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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021-01-26 Parks & Recreation Summary MinutesAPPROVED Approved Minutes 1 1 2 3 4 MINUTES 5 PARKS & RECREATION COMMISSION 6 REGULAR MEETING 7 January 26, 2021 8 Virtual Conference 9 Palo Alto, California 10 11 Commissioners Present: Chair Jeff Greenfield, Anne Cribbs, Jeff LaMere, David Moss, Jackie 12 Olson, Keith Reckdahl, Amanda Brown 13 Commissioners Absent: 14 Others Present: Council Member Kou 15 Staff Present: Daren Anderson, Catherine Bourquin, Lam Do 16 I. ROLL CALL 17 Chair Greenfield: Welcome to the January 26th Parks and Recreation Commission 18 meeting, our first meeting of the new year. I would like to welcome a new Commissioner 19 to our panel, Mandy Brown. Commissioner Mandy Brown, welcome. I want to encourage 20 everyone to be safe out there. It’s windy, and we’ve got a big storm coming. Tuck in nicely. 21 II. AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, DELETIONS 22 III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS 23 Chair Greenfield: Catherine, please give speakers each two minutes to speak. 24 Mr. Lam Do: Our first speaker will be George Moxie, to be followed by Aram James. 25 Mr. George Moxe: It’s nice to see you again. If you recall, I gave you a First Tee 26 presentation back in October. We’ve had the year end, obviously a lot going on. I just 27 wanted to circle back to you and reiterate how important it is to The First Tee to have an 28 MOU with the City. It means a lot for us in terms of our donors and reaching out to see 29 how much money we can raise for the project, hopefully everything. Part of the reason I 30 say that, Lam and I have had a handful of discussions in the last few months, and he has 31 shared with me the City budget concerns and issues and indicated that there would not be 32 any City funding for the project, which we would still like to proceed, because we think 33 that we can find donors that will still help fund the entire project. Lam has also shared that 34 APPROVED Approved Minutes 2 staff has pretty tight priorities that may not include this project. I just wanted to circle back 1 to you all know that we knew all that, and we are aware of all that at this point, and we 2 would still like to proceed with an MOU, and if there’s any way to expedite that, 3 potentially to approve at your February meeting, that would be great. 4 Mr. Lam: Thank you, George. We’ll reset our timer for our next speaker, Aram James. 5 Mr. Aram James: Hello, how are you folks? I don’t normally speak at Parks and 6 Recreation. It’s been years. I use the park with my son, the Bol Park, and I’ve advocated 7 over the years for a bathroom over there. That’s never happened. Now he’s moved closer 8 to Hoover Park, so I walk with him a lot over there, so lots of observations. It’s sad to see 9 that so many people aren’t wearing their masks over there, and there’s no signage 10 suggesting people should, so that could be problematic. It’s a wonderful park. I’m a retired 11 public defender, and I still see myself as a public defender in the context of the city. 12 Normally you’ll find me at City Council meetings, often advocating better police practices. 13 Some people call me a Palo Alto police critic, but I rather prefer to be called somebody 14 that’s trying to enhance police practices. I’m very familiar with Lydia Kou. I have a lot of 15 respect for her, although we were on the opposite sides of the Foothills Park issue, very 16 adamantly, have different positions on that. We’ll talk later about that when we get to the 17 Foothills Park matter. I’ve also spoke out for years in the City of Palo Alto against tasers. 18 I was actually the one opponent of tasers and was allowed to present about a half-hour to 19 45-minute presentation in opposition to tasers. Unfortunately, there was a 5-4 vote back in 20 2007, and we have tasers. I’m concerned that we might have them in our parks, so I’ve put 21 in a public records request to make certain that we don’t have them in Foothills Park. I’m 22 just very happy to be here at the Parks and Recreation. In 2021, I want to expand from not 23 just the City Council and HRC meetings, but to be at more of your meetings. I’m sorry 24 that you cut this from two minutes to three minutes with so few speakers. That’s not a 25 good sign for our democracy. Thank you very much. 26 Mr. Do: Thank you, Aram. Our next speaker is a phone caller with the last three digits, 27 228. 28 Caller: I’m calling about Gate D, between Arastradero Preserve and Foothills Park. I’m 29 curious as to why cyclists can ride the roads in Foothills Park and can bike up to the gate 30 in Arastradero but can’t go that one foot between the road and Arastradero and link up 31 those two legal rides. I’m curious as to why that rule is and who I would advocate to, to 32 change that rule. Thank you. 33 Mr. Do: Thank you. Our next speaker is Sam Kaplinsky, to be followed by Monica 34 Williams. 35 Mr. Sam Kaplinsky: Hello. I’m a sophomore at Palo Alto High School. I’ve spoken at one 36 of these meetings a few months ago, in addition to several City Council meetings. I’m here 37 APPROVED Approved Minutes 3 today to again speak to you about getting a new skate park in Palo Alto. The current skate 1 park at Greer Park is a historical skate park and should not be removed or altered. That 2 being said, it is outdated and does not adequately what the kids, teenagers, and adults in 3 Palo Alto need. It is covered in spray paint, making it slippery and hard to skate, and there 4 is no area for beginners to learn. It only provides for one child skateboarding and ignores 5 the others. Although in the past, skateboarding was looked at as a hobby and was not taken 6 seriously, that can no longer occur. Skateboarding, just like other sports, is being 7 performed at a professional level, and is now an Olympic sport. Palo Alto has provided 8 many other sports with adequate resources. Tennis courts, basketball courts, soccer fields 9 and baseball fields are at many parks in Palo Alto, in addition to the ones at most schools. 10 There are also swimming pools provided for water sports and football fields at middle and 11 high schools. Skateboarding, BMX biking and scootering must be treated like these other 12 sports and provided a safe space to train and have fun. A skate park in Palo Alto has a 13 large community support, as proven by the petition with 2,000 signatures. Most 14 surrounding cities have skateparks provided to their communities. Palo Alto residents 15 should be given the same opportunity and not be forced to drive to other cities in order to 16 access what should be provided in their own. Some possible locations for this new skate 17 park could be the unused field at Bowden Park or the unused [gap in recording]. Although 18 funding by the City would be great, our community would be willing to fundraise and 19 apply for grants in order to secure funding for the new skatepark. Thank you all for your 20 time. 21 Mr. Do: Our next speaker is Monica Williams. 22 Ms. Monica Williams: Good evening, Commissioners. I am president of the Palo Alto 23 Pickleball Club, and I’d like to give you a quick update. The Pickleball Club – we finished 24 the year with 596 members, and 52 percent of these are Palo Alto residents. During 25 COVID, the pickleball courts have been a wonderful place for the community to play 26 singles games and enjoy the camaraderie. It’s been good for the emotional health of our 27 seniors, even with everyone wearing masks and observing social distancing. On a Sunday 28 afternoon, nearly all of the courts are filled with families. It’s such a joy to see. Because 29 so many are now playing pickleball, a problem has cropped up. When the six permanent 30 courts are full and no club members are there, people who drop in from the community 31 have been upset, because they cannot access the portable nets from the storage facility, so 32 they can’t use the multi-purpose courts. Our club is willing to leave a couple of the nets 33 out if that’s all right with the City. We did cancel our youth pickleball classes this 34 Wednesday because of COVID, but we look forward to the time we’ll be able to offer 35 many more classes for all levels, hopefully the fall. On behalf of all of our club members, 36 I want to thank you for believing in the benefit of pickleball club for the community and 37 for making the [inaudible] the best pickleball facility in the Bay Area. Thank you very 38 much. Have a nice evening. 39 APPROVED Approved Minutes 4 Mr. Do: Thank you, Monica. Chair, that concludes speakers during Oral Communications. 1 IV. DEPARTMENT REPORT 2 Mr. Anderson: Good evening, Chair. Good evening, Commission. Tonight’s Department 3 Report is going to be brief. The State recently announced it was lifting its regional stay-4 at-home order, and the county’s return to the purple tier under the state’s blueprint for a 5 safer economy. The County’s rules have not been updated yet to reflect the end of the 6 regional stay-at-home order. Since the County can put in more restrictive rules than the 7 State, staff will be monitoring the County for updates. The return to a purple tier does 8 allow for additional programming, and CSD is working on scheduling some additional 9 programs, weather permitting. Once I have updates on that from the Recreation staff, I’ll 10 be sure to share it with the Commission. I should also note that the Magical Bridge 11 playground remains open, Tuesday through Sunday, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. I also 12 want to let you know about an upcoming virtual community meeting to discuss a possible 13 dog park at Ramos Park. This is for Wednesday, February 10th, 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. If 14 you’d like to RSVP, please email Peter Jensen at cityofpaloalto.org. That’s 15 peter.jensen@cityofpaloalto.org, and we’ll send an invite to the Commission shortly. 16 Lastly, just an update on the Highway 101 bike/pedestrian bridge. In February, they’re 17 planning tentatively to erect three bridge sections, which will finally start looking like a 18 real bridge. They’re excited about that. It had been pushed out with the rain, and I imagine 19 that’s still going to be up in the air, pending weather. Again, tentatively planning on project 20 in summer of 2021. That concludes the Department Report. 21 V. BUSINESS 22 1. Approval of the Draft December 15, 2020 Parks and Recreation Commission 23 Minutes 24 Approval of the draft Minutes was moved by Vice Chair Cribbs and seconded by 25 Commissioner Moss. Passed 6-1(abstention). 26 MOTION PASSES, 6-1 (Commissioner Brown abstention). 27 2. Election of new Chair and Vice Chair 28 Chair Greenfield: I’m going to start out by reading the protocol for electing the new Chair 29 and Vice Chair to a one-year term. The outgoing Chair explains the general duties and 30 responsibilities of the Chair, including the monthly time commitment necessary to 31 facilitate meetings. I’m going to run through quickly the Chairperson’s role: presides at 32 meetings and is in charge of applying the rules of conduct at meetings. The Chair shall call 33 or cancel the meeting, whichever the case may be, coordinates the setting of the agenda 34 with the staff liaison, ensures the timely start and end of meetings; ensures that 35 APPROVED Approved Minutes 5 consideration of items on the agenda move along without delay; ensures that public 1 testimony is received but not allowed to disrupt the meeting and may set an acceptable 2 time limit if necessary; clarifies ideas as they are discussed and repeats motions made, in 3 order that all members understand the motion they will be voting on; responsible for 4 ensuring that actions are properly moved, seconded and voted upon. The Chair should see 5 that the Commission maintains focus on the issues before them and does not get off track 6 and doesn’t discuss or act on items not listed on the agenda, pursuant to the Brown Act; 7 the Chair should attempt to identify the points of agreement among the opinions of 8 members in order to build a consensus; serves as a spokesman for the Commission, 9 representing the views and opinions of the Commission as a whole when speaking on its 10 behalf. I would say that the time commitment can be similar or significantly greater than 11 a Commissioner’s role, depending on the ad hoc involvement and the agenda items for a 12 given month. So, here is the procedure that we will use to elect a new Chair. The Chair 13 opens the floor to nominations for the position of Chair. Commissioners nominate one 14 Commissioner at a time. The person nominated must be present at the meeting. A 15 Commissioner may enter their own name in nomination. The person offering the 16 nomination can explain why they have nominated the person or why they would be 17 appropriate for the position. The Chair asks the nominated person if they are willing to 18 accept the nomination. Commissioners continue to nominate additional candidates. With 19 each nomination the Chair asks the person nominated if they are willing to accept the 20 nomination. When there are no further nominations from the floor, the Chair asks for, or 21 a Commissioner offers, a motion to close nominations. The motion is seconded, and the 22 Commission votes verbally to close the nominations. Voting will then proceed according 23 to a verbal roll call vote by the staff secretary. The staff secretary counts the votes, 24 announces only the winner and the number of votes. The elected Chair assumes 25 responsibility for chairing the meeting from that point forward. Normally, we would 26 potentially switch Chairs tonight, and the new Chair thanks the outgoing Chair for his or 27 her service. The process is then repeated for the Vice Chair as outlined in the steps above, 28 and the Chair outlines the responsibilities of the Vice Chair position. With that, we will 29 now open the floor to nominations for Chair. Commission LaMere. 30 Commission LaMere: I’d like to nominate Anne Cribbs for the position of Chair. Anne, as 31 we know, is a long-time resident of Palo Alto and a passionate champion of our Parks and 32 Open Spaces. I’m impressed that she’s always focused on equity, which I think is a very, 33 very important issue. She’s always insightful, fair and empathetic when approaching the 34 issues, and I think she would be a tremendous leader of our commission. 35 Chair Greenfield: Thank you, Commission LaMere. Vice Chair Cribbs, do you accept the 36 nomination? 37 Vice Chair Cribbs: Yes, I do, with thanks, Jeff, for a very, very nice explanation. I 38 appreciate that. 39 APPROVED Approved Minutes 6 Chair Greenfield: Thank you. Are there any other nominations to consider that someone 1 would like to offer? Thank you. 2 Motion to close nominations 3 Chair Greenfield: I will make a motion to close nominations. With that, I would also add 4 that I absolutely support Anne to become the new Chair. I think the previous precedent of 5 having someone serve as Chair two years in a row is bad for the Commission overall, 6 particularly as we look at six-year maximum terms in the future. I think if there’s 7 somebody else who’s in a position to serve as Chair and is qualified, everyone should have 8 the opportunity. As Vice Chair in the past year, I totally appreciated the support and 9 opinions of Vice Chair Cribbs – not always the same as mine, but that’s good for the 10 community and good for discussion of multiple viewpoints. With that, I’m moving to close 11 nominations. Second, please? 12 Commissioner Moss: I second. 13 Chair Greenfield: We need to vote verbally to close the nominations. Roll call vote for 14 that, please? 15 [roll call vote] 16 Ms. Catherine Bourquin: Seven to approve nomination. 17 Chair Greenfield: Great, and now if can continue with a roll call vote for the position of 18 Chair for the coming year. 19 [roll call vote] 20 Ms. Bourquin: Seven for Commission Cribbs. 21 Vice Chair Cribbs elected unanimously as Chair. 22 Commission Greenfield: Actually, now Chair Cribbs. I want to congratulate Anne on her 23 election as the new Chair and wish you all the best in the coming year. You have the 24 support of all of us, and we expect great things. Thank you. 25 Chair Cribbs: Well, I thank you all very much. I guess this is the point that, if we weren’t 26 Zooming, we would ceremoniously change Chairs, or not. Anyhow, thank you all very 27 much. I love this Commission. I love being part of it, and I love all of the opinions that 28 everybody has. It’s really great to serve and support the Parks and Recreation in the City 29 of Palo Alto. I think we’re going to have a continuing good time. I’d like to actually, right 30 now, too, thank you Jeff, for your leadership for the past year. It has been a challenging 31 year, one that I think none of us expected that we would be looking at, and I think that 32 we’ve come through it pretty well, hoping that we all can pause and take a deep breath and 33 be safe as we continue on the journey, but I’ve really appreciated working with you, Jeff, 34 and your thoughtfulness. I’ve also appreciated working with my colleagues on the different 35 ad hoc committees and am looking forward to continuing that. I understand now I can use 36 APPROVED Approved Minutes 7 the sheet that you had, Jeff, to talk about the Vice Chairperson’s role, which I think will 1 continue to be a very important role. Let me read to you the Vice Chairperson’s role: To 2 assist the Chairperson in responsibilities serving the Commission, including serving as the 3 acting Chair when the Chair is not available, including at regular PRC meetings or at other 4 community events; assisting with other tasks as requested by the Chair. This may include 5 working with staff and the Chair on planning meetings, agendas and other matters and 6 helping to guide the Chair during meetings when necessary. I think in the time of Zoom, 7 this helping to guide the Commission in meetings during the time is going to be very 8 necessary, as I get used to running a meeting via Zoom. I’d like to open the floor now for 9 nominations for the position of Vice Chair. 