheduled for October 16 to fix that. The Cubberley track and field project, 23 Peter Jensen's managed this one and did a really great job. The field turned out 24 beautifully and is now complete. Unfortunately, there's an issue with the track. That's 25 going to be delayed and not ready to open until October 10. It's a matter of the asphalt 26 that is the base of the track needs more time to cure, a little longer than we were 27 anticipating. We had scheduled play for October 7 because the project was supposed to 28 be complete by that time. We'll work with the contractor to figure out ways to get them 29 across that track that's not done and onto the field to play. We had also planned a ribbon-30 cutting for October 4. That'll be deferred. We'll have a new date for that in the near 31 future. Again, when we have that, we'll notify you. Pickleball over at Mitchell Park is on 32 track to be completed by November 15. I had a question at one of the last meetings and 33 perhaps via email afterward from Commissioner Moss relating to signs and banners that 34 he had seen and noticed in many of our parks plastered along the fences. He asked, "Are 35 people paying for those? Are they supposed to be there?" I double checked with 36 Recreation. The banners are not allowed on park fences. The groups that put them up 37 are asked to remove them. This year, according to Adam, we've had excessive amounts 38 of leagues and groups coming and putting them up without asking. Adam said he'd talk 39 APPROVED Draft Minutes 6 to the Rec staff and make sure we take them down on a more regular basis. However, the 1 City of Palo Alto does have three locations where banners may be posted for a fee. 2 That's in front of Cubberley, in front of Lucie Stern Community Center, and an overpass 3 on Embarcadero Road. It's $30 for nonprofits and $60 for profit groups for one week to 4 hang those banners in those three locations. El Camino Park synthetic turf, we've had an 5 issue with the infield at this park. It's a frustrating one. The park is only 3 1/2 years old, 6 and the infield has started to breakdown and mold together, melt. When we contacted the 7 manufacturer, they came out right away. They did laboratory tests and determined that 8 they had specified the wrong product for our climate. It wasn't properly UV rated, and so 9 it's failing. At their own expense, they're going to remove it all and replace it with the 10 appropriate infield, which has got that correct UV rating. That work will be done 11 October 14-25. That's a two-week period; however, we anticipate they'll probably get it 12 done in one week. We'll need to block that amount of time off for them to get the work 13 done. Also during that time, that closure will have some unrelated field damage repaired, 14 little seams along the synthetic turf that need to be repaired. The JMZ update. 15 Unfortunately, the zoo is two months behind schedule. The building is on schedule, but 16 we're going to need a little extra time to get the zoo sorted out. We need six months 17 minimum for a commissioning period after the project is complete before we can open. 18 This is to ship, quarantine, introduce, and train animals and grow the grasses and other 19 plants. With this delay of the project, we had been looking at the summer of 2020 to 20 open. Now the opening will be the first week of October 2020. The Junior Museum 21 received a grant recently for $250,000 for the California dinosaur garden. This is going 22 to be an exhibit. The Friends of the JMZ have committed to raise $300,000 to complete 23 funding for this permanent exhibition, which will open in the spring and summer of 2022. 24 An update on the Byxbee Park pathways. Byxbee Park is a former landfill, and it will 25 subside. It has always done so and will continue to do so. As it subsides, we have to add 26 fill. The soil needs to be replaced on the top so the water grades off appropriately, so you 27 don't have standing water, which contributes to leachate problems. They recently did a 28 very large area, added the soil back in. In doing so, they buried a number of trails. Those 29 have all been rebuilt withstanding one little section of 200 feet that is yet to be done, 30 which will be done at the end of next week. The rest of the trails were inspected and are 31 in really good shape. It begs the question—I know the Commissioners have asked me 32 many times, "What's the next filling process? How often is this going to happen? Does it 33 have to be so much area?" This last one was 20 acres or so of a 130-acre parcel. Public 34 Works informed me there will be no more filling for this year. Next spring, we'll be 35 filling approximately 5 acres that have subsided. We'll be looking at about 5 acres. I 36 asked them not to exceed that amount, and they think they can do that, which will 37 minimize the impact to the rest of the preserve users. Ramos Park CIP, this is both the 38 improvement to Ramos Park and the restroom CIP that we hope to do there. Public 39 Works' Peter Jensen is helping set up a meeting in late November for that. I know we 40 had talked about doing that earlier, but staff has a lot of projects running concurrently, 41 and some of them are getting pushed out a little bit. The 101 Ped/Bike Bridge project is 42 APPROVED Draft Minutes 7 going out to bid on October 2. It goes to Council in November for award of contract. 1 They plan to begin construction in the fall of this year, 2019. The construction window is 2 approximately 18 months, and they hope to complete it by approximately March 2020. I 3 had a question at the last meeting about the dawn redwood at the Post Office. I have 4 confirmed with the Urban Forest team that irrigation has been added to help sustain that 5 dawn redwood. Sea level rise, an ongoing topic for us. Public Works will be bringing, 6 when I meet with the Chair to set our agenda, if this fits, the horizontal levee project to 7 the Commission in October for discussion. That concludes staff's presentation. 8 Chair McDougall: Thank you, Daren. I'd like to see if there are any questions. Jeff. 9 Vice Chair Greenfield: Thank you, Daren. The Cubberley field is ready. The track is 10 not. Did you say that the field would be able to be used before the track is completed or 11 not? 12 Mr. Anderson: That's the part we're working out. Thank you for that question. It's 13 difficult. Peter, who's managing it, said he's going to have conversations with the 14 contractor to see if there are some ways strategically to work on the track that we can get 15 in. They'll do it in gradually passes. They add some and wait for that to cure. They add 16 some more, and maybe strategically we can work to get the players on. 17 Vice Chair Greenfield: Potentially the field could be used for games on weekends and 18 for practices in the evenings before the track is done? 19 Mr. Anderson: Yes, when we have scheduled play, which is October 7. 20 Vice Chair Greenfield: There's a tournament next weekend that one of the soccer 21 organizations was interested in getting on the field for it. It sounds like it wouldn't be 22 able to happen. Is that a possibility or is that too soon? 23 Mr. Anderson: I would say that's a remote possibility. We can certainly discuss it more. 24 I'm glad to communicate after the fact if there's different things we hear from the 25 contractor that might allow it. We're a little apprehensive about people getting onto the 26 field, playing, and then have the field closed while we're working on the track. It's also 27 an active construction site, and we haven't signed off on the whole project yet. 28 Vice Chair Greenfield: I appreciate that we need to be conservative in our approach and 29 make sure we don't take any steps backwards. 30 Chair McDougall: Any other questions? Anne. 31 Commissioner Cribbs: I too was at the ice cream social. We're pretty lucky to have all 32 the services in Palo Alto. Fire was there, Utilities was there, and then Canopy and others. 33 It just was a really nice atmosphere. Hats off to the Midtown Neighbors Association and 34 APPROVED Draft Minutes 8 also to you, Daren, for the snake and all the education. It was pretty remarkable. Thank 1 you very, very much. I notice that there's a lot of geese at Greer Park on all the fields. Is 2 that pretty usual this time of year? 3 Mr. Anderson: It is, yeah. Unfortunately, they can cause issues. It used to be the same 4 problem at the golf course perpetually and some of the urban parks like Greer. They're 5 especially close to the Baylands, and it is common. There's not a lot we can do. 6 Sometimes we try to flush them off a little bit, especially if we know games are starting, 7 with the irrigation. You turn it on, and it moves them on a little bit. It's just part of the 8 Bay Area. We have a lot of resident Canada geese. 9 Chair McDougall: Are there any other questions? Council Member Cormack, do you 10 have any questions? I'd like to make a couple of comments. Number one, 11 congratulations on adding the parkland. Thank you for answering the signs and banners 12 question. I'm sure Commissioner Moss will appreciate that. Thank you for your 13 response and efforts relative to the continuing disturbances on Byxbee. That's great. I 14 think you said 18 months for the bike bridge and, therefore, it'll be done in March 2020. 15 That would be March 2021, right? 16 Mr. Anderson: I'll double check that with Public Works. My apologies. 17 Chair McDougall: I don't want to show up here next month and say, "What the hell's 18 going on here? You said March 2020." 19 Mr. Anderson: Yes, '21 is correct. Sorry about that. 20 Chair McDougall: Let's move on to the next item, which would be approval of the 21 Minutes. 22 V. BUSINESS 23 1. Approval of Draft Minutes from the August 27, 2019 Parks and Recreation 24 Commission meeting. 25 Approval of the draft August 27, 2019 Minutes was moved by Commissioner Reckdahl 26 and seconded by Commissioner McCauley. Passed 5-0, Greenfield abstaining, Moss 27 absent 28 2. Amendment to the Park Improvement Ordinance for the Rinconada Park 29 Improvement Project 30 Chair McDougall: I'd like to invite Peter Jensen to speak to us about the amendment of 31 the Park Improvement Ordinance for Rinconada Park. Welcome Peter. Nice to see you 32 again. 33 APPROVED Draft Minutes 9 Peter Jensen: Nice to see you. Commissioners, Peter Jensen, Landscape Architect for 1 the City of Palo Alto. Chair, I'd like to ask if it's possible to have oral communications 2 before from the public on the topic. 3 Chair McDougall: I would suggest that we let you speak, then we have oral 4 communications. Is Karen here? Karen, are you eager to speak before he speaks or are 5 you willing to wait? 6 Karen Fitzpatrick: (inaudible) to do it now if that works for everyone. 7 Chair McDougall: That's fine with us unless you think that what he's going to say will 8 inform your comments. 9 Ms. Fitzpatrick: I don't think (inaudible) change (inaudible). 10 Chair McDougall: Thank you, Peter. 11 Ms. Fitzpatrick: My name is Karen Fitzpatrick. I have been a resident of Palo Alto for 12 36 years. I have been involved with Girl Scouts in Palo Alto for more than 26 years, and 13 I've been the volunteer Scout House Manager for more than 20 years, volunteer as 14 opposed to a paid position. Girl Scouting in Palo Alto is a very traditional organization. 15 The Girl Scout House, Lou Henry Hoover Program Center, was begun in 1924 with 16 monetary donations, material donations, and labor and has been a working program 17 center for Girl Scouts since 1926. Several adult members from Girl Scouts in Palo Alto 18 were part of the participating community discussion group that Peter Jensen began more 19 than two years ago. At those presentations, we were excited to see that part of the plan 20 was a potential fire circle for Girl Scouting next to Lou Henry Hoover Program Center. 21 We've always relied on the Boy Scout fire center for any of our outdoor singing activities 22 or programs and always had to make advance reservations in order to use their facility. 23 Sometimes, the calendar did not allow for us to be able to use it. Having our own outside 24 area for programs would be a dream come true for everybody in Palo Alto in Girl 25 Scouting. We're committed to this project. It is a dream that we have had for many, 26 many years, and we are willing to help with funding. We can contribute one half of the 27 cost up to $15,000 from Girl Scouting in Palo Alto and hope that that allows the fire 28 circle to be included in the plans. We thank you for your consideration. 29 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Shani, I believe I have a card from you as well. Would 30 you like to speak now? 31 Ms. Kleinhaus: (inaudible) 32 Chair McDougall: Peter. 33 APPROVED Draft Minutes 10 Mr. Jensen: Commissioners, I'm going to go through a quick presentation, talk about the 1 Girl Scout fire ring area, fire pit area, locate where that's going to be, the idea behind it, 2 and how it was included in the plan. We've looked at a presentation before about the 3 Rinconada Improvement Plan. It's getting very close for the construction documents to 4 be complete, and we'd like to go out to bid on that project sometime next month. We are 5 hoping to coincide that work with the JMZ so the park and the JMZ will be completed 6 around the same time.. The original plan did not include the Girl Scout fire pit area, but 7 the Rinconada Long Range Plan, which we worked on a few years ago and adopted, does 8 show the fire pit element. It's been in the Plan for a long time. Unfortunately, because of 9 restraints with funding, we were not able to add it to the current project. The Girl Scouts 10 did reach out to me and expressed that they would like to have a fire pit in there. Of 11 course, we are working down at that end of the park. You can see our improvement area 12 there. Most of the improvements are in that area with the playground, the renovation of 13 the existing picnic area, a new picnic area, the new configuration of the main pathway. 