10 Commissioner Reckdahl: I’d like to nominate Jeff Greenfield. 11 Chair Cribbs: Do you want to say a few words, Keith? 12 Commissioner Reckdahl: I think it would be good for continuity. There’s a lot of things 13 going on right, especially Foothills Park. His involvement with that and knowing the 14 process that we’re going through, I think that would be valuable. 15 Chair Cribbs: Is there a second? 16 Commissioner Moss: I second. 17 Chair Cribbs: Thank you, David. Commissioner Greenfield, are you willing to serve as the 18 Vice Chair? 19 Commissioner Greenfield: Yes, I am willing and interested in serving as the Vice Chair. I 20 appreciated the opportunity to chair the Commission last year. It was a very strange year, 21 as you alluded and as we all know, but I know we have a very busy year ahead of us. 22 Foothills Park will be prominent for the coming year, and I think I can help support our 23 new Chair in the leadership role as we work through our management of Foothills 24 throughout the year and all the other issues that are before the Commission, so yes, I accept 25 the nomination. I’ll just note as well that we don’t need a second for nominations. 26 Chair Cribbs: Thank you. I appreciate that. Are there additional nominations? I don’t hear 27 any additional nominations, so could we have a motion to close nominations? 28 Motion to close nominations 29 Commissioner Reckdahl: I move to close nominations. 30 Commissioner Olson: I’ll second. 31 Chair Cribbs: A voice vote, I guess, for the closing of the nominations, Catherine? 32 [roll call vote] 33 Ms. Bourquin: Seven. 34 Chair Cribbs: Thank you, Catherine. Vice Chair Greenfield, I appreciate your willingness 35 to serve, and thank you for all the work you’ve done. Looking forward to it in the future 36 APPROVED Approved Minutes 8 as well. So, we have a Chair and a Vice Chair for 2021, and… 1 Commission Greenfield: Excuse me, actually we’ve just voted to close nominations. We 2 still need – 3 Chair Cribbs: Oh, I’m sorry. You’re right. I skipped something. So, let’s call for a vote 4 then, Catherine. 5 [roll call vote] 6 Commissioner Greenfield elected unanimously as Vice Chair. 7 Ms. Bourquin: Seven to nominate Greenfield as Vice Chair. 8 Chair Cribbs: Thank you very much. So, confirming we now have a Vice Chair? Thank 9 you very much, everybody. 10 3. Boulware Park Project update 11 Chair Cribbs: We now can move to the Boulware Park Project update with Peter Jensen. 12 Peter? Mr. Peter Jensen: Good evening, Commission. Peter Jensen, Landscape Architect 13 for the City of Palo Alto, here to give you an update of the Boulware Park renovation plan 14 progress. 15 Mr. Peter Jensen: Just briefly, for those new Commissioners that may not know, the 16 Boulware Park is in the Ventura neighborhood, very close to the North Ventura 17 Coordination Plan Area in the Frye’s lot. Boulware Park was up for renovation in 2016. 18 In that time, we started this process, but the property across the street that you see in this 19 exhibit, the Birch Street property that was owned by AT&T, was put on the market, and 20 the City purchased that piece of land, so while that was going on the project was put on 21 hold for a while. Once the purchase was confirmed, then we started up the community 22 engagement and outreach again. There have been three community meetings. We started 23 it last November. This was the first one, pre-COVID, of course. As you can see, we did it 24 actually in the park on a Saturday morning. People were asked different things about what 25 they would like to see in the park, and you can see that they were given stickers they could 26 put on the board. There was no real plan shown for what was going to be proposed for the 27 park. This was mostly a meeting about getting the community’s input about what they 28 would like to see in a park design. We also did an online survey, which was very well-29 used and voted on by the community for different things, so you can see some of the results 30 here. The high priority items were definitely the playground, maintaining the open turf 31 area and having a restroom, which the park does not have now. Medium priorities were 32 the shaded seating area, the basketball court, picnic area, loop pathway, security lighting 33 and habitat/native planting, and the lower priority items were community garden, dog park, 34 adult fitness, creek lookout, bocce ball, pickle ball and horseshoes. Those were the items 35 that the community looked at about facilities for the park. Those were drawn from the 36 existing amenities in the park as well as amenities that were brought up in the Parks Master 37 Plan and incorporated into then the overall, as far as restrooms, dog park, adult fitness, 38 APPROVED Approved Minutes 9 loop pathways. Those were items that were identified in our Master Plan as being elements 1 that we should look at adding to every park. We did have a second community meeting. 2 This was in February of 2020. You can see it’s right before COVID, actually, so we’re 3 still meeting as a group. This was a coordinated meeting with the North Ventura 4 Coordination Plan, which is that area, again, adjacent to the park, which is important as 5 far as the future development of that land, because Boulware Park will be the main green 6 space, or park area, for that development as well, as well as the consideration of how the 7 park links to that new development in the future. With that, this was a joint meeting with 8 the Planning folks that are leading that planning effort for that location. At the meeting, 9 the community looked at three different plan options and then were allowed to write or 10 post notes on the plan of different things they like about each of the plans. Basically, what 11 then happened is those three plans with the comments were melded into one plan that was 12 looked at at the most recent community meeting. You can see here the three plan options 13 that we looked at. They have different items, different layout of the facilities. You can see, 14 these are a picture of those plans from the meeting and how people commented basically 15 on the plans themselves by either writing directly on it or putting Post-It notes on it. Then 16 we had a third community meeting. That was in the beginning of December, just a few 17 weeks ago. In that time, the City had a survey company survey the site, which allowed us 18 to have a more accurate base plan put together. We also started to look at different utility 19 connections and how, if we did have a restroom, that would work in the park. Once we 20 had the survey, we were able to put together a finalized overall plan that combined the 21 three options that were presented in the second meeting. You also saw those, too, in a 22 previous Parks and Rec Commission meeting. The proposed plan breaks the park down 23 into different segments. I think it’s easiest to look at it this way first, and then we can look 24 at the detail of what the design is. We have our basic playground area, which you can start 25 to see here. That’s where the existing playground is located. In the new plan, we combined 26 both the playgrounds into one location. In the current park, right now they are split into 27 two different locations – a child playground, which is five and above, and a tot lot 28 playground, which is between two and five. We’re proposing to put those things together. 29 There is an open grass area that runs along the edge of the creek that takes up the majority 30 of the park. It is not a programmed area, but more of a passive area and green space area. 31 Again, this will be important to have a large enough space there for future expansion of 32 the residential next to it. Then, up in the corner here we have an activity area. We’ll talk 33 about why this happened when we look at the detailed plan, but during the North Ventura 34 Coordination Planning effort, there was a lot of discussion about the creek and a possible 35 rehabilitating, revitalizing the creek one day and using that creek to actually be a link 36 between the future development, which is up in this location here, and the park. So, the 37 open grass area along the creek itself allows for future development that’s easy. There’s 38 no built environment there. The activity area, which sits a little way from the creek would 39 be the area that we would start concentrate, basically, our main picnic area, basketball 40 court, things that were built – dog park – that we didn’t want to lose if the creek one day 41 was renovated and rehabilitated. There is also some street work that has to happen with 42 APPROVED Approved Minutes 10 the park. To combine the two spaces a segment of Ash Street was removed. That means 1 that this part of Ash Street becomes a turnaround or a drop-off for the park, as well as 2 some accessible parking spaces and some head-in parking along Lambert over there, closer 3 to the activity area and more direct to an access from El Camino and away from the 4 residential area. Just some design highlights. The playgrounds that we have are the same 5 size as what is out there before. That was a main concern by some of the residents. They 6 just wanted to make sure that they weren’t losing playground space from what is originally 7 in the park. Installation of significant paving along the creek. I’ll show you what this 8 means, but we decided to set a 65-foot setback along the creek of any built structures or 9 paving, concrete, anything like that. I’ll show you how that looks in the plan itself. 10 Removal, of course, of Ash Street we’ve talked about. Retaining some of the existing 11 amenities that are in the park now – the basketball, the open turf area, the children’s 12 playgrounds, the picnic space, and the walking path, and with the added land, we’re going 13 to add some new amenities to the park – a restroom, a dog park, a covered picnic area, 14 boccie ball, rain gardens, expanded picnic and game table area and an expanded loop 15 pathway. We’re also going to provide the park with its accessible parking stalls, which it 16 doesn’t have currently. And of course, the pump station that’s in the park will remain that’s 17 over by the playground now. That cannot go anywhere. 18 Mr. Anderson: Peter, if you don’t mind me interjecting, could you go to full presentation 19 mode? It’s a little hard to see the details of that map. 20 [adjusting screen] 21 Mr. Jensen: Here is the proposed plan for Boulware Park. As you can see, this one has a 22 lot more detail than the other one. I’ll move from Fernando Avenue, and then across and 23 talk about the different amenities here. We do have to add a new crosswalk out on 24 Fernando. That’s one of the street improvement works that we have to do as well. The 25 playground now is focused in this area. It’s very similar to Magical Bridge playground, 26 where it’s inclusive to everyone. It starts to divide the play spaces into different zones – 27 swing zone, spin zone, a slide mound, and then the top lot area, which will be divided by 28 a fence here, and then you’ll have gates that will come into either the children’s playground 29 or the top playground. As I said, the existing pump station will remain as it is. The 30 proposed playground, from community preferred, from the community meeting, this 31 location for the restroom, being more in close proximity to the playground itself. They 32 thought that was better. This plan also proposed a covered picnic area that could either be 33 rented out or just first-come-first-serve, but it has a structure and shade over it. Again, this 34 is more for birthday parties coming to the park and using the playground facility as well, 35 and making that all kind of one hub over there. You can see the dashed line that runs 36 through the park here. That is the 65-foot setback off the edge of the creek. This is the area 37 that we tired to as much as we can, stay out of as far as construction goes. You can see, 38 most of it is grass area, which is the easiest to convert if the creek ever is rehabilitated. 39 Our pathways running the park itself are concrete or asphalt paved, but the one that is 40 APPROVED Approved Minutes 11 looping itself around the turf area starting from this point here and around is decomposed 1 granite, again, for consideration of future development as well as just low impact and better 2 water absorption for the park itself. You can see Chestnut Ave. here. This is where it would 3 have connected to Ash Street. At this point we have removed that portion of the street, and 4 now Chestnut basically has a cul-de-sac ending. We’ve added as drop-off lane here for 5 those folks that want to either pick up or drop off things for the picnic area, or for the park 6 itself. Our activity area that we talked about before is where our main amenities for the 7 park are located. We have a dog park in this location. It is not divided into small or large. 8 It is just one space for dogs. It’s not the largest of dog park spaces, but does give us a nice 9 space in this park to have a defined space as a dog park. We do have a picnic area in this 10 location. This bathroom will not be here. We’re going to basically just have one at this 11 location here, so this will be an expanded picnic area where the restroom is now. You can 12 see different types of tables in there. In this space we have added a boccie court. Again, 13 it’s a low-impact construction item. There’s no real concrete in the construction of it, so if 14 this space happened to be renovated for future creek restoration, then that would be an 15 easy thing to change and wouldn’t be a big loss or hard thing to do. The large area of 16 paving, of course, that was in the park before, we’ve moved to this location, which is the 17 basketball court. We have made the basketball court a regulation size. The one that’s out 18 there right now was not. It is much smaller in scale, but we have made that a full court for 19 basketball. We’ve also added in some of our drainage mitigation requirements. Currently, 20 the park and the street that was here drained directly into the channel. You can see the 21 pipes actually through the wall. We would like to capture some of the water coming from 22 the street here to filter it, as well as all the hardscape paving that’s in this area, before it 23 gets into the creek and filter out that water of contaminants. A few other just housekeeping 24 things in the park. We have to add some new fencing along this edge as well as over here, 25 as the existing fencing has deteriorated, and we do need to maintain our access for the 26 Santa Clara Water District. They do have an access ramp down into the creek currently, 27 so this portion of the pathway will be a little bit wider for vehicle access and be out of 28 asphalt. They’ll also have a dedicated drive entry there. Then, I touched on the head-in 29 parking along Lambert. This gave us, I believe, five more parking spaces than what we 30 have out there now, which isn’t a lot, but it is important, because it does help us add our 31 two accessible stalls that are required for the park itself and be properly graded and 32 accessible to the park. By encroaching into the park a little bit and adding that head-in 33 parking, we gave ourselves some more parking and resolved our accessible issue. That is 34 the overall proposed design for the park. I will open it up now for question and comments 35 from the Commission about the design, and then we can talk about schedule and that stuff 36 after that. Chair, I’ll turn it back to you. 37 Chair Cribbs: Okay, thank you very much, Peter. This looks great. Thank you very much 38 for all the work on it and certainly all the community input. Do any of the Commissioners 39 have questions? 40 Commissioner Moss: Don’t we have to hear from the public first? 41 APPROVED Approved Minutes 12 Chair Cribbs: I thought we were going to ask clarifying questions, if anybody has a 1 particular question, and then Peter, I think, is going to go on and talk about the cost and 2 timeline, budget, and then we’ll go to the public. Vice Chair, does that sound right, or 3 Daren? 