14 Basically, everything in that space is going to be renovated, especially since the parking 15 lot and the front of the Girl Scout House, the Hoover House, is also being renovated. 16 With that, the Girl Scouts did at first, when we spoke, talk about a contribution of $5,000, 17 which I thought was very generous. Tonight, I hear it's a little bit more, which helps 18 because we're trying to make the dollars stretch as far as possible. We can add it into the 19 plan package and have a good chance of building it and giving us space for the Girl 20 Scouts just like the Boy Scouts to have their own fire pit area. That fire pit area would be 21 over here where this 13 is. We can look at a picture. Looking along Hopkins, here's the 22 side of the Hoover House. In this area right here, which is pretty much an area for 23 planting, you can see the one tree, which would stay, but it's not really overly used. It is 24 within the park parcel for Rinconada. The idea would be to use that unused area and 25 develop it into the fire pit area. That would mean an aspect of the current plan would be 26 to rebuild this screen fence that is there. This would increase that screen fence down and 27 then toward the Girl Scout House at this corner and then back to this corner here. You 28 would have a defined, secured area in that space. The existing tree, like I said, would 29 remain. That's sitting here. The Girl Scout area, the fire pit as you see here with 30 surrounding benches, decomposed granite paving, and then some enhanced planting 31 around the back. This provides that space. It's not overly complex or as extravagant as 32 the Boy Scout area is, but it does provide that gathering space that they're looking for 33 with that fire element. We really aren't allowed to burn wood any longer because of the 34 air, so this would be a gas-operated fire pit, which works out very nicely because the gas 35 meter sits very close to here. Not very difficult to get that utility to the fire pit. The cost 36 for the entire thing that we've started to look at was in the $25,000 range, and that looked 37 at demoing the area there and clearing it out, building the fence, installing the fire pit and 38 the gas line. Of course, the gas itself and the shutoff are some of the expensive parts of 39 the design or the project. With that, we would like to include the fire pit area in the Park 40 Improvement Ordinance and include it in the bid package and build a fire pit for the Girl 41 Scouts. 42 APPROVED Draft Minutes 11 Chair McDougall: Shani, is this card something that you want to speak to? 1 Ms. Kleinhaus: Thank you. This park is frequented by birders. There are bluebirds 2 nesting there and other birds that are really beautiful. My hope is that we'll provide food 3 for them by planting a lot of native plants. It was nice to see that it includes a pollinator 4 garden and native plantings. I would encourage the City to do similar to some of the 5 Google urban habitats, which is 80 percent native plants. Thank you. 6 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Are there any questions from Commission members? 7 Commissioner Reckdahl: I have a question about the fire pit. Would this be exclusively 8 used by the Girl Scouts or could other groups sign up for that? 9 Mr. Jensen: That is not something that we have finalized yet. It is a City building and 10 facility. If the community expressed enough interest in using it, we would set up a 11 program for them to have access to it. It's mostly used for and by the Girl Scouts. 12 Commissioner Reckdahl: I would imagine it'd be mostly Girl Scouts. We might have 13 something like we do for soccer fields, for example? They would call up Adam and say, 14 "I want to rent a fire pit" and see if it's open. 15 Mr. Jensen: Right. Because we have another facility that's a little bit larger with the Boy 16 Scout facility that already is rented out, I don't see a lot more use from the outside, 17 besides the Girl Scouts, using that space. 18 Chair McDougall: Are there other questions? 19 Vice Chair Greenfield: Peter, could you clarify what the fence material is around the fire 20 pit area? 21 Mr. Jensen: The fence material would be almost identical to the fencing material that's 22 out there now. We're going to match the aesthetic of the existing fence, which is—you 23 can start to see it over here. Currently, there's a screen or wooden fence with an 24 alternating wood slat that screens the picnic area. That fence line would be extended 25 down and then return to the building here. In this location would be a set of double gates 26 to access the inside of it. 27 Vice Chair Greenfield: It's a wood fence that blocks view into it. 28 Commissioner Reckdahl: Can you clarify where the bathroom would be? We're thinking 29 about possibly putting a bathroom in now or in the future nearby? 30 Mr. Jensen: It would be close by. Here's the picnic area that would be between—the fire 31 pit would be over here, the picnic area. The bathroom sits where the two pathways come 32 APPROVED Draft Minutes 12 together. It is fairly close proximity into that thing. The fence also plays a role in the 1 restroom because we're looking at running it along the back of the restroom. The facade 2 or the rear of it remains aesthetically what it is now. The fence, even though you're going 3 to see a roofline up there, is in that space. 4 Commissioner Reckdahl: Can you go back to the slide that had the fire pit? On this one 5 … 6 Mr. Jensen: It'd be over here more, sitting in this section. The back of it would be along 7 that fence line, which is here. 8 Vice Chair Greenfield: There is a bathroom in the Girl Scout House, isn't there? 9 Mr. Jensen: There is a restroom facility in the Girl Scout House. It's used for the Girl 10 Scouts. 11 Commissioner Cribbs: Very enthusiastic about having the fire pit. Thank you very much 12 for incorporating it. As a Girl Scout and a Girl Scout leader and a Brownie leader, we 13 would have loved to have a fire pit. Thanks to the Girl Scouts for offering to absorb 14 some of the expenses. Thank you. 15 Chair McDougall: Council Member Cormack, do you have any comments or questions? 16 Council Member Cormack: Thank you. It's always wonderful to see public-private 17 participation happening in advance. I don't know if staff has reflected on the use of 18 natural gas. As we think about our REACH Codes, other communities are making 19 decisions about fire pits and backyard barbecues. It's something for staff to contemplate, 20 how this fits with some of our other goals. I want to be sure I understand from a 21 budgetary perspective the line in the discussion. It would be a bid alternate item. If the 22 bid came in at, say, $15,000 over the engineer's estimate, it would go forward. If it came 23 in above that, it would not. Is that a correct interpretation of what you have here or is it 24 more complicated? 25 Mr. Jensen: This afternoon when the contribution was in the $5,000 range, that was the 26 feeling towards it. Staff would have to have some conversations about it now. With the 27 added donation by the Girl Scouts, I think it would be a bid item, not a bid alternate item 28 in the plan. 29 Council Member Cormack: Sounds like an auction. When this comes to Council, would 30 you envision it being on consent or as an action item? 31 Mr. Jensen: The Park Improvement Ordinance will come to the Council sometime very 32 soon, in a month or so. Usually it's on the Consent Calendar, but it's up to the Council if 33 they want to have further discussion about it. 34 APPROVED Draft Minutes 13 Chair McDougall: I was surprised by what you just said. Because there's a larger 1 contribution, you wouldn't ask for it as an option. We can understand that it's all of a 2 sudden costing $35,000, not $15,000 or something? 3 Mr. Jensen: I'm pretty comfortable with the cost estimate we put together. Usually when 4 we put estimates together, they're on the high side. The contribution and the remaining 5 amount, we have the remaining amount for that item to be put into the bid. 6 Chair McDougall: It can't be wood; it has to be gas. Is the Boy Scouts' fire pit in anyway 7 grandfathered in so that it can be wood? 8 Mr. Jensen: I cannot answer that question. It's been there for a long time. No one really 9 questions how it's used. 10 Chair McDougall: It would be hypocritical of us as the Parks and Recreation 11 Commission and saying, "Why don't we burn more wood?" I'm even a little uneasy 12 about the Girl Scouts trying to look after nature and learn about nature and whatever, and 13 why don't we just burn gas. I know it's not an awful lot, and it's probably not going to 14 change the world. I can't not ask was that considered. Was it considered by the Girl 15 Scouts that they'd be better off planting native plants to celebrate or put a native plant in 16 the middle as their gathering point? 17 Mr. Jensen: I haven't had that discussion with them, so I couldn't say. I know the fire pit 18 from the Long Range Plan was supported by the general community as an element back 19 there. 20 Chair McDougall: The general community has supported a lot of things previously that 21 maybe they'd think twice about today. I'm going to start on the left with Jeff and see if 22 anybody would like to comment before we vote. This is an action item, so we do need a 23 motion. As you speak, think about what the motion might be and what your position on 24 it would be. 25 Commissioner LaMere: What's the lifespan and maintenance and potential pitfalls? Will 26 there be other costs that arise from this? 27 Mr. Jensen: The fire pit should survive—I should have added that into the presentation. 28 It's prefabricated and not overly expensive, but it should be able to survive outside for 15-29 20 years, I would say. The gas has some nuance to it because you have to turn it on and 30 off. The valve for it will be in a locked box to maintain safety. The area right now is 31 being maintained as a planting area. A majority of it will stay some planting. We'll have 32 to discuss more with the Girl Scouts how they would like it to be maintained, but I would 33 imagine that our parks maintenance staff would be responsible for removing debris from 34 the DG, leaves and things of that nature. It will have some costs, of course. It's an added 35 APPROVED Draft Minutes 14 element. It will need maintenance over time, but those things are, compared to the 1 facilities we have around the City, very minimal. We tried to design it to be simple and 2 easy to maintain and to add a new one when the time comes for that. 3 Commissioner LaMere: What are the costs associated with running a gas fire pit or how 4 much gas is used? I'm not as familiar with gas fire pits. 5 Mr. Jensen: I couldn't tell you the cost of it or the amount of gas used. I know it uses a 6 very little amount. For a gas fire pit for residential use, I've seen like $5 a month or 7 something like that. It's a small amount. I can't see it running for hours and hours and 8 hours at a time. That controls it as well. 9 Commissioner McCauley: Peter, thank you. You've put a lot of work into the Rinconada 10 plan. Well done. To the Girl Scouts, thank you as well. This is a great idea and a great 11 addition. I appreciate what Chairman McDougall is noting about additional potential 12 pollution from a gas fixture, but in this instance it would probably be used so little that 13 it's not going to be a significant addition on that front. This looks great. Congratulations. 14 I presume that you're going to be memorializing with the Girl Scouts some plan around 15 usage, maintenance (crosstalk). 16 Mr. Jensen: Yes, we'll definitely get into that and build some type of use agreement or an 17 understanding of how it needs to be used and how it's going to be maintained. That 18 would be a step that we will start to discuss after this. 19 Commissioner Reckdahl: What would be the capacity? How many girls could we get 20 around here? Is it like 20? 21 Mr. Jensen: I think we measured it out to get somewhere between 40 and 50, depending 22 upon the size of human beings sitting there. Girl Scouts are a little bit smaller, so they 23 can get a few more in there. That's the size I discussed with the Girl Scouts, the size of 24 groups that would want to use the space. 25 Commissioner Reckdahl: I want to make sure they're in the loop and we size it correctly. 26 If it's too small and kids are standing around, that detracts from the experience. I concur 27 with the other Commissioners. This will be a great addition. It will add some fossil fuel, 28 but I don't think we're burning it 24 hours a day. It's just going to be here and there. 29 We'll swallow hard and say yes. 30 Vice Chair Greenfield: Thank you, Peter, for all the work on this. My wife's been a Girl 31 Scout leader, and my two daughters were Girl Scouts. One had regular meetings at the 32 Hoover Girl Scout House, so I'm fairly familiar with it. I think I've been to the Boy Scout 33 fire pit once, and I think that was an event for a nonprofit and not the Girl Scouts. Maybe 34 once or twice my daughters made it over there, but not often. I do appreciate the need for 35 APPROVED Draft Minutes 15 it. It's great that it's not going to be wood-burning. I concur with the others that in a 1 perfect world we wouldn't be burning gas either, but we can swallow it a bit on this one. 2 I'll be supporting this. 3 Chair McDougall: Do I have a motion? Do we need to discuss—Peter, would you like to 4 tell us what the motion might need to be? 5 Mr. Jensen: The motion would be to add the language about the fire pit to the Park 6 Improvement Ordinance. 7 Chair McDougall: It doesn't need to be anything fancier than that? 8 Mr. Jensen: No, I don't think so. 9 Chair McDougall: Can I have a motion? 10 MOTION: 11 Vice Chair Greenfield: I'll move that we add the fire pit to the Park Improvement 12 Ordinance. 