4 Vice Chair Greenfield: Yes, sounds good. 5 Chair Cribbs: Good. Thank you. 6 Commissioner Olson: Chair Cribbs, I have a question. Peter, I see there is a walkway in 7 many parts of the park, but I can’t completely tell if that walkway goes all the way around 8 the park. Is it chopped up a bit, or is there a full loop? 9 Mr. Jensen: I think there’s a few loop options here. I think the main loop is…There’s a 10 couple, I guess, courses here. You can walk here and up and around and then back around 11 this way and basically keep doing this. And then, you can also, though, there is a walkway 12 that’s here that’s up next to the basketball court, so if you wanted to get that part into it as 13 well, then you could, I guess, do a little bit longer of a loop. You can also go this way, I 14 guess, and around. 15 Commissioner Olson: And is there ADA access over on that street parking side as well? I 16 see it over on the right side of the page, but on the left with the head-in parking, I see the 17 accessible stalls. Are there ramps for ADA access to both paths? 18 Mr. Jensen: Yes, that’s basically that’s showing right there. There will be a ramp that gets 19 you up to the sidewalk there so that’s one thing that definitely needs to be added. 20 Commissioner Olson: Okay. Thank you. 21 Chair Cribbs: Any other questions for Peter from Commissioners? Okay, Peter, would you 22 continue, please? 23 Mr. Jensen: These are just some images of Magical Bridge Playground. The playground 24 will have very similar equipment as that. I would say these things here…as I said, the 25 community meeting in December looked at this plan. The community was supportive of 26 the overall plan and the location and types of amenities in the park. They were in favor of 27 removing the portion of Ash Street to connect the park together. The restroom location 28 closest to the playground was preferred. They were supportive of the 65-foot setback for 29 future creek development and of the head-in parking along Lambert Street. I’ll just go 30 through this and then we can go to comments and questions. The idea for the park would 31 be to run through the Park Improvement Ordinance, come back to you fairly soon and then 32 go to Council with that. The park itself, its funding is still to be determined. That is 33 something that the Finance Committee will work on and the Council will. If the park is 34 not funded for renovation this year, then we will come back with this each year for the 35 next few years until the funding is approved. I just want to let you know, that is the process 36 that it has to go through. The pandemic, of course, has tightened the budget of the City to 37 do projects and it is unclear right now if there will be the funding to move forward with 38 APPROVED Approved Minutes 13 doing the construction this summer. That was hopefully the idea would be we would kick 1 off sometime in the early fall, doing the construction, but again, that is determinant on the 2 funding being approved for the project, and that is still unknown. I would say that I don’t 3 have something in here for it. The overall cost of the park itself is $2.7 million to develop. 4 The streetscape work is an additional $700,000 for the Lambert and the removal of Ash 5 Street to connect the pieces. So, in all, we have roughly a $3.2-million project. We did 6 identify some alternatives, like the covered picnic area and things of that nature that could 7 be taken out to reduce the overall budget itself, but we are pretty confident that’s a very, 8 very good price for developing an entirely new park parcel, taking it down and rebuilding 9 it again. With that, I will turn it back to you, Chair, and we can get comments and further 10 Commission questions. 11 Chair Cribbs: Okay, I think what we’ll do is just ask for clarifying questions from the 12 Commission on your last comments and then go to the public for public comment; then 13 come back to the Commissioners for comments. So, Commissioners, any questions for 14 Peter? Not comments, but questions. Okay, I don’t hear any, and I’m not necessarily seeing 15 anybody raise their hand. 16 Commission LaMere: I have one question Just very briefly, Peter, as far as the cost of this 17 park goes, where does that fall in other parks we’ve developed? What’s your assessment 18 of that pricing? 19 Mr. Jensen: I think it’s not extravagant. I think we didn’t go crazy with adding a lot of 20 features that were unnecessary. I think that what we’re proposing here that that gives us 21 the amenities that the community as well as the Park Master Plan have identified, and that 22 for developing an entirely new park, I think $2.7 million is actually a pretty good price for 23 that. So, if you compare it to Magical Bridge Playground, the playground itself at Magical 24 Bridge cost $3.8 million, so this is a design to provide us the amenities that we need, but 25 in the reality of where we’re at, it is definitely considering the cost and funding that we 26 can get for it. 27 Commission LaMere: Thank you. 28 Chair Cribbs: Thank you, Jeff. Let’s go to the members of the public who wish to speak. 29 Lam? 30 Mr. Do: Thank you, Chair. Our first speaker to speak on our subject is Aram James, to be 31 followed by Jonathan Brown. 32 Mr. James: I just wanted to mention procedurally, I had my hand up regarding the election 33 of a new Chair and Vice Chair, and was not called on. I’m wondering why. That was an 34 agendized item. I really wanted to talk, so I’m concerned with that. Maybe you’ll go back 35 on that. We had a family home – still do – in that area in the Ventura neighborhood. I 36 raised my two boys, a lot of years as a single parent, African American boys. It is 37 traditionally an area of high residents of African Americans because of the segregationist 38 policies in the City if Palo Alto. I’m wondering if we could change the name of the park. 39 APPROVED Approved Minutes 14 When my youngest son, who is about 42, went to the Ventura Childcare Center there was 1 a center within the Center, called the Sojourner Truth Center. Sojourner Truth, of course, 2 a famous African American abolitionist. But we also have somebody, Lakiba Pittman, a 3 wonderful African American woman who lives in that area, has resisted her home being 4 bought up by developers, because she wants to preserve the black history in the 5 community. She was a long-term member of the Human Relations Commission. She’s 6 another name that comes to mind. And of course, LaDoris Cordell that we all know, with 7 all of her civil rights litigation, first black judge in Santa Clara County, Independent Police 8 Auditor for the City of San Jose and who was instrumental, of course, in the opening of 9 Foothills Park and desegregating the park. So, I’m very hopeful that we can honor the 10 African American history there in this community. That would be critical to me. I’ll bring 11 it up to the City Council in the meantime. That’s just really, really something that we need 12 to take care of. I’m hopeful. Traditionally that area has been overly policed. Like I said, as 13 a public defender for 25 years, I used to get called by the black community all the time, 14 including over at the park, there was a lot of racial profiling going on by our police 15 department. That’s part of the history there. Thank you. And I’m wondering if you’re 16 going to give me an opportunity to talk about the election of the chair and the vice chair, 17 since I wasn’t provided that opportunity, and it was an agendized item. 18 Chair Cribbs: I guess, Aram, I could respond to that. My apologies. We goofed. I didn’t 19 have my little screen up with Zoom on it that shows the raised hands, so I missed that, and 20 that one’s on me. Can we go through this? What I’d like to do is go through the speakers 21 about the park and then come back to you to speak about the election. Lam? 22 Mr. Do: Our next speaker is Jonathan Brown, to be followed by Shani Kleinhaus. 23 Mr. Jonathan Brown: Commissioners, thank you. Just to respond, first of all, to Mr. James’ 24 comments. John Boulware was a very prominent African American resident of the 25 neighborhood, and he actually gave land to establish the park. We wouldn’t have this land 26 at all if it weren’t for John Boulware, so I really don’t think it’s appropriate to rename the 27 park for a prominent member of our African American community, so I’d have an issue 28 with that. I’m a resident of the Ventura neighborhood. I live on Fernando Avenue, right 29 across from Boulware Park. I have two school-aged children. We use the park a lot, and 30 as the Chair of the Ventura Parks Committee, I can report that our neighborhood is very 31 much looking forward to the renovation and upgrade of Boulware Park. As Peter Jensen 32 mentioned, Boulware Park was approved for a capital improvement years earlier, but we 33 made a wise decision – not to make improvements to facilities that would soon thereafter 34 need renovation with this upgrade and the expansion of the land that we were able to 35 acquire through our inquiries to AT&T. But the upgrading of Boulware Park needs to 36 happen, and it needs to be a priority. It should be prioritized, because Ventura has less 37 parkland per resident than other neighborhoods, and that ratio is going to get worse if there 38 is more residential housing added as part of the NVCAP development, and Commissioners 39 should understand that the nearby workers, when they’re allowed to work in offices, use 40 APPROVED Approved Minutes 15 the park a lot, too. Local parks have never been more important to our community than 1 they are now, and as we devote extraordinary amounts of time and resources to issues 2 related to Foothills Park, let’s remember the spaces that are closest to us and most likely 3 to be used. I do want to thank Peter, who has done an outstanding job, taking into account 4 the community input. His plan is thoughtful, fun, and forward-looking, particularly with 5 respect to re-naturalization of the creek, and we in Ventura very much support the design 6 and would like to move forward as soon as possible. Thank you. 7 Mr. Do: Thank you, Jonathan. Our next speaker is Shani Kleinhaus. 8 Ms. Shani Kleinhaus: Thank you. I am the Environmental Advocate for Santa Clara Valley 9 Audubon Society, and I’m a resident of Palo Alto. My comments have to do with the 10 riparian corridor and biodiversity in the region in general. We have a study from Europe 11 that shows that tide biodiversity has equivalent value for people as increasing salary. We 12 know that globally and in our region biodiversity is under increasing and loss, and we 13 know that the most important places for birds – and other species in our county and 14 everywhere else around here – is creek corridors. Policy N-3.5 of our Comprehensive Plan 15 says “preserve the ecological value of creek corridors by preserving native plants and 16 replacing invasive non-invasive plants with native plants.” This entire park should have 17 native planting in it. Every tree should be a native tree. There is no reason not to do it. The 18 only place where I wouldn’t necessarily put the native trees is in dog park, where the birds 19 cannot actually come down from the tree to collect an acorn, or whatever they need to do. 20 I think you really need to evaluate planting only natives here. Our native plant diversity is 21 rich, water-sensitive and viable for parks, and that really is where we can try it. I think that 22 cities have a huge role these days in sustaining bio-diversity, especially in California, 23 where 90 percent of the population lives in urban areas [gap in recording] ecology, nature-24 based solutions into our urban landscapes, so please consider looking at only native plants 25 in this park. Thank you. 26 Mr. Do: Thank you, Shani. Our next speaker is Rebecca Eisenburg, to be followed by 27 Mark Weiss. 28 Ms. Rebecca Eisenburg: Hi. Thank you so much for letting me speak at this meeting. I, 29 too, am a huge fan of Parks, and I want to tell you that I and a couple other of us here 30 actually attended the City Council last night, where they discussed the capital 31 improvements budgets. I attempted, along with several others, to advocate on behalf of 32 Parks, understanding how important parks are and open space is for the enjoyment of our 33 community, especially when we talk about hopefully soon getting some more multi-family 34 housing developments in there. I also, with gratitude to the woman who just spoke from 35 the Audubon Society, I do think it’s very important to use as many native plants as 36 possible, especially given the drought conditions. Despite what’s going on right now, 37 we’re still actually in drought conditions, as you, I’m sure, are aware. Also, really quickly, 38 APPROVED Approved Minutes 16 I want to ask a question about, if it’s true that John Boulware was African American, can 1 you please spread some information about that, because I wasn’t aware of that personally, 2 and neither were a couple other people at this meeting who were going to advocate on 3 behalf of naming the park after my favorite – LaDoris Cordell. When I’ve, in the past 4 Googled, his name, I saw someone who was born in 1830 in the South, which would make 5 it pretty difficult for him to be African American, given that slavery was still, 6 unfortunately, in existence and enforced by the government and the police back then. Then 7 finally – this is a small point, there’s so many things to say – I'm so excited about the park. 8 I hope maybe it can be expanded through the City also buying some of that Sobrato land 9 once the City actually enforces the fact that it’s residential and he’s not going to be able to 10 put commercial development there. Finally, for dog parks, does it have to be mulch or can 11 we actually have some grass on dog parks? I’m just wondering why that seems so common. 12 Okay, that’s all. Thank you so much for listening. Have a good day. 13 Mr. Do: Thank you, Rebecca. Our next speaker is Mark Weiss. 14 Mr. Mark Weiss: Good evening, Commissioners. I live in Palo Alto. I actually spoke to 15 this Commission about a year ago, and on a somewhat related topic. I have a few remarks 16 that are perhaps tangential to the exact topic, but they do reiterate what two previous 17 speakers have said. I think we might look into a serious discussion of renaming the park 18 for a black person. Black Lives Matter, in the wake of the extreme enthusiasm for this type 19 of thinking in all our affairs. I also want to note the passing of a Ventura neighborhood 20 community member named Lenray McCalister. Lenray McCalister was a few years behind 21 me at Gunn High School back in the day. He was one of six brothers who played football 22 or basketball or wrestled, or all three, for Gunn. The McCalisters recently sold their long-23 time family home right there on Park Boulevard, right around the corner from Boulware 24 Park, and his son, Tully McCallister, played for Paly, for Coach Hansen. The McCalisters 25 were related to the Scotts, who, they were next generation, played mostly for Paly, not 26 Gunn, but they were all part of the same community. We had a similar discussion when 27 Danny McCalister died, the eldest, about re-naming Stockton [phonetic] Park for him, 28 perhaps. But I wanted to say, similar to the previous speaker, I’m interested in a major 29 park in Ventura. I’m wondering about seven or more acres on what is now the Sobrato 30 land, the former Frye’s property. I’ve been bringing this up to various Commissioners and 31 in public for about ten years. So, let’s have a serious talk about Black Lives Matter, naming 32 the park, and a bigger park. It’s great what we’re doing with Boulware. Thank you. 33 Mr. Do: Thank you, Mark. Chair Cribbs, that concludes speakers on Boulware Park. 34 Chair Cribbs: I don’t see anybody else’s hands up; however, Council Member Kou had 35 her hand up, and I missed her, because she’s in the panelist section, so could we go to 36 Council Member Kou, and then after that I would like to come back to Mr. James and offer 37 APPROVED Approved Minutes 17 Mr. James two minutes to speak about the election, because I missed you before, and I 1 apologize. So, Council Member Kou? 2 Council Member Kou: Thank you. I just had a question for Mr. Jensen. The basketball 3 court – can it be multi-use, or is that what the community wanted, just a basketball court? 4 Mr. Jensen: it can definitely be multi-use. It can definitely be striped with different games 5 on the court itself to be multi-use out there. I think that it was shown as basketball, because 6 that’s the existing amenity that’s out there now. It did not come by the community to have 7 any other striping on the court, like volleyball or badminton, or anything like that. But that 8 is something that we can delve into and ask them about that to see if we can add other 9 things onto to the court. But I definitely would say, I know now currently the basketball 10 court at Boulware is being by a few workout groups that meet there, so I think that it will 11 definitely still be used for other things, just besides basketball. But we can look at other 12 options of striping. 13 Council Member Kou: Okay, thank you. Just a thought. Thank you, Chair. 14 Chair Cribbs: You’re welcome. I don’t see any more members of the public, so can we go 15 to Mr. James to speak on the election? 