13 Chair McDougall: Do I have a second? 14 Commissioner Cribbs: Second. 15 Chair McDougall: All in favor. I would like to go on record as abstaining. With that, it 16 passes. 17 Motion passes 5-0, McDougall abstaining, Moss absent 18 Chair McDougall: We need to explore in terms of equity and in terms of our concern for 19 the environment what are the regulations and what is the situation with the Boy Scouts' 20 fire pit. I'm sitting here worried about burning a little gas. I agree with everybody that 21 it's a little gas, not a big deal. It's more the hypocrisy than the gas. We're allowing the 22 Boy Scouts a totally different set of rules. That doesn't seem like equality, and it doesn't 23 seem appropriate at all. I'd like to hear back what the Boy Scout fire pit situation is. 24 Mr. Jensen: We'll have further conversations with staff about that and bring back the 25 answer to that at the next meeting. 26 Chair McDougall: Thank you very much. Thanks for being here, Peter. 27 APPROVED Draft Minutes 16 3. Park and Open Space Regulations Update 1 Chair McDougall: We can move on to the Parks and Open Space Regulations Update. 2 Once again, this is an action item. We will be asking for a motion and a vote. 3 Mr. Anderson: Good evening. Daren Anderson again, Community Services, here tonight 4 with an action item seeking a recommendation from the Commission that Council adopt 5 the proposed amendments to the Park and Open Space Regulations. The Commission 6 discussed the draft amendments to these Regulations at the August 27 meeting. During 7 that meeting, there were a few comments and suggestions both from the Commission and 8 the general public that resulted in changes to these updates. One of the changes was 9 adding the Table of Contents, which you can see here in the slide. This was a suggestion 10 from one of the members of the community, who went home that night, typed it up, and 11 sent it to me. It was really thoughtful. I would like to acknowledge Jeff Conrad for that 12 It was very thoughtful. This was in response to Chair McDougall's suggestion that we 13 organize this in such a way that it's easy to search it and find what you'd like. I should 14 also note this is consistent with how the City's Municipal Code is organized. You can 15 press on one of the things from the Table of Contents, and it takes you right to your 16 bookmarked area. Another Commission suggestion was to amend R1-16(I). This 17 regulation prohibits animals from being on the deck of the pool. The suggestion was to 18 allow service animals at the pool. We checked both with pool staff and the City 19 Attorney's Office, who said, "Yes, you have to allow service animals there." This 20 regulation has been edited to allow those service animals as defined by State and Federal 21 law. That same community member that I mentioned before had also suggested changing 22 R1-21(A). This is the regulation that restricts commercial photography and filming. 23 Essentially, what he wanted to add was a definition and description of what commercial 24 meant, so it was clear to users coming to film or photograph in the park. That was added. 25 I ran all these past the ad hoc committee, and they supported all these changes. Again, I'd 26 like to conclude this with thanking the ad hoc committee and Mr. Conrad for their 27 generous support. 28 Chair McDougall: We do have one card that was just handed on this subject. Herb 29 Borock, if you'd like to comment. 30 Herb Borock: Thank you, Chair McDougall. Good evening. I just had one question 31 about the dog exercise areas. I recall around the time the Peers Park dog exercise area 32 was being considered that there was discussion about the design of the fencing around the 33 parks including the height of the fencing. I thought that had been included in the 34 regulations. Perhaps staff can refresh my memory about that. I think one of the concerns 35 was that the fence between the exercise area and the public part of the park would be 5 36 feet high. There was discussion of that. Since I don't have it in writing in front of me, 37 I'm just doing this from memory. Thank you. 38 APPROVED Draft Minutes 17 Chair McDougall: Thank you. I don't think it's usually appropriate to respond to a 1 citizen question. I'm going to ask the citizen's question. Coming from me, maybe we can 2 clarify that. 3 Mr. Anderson: Thank you for the question. That's correct. We had discussions about 4 fencing. We've got one dog park. This is Hoover Park where the fence was for some 5 reason before my time put in at 3 feet. It's proven to be a problem for the users. They've 6 requested change. We are actually implementing that change now. We're posting 7 signage for raising that fence soon. It wasn't added to the regulations but rather to our 8 internal practices. As we add dog parks or renovate ones, we ensure that the fencing's at 9 that 5-foot height. There may be areas, for example if we added one that was right next 10 to a train track, where you might want that above 5 feet. In fact, that's what we have with 11 the existing boundary of Peers Park. Rather than putting it in the Code to say 5 or at least 12 5, it just ends up in the staff practice to continue with 5 feet as a best management 13 practice. 14 Chair McDougall: I think it's difficult to codify every best practice. Personally, I would 15 suggest that we not do that but recognize the question that Mr. Borock brought up. Are 16 there any other specific questions to Daren? 17 Commissioner Reckdahl: I'm looking on page 5, R1-10(A). It isn't clear to me. Are 18 tables and stages allowed without a permit? If I want to go down and put a table up on 19 Lytton Plaza, can I do that or do I have to get a permit for that? (A) talks about for 20 permitted events, and it has a bunch of limitations on tables, but it doesn't say if I don't 21 have a permit, what applies to me. What constraints do I have? 22 Mr. Anderson: For portable tables and barbecues and chairs, you do need a permit. The 23 rationale behind this was absent this law—it used to be in places like Rinconada, which 24 were very popular for barbecuing, had multiple portable tables. They'd bring in their 25 portable barbecues, and they'd exhaust and overwhelm the existing resources, like trash, 26 recycling, compost as well as the restrooms. The park would be overrun. That law was 27 put into place to curb people from exceeding the capacity. If we haven't provided a 28 picnic table, they don't want you to bring your own unless you have a permit. 29 Commissioner Reckdahl: In any park, I can't bring a table or a chair or a stage? 30 Mr. Anderson: You can bring a chair. I'm sorry. The stage and the table would be the 31 ones that would require a permit. 32 Commissioner Reckdahl: Do we say that in here? 33 Mr. Anderson: Yeah. It's a different section, not in the Lytton Plaza one. I'd have to do 34 some searching to dig up exactly where it's at. 35 APPROVED Draft Minutes 18 Commissioner Reckdahl: Somewhere in here it says you can't bring tables or stages? 1 Mr. Anderson: It's that or in the Municipal Code. I'm sorry I don't have it right in front 2 of me. If you give me a few minutes, I could find it. 3 Commissioner Reckdahl: We can take this offline. A reasonable edit would be on (A) 4 say "tables require a permit" and then you can go on and say "for permitted uses, these 5 are the restrictions." The same with (G), say "uses of stages require permits." 6 Vice Chair Greenfield: If that's already covered somewhere, we don't necessarily want to 7 be redundant, especially if it's in this document somewhere. 8 Commissioner Reckdahl: If it's in this document, then I'm fine. If it's in another 9 document, then just for clarity. That's one of the problems. People want to use the parks, 10 and they look at something. Part of the cleanup was to make it logical. When I was 11 looking through here, it wasn't obvious to me what was allowed without a permit and 12 what required a permit. 13 Mr. Anderson: Commissioner Reckdahl, can you reiterate what you would like there? 14 You'd be able to bring a table without a permit. Is that what you were saying? 15 Commissioner Reckdahl: No, no. I'm not trying to change the rules. I'm just trying to 16 clarify. Just to make it clear in (A) that the use of a table requires a permit. On (G) … 17 Chair McDougall: What number, what R? 18 Commissioner Reckdahl: R1-10(A). 19 Chair McDougall: R1-10(G) is stages require a permit. 20 Commissioner Reckdahl: Unless there's another spot in here. 21 Mr. Anderson: I don't believe stages are called out in any other spot for permits. It's just 22 the tables and portable barbecues. 23 Vice Chair Greenfield: I have searched through this document for table, and I don't see 24 anything that would cover it. Is this something that you would perceive as a problem that 25 we need to address, to be more clear? 26 Mr. Anderson: It hasn't been an issue, not that I'm aware of. 27 Vice Chair Greenfield: If we were to change the wording of this and approve it via 28 action, would it have to go through the legal department before it goes to Council? Are 29 there any repercussions of that? 30 APPROVED Draft Minutes 19 Mr. Anderson: Just to make sure we didn't set up something to be in conflict, it probably 1 would require some additional review. If that's the will of the Commission, I'm glad to 2 bring it back at the next Commission meeting. 3 Commissioner Reckdahl: I'm not sure if it's that important. If it would be trivial to add 4 it, it does add some clarity, but I don't want to make work for you. 5 Vice Chair Greenfield: You're suggesting if we were to add it, we wouldn't be able to 6 vote on it tonight as an action or you would not recommend going forward as an action? 7 Mr. Anderson: Can you tell me exactly what we'd change? I can get a feel if I think 8 there's going to be a conflict with something else and need some more time to review it. 9 Vice Chair Greenfield: I'll defer to my esteemed colleague. 10 Commissioner Reckdahl: This is page 5, R1-10(A). That one is talking about tables in 11 those three parks. My confusion in reading that—it wasn't obvious what restrictions 12 there were, if any, on tables if I didn't have a permit. What I would propose is start that 13 bullet with "the use of a table requires a permit." Likewise (G), I would start by saying, 14 "the use of a stage requires a permit." I'd just add those two sentences at the beginning of 15 those bullets. 16 Vice Chair Greenfield: I would also suggest that this section only applies to these plazas. 17 It doesn't apply to parks overall, so I don't think that's accomplishing what you're looking 18 for. 19 Commissioner Reckdahl: Ideally, you would have that in a different section that applied 20 to all parks. 21 Chair McDougall: I'm going to suggest that we step back from this particular point and 22 see if there are other points that would cause us to go further with this. Ryan, your light's 23 on. Would you care to speak? 24 Commissioner McCauley: I was wondering if you could take a moment . We received 25 some correspondence on the community garden edit, which I think everyone is now 26 familiar. The most significant edit to the Rules and Regs is to remove a fairly lengthy 27 recitation of community garden rules in favor of placing that within the contract that each 28 gardener signs when they lease a plot from the City. That would mean that that contract 29 and language around it would become an administrative decision as what those terms 30 should look like, of course in consultation with the Commission. From my perspective, 31 that's the most significant edit to this document. Daren, maybe you could provide a little 32 bit of context on why we're doing that and what the thinking is. 33 APPROVED Draft Minutes 20 Mr. Anderson: This is, just for point of reference, R1-40, community gardens. You can 1 see the 2 1/2 pages of line strikeouts where it was a lot of administrative "this is how the 2 garden is operated" type of arrangements that only apply to licensed gardeners. We 3 thought it was more appropriate that that live in a separate document, which we're 4 creating and which will come to the Commission next month, called the Community 5 Garden Guidelines. One of the edits you can see down at the bottom of what remains in 6 the regulation under community gardens is the Director may promulgate guidelines for 7 the registration and use of the community gardens. Those are the guidelines that you'll 8 review. That'll have parameters around the administration of the garden itself. The ones 9 that remain apply really broadly, not just to licensed gardeners but the general public. 10 That's what we've kept in R1-40 (A)-(E). 11 Commissioner McCauley: Thank you, Daren. I know you've spent a lot of time trying to 12 bring this document to where it's at today. It's an excellent job. Well done. 13 Commissioner Cribbs: On the tennis, R1-11, on the times, I can't tell from the strikeout 14 whether you're going to use capital AM and PM or little AM and PM. Just take a look at 15 it. 16 Mr. Anderson: I think we changed it to capital. 17 Commissioner Cribbs: I think you probably did. It just isn't clear on here. 18 Chair McDougall: Council Member Cormack, do you have any questions? 19 Council Member Cormack: Out of curiosity, R1-6(B), it looks like we ask for the home 20 address of some guests in (B) but not in (C). I just wonder why we do that and if we 21 retain that information. I can imagine a scenario under which the Ranger is double 22 checking perhaps an ID. Just wondering why we need a home address. I certainly 23 understand why we might need to know if someone is a Palo Alto resident. If someone 24 isn't, I'm just wondering what the rationale might have been. This might be before your 25 time. 26 Mr. Anderson: Forgive me. I'm not quite sure. I don't believe we retain those 27 documents. I'm not sure why the difference. 28 Chair McDougall: If there are no other comments or questions, I'll go back to Keith. 29 Keith, are you satisfied that we can go ahead with this or do you think we have a tables 30 and stages issue? 31 Commissioner Reckdahl: We're looking at the Municipal Code right now. I don't think 32 this is a must have. This is a "nice to have." If it's going to be more work for Daren, then 33 APPROVED Draft Minutes 21 I would hold my suggestion. If it's something he can add and we can still vote on it 1 without conflict, then I would think it's an improvement. 2 Mr. Anderson: My response to that one is that particular one pertains only to those three 3 plazas. If we want it broader, it belongs in a different spot. For the table, I can tell you it 4 already exists. The stage, I don't believe so. I don't believe that is in there. I'd have to 5 find it and search more thoroughly through the Municipal Code. 6 Commissioner Reckdahl: What would be your preference, Daren? 7 Mr. Anderson: Either way is fine. I'm glad to come back next month with this and make 8 some additional changes or we can catch them in the next revision. It hasn't been a 9 challenge for staff. 10 Commissioner Reckdahl: I don't want to put it to next month, so I'm pulling my 11 suggestion. 12 Chair McDougall: I'd like to explore why is it necessary to come back next month? Why 13 can't we have a motion that says "with these two changes" to the extent they don't require 14 you to come back or something? It doesn't seem to me adding the two things that he's 15 suggesting would negate the fact that we've made a motion. All we want to do is add a 16 couple of bullets. I wouldn't think that would require you coming back. 17 Mr. Anderson: I think it's fine to edit that one if you want it to just apply to those three. 18 Is that what you're saying or you want it elsewhere in the document? 19 Chair McDougall: I'm asking. I'm saying it just applies to those three. Is that sufficient 20 or do we need to make a note saying in 2024 when we're redoing this again, maybe that 21 ought to be looked at. In the meantime, hope nobody wants to put a stage somewhere 22 that … 23 Commissioner Reckdahl: I can see people wanting to play their guitar and setting up 24 their own stage down on Lytton Plaza. It's quite plausible that someone would do that. If 25 we don't want it there, we can add that sentence. 26 Chair McDougall: I tend to think it's a risk. It's a very small risk, but it's a risk. I would 27 think we could pass a motion that would be worded such that this is our recommendation 28 to change unless it causes—we might get advice from Council Member Cormack on how 29 we might want to write something like that. 30 Vice Chair Greenfield: If we're just concerned about the three plazas in this item, it 31 seems to be implicit that a permit is required for these. Suggesting that if someone has a 32 permit, then these are the guidelines. If you don't have a permit … 33 APPROVED Draft Minutes 22 Commissioner Reckdahl: The table is more clear because it says with a permit. The 1 stage one just talks about stages. If you're a guitar player who wants to stand on a stage 2 and play for money, then right now it doesn't seem to prevent that. 3 Chair McDougall: I'm going to ask for a motion that forwards and approves this as is 4 without any modification. Daren, do you have suggestions of exactly how the motion 5 should be worded? Is it just simply accept the Park and Open Space Regulations? 6 Mr. Anderson: As titled in the staff report, the recommendation. 7 Chair McDougall: Do these have to go to Council now or anything like that? Do we 8 need to put … 9 Mr. Anderson: They do go to Council. 10 Chair McDougall: We could add "and are forwarded to Council as submitted." 11 Mr. Anderson: You would recommend as proposed. 12 Chair McDougall: We accept them and approve that staff forward these to Council as 13 they were submitted to us. Can I have a motion to that effect without worrying about 14 wording it because I think it's understood? 15 MOTION: 16 Commissioner McCauley: I move that we approve the amendment of the Park and Open 17 Space Regulations as submitted to us in the staff report. 18 Chair McDougall: Do I have a second? 19 Vice Chair Greenfield: I'll second that. 20 Chair McDougall: All in favor? Any opposed? Anybody abstain? Daren, thank you. I 21 was remiss in the earlier comments for not saying thank you relative to the indexing. 22 That was really well done. In fact, I would like to suggest that a thank you letter go from 23 the Commission to Citizen Conrad thanking him for his support and participation and 24 assistance. If you and I could collaborate on that, something that came from staff and 25 Commission recognizing the effort and consideration would be really important. 26 Motion carried 6-0, Moss absent 27 4. Foothills Park Access Pilot 28 Chair McDougall: The next item is the Foothills Park Access Pilot. I will once again 29 question whether people would like to comment. I'm actually giving this choice, whether 30 APPROVED Draft Minutes 23 you'd like to comment before the presentation. This will not be a staff presentation. It 1 will actually be a Commission presentation. Whether you'd like to hear the presentation 2 first. Since Mr. Borock is standing right there, waving his hands and would like to 3 comment first, welcome. 4 Mr. Borock: Thank you, Chair McDougall. Park uses and regulations are part of the 5 Palo Alto Municipal Code. In addition, staff has promulgated regulations that implement 6 what is in the Municipal Code. The changes suggested in this agenda item are not 7 allowed by the Municipal Code. If you're going to suggest any changes, you need to use 8 your role as an advisory body to the City Council to recommend change to the Municipal 9 Code. The agenda item should indicate that, just as you had a Park Improvement 10 Ordinance indicated on the agenda earlier for a fire pit proposed at the Girl Scout House. 11 I believe that the extent that people in the community who want Foothills Park to be more 12 the open spaces areas managed and owned by the Mid-Peninsula Regional Open Space 13 District, perhaps the solution is to find a way where the Open Space District can acquire 14 Foothills Park. Since their purpose is limited to open space, they don't have the 15 competing uses that the City does for spending its budget on personnel for other reasons. 16 They could provide the adequate staffing that we used to have at Foothills Park to 17 manage the uses at that time, which were the residents and their invited guests. My 18 recollection is that the number of staffing at Foothills Park and having staff at the gate at 19 all times changed at the time June Fleming became City Manager. June Fleming at the 20 time of her appointment was a resident of Los Altos Hills. According to the Code, she 21 eventually purchased a house and lived in Palo Alto. She was among the second group of 22 houses or subdivision along Page Mill Road. The one that's closest to the park, you can 23 actually walk along and enter one of the gates to service roads in Foothills Park. To get 24 to there from the subdivision that was directly below it, where Mrs. Fleming lived, you 25 would have to go out onto Page Mill Road, then back to the beginning of the main street 26 of that upper subdivision and walk all the way, which would be inconvenient. People 27 where Mrs. Fleming lived could only get to Foothills Park in a practical way by driving a 28 car and getting to the gate where they would be stopped. Whereas, they wouldn't be 29 stopped if they walked in along the other road and entered the no service people to see 30 who's going in through that gate. What you have to consider regardless of how little or 31 how much this should be a pilot study, calling something a pilot study does not change 32 the fact that it violates the Municipal Code. It's the Municipal Code that would have to 33 be changed if you want to be making any changes to the regulations that are described in 34 the Municipal Code. Thank you. 35 Chair McDougall: Thank you, Herb. I will take the comments, and I'll take them in the 36 order that I have them piled here, which may not be the order that they were handed to 37 me. Tracy, Tracy Sherman. 38 Tracy Sherman: Good evening. 39 APPROVED Draft Minutes 24 Chair McDougall: I'm going to set a timer but not a buzzer. We generally try and keep 1 presentations to 3 minutes. I see that there's four of you, so … 2 Ms. Sherman: Actually only one. I'm going to speak on behalf of the group. 3 Chair McDougall: They're going to cheer? 4 Ms. Sherman: Yes. If I'm like 30 seconds over … 5 Chair McDougall: That's fine. 6 Ms. Sherman: My name is Tracy Sherman. I'm a Portola Valley resident, and I'm here 7 with neighbors and community members. We know tonight's meeting is about a pilot 8 project to open Foothills Park to a limited number of non-Palo Alto residents but still 9 conditionally more visitors to the park. I along with a number of my neighbors, including 10 myself and Linda-Drey Nightingale, Co-Chairs for Emergency Preparedness for Los 11 Trancos Woods; Tom Bleier, Emergency Preparedness Chair for Vista Verde; Bill Tagg 12 former CERPP, nationally known as CERT, Operations Chair and former Emergency 13 Preparedness Chair for Vista Verde; and Steve Friedman, Los Trancos Woods Incident 14 Commander and former CERPP District Leader. We represent one of the communities 15 bordering the west of Foothills Park, on the border between Santa Clara County and San 16 Mateo County. The Los Trancos Woods/Vista Verde community has approximately 300 17 homes. Just below us is Blue Oaks development , and below that the backside of Portola 18 Valley Ranch, another 200-plus homes. There are also many neighborhoods that border 19 Foothills Park on other sides. We think it fair to say that most people in all these 20 neighborhoods are extremely concerned about fire safety, especially due to changing 21 weather patterns. To our mind, the question of opening the park to more people begs 22 broader questions that would be of import even if the park was not going to change 23 current policy. Along the western side of Foothills Park, there are large swaths of 24 chaparral in which there are no fire breaks, just continuous, contiguous vegetation. 25 Woodside Fire Protection District has recently been doing innovative work at Teague Hill 26 with grant funding to start clearing the park of an overload of fuel. This on the heels of 27 two fires, one a lightning strike and the other a man-made fire. We know there is an 28 enormous amount of fuel in Foothills Park, including along the trail system within the 29 park. There is a great deal of innovation taking place these days with regards to forest 30 management, prescribed burns, working in concert with Cal Fire, large landscape fuel 31 reduction projects—Woodside Fire Protection District is doing this kind of project 32 currently at Teague Hill as is the Redwood City Fire Department in their community—33 and mastication including remote masticators for difficult terrain. The Mid-Peninsula 34 Regional Open Space District Governing Board recently added an objective to its 35 strategic plan, "work with fire agencies and surrounding communities to strengthen the 36 prevention of, preparation for, and response to wildland fire." Our question to you is are 37 these projects that Foothills Park is considering or would consider. Another question. 38 APPROVED Draft Minutes 25 On extreme weather days, would Foothills Park consider closing the park like they do in 1 the East Bay and more recently in Woodside/Portola Valley with the closing of Windy 2 Hill Preserve, Huddart Park, and Wunderlich Park on days with potential to move into 3 red flag conditions. Los Trancos Road, which borders Foothills Park, is the main 4 evacuation route out for our communities and the main route in for first responders. If 5 Los Trancos Road is cut off due to fire, we have a single-lane alternative down Alpine 6 Road, which is absolutely not a desirable evacuation situation. All it would take is one 7 car to stall, and everyone else would be blocked from getting out. Think Oakland Hills 8 Fire. Therefore, Foothills Park's fire management plan, how and when it will be 9 implemented as well as potential plans for fuel load reduction in the park is of critical 10 importance to many. Thank you for your consideration. I have copies of this 11 presentation. I also have copies of two recent articles from The Almanac. The first one 12 about a fire district awarded grant for wildfire prevention work. This is the Teague Hill 13 project. As well as Woodside/Portola Valley in the same fire risk as Paradise. I made 14 copies for everybody. 15 Chair McDougall: If you'd give them to Natalie. I'd like to thank you and your 16 associates for coming and for a well-thought-out and articulate presentation. Thank you 17 very much. We like it when our neighbors are willing to show up and discuss what's 18 going on in Palo Alto. Thank you very much for that. Stay where you are, and I'll ask if 19 anybody here has any questions while you're standing there. We can follow up with you. 20 Thank you. The next card I have would be Shani. 