16 Mr. James: I really appreciate that, Chair, to have an opportunity to speak again. I found 17 it offensive by the former Chair to just, all of a sudden without any reasoning go from 18 three minutes to two minutes. The Recreation department meets only once a month. Let’s 19 please try to give the maximum democracy here. Also, I don’t know what he meant by a 20 disruption. I’m going to read just briefly from one of my favorite passages about the right 21 to speak at government meetings, and what that’s about from New York Times v. Sullivan. 22 By the way, I stand corrected. If Mr. Boulware was African American, it’s been pointed 23 out to me by one of the other speakers, then we need to have a plaque, something to give 24 some of that history there. I wouldn’t want to take the park away from an African 25 American individual that gave that land to us. Anyway, New York Times v. Sullivan. 26 “Thus, we consider this case against the background of a profound national commitment 27 to the principle, the debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, wide open, and 28 that it may well include vehement, caustic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on 29 government and public officials. The present advertisement as an expression of a grievance 30 and protest on one of our major public issues of our time would seem clearly to qualify for 31 constitutional protection.” So, let’s say Foothills Park – there are lots of people that had…I 32 had some unpleasant things to say about somebody who I admire a lot, Lydia Kou, during 33 the course of that litigation. But it was protected speech, and there you go. So, that’s not a 34 disruption. A disruption would be somebody trying to challenge somebody to a fight or 35 refusing to stop to talk during the two- or three-minute time, so I just hope that we follow 36 the rules of the first amendment. Madam Chair, I certainly hope you have an extraordinary 37 APPROVED Approved Minutes 18 year as Chair, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk again and make this 1 thing right. Thank you. 2 Chair Cribbs: Thank you. That concludes the public comment. Thank you very much to 3 the members of the public who provided their opinion. Could we go now to the 4 Commissioners? I just wanted to clarify one thing. I know that Commission Brown is 5 recusing herself due to where she lives, but she is able to take part in the discussion, ask 6 questions or no? 7 Mr. Anderson: No, she may not. 8 Chair Cribbs: Not even asking questions? 9 Mr. Anderson: That’s correct. 10 Chair Cribbs: Okay, thank you very much for that. I appreciate that. Let’s start with 11 Commissioner Moss. 12 Commissioner Moss: I’m very glad that we are moving ahead with this, because I know 13 that earlier this year we talked about the creek rehabilitation right next door, and I’m glad 14 that Peter was able to have the 65-foot setback, so that whatever happens in the future with 15 that project, it will mesh, and we don’t have to put the brakes on, as one of the speakers 16 said. We haven’t had any kind of an update on the creek rehabilitation since early last year. 17 Peter, is there anything else you want to say about that, in regard to the plan for this? 18 Mr. Jensen: No. I mean, I think it would be a very nice feature in addition to the park and 19 the neighborhood to look at doing that. Of course, renovating a creek and restoring it has 20 a very hefty price tag to do such a thing, so I think our idea was to develop the park in the 21 near term, like you’re seeing in the plan, and – fingers crossed – hopefully in the future, 22 the restoration of the creek will happen, and it can be melded into the park. So, I think 23 either way we are protected in moving forward. 24 Commissioner Moss: Okay. I noticed you’re now back down to one bathroom, and I was 25 wondering why, and there was some talk about maybe just putting a porta-potty out there 26 in that second location. What happened with that? 27 Mr. Jensen: I don’t really recall a conversation with the porta-potty aspect, so we will have 28 to improve my memory on that, Lam. I think, just from the City standpoint that the overall 29 maintenance of one restroom and in the park of a size – it’s not an overly large park – that 30 one restroom could easily service the entire park and not be very far away from other 31 amenities as well. So, just mostly for budgetary and funding purposes, as well as long term 32 maintenance, the feeling was that one restroom was enough for the park. 33 Commissioner Moss: Okay. That’s all I had. Thank you. 34 APPROVED Approved Minutes 19 Chair Cribbs: Thank you. Commissioner Olson? 1 Commissioner Olson: Thank you again, Peter, for your thoughtful planning and the 2 robustness with which you approach the community, seek their input and weave their ideas 3 in as best you can with all the space and budget constraints. I’m always impressed. I was 4 glad to hear that the restroom was close to the playground. I know having that far away, 5 for some of those young children, can be quite difficult, and it looks like it is accessible. 6 Is it an ADA accessible bathroom as well? Yes? Okay, great. I don’t have any other 7 questions or comments, other than to commend you on the good work here. Oh, sorry. I 8 do have one question. As to the native trees, a lot of these trees look like they are existing, 9 although I can’t really tell with the tiny print. Are we doing tree plantings, or are these 10 mostly already here? 11 Mr. Jensen: We are going to do tree planting in the park. The majority of the trees that you 12 see kind of down in the turf area and this location are existing. Most of them are not native 13 trees. There are some liquid ambers and some large eucalyptus. There is one existing oak 14 tree that’s along the creek. I did not go into detail about this, but we are proposing to 15 remove the non-native trees from along the edge of the creek. Right now, there are some 16 Canary Island pine trees and some cedar trees. I don’t know the reason that they were 17 planted in close proximity to the creek, but you can see their circles here. We are going to 18 propose to take them out of there to open up the view of the creek and to stop the drop of 19 non-native plant material into the creek itself. We are going to plant new trees up in this 20 area here of the dog park and the picnic area, as well as this allee of trees that run along 21 here. I would say that I do agree with Shani’s comments about planting native plant 22 material. We will probably plant a hundred percent native plant material in this park, new 23 plantings, so all new planting will be native. I think that she also brought up the riparian, 24 which is the ecosystem or environment if the creek was natural. It would be a riparian 25 environment. That has specific plant material that creates that environment. Sycamore 26 trees, things of that nature, different types of grasses, we would like to incorporate those 27 into the park as well. So, native planting is definitely a major factor of this, not only is it 28 beautiful and provides habitat, but it also is drought tolerant as well, which reduces water, 29 so it hits on all the things that we would like to see. 30 Commissioner Olson: Great. Thank you for addressing that. 31 Chair Cribbs: Thank you very much, Peter. Commissioner Reckdahl? 32 Commissioner Reckdahl: It looks very nice. I like it. I like the way the grass area is open. 33 Looking in my crystal ball, I don’t think we’re going to have the creek naturalized anytime 34 soon but better safe than sorry, and it looks like you moved it around so there’s not a lot 35 of lost functionality, so it makes a lot of sense to do that. I have a question about Ash 36 Street. Has Council voted to approve us taking over Ash Street, or is that still something 37 that they have to decide? 38 APPROVED Approved Minutes 20 Mr. Jensen: That will be a part of the Park Improvement Ordinance, I believe. They have 1 not seen the plan yet, but it will go to them with the Park Improvement Ordinance. At that 2 time, they will review the design and then provide comment and direction then, or approve 3 the Park Improvement Ordinance. At this point, I do not believe they…besides our Liaison, 4 of course, have seen the proposed plan. 5 Commissioner Reckdahl: Do we have to dedicate that, or can we put a park over something 6 that’s not dedicated? 7 Mr. Jensen: That’s always a good question. Mostly, it depends upon the utilities that are 8 under the street there, so I think in this case we can remove the street itself and dedicate 9 the area as parkland. Some places like Scott Park in the city are more problematic because 10 of the utilities that run under them and how you dedicate what was the street before, but 11 this one, I’m sure that we can dedicate it as parkland. 12 Commissioner Reckdahl: Are there any utilities that run from Lambert over to Chestnut? 13 Mr. Jensen: There are drainage in that area, but that is something that there’s no gas or 14 electric that run under that specific street right there. 15 Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay, so how do we go about doing that? Would that be part of 16 the PIO to have the dedication? 17 Mr. Jensen: That’s a good question. I do not know. I think we’d have to consult with staff 18 and the attorney. I have never had to do that before. We don’t get a chance very often to 19 turn a street into a park, so I think Daren and I will – 20 Commissioner Reckdahl: It’s a good problem to have. 21 Mr. Jensen: Figure it out. 22 Commissioner Reckdahl: You mentioned a pump station. What does that pump? 23 Mr. Jensen: That’s a good question. I would say that it is some way associated with 24 Matadero Creek, but I can’t really tell you exactly what that pump station does there. I will 25 inquire with our drainage folks and ask them what that pump is actually doing. I know that 26 they are very interested in it staying there. I’ve asked them if it has to be there, and they 27 said yes. 28 Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. Bottom line is, it stays. Valley Water had some grants 29 available in December. I’m not sure if you were in the loop on that. I know a couple years 30 ago you were interested in getting some money from Valley Water. Have you done any 31 more research on that? 32 APPROVED Approved Minutes 21 Mr. Jensen: No, we have not. When we proposed to renovate the creek in Mitchell Park, 1 they advised us that they were trying to get a grant put together. I know that the folks that 2 go to that meeting, City staff, have brought it up a couple times since then over the last 3 couple years, and they said that they will advise us when that grant becomes available to 4 do that stuff. So, at this point, though, I have not heard anything as far as large-scale creek 5 restoration – 6 Commissioner Reckdahl: Where would that money be coming from? 7 Mr. Jensen: That was coming from the water district. I don’t know if they were getting it 8 from the State, but they were going to be sending a grant for…Their long-term goal was 9 to restore creeks in parks in Santa Clara County, so hopefully that will be something that 10 will take place in the future. We have, I think, a few good sites in our city that we could 11 have that happen. 12 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah, the grant I was talking about was in December. Valley 13 Water had a grant where they would pay for 75 percent of any type of open space, access 14 to trails and open space was the grant. But that’s passed. But they have grants that coming 15 up, so I think if we keep our eyes open, we can get some money for that. Are there other 16 grant sources, other than Valley Water? 17 Mr. Jensen: There definitely are from the State. It’s just basically keeping an eye out for 18 them, and when they come around applying for them. I think we’ve talked about before 19 that I think grant funding in the future will be very important and it will be nice if the City 20 had staff that worked specifically on reviewing and applying for those grants, because I 21 think it is important to secure some of that funding. 22 Commissioner Reckdahl: Valley Water, their grant, you didn’t have to CEQA passed 23 beforehand, but the more maturity you could show, the more likely you would get the 24 grant, so between the NVCAP’s creek restoration and this, I think we have some maturity 25 in this that would be useful, so we can keep our eyes open. One thing in the last NVCAP 26 meeting that they were talking about the creek, one of the questions was how we can trim 27 down the cost, because the cost, even for the smallest one, the narrowest one, was very 28 high. One option would be to do it in two halves. But you’d have to do the downstream 29 one first, which would be the portion over by Park, like between Park and Lambert. If you 30 did that and naturalized that, then later on you could move upstream and do this part. I 31 think with our budget constraints, that’s most likely the way we would do it, would be two 32 pieces. 33 Mr. Jensen: I would agree. I think it’s definitely a multi-phase thing. I mean, again, 34 unfortunately, trying to restore a creek back to what it was is almost an impossible feat, 35 and it just is a bucketful of money, basically, to do that. I think that there are ways to 36 remove portions of the wall and the floor of the channel that could be done more 37 APPROVED Approved Minutes 22 economically. That’s maybe not restoring it back to its natural state, but getting closer to 1 it. 2 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah, getting to a natural state. 3 Mr. Jensen: More natural. 4 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. I’m not sure if you remember, the designs that they had, 5 a lot of the designs had trees in the bottom, so it wouldn’t be actually quite naturalized. It 6 wouldn’t just be dirt on the bottom of a channel. It actually would be a naturalized creek. 7 That’s very hopeful, at least. 8 Mr. Jensen: Yes. 9 Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. Good work. I like the design. Keep moving. 10 Chair Cribbs: Keith, thank you very much for bringing the subject of grants up. I appreciate 11 it. We won’t lose sight of that. Let’s go to Commission LaMere? 12 Commission LaMere: Thank you, Chair. Peter, as usual, thank you so much for all of your 13 work. You always do amazing designs with our parks. Just a few comments – one would 14 be as we do these renovations and redo parks, perhaps we start thinking about placement 15 of a skatepark if there is any room. I know they are very expensive, but just as we 16 contemplate different land. I also think that sometimes the users of that sometimes get 17 ignored, because they’re younger and don’t necessarily have a voice or attend meetings. 18 Secondly, with striping, perhaps we can look at some of the elementary schools and see 19 some of the striping they have on their pavement and playgrounds. For example, 20 something as simple as a foursquare, I know kids would likely use, and it’s very easy to 21 put down, I’m sure. Also, the native planting is wonderful, so thank you again for all of 22 your work. You’re such a tremendous asset for our city. I appreciate what you do. 23 Chair Cribbs: Thank you, Jeff. Vice Chair Greenfield? 24 Vice Chair Greenfield? Thank you, Chair. I’ll try not to flinch when I hear the word 25 “Chair” right now. Thank you, Peter, for a very comprehensive and well-thought-out 26 design, as usual, and your work with the community in channeling their desires and 27 working to make them a reality. I think it’s great to move forward with developing the 28 park area. It would be awesome to see the creek naturalization project move forward as 29 well, but we can’t wait. We don’t know when that’s going to happen. I think it’s great to 30 see the connectivity between Chestnut Avenue and Lambert Avenue be a paved path. 31 That’s pretty much the most direct way to go, because there are going to be people, bikes 32 and pedestrians that will use that pathway, so we want to make sure that the fastest, the 33 shortest route, is paved. Otherwise, people will find a way to make it move in their 34 APPROVED Approved Minutes 23 direction. With that in mind, are there any bike racks included in this design? 1 Mr. Jensen: I don’t specifically show bike racks in this plan, just because of the scale, but 2 yes. Definitely, we will be adding multiple locations, at the playground, at the picnic area, 3 the basketball court, so that will definitely be incorporated into the overall – 4 Vice Chair Greenfield: Awesome, thank you. I'm definitely supportive of the previous 5 comments about native species for the trees that we’re adding, and I know that you’ll make 6 sure that the right species get put in the dog park area as well. We’ve had discussions 7 previously about how some of the oaks aren’t appropriate for the dog parks. We’ll need to 8 sort that out so that everyone’s happy and hopefully consult with Canopy on the tree 9 species selections. I have a question regarding the PIO. You mentioned the funding is in 10 question. If the funding is not available, would a PIO still be brought forward to PRC, or 11 that would only happen if the funding is available? 12 Mr. Jensen: I think that we would still move forward with the PIO. I don’t think that there’s 13 a time lapse on that, so I don’t think it expires. I think that we can move forward with that 14 and get ourselves in position, even with the construction drawings, and if it turns out that 15 the project is delayed for a year or more, then when it’s time to bid out the project, we’ll 16 be ready to move and go forward. I think we are going to move forward as long as we can 17 until the funding becomes the issue. 18 Vice Chair Greenfield: There’s no timeline associated with the PIO, and the work has to 19 occur? 20 Mr. Jensen: Not that I’m aware of, but we can check with City Attorney and confirm that 21 that is the case. 22 Vice Chair Greenfield: Great, thank you. Could you explain what the bermed grass seeding 23 is going to look like? I’m trying to envision that. Is that seeding towards the basketball 24 court, away from the court? It sounds like a great idea. I’m just trying to picture it. 25 Mr. Jensen: It’s angling towards the court, so it’s basically just allowing you to have a 26 slight, slanted grass area, so you can sit there, lay there, and watch the game, or just relax 27 basically. It’s also a way to help buffer the ball from gogin too far away. 28 Vice Chair Greenfield: And the idea is that 1:30:50 would rest on the pavement below the 29 berm if you’re sitting there at the court? 30 Mr. Jensen: No, you could sit on the actual berm itself. 31 Vice Chair Greenfield: Okay, great. That’s all I’ve got. Looks great. Thank you for and 32 look forward to seeing a PIO and getting funding for this, so we can make it happen. 33 APPROVED Approved Minutes 24 Chair Cribbs: Yeah, thank you very much, Peter, for all the work and for the community 1 input and all of that. I’m pretty anxious to see this park move forward, and I’m really 2 anxious to see what the Commission can do to help understand how we can push this 3 along. I think it’s incredibly important, given the location. I came to Palo Alto as a very 4 young mother many, many years ago, and had two little kids living in an apartment on 5 Park Boulevard, and there were not any parks. So, I’m very aware that this neighborhood 6 is under-parked, as they say, and am really anxious to see if we can help do something 7 about that. Peter, thank you very much. I also think the price is really reasonable. It’s really 8 a thoughtful design and I will be really excited to see it come to fruition. After all, maybe 9 $2.4 million or whatever it was, isn’t too bad for such a great park, so thank you very 10 much. There’s no action, Peter, needed for this tonight, right? Until we get to the PIO, so 11 this was an information only topic, and I really appreciate all the discussion, so thank you 12 very much, Peter and everybody. 13 4. Foothills Park Name Change 14 Mr. Anderson: This is an action item, so we’ll ask the Commission to vote, and this is for 15 the Parks and Recreation Commission to consider and recommend to Council a change of 16 the name of Foothills Park to Foothills Nature Preserve. On August 3, 2020, City Council 17 had voted to change the name from Foothills Park to Foothills Nature Preserve, and then 18 on November 2, 2020, City Council directed staff to follow the City’s naming policy and 19 to go through that process to make this change. The policy states that the proposed name 20 change should be first reviewed and evaluated by the Palo Alto Historical Association and 21 then reviewed by the Parks and Recreation Commission for the recommendation to 22 Council. On December 10, 2020, the Palo Alto Historical Association completed their 23 review and evaluation of the name change, and the Board agreed to the proposed name 24 change to Foothills Nature Preserve. They said that it’s an appropriate name, reflecting 25 both the type of park and its previous history. That concludes this very brief presentation. 26 Thank you, Chair. 27 Chair Cribbs: Thank you. Any questions from the Commission about the process? And 28 then we would go to have one person, Mr. James, who would like to speak. So, from the 29 Commission first, any questions? Okay, Lam? 30 Mr. Do: Thank you, Chair. We now have several speakers requesting to speak. We will 31 start with speaker, Aram James, to be followed by Rebecca Eisenburg. 32 Mr. James: Thank you. I have sort of a close connection with Foothills Park, only in that 33 the best job I ever had was $2.95 an hour in 1968, cutting some of the original trails at 34 Foothills Park. I’ve been around a few years, and in Palo Alto. I think this name change, 35 again, because of the well-documented long-time history of racism connected to Foothills 36 Park, I would like to see somebody like a LaDoris Cordell or a Lakiba Pittman added to 37 that name. I think it needs to be a broader community conversation than simply Foothills 38 APPROVED Approved Minutes 25 Park or Foothills Park Preserve. Black people have been excluded from this community, 1 excluded now, and pushed out of even the Ventura neighborhood, which was one of the 2 traditional very few areas that African American could live in, but now they’ve pushed the 3 NAACP, with the ACLU’s assistance, struggle mightily to desegregate that park, and I 4 think we need to give, not just the City, but the State and the country an idea that do we 5 call it the Frederick Douglass Park? Do we call it Sojourner Truth, LaDoris Cordell, Lakiba 6 Pittman Foothills Park and their name? Or, different parts of the park, sections of the park, 7 in honor of extraordinary African Americans that have contributed to this community? I 8 really think just our little commissions and historical commission, we’re keeping things 9 too white, okay? And I’m a white guy, so I don’t have a problem with white people as a 10 general rule. I just think that we haven’t shown enough about the really vile segregationist 11 history, the police violence in this community targeted on African Americans and people 12 of color, so we need to do something symbolic. It’s very important as a first start, and then 13 keep that park open. Thank you. 14 [gap in recording] Begin, please. 15 Ms. Eisenburg: First I want to quickly eat into my time briefly to just answer some of your 16 questions. The pump is for groundwater, according to the City’s website. At first I thought 17 it might be related to the toxic waste bill, the HP Superfund site, underground, but 18 according to the website of the City, it’s not. I wanted to quickly thank you for mentioning 19 state funding. You may know, I’ve been advocating as hard as I can at every single City 20 Council meeting, at every Planning Commission meeting, etcetera, for the City to finally 21 apply for as much as…Well, the State gave away $1 billion dollars of funding through the 22 HCD Office. I can give you details, or you can just look it up. Last year a billion dollars 23 for affordable housing and there are other grants that were given away and will be 24 accelerated this year with our new Administration – yay – for open space and community 25 shared space. I have a lot of information about it, if you want to contact me, because it’s 26 one of my big passions. I also am friends with and am closely aligned with the person who 27 did the shelters for the homeless people in Mountain View. Mountain View now has a 28 shelter bed for every single person in its homeless person, while Palo Alto as I’m sure you 29 know, has zero shelter beds for our homeless population, which is sad. Anyway, Aram 30 James said everything so well, and I second everything he said with big exclamation 31 points. I just want to add to everything he said, and what he said basically is, now that 32 you’ve already agreed to rename the park, let’s do something meaningful with renaming 33 the park. You can even keep the nature preserve part in if you want, but LaDoris Cordell 34 or any other African American person that you want to put in there, nature preserve, would 35 be great. The Cordell Nature Preserve – wonderful. It doesn’t have to be called Foothills. 36 Also, you’re probably aware that there are zillions of little landmarks within the park, and 37 each one of those landmarks can also be named after someone in the African American 38 community. We could put a little placard. It’s just a nice way to do something small that 39 makes others feel good and makes us feel good, too. Just a thought. Thank you. 40 APPROVED Approved Minutes 26 Mr. Do: Thank you, Rebecca. Our next speaker is Shani Kleinhaus, to be followed by 1 Mark Weiss. 2 Ms. Kleinhaus: I'm strongly in favor of renaming Foothills Park, Foothills Nature Preserve. 3 That is the essence that everybody has been highlighting is the most important thing in the 4 park. It doesn’t matter who is visiting, what they’re there to appreciate is the nature, and 5 we need to preserve that nature. This has been controversial issue, and when we start 6 thinking about who to name it after, with no connotation or connection to the actual park 7 itself, I can see a monument here and there or a little trail named after somebody, but I 8 think the most critical thing is to call Foothills “Foothills Nature Preserve” and then respect 9 it as a nature preserve. I hope that this is what you’ll recommend to Council. Thank you. 10 Mr. Do: Thank you, Shani. Our next speaker is Mark Weiss, to be followed by Julie Beer 11 [phonetic]. 12 Mr. Weiss: I’ve been going to Foothills Park on and off since 1974, although I went to 13 Gunn High School. I didn’t actually live in Palo Alto until 2006, but I have fond memories 14 of going with our “havhoorah” [phonetic], which is a Jewish affinity group, to Foothill 15 Park with, of course, the Palo Altoians signing us all up and playing softball when I was 16 ten years old. So, I don’t like the idea of changing it from a park to a nature preserve. That 17 sounds too hifalutin and people are allowed to recreate and hike and sweat. It doesn’t have 18 official soccer fields, but you could play some type of soccer or softball or frisbee there. 19 And I do think, but more to the point of previous speakers, Palo Alto is changing. The 20 world is changing. We’re trying to remedy some of our habits, and with the history of 21 racism here and the reason there’s so much focus on the park right now, I think it is 22 incumbent on us to think deeper than just the semantic superficial unproven and, in fact, 23 silly, silly, idea of just changing behavior by changing one word. So, I think we should 24 rename the whole park for a black person, like LaDoris Cordell or Lakiba Pittman, who is 25 the former chair of the HRC. I like naming the park for Al Yong. He was the former poet 26 laureate of California. He is a black man. He doesn’t live here right now, but he lived 30 27 years here. His son, Michael Yong, I believe, went to Gunn High School, another writer. 28 He came to Stanford, to work with Wallace Stegner. If not Al Yong, maybe Wallace 29 Stegner, granted Wallace Stegner is not black, but he was a big fan of preserving Foothills. 30 Thank you for your time. 31 Mr. Do: Thank you, Mark. Our next speaker is Julie Beer, and that concludes our speakers 32 for this evening. 33 Ms. Julie Beer: Hello. I just want to say that I personally really like the idea of “preserve,” 34 because I’ve hiked there for about almost 40 years, and the favorite part of the park for me 35 is seeing the wildlife. It’s the deer, the turkeys, the birds. I think that’s really important. I 36 did support Black Lives Matter, but I don’t…I personally think that naming it after 37 LaDoris Cordell will be quite controversial. If you look at Palo Alto Online, you’ll see that 38 APPROVED Approved Minutes 27 a lot of people are quite angry at her, and the other people who forced this park to be open, 1 including people like me. I had no problem with having people from East Palo Alto, East 2 Menlo Park, enter the park for free or reduced fees, but I felt that this lawsuit was forced 3 down our throats, so I’m just saying that if you said LaDoris Cordell Park, I think it would 4 be quite controversial. Thank you for letting me talk. Goodbye. 5 Mr. Do: Thank you, Julie. Chair Cribbs, we do have one more speaker raise their hand. 6 Would you like to continue public speaking? 7 Chair Cribbs: Yes. I think we should, and then let’s cut the speakers off at this point. 8 Mr. Do: Thank you. Our next speaker is Winter Dellenbach, and this will be the conclusion 9 of public speaking on the naming Foothills Park. 10 Ms. Dellenbach: I just want to remind people that this is an open space preserve. It has, 11 actually, open space designation, unlike a neighborhood park. It is an entity of a vastly 12 different sort than what we think of as the kind of park that people come to, have soccer 13 games, soccer practice, baseball games, football games, loud music, running around, 14 jumping up and down. This is a nature preserve by its very being. It was created that way. 15 It was given the special designation of open space, just as the Enid Pearson Open Space 16 Preserve, so we’re talking about a very, very different thing than what we think about as a 17 park, and it would be very appropriate to designate it, finally tonight, as a preserve, and 18 I’m very confident you all, Commissioners, will do that, because I think you’re very 19 sensible and reasonable people, and you will do that. I also just want to say that it is good 20 practice not to name things for living people anymore, such as parks, but to sometimes 21 honor people that are no longer alive. Because you never know what a living person might 22 still do in their life. So, it’s better practice not to do that. That’s all I’m going to say. Do 23 the right thing. This is a nature preserve, and it reinforces that notion on all visitors that it 24 is not a park. Thank you. 25 Mr. Do: Thank you, Winter, and Chair, that concludes the speakers. 26 Chair Cribbs: Thank you very much and thanks to all the members of the public who spoke 27 tonight. Could we go to the Commissioners now for any comments? Let’s start with 28 Commissioner LaMere. 29 Commission LaMere: Thank you. I am in favor of renaming the park and adding the 30 “preserve” to the name. I think it’s very important, as some callers have noted, to think of 31 that space in that way, and to do what we can to preserve the natural habitat there. 32 Chair Cribbs: Thank you. Commissioner Reckdahl? 33 Commissioner Reckdahl: I agree. This has been an open space, managed as open space for 34 APPROVED Approved Minutes 28 years. It was a bad name in the sense that it wasn’t a park. It was open space. We should 1 name it “preserve,” and as Shani said, treat it like a preserve. It’s important, wildlife there 2 is such a priority, to make sure that the preserve stays preserved. Thanks. 3 Chair Cribbs: Thank you. Commissioner Brown? 4 Commissioner Brown: Yes, I’m supportive of the open space being included in the name. 5 I just want to comment, as a Palo Alto history nerd, while Foothills Park doesn’t 6 necessarily comment on the history, necessarily, itself, there is some naming in Foothills 7 Park that is indicative of the history and actually dates back to the Spanish occupation of 8 the land, when Governor Figueroa [phonetic] gifted a square league of the land back in 9 1883. That was later named The Boronda Farm, so that was why Boronda Lake is the name 10 there, so is there some history there, in case anybody’s interested, so I just thought I’d 11 share that. 12 Chair Cribbs: That’s great to know. Thank you for that. Commissioner Olson? 13 Commissioner Olson: I, too, support the name change. I am hearing a lot of the other 14 naming ideas, and I know that we have other venues and lots of other places for 15 entertaining those ideas. I think we could, and we should. All of the comments that we’ve 16 heard from the public when we were opening, the vast majority of them were about 17 crowding, were about damage to the species and the nature feel of the park that is now a 18 preserve. So, I am very much in support of that change. 19 Chair Cribbs: Thank you. Commissioner Moss? 20 Commissioner Moss? I, too, believe that it should be Foothills Nature Preserve, and I 21 understand when people want to play ball in the grassy area, but I know that for the past 22 35 years, I’ve gone there for open space and for nature. Even people who go there for 23 picnics, go there with the idea of peace and quiet, and there’s no boom boxes and bouncing 24 castles and things like that, like you’d find at a birthday party in Mitchell Park. So, it is 25 not an urban park like Mitchell Park in any sense of the word. I want to make one comment 26 about naming parks after people. I concur with Winter Dellenbach, that it’s very 27 problematic when you name things for people, and I’ve always bristled at Pearson-28 Arastradero Park. I always call it Arastradero. I don’t know who Byxbee is, and Emily 29 Renzel has done amazing things for the parks in the past, but it just doesn’t feel right, so I 30 would rather not do that here. Thank you. 31 Chair Cribbs: Thank you. Vice Chair Greenfield? 