21 Ms. Kleinhaus: Good evening again. Shani Kleinhaus, and I speak as a resident now, not 22 for any organization. Foothills should be looked at as a museum for our community. It 23 should not be looked at as something that is common good. It's a museum because that is 24 where we still have wildlife. We're always told they'll go somewhere else when we 25 increase the number of people, when we increase the number of activities. They don't 26 have a lot of places to go anymore. We need to be very careful. I thought a lot about 27 how can you bring more people that will actually respect it the same way as residents 28 respect their own homes. I had an idea, and I don't know if I can share it with you. It's 29 not in your materials. There was a question about our gardens, can nonresidents garden 30 in our community gardens, do they need to go through some kind of training. For that 31 park, we need training for people, the same as Stanford has for Jasper Ridge. If 32 somebody wants to go to Jasper Ridge and bring other people with them, they go through 33 a training program. That training program allows them to be a certified docent, and then 34 they can come in. We need something like that. It's expensive to bring people in. 35 There's a lot of different impacts that people have on the environment and on the 36 resources that we need. We don't have enough Rangers as is. We need more Rangers 37 anyway, whether we open any additional land to people. Forming a docent program will 38 connect people. Palo Alto residents can choose to take it or not. Other people should 39 take training. They don't just go there to use that resource in a way that is not compatible 40 APPROVED Draft Minutes 26 with the beauty and its tranquility and the wildlife that lives there. I'm thinking about the 1 comments that people brought about fire. I think fire pits should go away. They're right 2 that the park should close on high risk days because they're at risk. Having more and 3 more people, especially on high risk days, is an existing risk. I attended a presentation by 4 Mid-Pen yesterday about how they're going to manage the land, and it's thousands of 5 thousands of acres that they'll have to remove a lot of the plant material from. The more 6 we bring people in, the more plant material we have to move out, the more we have to 7 impact the environment. It's not only the bathrooms that are going to get more use. It's 8 everything. We know a lot of birds will not nest within 300 feet from a trail. Not 9 because the trail is there but because it's being used. They see the people; they don't 10 come there. We have a system that is working. It's beautiful. I go there a lot. During 11 the week, there's people there that are not residents, and it's okay with me, but we need to 12 be watchful. It's how we do something. I agree with Herb that you can't do a pilot 13 project without having to go through the whole entire Code system. It does need to be 14 done. Please look at the education and stewardship together and not just open by ticket 15 or something like that. Thank you. 16 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Leland Levy. 17 Leland Levy: Thank you. As a long-term resident of Palo Alto, I want to tell you how 18 impressed I am with the work of the Commission, of the committee, and the Park and 19 Recreation Department in putting this pilot program together. It is a test program, and I 20 think it's a very positive thing that it is not permanent. It goes for a year. It is data-based. 21 It does not change the allowed usage capacity of Foothill Park. It keeps in place 22 regulations that have been there a long time, but it allows residents from throughout the 23 community to make use of a park that we have kept to ourselves for a long period of time 24 when, as far as I know, no other community on the Peninsula has done the same thing 25 with their open space areas. We have long had a 1,000-person daily maximum usage of 26 Foothill Park, and that will stay in place. You as a Commission should take it upon 27 yourselves to carefully monitor what's being done because we want to be careful of the 28 ecology of the area, we want to maintain the environment, we want to be careful of the 29 fire dangers. You should keep track of the usage. You should not look upon this as a 30 permanent test but as a program that may lead to something very worthwhile. With that, 31 I hope that you will approve this test and then monitor it with the care that it deserves. 32 Thank you. 33 Chair McDougall: Thank you. LaDoris Cordell. 34 LaDoris Cordell: Good evening, members of the Commission, and thank you for your 35 time. First, I do echo the remarks made by Leland Levy. I'm a longtime resident of Palo 36 Alto, and when I served on the City Council from 2004 to 2008, I raised the issue of 37 lifting restrictions on entry to the park. Nothing came of it then, but more than a decade 38 APPROVED Draft Minutes 27 later the issue has not and will not go away. It is time to open the park. The pilot 1 proposal is a thoughtful first step in doing so. I believe there is no justification for 2 restricting entry to Foothills Park. It is my understanding that the origin of the restriction 3 was a response to Los Altos when the city refused to share in the purchase of the land. 4 Palo Altans got miffed and closed the park to Los Altans. That restriction morphed into 5 an all-out ban on outsiders. It was not for any environmental reasons. I urge you to 6 adopt the pilot program, which has been thoughtfully written. I also note that, as an 7 aside, Palo Alto business owners who pay City taxes but who do not live in the City are 8 barred from the park. I believe this is unfair, and I actually question the legality of 9 barring those who actually pay taxes in the City and who own businesses here. I close by 10 saying, first, you have a look at—I've produced some documentation as well—previous 11 years of attendance at the park that confirm that there is no justification for the kind of 12 restriction we have. Enough of the elitism and the exclusionism. Let's bring the park 13 into the 21st century. Let's open the entry gates to those who desire to visit it under the 14 guidance of this pilot project. I ask these Commission members to please know it's time 15 to tear down the entry barrier. Thank you. 16 Chair McDougall: Thank you very much. I would like to do one things. One, I'd like to 17 thank all of the speakers tonight for a very reasoned set of presentations, very thoughtful 18 input, well-articulated. When we have former Mayors and former Council Members visit 19 us, we need to make sure we're listening. When we have our neighbors from Portola 20 Valley coming and talking about safety and so on, we need to listen. Thank you. I'd like 21 to add to the speakers. Jeff Paulsen, who is a grandson of the Lees and was a Ranger at 22 one point in Foothills Park, has written—all of the Commissioners would have received 23 this from Natalie—to regret that he's not here but to add his voice for opening the park 24 because of the importance of the history, as both LaDoris and Lee have mentioned. We 25 don't have a staff presentation. We do have an ad hoc committee presentation. Ryan, 26 would you like to introduce the topic? 27 Commissioner McCauley: Thank you, Don. Thank you, as well, to all the speakers. 28 Your thoughts and comments are much appreciated. The last time we spoke about this in 29 July, I think I opened by saying Foothills Park is a special place. I'll say it again. I'll 30 probably say it a dozen times that Foothills Park is a special place. The Commission, the 31 committee members definitely, and the public more importantly all recognize that. It's a 32 place that we want to share as reasonably as possible because it's a special place, but also 33 we want to ensure that the character of that special place isn't negatively impacted. That's 34 what this pilot proposal attempts to do. As everyone knows, the committee and staff, led 35 by Daren but there's many others that I'll mention in a moment, have tailored this 36 recommendation to study the prospect for allowing for broader public access with 37 controls and very deliberate ways of studying this in order to ensure that the park retains 38 its special character. We've tried to take in the public comments that we heard in July as 39 well as the comments from Commission members, and that's what's reflected in the pilot 40 APPROVED Draft Minutes 28 proposal before you tonight. Because there were a couple of comments along these lines, 1 this is just a discussion item this evening. The plan would be, pending the upcoming 2 discussion amongst the Commission, to return at a future meeting with an actual action 3 item that proposes some amendments to the Municipal Code that would allow for this 4 sort of pilot program that would then go to the City Council for discussion and eventual 5 action. Before I hand it off to Jeff LaMere, who's going to give an overview of the pilot 6 program, I wanted to thank Kristen, our Director of Community Services, Daren. By the 7 way, Daren, I was impressed by your Department Report. There's a lot going on. You've 8 spent many, many hours trying to corral this particular topic and come up with a sensible 9 proposal with us. It's much appreciated given everything that's on your plate. Daren's 10 team, Lam Do who's our Superintendent of Parks; Kathleen Jones, the Supervising 11 Ranger; Greg Betts, the former CSD Director, Kurt Dunn, former Supervising Ranger at 12 Foothills Park; Gordon Bailey; Lester Hendry; other former Supervising Rangers at 13 Foothills Park, and John Aiken and his team at the JMZ; and many others who have 14 provided input to this particular pilot proposal. With that … 15 Commissioner LaMere: Thank you, Ryan. Again, thanks to Daren and everyone who 16 helped out and provided comment. We've received a lot of public comment. There were 17 a lot of current and past Rangers interviewed. There were a lot of people that we spoke 18 to about this. There was a lot of time and thought put into this pilot proposal. I'm just 19 going to go through briefly each of these points and make a brief comment. Ryan will 20 follow up providing some comment on some data that we have. To reiterate what Ryan 21 has said and what others have spoken about, we understand how unique and how special 22 this place is. We also think that, based on looking at the historical data, based on 23 speaking with the rangers and other people, there's also an opportunity to share our 24 amazing resource in a responsible manner with a few more people. That's something that 25 this pilot proposal will attempt to do. The first point is the fact that it's a one-year 26 program. It's a temporary program. This is not a permanent program. It's something 27 that, if implemented, will allow study. It's a limited number of adjustable passes for 28 nonresidents, meaning that we can adjust based on if we think it's going to be a busy day. 29 Historically, if Mother's Day has been busy, maybe there will not be nonresident passes 30 available for that day, as an example. We also want to make it a point to have broader 31 availability for school field trips. We think that the real core of getting school-aged 32 children out to the park, the educational value of the environment is of great importance 33 to us. We think that can really help out different communities, not just those students at 34 Palo Alto, but to really push what is important to us. In the interest of simplicity, one 35 thing we were looking at with this pilot program was not to engage City staff, to reduce 36 the time that they would need to spend on something like this. We want to use the new 37 online reservation portal that will be available this fall. This is a portal that would be 38 used as anybody would make a reservation, as people sign up for different things through 39 the City. People could log onto this. We also believe that people have technological 40 accessibility whether it's through their smartphones or a computer. We want to make it 41 APPROVED Draft Minutes 29 accessible, and we want to make it simple also for staff to help out people who are 1 seeking the passes. We'll have an opportunity to collect data so we understand how many 2 people are going into the park. That's extremely important, as was mentioned by a 3 previous speaker. Ryan will drill down a little bit deeper on the data. As we collect this 4 data, it's going to help us understand what are the impacts on the park that this proposal 5 has resulted in. As we mentioned before about the field trips, we do want to formalize a 6 school field trip program, which is not presently anticipated by the Municipal Code. 7 Again, codifying these existing practices will provide clarity for those involved. That 8 would be one more point of this pilot proposal. There's also some potential to recover 9 expenses associated with the existing cost of staffing the entry gate. The entry gate is 10 currently staffed on weekends, so there's already a cost involved in that, and there is 11 potential for discussion if we charge a certain amount for passes. That money could be 12 recouped and provided towards the existing expenses of the park. We'll continue to 13 prioritize resident access. There are no changes to the current resident access proposed in 14 this. Any current resident would have the same rights to go visit the park, and that's very 15 important that that is understood. We're not limiting what already exists. Again, the 16 proposal that we're making is very limited in scope but will provide us with information 17 about how the park is being used and will help us develop proposals and hopefully 18 something to push forward in the future. With that, I'll turn it over to Ryan and let him 19 drill down more on this data and speak a little bit more about this. 20 Commissioner McCauley: Thanks, Jeff. I'm going to try to be efficient because I know 21 that there's a lot of charts included in this relatively short PowerPoint presentation. These 22 numbers could be a little bit hard to read. For the members of the public, my apologies 23 that these numbers might be difficult to see. I have a couple of copies in case any 24 Commission members would like to have a slightly better view of what's on the screen. 