32 Vice Chair Greenfield: Thank you. Foothills Park is one of four designated open space 33 preserves for the City. It is an open space preserve by nature. It does include more 34 recreational amenities and facilities than most other open space areas in the region, and 35 APPROVED Approved Minutes 29 that really leads to its broad appeal. But, nonetheless, it is an open space preserve, and I 1 support renaming it Foothills Nature Preserve. I also believe that Palo Alto has rules 2 disallowing names for living persons now. I think Enid Pearson was the last person so 3 honored, so I think that’s probably off the table for our consideration. Thank you. 4 Chair Cribbs: Thank you. So, it looks like, with my agreement, that we have certainly 5 consensus on changing the name and supporting the name of the preserve. Do we need a 6 motion for this, or is it a recommendation? Are we having a motion to recommend? 7 MOTION 8 Vice Chair Greenfield: I’ll move to support the staff recommendation to rename Foothills 9 Park as Foothills Nature Preserve. 10 Commission LaMere: I’ll second it. 11 Chair Cribbs: Thank you, Jeff. May we have a voice vote, please? 12 [roll call vote] 13 Ms. Bourquin: Seven to approve the name change. 14 Motion passed unanimously. 15 5. Foothills Park Visitor Limit and Entry Fee Policy, Env Studies 16 Mr. Anderson: Thank you, Chair. On December 17, 2020, Foothills to everyone, with a 17 temporary new limit of 750 at one time. In that initial opening period, December 17th to 18 January 2nd, we experienced approximately six times the number of visitors compared to 19 that same time period in 2019. There are a few factors that led to that increased visitation. 20 The public awareness, the publicity, the newness factor all played a role, as well as the just 21 vast increase in visitation to parks and open spaces associated with COVID-19, which is 22 not only, of course, affecting Palo Alto, but our entire region and, in fact, the nation. Really 23 quickly, some of the numbers. In 2019, there were 156,000 visitors, approximately, to 24 Foothills, and in 2020, there were 223,000. Commissioners had asked me a little bit about 25 the weekday visitation trends, and I just wanted to share that, since January 1st to January 26 20th, the weekday the average number of visitors on a weekday is approximately 615 27 people per day. That’s an increase of 106 percent from that same period in 2020 and a 200 28 percent increase from the visitation that same period, from 2019. Again, this is a very small 29 sample size, since we’ve only been open for a short time. As a comparison note, on 30 weekends – this is just one day, to give you an example – on Saturday, January 16th, there 31 were approximately 2,600 visitors. A little bit about the challenges and some of the 32 opportunities. The increased traffic, both on Page Mill Road and on the park road inside 33 Foothills have been a challenge, particularly for pedestrians in the preserve, because there 34 APPROVED Approved Minutes 30 isn’t a pedestrian pathway, so people are walking along the park road, and they’re sharing 1 that road with an increasing number of vehicles and bikes. There is also challenges with 2 people parking outside of Foothills Park and this has resulted in complaints from neighbors 3 about parking problems and safety issues from people walking along Page Mill Road. 4 There have been some impacts to the natural areas of the preserve, most notably people 5 walking in natural areas and creating new social trails. Social trails are created when 6 people walk off trail and the foot traffic eventually creates a new pathway. These problems 7 are primarily happening around Vista Hill and Boronda Lake. I should note that the 8 increase in visitors has provided an opportunity to educate new visitors about open space 9 and the principles of “leave no trace.” Staff and our partners have been working on getting 10 those messages to our visitors. I’ll tell you more about that in a moment. Based on those 11 challenges, here are some of the things that have been implemented to address them. 12 Additional “No Parking” signs and cones have been added in problem areas along the road, 13 for example, the entrance area in Boronda Lake in particular, to make it safer for 14 pedestrians and cyclists. Beginning January 9th, staff implemented a temporary measure 15 of keeping Foothills Park closed to vehicles once capacity was reached, and remain closed 16 until approximately 3:00 p.m. We’ve since suggested that re-opening time depending on 17 the number of visitors still in the preserve, but the goal was to help address problems with 18 long lines of cars backing up on Page Mill Road and people circling back and forth on 19 Page Mill, waiting for the preserve to open. And of course, having the number of staff 20 available to open and close the preserve repeatedly each time capacity was reached. We 21 did order a new vehicle counting system that will provide real-time numbers of the vehicles 22 in the park. This was ordered and was supposed to have been installed December 15th, 23 prior to our opening. Unfortunately, the vendor had significant delays. We hope to have it 24 installed in about a week, and it will have the ability to post to a website, which will be 25 very handy for visitors planning their trips to reference what the current capacity is at. 26 Additionally, staff spoke with Santa Clara County Roads about installing “No Parking” 27 signs along areas that they oversee, particular, Moody Road. I should note that the Rangers 28 and Grassroots Ecology staff quickly identified these problems where people were walking 29 in the natural areas and creating social trails, and the Rangers quickly put up a temporary 30 caution tape, cones and signage. It’s been effective to keep people out of those natural 31 areas. Staff is also working on addressing the social trails in similar ways, covering them 32 with natural brush. These are short term solutions, and we’re working on longer term fixes, 33 such as split rail fencing where appropriate, proper interpretive messaging and additional 34 support from docents to help with that. I’ll briefly talk about our partners who are helping 35 with this process. In November, staff gathered together a group of stakeholders and 36 partnership groups, including Grassroots Ecology, Friends of Foothills, the Environmental 37 volunteers, and the others that you see on this list on the slide, and including the Vice Chair 38 and Chair of the Commission, who have been very helpful. The intent was to discuss ways 39 of making the opening of Foothills Park a position and welcoming experience. Some of 40 the suggestions from the group that had already been implemented were placing a large 41 “Welcome” banner at the entrance, getting large trail map displays, which prominently 42 APPROVED Approved Minutes 31 display where our one-way trail signs are at in numerous locations throughout the Preserve, 1 and galvanizing volunteers to help support the Preserve and protect the natural resources. 2 For example, we’re just getting started on this, but we’ve got several Scout groups that are 3 coming up to the Preserve to pick up litter and help clean up, and the Environmental 4 volunteers arranged for a naturalist to help assist in educating new visitors on the 5 weekends. The stakeholder group is currently developing task forces to assist with 6 identifying ways to improve the experience for people. By that, that would include 7 education, programming, interpretation, docents and volunteers. The task force would also 8 be looking at protections for the environment, habitat and wildlife protection, impact 9 monitoring and mitigation. Lastly, to look at the infrastructure and identify funding. This 10 would be things like looking visitor safety for trails, parking, signage at the different 11 Preserve entry points, and funding for these programs and the infrastructure 12 improvements. In response to the extreme 2020 wildfire season, open space staff have 13 analyzed the picnic areas in Foothills Park for fire safety. This was Attachment B of the 14 staff report and provides a description and analysis of the six different days’ picnic areas. 15 Open Space staff recommend removing nine barbecue pits that are located on the hillsides 16 of Foothills. The picnic tables could remain, as they are still used, but given how seldom 17 the hillside barbecues are used, staff believed that removing them will not have a negative 18 impact on the visitor experience but can make Foothills Park safer from wildfires I should 19 also note that removing these nine barbecue pits would leave 22 barbecue pits located in 20 Orchard Glen Picnic Area, and the two large barbecue pits in the Oak Grove picnic area. 21 City Council action on January 19th, the Council discussed Foothills Park and passed a 22 motion to adopt and an ordinance to authorize the City Manager to adjust the attendance 23 limits from 400 people to not to exceed 500 people, to add an interim $6 per vehicle 24 entrance fee to Foothills Park with volunteers exempted, and Council directed staff to 25 return with a matching emergency ordinance with those same features. They also directed 26 the Parks and Recreation Commission and staff to return to Council with considerations 27 for fees, discounts, rules and enforcement policies. On February 1st, Council will consider 28 this emergency ordinance for the fee and the visitor limit, and if approved, that emergency 29 ordinance would take effect immediately, so the new visitor limit, that 400 people, but not 30 to exceed 500, would be implemented on February 2nd, and staff estimates that the 31 weekend entry fee would begin approximately mid-February, and a weekday fee could be 32 implemented a little later in the spring. Several other actions were referred to the 33 Commission to consider, such as researching the permanent fee structure, including annual 34 passes and various discounts, and evaluating an online registration system. I’ll pause now 35 and turn it over to the Chair and Vice Chair, who have additional information to share with 36 the Commission. . 37 Chair Cribbs: Thank you very much, Daren. I appreciate all of that. I’m wondering, before 38 we go to our part of the presentation, if anybody on the Commission has a specific question 39 from your report, Daren, not a comment, but a question to clarify anything that you heard. 40 Okay, I don’t hear any questions, so we can move on. I just would like to observe that 41 APPROVED Approved Minutes 32 we’ve been asked to do some very specific things, and make some specific 1 recommendations. Hopefully, that we can really agree upon before our meeting in 2 February, when we actually take action. So, it would be really good when we’re talking 3 about this today, if we can really focus on things that we can do in the future and that have 4 to do with the priorities that the Council has asked us to do. We have a lot of things on a 5 list of things that we’ve thought about. We’ll talk a little bit more about that, but the Vice 6 Chair has presented or prepared some really good graphs that I think help us think about 7 the facts that are current, and what will happen in the future, so thanks for putting that up 8 there. Jeff, want to take it from this point? 9 Vice Chair Greenfield: Sure. Chair, would you like to review the timeline before I jump 10 into the other items? 11 Chair Cribbs: This is the one that’s up on the screen right now? 12 Vice Chair Greenfield: Yes. 13 Chair Cribbs: Okay, yeah, I can do that. Right now, the Council has done a January 19th 14 ordinance and a potential February 1st emergency ordinance that could take effect 15 immediately, or as soon as staff can get it done. That would be agreeing upon an entry fee 16 and a visitor limit policy. There are several fees and visitor limits proposed. The next thing 17 would then be the PRC would update a policy recommendation to the City Council that 18 we would hopefully do at the February 23rd meeting, but that would probably not go into 19 effect before the middle of May, due to the days that are required. And then, we would be 20 able to provide some additional PRC policy recommendations that would be determined 21 based on some of the questions and the decisions that would need to be made from a lot of 22 different perspectives. Then, finally, we’re recommending – or we’d like to discuss – 23 having a fixed visitor limit, but only until such time as we’ve been able to look at the data 24 that we’ll collect this spring and also through the summer, so that would be targeted for 25 the end of the year, in 2021. 26 Vice Chair Greenfield: Thanks, Anne. I’ll take over from here. I certainly appreciate that 27 Council has taken up the Foothills issue so quickly. We have concerns to address 28 immediately, and my hat is off to staff for their reactive efforts to address a bunch of issues 29 that have come up to the Ad Hoc that has supported staff throughout this as well. As 30 Council considers an emergency ordinance on 2/1, I think we have an opportunity to 31 recommend potentially minor adjustments for consideration. While this is a discussion 32 item this evening, our comments can be conveyed to Council for consideration. Here’s just 33 a brief table summary of the entry fee and visitor limit proposal. The proposal includes a 34 daily entry fee based on staff’s recommendation. These are recommendations that the 35 Chair and I have come up with in looking at the timeframe where the policy that’s adopted 36 potentially by an emergency ordinance on February 1st would be in place for three-and-a-37 half months or more. The ordinance that was passed and the potential emergency ordinance 38 APPROVED Approved Minutes 33 that would be considered does not include an annual entry pass. We think that there is a 1 strong popular demand for an annual pass option immediately. There would be frustration 2 if people would like to purchase an annual pass, which we’re likely to offer in the future, 3 yet it wasn’t available for quite some time. I believe that staff’s recommendation for an 4 annual pass is very reasonable and very in line with what the Commission may consider 5 adopting eventually, so I would encourage the Commission to consider recommending an 6 annual pass, which would be $80 for nonresidents, a 25-percent discount for residents, at 7 $60, and then a 25-percent discount for seniors, or low-income, one or the other, not both 8 That’s something to consider. Also, regarding the visitor limit, the current limit range is 9 specified by Council’s 400 to 500. I have concerns that this limit is going to constrain our 10 ability to find the right visitor limit. We won’t really know what the visitor limit is going 11 to be until at least the end of the peak visitor season this summer. That’s why our timeline 12 projection is suggesting we’ll have a final limit to recommend at towards the end of the 13 year. No one knows where we’re going to end up on that, and we’re looking to gather input 14 and make a fact-based decision on that. The visitor limit is a primary tool for managing 15 the Preserve, but it’s just one tool that’s used, in conjunction with others, such as closing 16 the entrance for an extended time period after the visitor limit is reached, as Daren 17 mentioned. We also don’t know how other forthcoming changes, including infrastructure 18 improvements, may impact this, so flexibility is really important for the dynamic adaptive 19 process that we’re in the middle of. It’s a work in progress. Also, there is no particular 20 need for a lower limit. I don’t think that we were able to properly communicate this to City 21 Council. I think if we just added an upper limit, or if they were to adopt an upper limit, 22 and would give staff the flexibility to adjust this limit and go as low as they need, I think 23 that would be the best option and the simplest option. Because it’s not as if we don’t have 24 enough range to adjust to find the optimum limit and end up with too low a limit. We can 25 significantly impact staff. They’d be forced to potentially close the entrance too often when 26 it may not be necessary that will result in increased safety and traffic issues and illegal 27 evasive maneuvers by people trying to gain access when the entrance is closed, and it will 28 limit access to residents and non-residents when we may not need to do so. We know that 29 750 people in the Preserve is too many right now. We know that 300 is not too many. 30 Finding the right number in between to properly balance the competing priorities of natural 31 open space preservation against outdoor recreation – in other words, balancing public 32 safety, visitor access, environmental impact, staff impact and visitor experience – is 33 difficult. Daren, I’m wondering if you could comment briefly on the recommended 34 number and what we know and what we don’t know. To the extent that anyone is an expert 35 on this, it’s you. 36 Mr. Anderson: Thank you, Chair. I certainly don’t claim expertise on this particular one. 37 As you pointed out, it’s very difficult to know, and I think we’ve got a lot more analysis 38 to gather. As you noted, I think what staff have observed early on, is we saw what 750 39 looked like, and with the existing Preserve set up the way it is, it was obvious that there 40 were safety issues and concerns about just too many vehicles on a road with not enough 41 APPROVED Approved Minutes 34 safe passage for pedestrians. When we did see the visitation closer to approximately 500 1 people in the park, it seemed more manageable. I just want to echo what you had stated, 2 that this is based off a narrow band of observation, and probably more time would help us 3 get a better feel of what the appropriate number would be. 4 Vice Chair Greenfield: Thank you. So, this is the first item that I think would be 5 appropriate for the Commission to consider. In addition to that, I think we can all recognize 6 that there are a bunch of topics that we can discuss on Foothills Park – important topics, 7 based on the aggressive timeline of targeting a policy recommendation for next month. 8 We really need a focused effort to move forward. We’ve worked to compile a list of 9 suggestions and comments that we’ve heard from Council, staff and stakeholders. It’s not 10 complete, but it’s a starting point for discussion and hopefully will give us a jumpstart to 11 focus our effort efficiently. Most of the list items that you see here actually include 12 additional details which are not on this view, but this will be information available for the 13 Commission to work together to gain a faster understanding of where we’re at right now 14 and where we need to go. Daren, Anne and I have worked to take a first pass at prioritizing 15 considerations and organizing into the groups you see here. The immediate policy 16 priorities in green are things that absolutely need to be considered as part of a policy, and 17 they are more straightforward, and we will very confident that these can get accomplished 18 and these can be addressed and incorporated into a policy recommendation by the end of 19 next month. The next group, in yellow, the immediate policy priorities that may require 20 more time, these are considerations that we recognize may be more controversial, we may 21 need more research on, we may need more community outreach on, so they are certainly 22 priority items, and we should move forward on these immediately, beginning the research 23 outreach and discussion on these, but we’re not confident that these could be included in 24 a late February recommendation. And this is assuming that the preference of Council is 25 for us to come back as quickly as possible with a recommendation at the end of February. 26 Even that, as we stated, probably doesn’t get implemented effectively until middle of May 27 or later. The section in the turquoise is additional priorities and work that the Commission 28 should be involved with. Part of this can be in participation with the task force groups with 29 the partners that staff is working to put together. Some of it, such as the infrastructure 30 improvements, it’s going to be a work in progress. Absolutely there may be 31 recommendations we can include at the end of the month, but it won’t be a complete 32 comprehensive approach. We’ve also listed some matters that really apply to staff and 33 should be out of the policy purview of our Commission. These are listed just as things that 34 we’re thinking about, and things that we now people may bring up, but this is to let you 35 know that we have considered it. Then, the additional considerations are listed as well. 36 Again, this is just the tip of the iceberg. It’s just a starting point for discussion. There’s 37 lots of different nuances on it, things like the additional entry waiver options that includes 38 ideas like free entry days for the park, or having Library passes available for entry that 39 people can pick up. We certainly hear a desire from Council to make the park accessible 40 and certainly consistent with the reasons that the Commission started this discussion on 41 APPROVED Approved Minutes 35 opening up Foothills Park and making it accessible to groups. So, this is a starting point 1 for discussions, and hopefully we can build upon it and make modifications as needed. 2 Anne, I’m ready to turn it back to you now. 3 Chair Cribbs: Just in summary of all of this, we’ve certainly heard, we’ve certainly seen a 4 lot of Foothills Park, and we’ve heard a lot of public input. I think we all appreciate that. 5 We know that there are issues that need to be addressed, and the staff and, I think, the 6 community and the Council is working, along with environmental groups and our task 7 force members to address all those problems, looking towards the future and seeing how 8 we can be better and how we can use that great chart on the left hand side of one of your 9 slides, Jeff, about “leave no trace.” We’re also looking to continue to hear input and 10 preferences for solutions. And also, identifying places where there are unintended 11 consequences. For instance, if we put a limit on the number of visitors, does that include 12 the City Recreation camps? Does it include the Girl Scouts? Does it include people who 13 are making reservations? If we have electronic signage on Page Mill Road, telling when 14 the park is closed and when it’s open, where do cars turn around? If we’re collecting an 15 entry fee, does that push people to park different places where they’re not welcome to park 16 in the neighborhood? There’s always unintended consequences, but I think the thing that’s 17 exciting for me about all of this is that people are out at Foothills Park. They seem to be 18 very happy. They seem to be enjoying what they’re doing and enjoying nature. We have a 19 lot of great partners in this area. We have wonderful staff, who are very interested in 20 making sure that Foothills Nature Preserve gets taken care of in the way it needs to be 21 taken care of and that it’s open to both residents and neighbors. I’d like to stop there and 22 go to public comment. Let me look at my screen and see what’s there. Let’s start with that, 23 public comment. Then we’ll come back to the Ad Hoc for comment and to the full 24 Commission. I think I’d like to go back to that one chart after public comment, just for 25 Commissioners to be thinking as well and address the entry fee, address the annual pass 26 and talk about the limit, the vehicle limit, some specific things to start off our comments. 27 Mr. Do: Our first speaker will be Aram James, to be followed by Julie Beer. 28 Mr. James: Could we have three minutes on this last one, Madam Chair, instead of two? 29 Chair Cribbs: I’ve really given the amount of time we have to discuss. I’d really like to 30 keep it all to two tonight, and then consider changing it for the future. Thank you. 31 Mr. James. Okay. So, when was being a controversial woman a problem? Abolitionist, et 32 cetera? We had one of our speakers say, “It shouldn’t be named after LaDoris, because 33 she’s controversial.” First black female judge in Santa Clara County, head of the 34 Independent Police Auditors, great speaker. I mean, she’s a renaissance woman. I haven’t 35 always agreed with LaDoris. We’re not really good friends. We’ve had our arguments over 36 lots of stuff, but boy, what an extraordinary woman. In any event, also I wanted to let you 37 know AB 3121, the California Reparations Act that was signed by Governor Newsom on 38 APPROVED Approved Minutes 36 September 30th, we need to make this park free to East Palo Altoians. All of these 1 exclusions that have come all of a sudden sound to me very much like we’re trying to 2 invite litigation over excluding African Americans from East Palo Alto and other people 3 of color from that area. You’re inviting more litigation if you push this stuff. I’ve made a 4 public records act to ask how many tickets have been given since December 17th, and the 5 demographics of them. I know our Palo Alto police, not only the Rangers, but the police 6 have been coming up to assist, and I’ll bet you – I hope I’m wrong – that there’s been a 7 racially discriminatory enforcement up there, that we’re enforcing these laws now against 8 people of color. Let’s find out if that’s right or if I’m wrong. This is like a poll tax. We’re 9 going to give people the right to vote, and then we’re going to take it away by charging 10 them too much. Really think about this. Read the Reparations Act. There’s a nine-member 11 Commission. Palo Alto owes the African American community a whole lot. It’s time to 12 think about that. I want to also know – I’ve put into my public records act – are the Rangers 13 all white? Nothing wrong with that. I’m a white guy, but I’d like to see some diversity, so 14 that when people of color come up there, they don’t just see white faces. Maybe they’ve 15 got black Rangers up there. Maybe they’ve got white Rangers up there. Let me know. 16 There is a lot that we’ve got to discuss about race and reparations with this Commission. 17 Thank you. I think you gave a great start, Madam Commissioner, to tonight, and I hope 18 we go three minutes next time. A little more democracy is always a good thing. 19 Mr. Do: Thank you, Aram. Our next speaker is Julie Beer, to be followed by Rebecca 20 Eisenburg. 21 Ms. Beer: Hello again. I just wanted to tell Mr. Anderson I thought his presentation was 22 really good, very comprehensive. It’s a really good idea to have large maps in the park. 23 We’ve noticed that a lot of the new visitors are looking at their smart phones, and they’re 24 really confused. They can’t tell what is a one-way trail and that sort of thing. I love the 25 idea of the big maps. I like that idea of removing the hillside barbecue sites because of the 26 fire danger. Another thing, I like the idea of an annual fee, with some discounts for seniors, 27 low income and possibly students. I remember Greer Stone was suggesting that. We have 28 run into problems lately with people not wearing masks on the trail. I hope that that is 29 emphasized, either at the front gate or on the signs. I want to make sure, also, that no bikes 30 are on the trails, because if you look at the start of the Toyon Trail, there’s just a teeny, 31 little sign that has a bike with a cross through it. I never saw bikes in the park before maybe 32 six months ago, and I was almost run off the Chamise Trail by a bike, which brings up 33 another thing. I hope the Chamise Trail could become one-way. I also want to emphasize 34 no harassing of wildlife. Thank you, Lydia Kou, for the 400 to 500 limit on park visitors. 35 That seems good. Then we can have more peace and quiet in the park. I hope people respect 36 the one-way signs. I also don’t want to have dogs off-leash. One person wrote into Palo 37 Alto Online yesterday. He said, “Is it okay if I bring my two pit bulls into the park to chase 38 things?” Aye-yi-yi. People said, “No, no, no, no, no.” Those are some of my ideas, and I 39 also saw that one Council Member had talked about putting up fences to keep people from 40 APPROVED Approved Minutes 37 walking on the hillsides. I was just wondering if that is going to be followed up on. Thank 1 you very much. 2 Mr. Do: Thank you, Julie. Our next speaker is Rebecca Eisenburg, to be followed by 3 Winter Dellenbach. 4 Ms. Eisenburg: This is about the entrance fees, and I want to urge you that as Aram said, 5 entrance fees are considered in many contexts polling taxes under the United States 6 Constitution, which actually reminds me that someone needs to respond to Julie Beers’ 7 incorrect argument before. She said that LaDoris Cordell was a person that forced the City 8 to open the park. Actually, the person who forced the City to open the park were the 9 framers of the United States Constitution, because it was not any individual, except it was 10 actually the 14th and 1st Amendments of the United States Constitution that forced the City 11 of Palo Alto to open the park, and if Ms. Beer has a problem with the United States 12 Constitution I think she should write to her Senator and State Representative in order to 13 amend the Constitution further, but right now we are in a situation where the 14th 14 Amendment is the law of the land, and I hope she can wrap her mind around that it is the 15 law. So, also I urge [inaudible, distortion] close look at this [inaudible, distortion] that was 16 signed with [inaudible, distortion] as that actually names very specific conditions that will 17 put the City into breach of the settlement. If the City goes into breach of the settlement, 18 the City will be responsible for all of the attorney’s fees, leading up to the settlement, as 19 the standard in California. [inaudible, distortion] said in a Council meeting [inaudible, 20 distortion] $10 million. So please don’t break the settlement. The settlement, of course, 21 prohibits entry fees by entry. The one exception is that it does allow vehicle parking fees, 22 which of course, is what the City Council did approve, not an entry fee. Also, to Ms. Beers, 23 bikes clearly are allowed in certain places in Foothills Park. If she would like to amend 24 that, she should probably go through the process of, again, writing her City Council 25 Member, asking for the law to be changed. But, asking the law to be changed in this 26 context, is not appropriate. Thank you very much, and [inaudible, distortion] oppose any 27 entry fees. Thank you. 28 Mr. Do: Thank you, Rebecca. Our next speaker is Winter Dellenbach, to be followed by 29 Mark Weiss. 30 Ms. Dellenbach: Yes, of course, we will have an entrance fee. We should have an entrance 31 fee. Having an annual pass would be really great. If you had an $80 annual pass, and you 32 had a $6 fee, just a daily use fee, I’m doing the math, an annual pass, you could get in 13 33 times, if you had an $80 annual pass, just to show what a reasonable annual pass that would 34 be. A lot of people would be wanting an annual pass. That would be great, and it would be 35 a really efficient thing. It would take a lot less time and labor from staff to deal with an 36 annual fee, and people would really be happy to have it, so I’m all about offering an annual 37 fee of, say, $80 – a 25-percent discount, seniors, low income people, so that people are not 38 APPROVED Approved Minutes 38 excluded. That would be really great. We need a penalty clause, because if people aren’t 1 paying fees for access in the park, then you need a penalty clause, and that’s only 2 reasonable. This is what other parks do in our local area, other preserves, so that will be 3 needed. In terms of number of cars, number of people, you need to also count, of course, 4 people of camps, people of picnickers, all the people using the park have to be somehow 5 proportionately included into that maximum number. What the maximum number is, what 6 the right number is, I don’t know. Right now, it’s maximum 500. Should it be increased 7 somewhat for you to get a better gauge of how the maximum should be set? I don’t know. 8 Thank you. 9 Mr. Do: Thank you, Winter. Our next speaker is Mark Weiss, to be followed by Shani 10 Kleinhaus. 11 Mr. Weiss: Hello again, Commissioners and staff. I want to briefly address the meta point 12 raised by a previous speaker about participation in democracy, and I want to point out 13 about the time limit here, with due respect, Chair. I want to point out that at the 1960 14 Olympics, the leading American swimmer in the 200 meter breaststroke was, in fact, the 15 same Anne Warner Cribbs who we have tonight, and her time was two minutes and 55 16 seconds. So, I want to say that maybe in honor of her history, she should extend to three 17 minutes, or two minutes and 55 seconds, our ability to participate in this discussion. More 18 to the point, maybe it takes me longer. It certainly takes me longer than three minutes to 19 swim 200 meters breaststroke. So, some of us are not that succinct, but I will try to be brief 20 with the remaining 58 seconds. I want to say, this is a horrible idea. I expect more from 21 Council. I expect more from Commissioners. I expect more from leadership. This sounds 22 like a poll tax. This sounds like a regressive tax on poor, middle class, Redwood City, East 23 Palo Alto people. That’s what they’re going to think this is about. Maybe at the worst, 24 make a donation optional, or a sliding scale. No one should be turned away from Foothills 25 Park because they don’t have $6. People are offended by the sign that says, “Residents 26 only.” You don’t think they’re going to be offended by being turned away for not having 27 $6? What a disgrace. Why don’t we tax large corporations, like Tesla, the $200 billion, 28 trillion dollar, whatever they are? This is ridiculous. Please, tell Council to take their 29 acorns out of their whatever. Thank you. 30 Mr. Do: Thank you, Mark. Our next speaker is Shani Kleinhaus. 31 Ms. Kleinhaus: Good evening, again. Shani Kleinhaus with Santa Clara Audubon Society. 