25 Let me be as brief as I possibly can be in talking about the numbers. As Jeff mentioned, 26 the number of passes anticipated by this pilot would be adjusted on a daily basis or a 27 weekly basis by staff to match the historical trends and the data with an upper cap of 50 28 passes on any given day. At our July meeting, Daren presented a number of numbers for 29 the past decade with trend lines and monthly averages. Happy to recirculate those 30 materials if anyone would like to see them. As a quick recap, the top line numbers from 31 that presentation were that in the past couple of decades, we've had a very stable rate of 32 usage, around 150,000 visitors per year. Looking back over the park's more than 50-year 33 history, that level of visitation is actually fairly low. In the first decade after the park's 34 dedication, through the 1960s and '70s, the visitation count was regularly in the upper 35 two and three hundred thousand. We're historically low compared to what the park saw 36 when it opened. Turning your attention to the slide that's on the screen now, I want to 37 quickly provide an overview of this to try and hopefully orient you to the type of data that 38 we have available to us and how we can use that data, I hope, to tailor the best policy 39 with this pilot. On the far left-hand side, you'll see visitation broken out by month. This 40 is all for the year 2017. Not surprisingly, the months of May, June, and July have 41 APPROVED Draft Minutes 30 elevated rates of visitation. It then tapers off in the fall. It drops to its lowest level over 1 the winter months and then picks up at a gradual basis in the spring until you hit summer 2 again when you're at your peak. No surprise the summer months are the most popular. 3 The staff has been doing this for a long while. For 2017, they recorded that they actually 4 turned away over 3,700 nonresidents who came to the park. Folks came to the park on a 5 weekend and were hoping to visit, but they were turned away because they're not 6 residents. That number equates to—as you'll see reflected in the monthly numbers, it's 7 anywhere between 220 to more than 500 people per month that were turned away in 8 2017. That number has been inching up over the years. In the past five years, I believe 9 the average was something like 2,800. You see that in more recent years, we are turning 10 away more people than we were five years ago, for example. If you go to the far right-11 hand side, you see a breakdown by day of the week. Again not surprisingly, Saturday 12 and Sunday are more popular. They amount to about 50 percent of the total visitation in 13 the park. The other days of the week make up the other 50 percent. 14 Commissioner Reckdahl: The nonresidents, is that the number of people in the car or the 15 number of cars in the fourth column? Nonresident turn-aways, is that the number of cars 16 that were turned away or the number of nonresidents? 17 Commissioner McCauley: That's a question for Daren. 18 Mr. Anderson: I believe it's the number of nonresidents. 19 Commissioner Reckdahl: It's manned on weekends. Weekdays, do we count the cars? 20 Do we have a … 21 Mr. Anderson: Yes. We've got an electronic counter. 22 Commissioner Reckdahl: We just multiple by … 23 Mr. Anderson: 2.7. 24 Vice Chair Greenfield: The turn-away number, is that based on cars times 2.7 or actual 25 people? 26 Mr. Anderson: The turn-away number, I think they're counting those people. They're 27 there in the booth, so they're getting a real count. 28 Commissioner McCauley: Keith, a good point is that these total numbers reflect both the 29 visitors counted by the car multiplier during the week as well as perhaps at 7:00 in the 30 morning before the Ranger opens up the Ranger Station on a Saturday morning. In 31 addition to that, it also counts everyone. The Ranger in the booth is counting as they go 32 through. It's a combination of all three of those sources. All that we're trying to 33 demonstrate and hopefully make this slightly more visually appealing or intuitive is the 34 APPROVED Draft Minutes 31 number of visitors are reflected in the blue part of the bars. If we were to have 1,000 1 people per day, it would be the green bar. You would have 30,000 people approximately 2 per month. You can see what the current level of visitation is. One slight clarification I 3 want to make is that it's not actually a 1,000-person per day limit. It's 1,000 persons at 4 any one time in the park. That's the cap. Conceivably, you could have 2,000 people visit 5 the park and not actually hit that 1,000-person at any time cap. In all events, we thought 6 it was a benchmark to demonstrate what that would look like. This is something that 7 would be close to the level of visitation in the 1970s when we had 370,000 people 8 visiting the park for several years. If you were at that level, you'd be where the top of the 9 green bar is. This one demonstrates essentially the red bar difference, which would be if 10 you added 20 percent over the current visitation for 2017, where you would be relative to 11 1,000 people per day. In this one, if you added 70 percent. I'm going to break this down 12 slightly more to month. Those monthly numbers are made up of daily numbers. This is a 13 somewhat helpful example just looking at January 2017. January is typically a low 14 month for the park. January 1st, though, is typically a pretty popular day in the park. It's 15 New Year's Day. A lot of people have New Year's resolutions that they're trying to keep 16 on that first day, and they make it out to Foothills Park. On that day, we have 300 cars in 17 2017 and 750 visitors who are registered by the Ranger staff as they enter. That would be 18 a day, for example, where we would probably have fewer passes available. Potentially 19 significantly fewer, perhaps there's only 10 or 20 passes available on New Year's Day. If 20 you look at the other days, you'll see that the car counts can actually be quite interesting. 21 There are several weekends here. If you look at January 8, 2017, there were only 53 cars 22 that entered the park that day and 133 visitors. I have fairly high confidence in the 23 numbers for weekends, by the way, because it's actually for the most part recorded by a 24 Ranger who's standing there at the booth. That's not to suggest that I don't have 25 confidence in the other numbers, but as anyone who works with lots of data sets will 26 know—I know that several of you do this more than I do—there are always blips in the 27 data. If we look down to Thursday, January 26, 2017, there were 356 people who visited 28 the park based on our automatic counter. That number seems high to me frankly. I'm 29 surprised that there were 200 cars that entered the park that day. However, it's certainly 30 possible. It's also possible that there were deer that passed by the photo eye that counts 31 the vehicles or something like that. There's a number of different things that could be 32 happening. The great thing is that we have so much data. We have 20 years of very 33 reliable data, and we have more data beyond that. Those blips start to become not 34 meaningful. You have so much information that you're able to make decisions based on 35 this data set in its entirety or in its more complete nature. Here are a number of 36 additional ways of thinking about this. The red bars reflect if you were to have 1,000 37 people visit the park on a day. The blue bars reflect the actual visitation during the month 38 of January. We then did the same thing for June 2010 and November 2014. June and 39 November tend to be higher usage months where we see more visitors to the park, as 40 you'd expect. Again, here's the graphical charting of what those levels are versus 1,000 41 APPROVED Draft Minutes 32 people in the park per day. The same for November. Here's November with the 1 additional 25 percent people visiting the park. 2 Commissioner Reckdahl: What was that on Tuesday, the 11th? 3 Chair McDougall: Veterans Day. I suspect that there was a special event or something. 4 Commissioner McCauley: Exactly. There are days where we could be coming close to 5 having 1,000 people in the park, but the purpose of the pilot is to give staff the flexibility 6 to adjust and prevent a circumstance where that would happen. 7 Commissioner Reckdahl: How would staff go about doing that? Would it be 50 for most 8 days, and then just on holidays we would lower it down, or would you be modifying it? 9 For example, if you go back and look on Tuesdays and say Tuesdays are higher, so we're 10 only going to have 45 that day or vice versa. How often would they adjust that 50? 11 Commissioner McCauley: Two things to keep in mind. One is that part of the purpose of 12 the pilot is to experiment a bit. In the first instance, Daren would likely experiment on 13 the conservative side. I'll let Daren speak to his thoughts on that. Essentially, ensure that 14 we don't have a huge crowd of people who are enjoying the park. That's thought number 15 one, to experiment a bit. That's also true as we get to this next slide about options for 16 further discussion, how we experiment within this set of 50 passes we might have. To 17 look at days of the week would be meaningful. It would also be meaningful, though, 18 probably for Daren and his staff at the beginning of the month to look at the trends for the 19 next couple of months and say, "Here's where we think we need to adjust and have a 20 smaller pool of passes available on some weekends, some days, etc." This last slide, 21 there are a number of areas where it would be helpful for the committee to receive some 22 more feedback from the Commission. One of which is on the topic of fees. Daren's 23 team, Kathleen Jones, got together with the Ranger staff and came up with a calculation 24 of the cost to staff the booth over the weekends. It's a fairly significant cost from my 25 perspective. It costs the City about $89,000 in staffing time to have the entry gate 26 manned just on the weekends. One thing to consider is do we want to try and recoup 27 some costs that would be associated with that staffing. For me personally, I'm torn on 28 this issue. I totally appreciate the point of trying to recoup some of the fees. By the same 29 token, I don't want to create an additional barrier to entry for folks. That would lead me 30 to think that perhaps we should not charge a fee. Maybe there's a hybrid of sorts, and this 31 would be something appropriate for a pilot, to have a phase where we don't have a fee 32 perhaps for the first half of the pilot, and for the second half of the pilot to have a fee that 33 might be charged. Your input on fees would be helpful. The second point would be what 34 do we do about weekdays. The committee had in mind that it would make sense to try 35 and collect as much data as we could on weekdays. We should encourage people to go 36 online and make a reservation, grab one of these passes for weekdays as well as 37 weekends, recognizing that many people will not do that. All the more information that 38 APPROVED Draft Minutes 33 we can get would be helpful. When people go through the online reservation portal, 1 they'll probably be answering two or three, four questions about the reason they're going 2 to the park and whatnot just for our data collection purposes so we can understand how 3 the park is being used and hopefully collect that helpful data. Fees and weekdays are two 4 big areas where we would definitely like the Commission's input. Discussion about 5 further prioritization for students and volunteers. The committee definitely wants to 6 prioritize access for those groups. There's a couple of ways that we thought about it. 7 One is to provide a fee waiver in the event that there is a fee charged. We would provide 8 essentially an access code to those groups when they go online to make a reservation. 9 The second would be to set aside a certain number of passes only for students and 10 volunteers. Any other alternatives and ideas that you have. With that, I'm going to stop 11 speaking because you'll all appreciate me not coughing. Thank you again for your 12 indulgence. Daren, very sincerely thank you for all of your assistance. 13 Chair McDougall: There are three members of the ad hoc. Jeff was the other ad hoc 14 member. In normal procedure, we should allow him to speak first. 15 Vice Chair Greenfield: I want to thank the ad hoc members who worked so hard on this 16 along with lots of contributions from staff. Daren, kudos especially as always. I'd like to 17 thank the public speakers for their thoughtful comments. I'm interested in hearing from 18 staff at some point what our policy is regarding closing Foothills Park on fire danger 19 days, especially understanding that the neighboring open space areas like Windy Hill and 20 Huddart and Wunderlich are already instituting a similar policy. It seems like we want to 21 make sure we're consistent with them. I appreciate this is a complex issue, and it's been a 22 longstanding issue in the community. I'm particularly interested in hearing from the 23 other Commissioners your thoughts on this. I look at it with three different areas of 24 focus. One is the clarity of scope of what we're proposing. Two is the simplicity, and 25 three is focusing on minimizing impacts. On the scope, are our priorities correct? Is it 26 clear what problem we're trying to solve? Is it clear that the proposal addresses the 27 priority issues? Simplicity. Is our plan simple to communicate? Is it simple to 28 understand? Is it simple to implement? Regarding minimizing impacts, this includes 29 staff time, cost to the City, impacts to the current user experience, and the impacts to the 30 natural environment. That's really what feedback I'm interested in hearing on top of the 31 specific points that Ryan has highlighted. Thank you. 32 Chair McDougall: I'll start with Keith, if you don't mind being first. 33 Commissioner Reckdahl: Overall, this is a good idea. Like most people, I have some 34 reservations. We heard a lot of speakers last month that were very concerned both from a 35 wildlife standpoint and also losing the charm of Foothills Park. How are we going to be 36 monitoring the condition of the park to ensure that this is not affecting the park? 37 APPROVED Draft Minutes 34 Mr. Anderson: What we've started with now is starting to track some baselines. That's 1 the most reasonable. A lot of them can be a little arbitrary, so we're hoping to find ways 2 to make them less so. For example, photographs are often helpful. There's only so much 3 we can track and the amount of Ranger time we can dedicate to this. We thought perhaps 4 taking random photos of the same shot of the valley in front of the Interpretive Center to 5 see how many deer are out there, for example. We'd track incidents of vandalism and 6 other things that require staff time, cut-off trails, that kind of thing. We have a rough 7 idea, but we're going to track it more closely now, and then we'd have some baseline data 8 that we'd continue to track during the pilot. The amount of time we spend cleaning 9 restrooms, reports of restrooms not being tidy, things like that. 10 Commissioner Reckdahl: What about erosion on some of the trails, especially on the 11 steep hills? 12 Mr. Anderson: I think our Rangers have a good understanding. A lot of those are not 13 necessarily visitor driven; some of them are environmentally driven as you remember 14 with the big storms. Some of it can be, and certainly shortcuts contribute to erosion. 15 We've got some problem areas in the park that we do track. Certainly, that's one of the 16 things we pay attention to. Eyeballs on the creek to see if people are down in the creek 17 and any impacts there. 18 Commissioner Reckdahl: Are there any areas that you're concerned about? For example, 19 let's say we double the number of people at Foothills Park. What would be your biggest 20 concern quality-wise from the park? 21 Mr. Anderson: The parking would be a challenge. The first-come-first-serve picnic area 22 could be impacted if we doubled a number. That's one of the things I like about this 23 pilot, the ability to perhaps have some control over those by adjusting the number of 24 passes we give out so that doesn't happen. Those are some of my worry areas, impacts to 25 wildlife, of course. Those are probably the biggest ones. 26 Commissioner Reckdahl: For example, looking at the deer, is there some way—Shani 27 mentioned the birds. Is there any way that you can quantify the bird population? Is that 28 just too hard to do? 29 Mr. Anderson: One of the betters ways that we could reasonably implement something 30 like that is to do more of the bio blitzes and citizen science where you go out and have 31 members of the public help track things and record. Those are most valuable when you 32 have a lot of them consecutively over a long period of time. On the shorter scale, some 33 of those might be a little less valuable. They're not really indicative of everything you've 34 got. You've got to have it over a lengthy period of time, but that might be one way to 35 help with that. 36 APPROVED Draft Minutes 35 Commissioner Reckdahl: We're talking about Ravenswood or Palo Alto Unified. Do we 1 have a count of how many students are in Ravenswood and a count of how many 2 nonresidents are in Palo Alto schools? 3 Mr. Anderson: I don't have the number of nonresidents in the Palo Alto schools. I 4 understand it's fairly low from anecdotal conversations with PAUSD staff, but I don't 5 have a number. The ad hoc might have had a conversation with Ravenswood to 6 understand the number, but I don't know. 7 Commissioner McCauley: I don't have the number off the top of my head. We did some 8 calculations, though, around the number of students in Ravenswood and the number of 9 students in PAUSD who are not residents of Palo Alto. Those calculations were 10 primarily related to an iteration of a pilot that we've now stepped away from, which was 11 essentially just giving access to all PAUSD students and all Ravenswood students 12 without having any daily cap. Under this pilot proposal, you would have essentially 125 13 or 135—I can't remember the exact number—additional visitors per day based on a cap 14 of 50 passes. The question would then be do we want to set aside 10 of those passes only 15 for students and 10 of those passes only for volunteers perhaps. 16 Commissioner Reckdahl: I thought that was a good idea to separate those. Some of the 17 logistics of how to get these passes. We had talked about online reservations. Do we 18 have that up and running? Do you know? 19 Mr. Anderson: We have an existing online system that's in the process of being replaced 20 right now with a newer, more robust system. It'll be activated December of this year. 21 We've inquired if something like what we're looking at in this pilot might be feasible, and 22 they've said yes. 23 Commissioner Reckdahl: So we'd start in December. How would we work that? Would 24 it be you could make it 24 hours in advance or could you make it a week in advance? 25 One of the concerns I have is twofold. If I have to wait until the last minute to make my 26 reservation and don't know if I'm going to get one of those spots, then I can't make my 27 plans. If you allowed people to make them a month ahead of time and I decide I want to 28 go, now it's all blocked up for the next month. Both of those are bad situations. What 29 would be our policy? Would we be able to take reservations ahead of time or would we 30 not? 31 Mr. Anderson: Yes, it would be ahead of time. The fine tuning of exactly when and how 32 much in advance is yet to be determined. I think we'd discuss it with the ad hoc and 33 come with a proposal to the Commission. 34 APPROVED Draft Minutes 36 Commissioner Reckdahl: Would there be a limit to the number of passes one person 1 could have? For example, could someone sign up and take a pass every day for the next 2 month? 3 Mr. Anderson: I don't know that that's been discussed with the ad hoc yet. Another 4 detail to work one. 5 Commissioner Reckdahl: If this is a scarce resource, what happens is people will hoard 6 scarce resources and try to sell them in a secondary market. I would be concerned that 7 there might be shenanigans going on. The reason I was asking about how many students 8 we have is I like the idea of setting aside some of the passes for students and some of the 9 passes for volunteers. What is the right proportion? If we have a lot of students in 10 Ravenswood that might be interested in it, I don't know if ten would be enough. I would 11 want to look at those numbers to say what would be a reasonable allocation for the 12 Ravenswood and PAUSD students. Fees. The online reservations, we could charge fees 13 if we wanted? 14 Mr. Anderson: That's correct. 15 Commissioner Reckdahl: I'm not sure about fees. I understand your comments and 16 appreciate them. I'm not sure of the right answer. I would probably be inclined to charge 17 fees. For example, if you go to Huddart Park right now, it's a $6 parking. I would think 18 that'd be reasonable for us to at least charge that much just to be an equal fit. I think 19 that's all my questions for now. 20 Commissioner Cribbs: Just a few comments. Before I start, I think there are a little bit 21 less than 4,000 children in Ravenswood School District. I think that's the number that's 22 current. First of all, I'm really glad to see this and see that we're discussing this. We've 23 been talking about it off and on for a long time. I've been a resident of Palo Alto for a 24 long time, and it comes and it goes and it comes and it goes. I really congratulate the ad 25 hoc and the staff and the community because this is a really thoughtful discussion, a 26 really cautious and careful and data-driven discussion. That's really important. I 27 appreciate the neighbors from Portola Valley and the comments about closing Foothill 28 Park and other places for high fire danger and everything. That was really great and 29 something that I necessarily wouldn't have thought out. I'd like to go back to the reason 30 that this came up, about the fairness and the justice of this. We in Palo Alto have to 31 figure out a way that Foothill Park is not closed to people. I know that you can walk in 32 now and all of that, but it just doesn't feel right to me to live in a community that has a 33 park that is closed in some sense. I'm excited to see this move forward. There's a lot of 34 questions and a lot of details that we're going to have to answer and staff is going to have 35 to figure out the answer. It's really the right thing to do. Certainly think about kids who 36 don't have the opportunity to get out to Foothill Park. How are we going to ask them to 37 take care of the environment in the future and care about it if they don't have a chance to 38 APPROVED Draft Minutes 37 see it? That's going to be a really important thing. Thank you all very much for the work 1 that you've done on this. It'll be really interesting to track this through the year, and 2 hopefully we get to do that and see how it works out. Jeff, I'm not sure that I addressed 3 any of your questions. The scope is okay right now. It's pretty thoughtful. It'll be a good 4 test. Thanks very much. 5 Chair McDougall: Jeff, do you want to answer your own questions? 6 Vice Chair Greenfield: No, I don't have anything specific to add. They stand on their 7 own. The questions are key to making sure we're on the right track for proposing an 8 effective pilot program. 9 Chair McDougall: I would like to comment on a number of things, I hope in the context 10 of Jeff's questions. I would add my thank you again to people that have spoken, the effort 11 of the ad hoc, particularly Ryan. He's championed the fact that we're having this 12 discussion. We're having a reasoned discussion, and I applaud everybody for that. The 13 question of how this goes next, we can take this to Council with a recommendation that 14 they simply change the Municipal Code or we can go to Council and ask that we have a 15 joint discussion session. There needs to be a consideration of what the right next step is 16 so that we continue this. In the context of that, particularly relative to impact and 17 simplicity, as Jeff mentioned, I would suggest, number one, that we just accept that it is 18 1,000 a day instead of saying it's 1,000 at any one time or whatever. If we say it's 1,000 a 19 day, then that minimizes the impact. It's easier to keep track of. We don't need to worry 20 about how many went in and how many went out. We can just say it's 1,000 a day. All 21 of those charts basically say we're 25 percent of 1,000 a day right now. We're a long way 22 away from filling 1,000 a day let alone 1,000 at any one time. In the conversation, we 23 make sure it's clear on that. Anything we do should include a comment about not just 24 closing the park on fire hazard but other safety issues. A well-reasoned approach to 25 safety should be included. Fees are good; we should embrace fees. I'm not sure how you 26 would go through the phases that you're talking about. My phase would be fees right up 27 front. The idea that, like Environmental Volunteers does for schools that can't afford it, if 28 you put on your reservation system "I'd like to apply for a scholarship to get into the 29 park," I doubt people who could afford to pay wouldn't say, "I can get away with not 30 paying just by doing this." That would be part of our testing. If we simply allowed 31 people who apply for a waiver online and gave it automatically, would everybody claim 32 the waiver or not? I would say do that. In terms of prioritizing, you've had some clear 33 conversations about, if it's 1,000 a day, then let's make sure that after we get to 600, 700, 34 800, or whatever, we maintain the prioritization for Palo Alto citizens. That may be in 35 here, but I'm not sure that I saw that in the concept. In terms of collecting data, this is 36 going to be a really interesting thing relative to—you don't have to have all the data. You 37 just have to have some good samples. I think Daren talked about this before or maybe 38 Kathleen mentioned. If we just start counting the rolls of toilet paper now and we 39 APPROVED Draft Minutes 38 eventually know that we're using 25 times the amount of toilet paper or something, there 1 must be some indicators, not hard facts but good leading indicators, not just trailing 2 indicators, that we could look at. The idea of having bio blitzes, they're not perfect. To 3 Shani's point earlier, you don't necessarily need to count the deer and the bird. Maybe 4 you just need to count the insects, and maybe you don't need to count all the insects. You 5 just need to count particular insects. If you're not keeping track of that, then you can't 6 sustain the birds or whatever. Maybe we can do some focused bio blitz stuff. We 7 certainly know a few people who are really good at insect bio blitzes. I would consider 8 that. How quickly shortcuts get—visitor-created paths, at Point Lobos in particular, were 9 the biggest effort, the biggest cost when it came time to say, "We've never had fences. 10 Time to put up fences." I was going to save this for later, but I'll say it now. We need to 11 look at this as is this a park or is this a reserve and what kind of park do we want it to be. 12 For example, when I look at this and I think about passes, do I want to apply for a pass to 13 go for a hike or do I want to apply for a pass to use a fire pit? Maybe we need to be a 14 little more granular in our thinking. You can have 12 fire pit passes every day. Keith's 15 point of if you allow those to be booked a year ahead of time, the first thing I'm going to 16 do is book a whole year's worth of fire pits or something like that. There are State parks 17 that have passes. There are other regional parks that have passes that have you pay for it. 18 There's got to be an awful lot of learning out there that we don't have to start from a blank 19 sheet of paper. We can figure out what do they do. Point Lobos does not have passes at 20 this point. They're considering passes. Most other State parks have restrictions. The 21 first thing they did was say, "Let's go find out what everybody else is doing." There's 22 some research that we could do from there. I hear Keith's question, but all of that is 23 absolutely manageable. The reservation logistics, there's got to be a way to do that. 24 Making it simple, even my suggestion of complicating it by saying, "I need to know 25 whether you want a fire pit pass or whatever." By the way, if you want to talk about if 26 it's a reserve or reserve-like versus park, maybe in the process of this we should eliminate 27 the fire pits. Back to are we being hypocritical here, do we believe in nature but we want 28 people in nature but we want them to have fires. We need to think about can people have 29 picnics without cooking hotdogs. Maybe I'm making this take longer, but we should 30 think about that. Shani shook her head when I said bio blitzes. I also think there's a 31 possibility that we could go to somebody like Audubon and actually give them a contract 32 to do some measurement. That wouldn't hurt. When we talk about Ravenswood, I'm not 33 sure we need to necessarily talk about the whole Ravenswood School District as opposed 34 to what grades are we talking about. Is it just one through six or is it all grades? I truly 35 believe in the online reservation. If the one that we're putting in place as the City doesn't 36 work, there are so many commercial online reservation systems that could be used. It's 37 just not worrying about it. The bottom line for me, this absolutely should go forward. I 38 totally believe in opening the park, and I share concerns about nature. I also have 39 concerns about people, and being in nature is good for people. We should not limit the 40 opportunity for people to experience nature and enjoy nature and learn about nature. 41 Shani's idea that if we could get docent volunteers or whatever to talk, to staff the center, 42 APPROVED Draft Minutes 39 that should all be part of this if we can do it. Bottom line, I totally support the idea that 1 we should open this. Ryan, thank you. I'll give a chance for anybody to make any 2 additional comments, but otherwise, I want to thank you again for all good comments. 3 Vice Chair Greenfield: Ravenswood School District is K-8. They do not have a high 4 school. We've talked about barbecues in Foothills Park and some of the hillside picnic 5 areas. Maybe we should move forward with considering which barbecues should be 6 removed from some picnic areas. Maybe we scale back and only include them in 7 Orchard Glen and Oak Grove. Maybe there's another site. Some of the more remote 8 sites that have the barbecues seem like a problem waiting to happen. Just one question to 9 ask the Commission is I haven't heard any specific input regarding weekdays. Should the 10 pilot pass program be extended to weekdays or not? Do you have any thoughts on that? 11 Commissioner McCauley: The committee's thinking was we should collect as much 12 information as we can. To the extent we can get people to obtain one of these passes 13 online for a weekday, let's try and collect that information and know who's visiting the 14 park, when they're visiting, etc. We recognize that there may not be a lot of adherence to 15 that sort of policy. Maybe it's not a meaningful data point for that reason. It really is an 16 open question for us. 17 Council Member Cormack: If everyone has concluded their comments, I want to be sure 18 I go at the very end. 19 Chair McDougall: I'm not going to say what I was going to say. 20 Council Member Cormack: I want to echo former Council Member Cordell's statement 21 that this is a thoughtful first step to bring one of our parks into the 21st century. Earlier 22 this year when we were setting up the study session, the question that I asked when this 23 particular subject was brought up is what is the problem we're trying to solve. If I turn to 24 page 2 and think about all of the data that the subcommittee has provided, I have to say 25 I'm shocked. I would not have known, and I certainly wouldn't have expected that we 26 turn away thousands of people every year from the park. To me, that's the problem we're 27 trying to solve. What this pilot does is Part 1 addresses that. If we go back even earlier 28 in the year to the Mayor's State of the City speech, one of the things he spoke about was 29 being a good neighbor. This is utterly and completely consistent with that. The second 30 part with respect to students, Ms. Kleinhaus and I were down at the County earlier today 31 providing input on the Stanford University General Use Permit to the Supervisors. I was 32 struck by the comments of another person, whose name I did not catch, who described 33 the fact that people evolved in the natural environment. We evolved, our neurological 34 systems evolved not in an environment like this but in a natural one. I think about the 35 book Last Child in the Woods, and I think it's absolutely appropriate for us to make this 36 special place more broadly available to students. Doing that through school field trips is 37 exactly the right way to start and test. I'm not going to weigh in on the fees. People can 38 APPROVED Draft Minutes 40 have a variety of ways of thinking about that. I anticipate the committee will keep 1 working on that and thinking about it. All of us have to be mindful about where the staff 2 has operational control and where we sitting on the dais design programs. As I listened 3 to some of the conversation, I'd be mindful of the level of detail. We want to be sure, 4 especially if it's a pilot, to not prescribe it so carefully that staff can't adjust, especially if 5 there are different days, etc. Just as people were thinking about all the details, I'm going 6 to go back and provide one. The Library has you reserve a room a few days in advance, 7 three or four or five days in advance. There's a limit on how many you can do in a week. 8 That's all utterly manageable. I remember a Consent Calendar item not too long ago. I 9 had posed a question or two about this new reservation system. It sounds fantastic. It's 10 going to give us a lot of capabilities. I'll close with the sincere thanks to staff who has 11 spent an extraordinary amount of time researching not just the history but the data and 12 thinking so carefully about how this might affect the space and people's experience there. 13 I want to sincerely thank the ad hoc subcommittee who is tackling something that has 14 been a difficult topic for many years and has done so thoughtfully. 15 Chair McDougall: Thank you. 16 Council Member Cormack This is really just personal. For many years, I sat where 17 former Council Member Cordell is when she was up here. Now, I want you to know that 18 every Thursday night I think of you because I remember when you left, you said to the 19 names of the people, "May you never darken my door again." Every Thursday night 20 when my packet arrives, I think of you. I just want you to know that. Someone else's 21 door is being darkened, and I always thank you and certainly former Mayor Levy for 22 your service as I'm more aware of what it entails. 23 Chair McDougall: Thank you. I can't thank enough the reasoned conversation that we've 24 had. If there is nothing else, I'll give Ryan a chance to close, if you want. I think we 25 need to explore the next step. The committee needs to work with staff to figure out how 26 we move this forward. I personally think there is momentum to continue the 27 conversation. I would like the ad hoc to come back to the next Commission meeting 28 rather than putting it off. I'd like to encourage that. 29 Commissioner McCauley: Thanks everyone. Appreciate the input. 30 Chair McDougall: Thank you very much. I'd like to move on to the next item on the 31 agenda. 32 5. Other Ad Hoc Committee and Liaison Updates 33 Chair McDougall: The next item is Other Ad Hoc and Liaison Updates. I have not 34 seen—probably my mistake—the ad hoc input. I'll give anybody a chance to ask 35 questions on the ad hoc input or add to the ad hoc input. 36 APPROVED Draft Minutes 41 Commissioner Reckdahl: I came in late today because we had a North Ventura meeting 1 over at the Library. Last month, it came up again, naturalization of that stream. Does 2 Peter have any bandwidth to give us a presentation on naturalizing that stream by Fry's 3 and Boulware Park? 4 Mr. Anderson: We can certainly discuss it. It might be a little broader than just Peter. It 5 would no doubt involve Planning and other departments as well. We could certainly talk 6 to him about it. 7 Commissioner Reckdahl: The Santa Clara Valley Water District does have money to 8 help with that kind of thing. Especially Boulware Park with that concrete channel going 9 through it, if we could have a slope down into the stream, that could be a plus. 10 Council Member Cormack: We have authorized a contract on consent—I believe it was 11 last week—about $93,000 to a consultant who is going to study three options there. That 12 work is underway. 13 Commissioner Reckdahl: For naturalizing by Boulware Park? 14 Council Member Cormack: Naturalizing was one option. Yes, they're looking at what is 15 possible there. 16 Commissioner Reckdahl: That's very good. I had not heard that. Thank you. 17 Chair McDougall: I would like to take the opportunity to thank Anne for showing up at 18 the ice cream social. It made the three or four hours that we were there much better. I'd 19 really like to thank the snake. The snake provided all of the good work. It was well 20 done. I have met with Council Member Cormack for a brief discussion of fundraising 21 and some efforts there. I've also talked to Daren about some other approaches to 22 fundraising. I promised to meet with you this week, and I've failed. I'll make sure I set a 23 meeting for next week because I do have a pretty good spreadsheet and input to work 24 from. If there's nothing else from that, I would like to discuss not just the agenda, but the 25 schedule for the October, November, and December meetings. 26 VI. TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR OCTOBER 22, 2019 MEETING 27 Chair McDougall: The October meeting is clearly okay on the 22nd of October. That 28 wouldn't change. We sent out a note saying could we look at November 12, which is 29 three weeks later, not four weeks later. We could make it the 12th or the 19th. I was 30 recommending the 10th of December on the basis of the 17th is that week prior to 31 Christmas when people get caught up in all sorts of other events. Working back from the 32 10th. Do I have any comments, inputs on those? 33 APPROVED Draft Minutes 42 Commissioner Reckdahl: The 10th and 19th would be good combinations or 10th or 1 12th. For November, I'm happy with 12 or 19, and December 10 is okay. 2 Chair McDougall: Can we agree on December 10th? Anybody have any objection? 3 We're having December 10th. 12th or 19th? I prefer the 12th, but I'm flexible. Of 4 November. 5 Commissioner McCauley: Either is fine with me. 6 Commissioner LaMere: 12th is great. 7 Commissioner Reckdahl: I'm okay with either of them. 8 Vice Chair Greenfield: Mild preference for the 19th, but I could go either way. 9 Commissioner Cribbs: I may be traveling, but I don't know yet. 10 Chair McDougall: When would you know? 11 Commissioner Cribbs; Two weeks. Go ahead and do it. 12 Chair McDougall: Why don't we say 12th or 19th, and we'll give you ten days, two 13 weeks to figure that out. We'll nail it down later. 14 Vice Chair Greenfield: Are we clear that we're not going to be meeting on the 26th of 15 November? 16 Chair McDougall: Yes. 17 Mr. Anderson: I just wanted to point out for our October meeting, this room's not 18 available. Instead we'll be at the Downtown Library. 19 Council Member Cormack: I will not be in attendance at this October meeting because I 20 will be here for the Stanford General Use Permit evening. 21 Chair McDougall: Does anybody have any pressing topics that we should put on the 22 agenda for the October meeting? 23 Commissioner LaMere: Don, one note. I will not be available on November 19th. 24 Commissioner Cribbs: Is there time to get a Cubberley update or am I just not aware of 25 what's going on right now? 26 Mr. Anderson: That's a great question. I had to ask Department Head O'Kane, and she 27 wasn't available to provide me with the latest and greatest. It'll certainly be in the 28 APPROVED Draft Minutes 43 Department Report at the October meeting. If you want something sooner, perhaps we 1 can arrange … 2 Commissioner Cribbs: No, no. It's okay. There was a part in the Weekly yesterday that I 3 had no knowledge of, and I thought it'd be good to know. 4 Vice Chair Greenfield: We'll have community gardens next month, I believe. 5 Mr. Anderson: If possible, the horizontal levee update from Public Works. 6 Chair McDougall: Based on the safe park conversation, I would suggest that we consider 7 an update on the 10.5 acres. Whether that comes through the ad hoc or whatever, that 8 needs to be considered. That's four or five items that would probably more than fill up a 9 meeting. We need to sort that out. 10 VII. COMMENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS 11 Commissioner Cribbs: Carole MacPherson will be retiring at the end of the year. 12 Rinconada Masters would like to have a party for her. I think it would be very well 13 attended because there are so many people from so many years. They're looking now at 14 the Elks Club on December 10th. They would like very much to extend an invitation to 15 all the Commissioners. Consider yourselves invited. I offered to work with Kristen or 16 somebody in the Clerk's Office or Daren or anybody who can help with a proclamation. I 17 can do the information and the form, and then if you all would bless it, that would be 18 great to do something in her honor. 19 Chair McDougall: Did you say December 10? 20 Commissioner Cribbs: I said December 10. No, I didn't. I said December 8. Sorry, I 21 looked at the wrong notes. Sunday the 8th. 22 Chair McDougall: I assume that all comments and announcements have been made. 23 VIII. ADJOURNMENT 24 Meeting adjourned on motion by Commissioner Reckdahl and second by Commissioner 25 McCauley at 9:42 p.m. 26