32 I wanted to ask, what happened to the last Park Master Plan recommendation to have a 33 resource management plan for Foothills? Is that going to be folded into the additional work 34 that the Commission is doing? And what type of public participation is there going to be? 35 There was some discussion that it would be done inhouse because the resources are known 36 to local residents. I am interested in that resource management plan and would like to 37 know what happened with that. One of the things that is on your list for intermediate future 38 APPROVED Approved Minutes 39 discussions and obviously will be controversial is the dogs. I take my dogs up there on 1 weekdays only, because weekends are not allowed, and thinking that maybe kind of like 2 what the Mid Pen is doing – limit the number of dogs, rather than…Because, just like 3 people, dogs also have an impact, and maybe there’s a way to just temporarily until there 4 is a plan, say, “Okay, no more than two dogs per car,” or something like that. Lastly, I do 5 think we need signs on the bottom of the hill, so people will not drive up there and it should 6 say when the park is full or close to full, and also on weekends, no dogs. Because people 7 get there with dogs and then they’re turned around. So, I think that’s important for people 8 to know before they spend a lot of gas and pollute the air with emissions, just to be turned 9 around. Thank you. 10 Mr. Do: Thank you, Shani. Chair Cribbs, that concludes the speakers for our topic. 11 Chair Cribbs: Great. Thank you so very much, and thanks to the speakers as well. I’d ask 12 that we put the chart back up that is titled, “Foothills Nature Preserve interim entry fee and 13 visitor limit.” If we can get that up and before I go to the Commission, Council Member 14 Kou, did you have your hand up at some point and I missed you again? Okay, thank you. 15 I just wanted to make sure, so I apologize if I did. Let’s go to the Ad Hocs first and then 16 come back around to the Commission. I’d love to get peoples’ comments and thoughts on 17 the daily entry fee. Let’s just go to the daily entry fee, and then we’ll go to the annual entry 18 pass, and then we’ll go to the visitor limit. If we can discuss those three things tonight, I 19 think it will be a really good start, and then we’ll keep one slot for other important 20 comments that we want to put on the list. If we can start with the Ad Hoc, maybe with 21 Commission LaMere, talking about the daily entry fee. When we look at the chart, the way 22 that Jeff put it together, you can see the current status, the staff recommendation, the City 23 Council action, should there be any adjustment in the City Council action for us to suggest 24 any adjustment? And then, the details. So, can we see if we can put that chart up, so we 25 can all look at it? 26 [technical difficulty with Zoom] 27 Chair Cribbs: Okay, maybe while we work on that we can get the discussion started about 28 the daily entry fee. Commission LaMere, would you mind kicking that off, please? 29 Commission LaMere: Sure. First I want to thank Daren and staff for all of the time and 30 work that they have put into this. There’s been a tremendous amount of hours put into this, 31 and additionally thank all of the volunteers and the stakeholder group. One thing that this 32 shows is how much people care about the park. The staff is doing everything they can to 33 preserve the park and to keep it open to people to allow access. But it’s the staff that’s 34 doing it. It’s the volunteers. It’s the Rangers, and without that, none of this happens, so we 35 need to keep them in mind with everything that we’re doing with this. In regard to the 36 entry fee, I am in favor of an entry fee at this time. I think a $6 entry fee is fair; however, 37 I would like to mention that we don’t want to forget how this all began, in terms of when 38 APPROVED Approved Minutes 40 we spoke about a pilot project. Maybe it was two years ago, but initially it began as an 1 idea to try to help out and serve the underserved populations, both in Palo Alto and that 2 border our community through getting young students up into the park and exposing them 3 to nature and to allow more people to use the park that didn’t have access to nature. So, I 4 do appreciate the comments made by the speakers in terms of thinking about how do we 5 help those that cannot afford it? We have spoke in the Ad Hoc about different ideas of, 6 having the idea of how do we have outreach to East Palo Alto, or how do we create, 7 whether it’s passes or something, that are accessed through the schools in those 8 communities? But I am at this time in favor of a vehicle fee, but also to keep in mind – 9 and I don’t know how quickly we can act on the other parts of helping out those that can’t 10 afford it, although I know we have a no-fee for volunteers or people who are on service. I 11 think we might be able to figure that out. I don’t know how much staff time that takes, or 12 how we do that. Thank you. 13 Chair Cribbs: Thank you very much. Commissioner Olson – another member of the Ad 14 Hoc committee? 15 Commissioner Olson: Thank you. I do think that our hands are tied on the fee question, 16 generally, because we were asked to have a proposal that would be revenue neutral for the 17 City at this time. So, our hands are tied. On that front, we need a fee. The fee also helps 18 with keeping the numbers down in the park, but I do think if we’re going to have a daily 19 entry fee, it really needs to be paired with an annual pass. A lot of folks that have written 20 in or even spoken today are very frequent visitors, and by the time we come up with all of 21 the details around discounts, et cetera, people could have paid for an annual pass a number 22 of times over. Or a consideration that we got an email that we hadn’t considered in Ad 23 Hoc that I thought was interesting was shortening the hours of collection, so that people 24 who are the early birds and come really early and get their walk out the way for the day 25 don’t pay the fee. I thought that was an interesting one to entertain. But, I think my 26 perspective on the fee is that we need one, but I think when we have one, we also need a 27 way for those who come frequently to get an annual pass. Then, I also want to thank staff, 28 because they’re really in the middle of all this, and we’re throwing things at them left and 29 right. I think the opening of the park right as holidays were hitting and people had all this 30 time and excitement, there was a lot of busyness and people were excited to come, but 31 didn’t really quite know where to go and in the number of times that I’ve been visiting 32 during this period, it really was that few weeks that felt like we really needed to quickly 33 get a handle on what’s going on up there. But in the times that I’ve gone since, in the last 34 couple of weeks, it does feel like things are much more under control, things are much 35 more orderly, and I really want to commend staff for all they’ve done to get the signs up 36 and get people around, to guide people where they should go. Thank you. 37 Chair Cribbs: Thank you, Jackie. Commissioner Brown? 38 APPROVED Approved Minutes 41 Commissioner Brown: Just to clarify, we’re only talking about the entry fee at this point, 1 correct? 2 Chair Cribbs: Yes, entry fee. 3 Commissioner Brown: Okay. I have more of a holistic comment on it because I’m coming 4 into a – 5 Chair Cribbs: No that’s good. 6 Commissioner Brown: Do you want me to reserve for later? 7 Chair Cribbs: No, no. Go ahead. 8 Commissioner Brown: Okay, I feel like, because I’m coming in – 9 Chair Cribbs: You shouldn’t. We appreciate – 10 Commissioner Brown: The cake’s already partially baked, so I guess in looking at this and 11 reading a lot of the feedback and listening to the Council conversation, it seems like there 12 was a lot of interest, as well as some resistance against, the reservation system, so I would 13 just encourage us to move that up in the priority level and consider that sooner rather than 14 later, because I think the reservation system has been proven in other facilities, similar to 15 Foothills Nature Preserve, as well as other parks that have been impacted during the 16 COVID pandemic. Just one example that I read is the Highline in New York City, which 17 is not at all like the open space preserve; I understand that – but they were inundated with 18 visitors from COVID, and so they added a reservation system. For them it was free, so 19 they were able to track who was visiting. During peak hours only, so like the email about 20 the early birds, if you came at a non-peak time – so either earlier in the day or later in the 21 day – you did not need a reservation, but there were time staggered reservations throughout 22 the peak hours, and that was how they were able to make sure that social distancing was 23 going on. And they were able to catch the user before they went and were able to deliver 24 critical information, which I think would be helpful for Foothills in particular, with respect 25 to dog use, or where you can bike, knowing where to look at maps. Maybe they could print 26 them out beforehand or download them on their phones, so it would be a way to catch the 27 user early on. I think it’s a little bit less of a blunt tool than the fee on its own, because 28 you’re sort of able to toggle a little bit better. I understand the need for the fee in terms of 29 the deterring behavior, but I just would consider to discuss or reevaluate, or maybe you 30 guys could educate me on the decision around the reservation system. Thanks. 31 Chair Cribbs: Thank you. Commissioner Reckdahl, your ideas about the fee? Thoughts? 32 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yes, I think we should have the fee. A daily fee I think is 33 appropriate. I also do have some reservations about the inaccessibility that it suggests. A 34 APPROVED Approved Minutes 42 couple ways around that would be, one is the library pass. We’ve talked about that before. 1 I think that’s a reasonable idea. Having a monthly free day, where the first Saturday of 2 every month is free and then if the $6 really is a hurdle for them, they can at least have one 3 day a month when they can come in. Another option would be the twilight. I’m not quite 4 as keen about early risers getting a discount, because they could stay all day and take a 5 spot from everyone else, but the twilight, if you come in two hours before the park, you 6 have two hours, you know that you’re not going to displace anyone. So, having a lower 7 price for twilight, or even possibly free, I think that would be a possibility to add equity. 8 So yeah, I think overall we definitely want an admission. What I struggle with is whether 9 it’s just for cars, or whether it’s also for pedestrians and bicycles. That’s the hard part. This 10 is a park, and having someone on a bicycle coming in a park for free seems the right thing 11 to do, but I really am concerned that people will be biking, will be taking the cars up, 12 parking nearby and then biking in. They’re doing that right now when there’s no fee. 13 They’re going to do it even more so when there is a fee. So, I think we have to consider…I 14 have a question for Council Member Kou. At the Council meeting when they discussed 15 this, this came up and I thought the Council was going to include that in the motion, but it 16 was not included in the motion. Do you remember why that was not? Was it just the fact 17 that it was just before midnight? Is that why it was not in the motion? 18 Council Member Kou: I think that needed further discussion, and there was from both 19 sides, there were some that didn’t want to count the bike and pedestrian numbers. And 20 also, I believe staff had mentioned that bicyclists, the parking and having them access into 21 the park, they didn’t want them to cue up where the cars are, which could cause another 22 problem there, because there’s already cars cued up on the road. So, I think that was 23 something that we might have decided without saying so, leaving it for Parks and Rec to 24 determine what would be the better way to go. 25 Commissioner Reckdahl: Okay. I guess we have two ways of doing it. One is to put a fee 26 on the pedestrians and bicycles, and then consider rolling them back later. Or, not putting 27 it on and adding it later if needed. I would be inclined to start with it and roll it back if 28 we’re not having problems, but overall, yes, I agree a daily fee would be appropriate. 29 Chair Cribbs: Okay, good. Thank you. Commissioner Moss? 30 Commissioner Moss: Yes, I have a number of comments about fees and visitor limits. 31 Having been at the park many times, especially on weekdays, I absolutely feel that we 32 should start with a 400-person limit. I understand what the other Commissioner said about 33 starting with a 500 limit and what Daren said about the 500 limit being manageable. 34 Chair Cribbs: Commissioner Moss, could I interrupt you for a second? I wanted to get 35 through this just hearing about the Commissioners, in favor or fees or not in favor of fees? 36 So, if you could speak about that, and then we’re going to go around again, because we 37 need to also address the discussion about the visitor limit. Thank you. 38 APPROVED Approved Minutes 43 Commissioner Moss: Okay. I absolutely believe we have to have a fee. I also, when I look 1 at the soccer teams and the pickleball and the Enjoy catalog and the Rinconada pool, and 2 the Arts Center and the theaters and the camps, every single one of those groups pays a 3 fee to participate, to try to be somewhat revenue neutral, or least help the City out. So, if 4 you use something and you love it, you should pay for it. Also, I noticed that the vast 5 majority of people there are neighbors, they’re Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, San Francisco 6 even shows up, and those people can afford a $6 fee, so what we had planned a long time 7 ago was outreach – tours, classroom coming in, volunteer/work parties, many different 8 ways to get a focused targeted demographic to come in to the park. I don’t want people to 9 say, to have to say that, “Oh, here comes a car with African Americans. Oh, you can go 10 on ahead, because we know you can’t afford $6.” That would be terrible. That is not in the 11 spirit of the lawsuit or anything. So, we must have a fee. We must be able to pay for this 12 increase in waste collection and bathroom cleaning and Rangers and all this other stuff, so 13 absolutely think we need a fee. 14 Chair Cribbs: Thank you very much. Vice Chair Greenfield? 15 Vice Chair Greenfield: Thank you. I certainly agree that, given the increased new 16 operation expenses, with the staffing and the new infrastructure demands that are going to 17 include new split rail fencing, signage, parking area adjustments, connector pathways for 18 pedestrians and major restroom restoration, collecting a fee is necessary, particularly on 19 the backdrop of the City financial crisis, with more belt tightening coming this fiscal year. 20 As far as a reservation system, that’s something we should consider immediately, but 21 based on some preliminary conversations, it does sound like it’s going to be difficult to 22 implement effectively, given the visitor model that we have. We can end up with having 23 more reservations available on a given day than the park would allow, so people could 24 actually show up at the park with a reservation and not be allowed in. So, there’s some 25 fundamental problems with that. The fees that we’re suggesting are consistent with 26 neighboring regional open space areas – Santa Clara County parks and San Mateo County 27 parks – so I think staff has done a good job with the recommendation. Thank you. 28 Chair Cribbs: Thank you very much. From my perspective as a member of the Ad Hoc 29 from a year ago, I was not in favor of a fee, but after COVID and our budget crisis, I 30 changed my mind, and at our last Ad Hoc Commission meeting, I was in favor of a $10 31 fee, because it would be easy. There would be no change needed. So, I’m okay with a $6 32 fee per vehicle. I think that it’s a good thing to have the same daily fee for residents and 33 non-residents, and definitely we don’t want to have a fee for volunteers on the day that 34 they’re serving the park. I think that the no fee for bikes and pedestrians still needs a little 35 bit more discussion the part of the Commission next time we meet, but as I summarize it, 36 it looks to me like the Commission is in favor of the $6 per vehicle fee, with a little bit 37 more discussion. I hope that I’ve stated that properly. Let’s move now to the next box, 38 which is the annual entry pass. Currently, we don’t have one. The staff recommended a 39 APPROVED Approved Minutes 44 range for non-residents, and with a 25-percent discount for residents and then a 25-percent 1 discount for seniors or low income folks. There was no action at the City Council has been 2 discussed earlier, but I think it would be good to recommend that this be part of the new 3 ordinance, because it’s going to take a long time to take effect. So, we’ll talk a little bit 4 about an annual pass, and see how the Commission feels about that, and the particular 5 discounts. Vice Chair, why don’t you start out? 6 Vice Chair Greenfield: Sure. I support the annual entry pass. The community is absolutely 7 going to be interested in this. The numbers of 80, 60 and 45 work out the best in terms of 8 applying 25 percent discounts, so that’s why I think I would recommend going with those 9 numbers and with the staff recommendation. I am hopeful that this is something that 10 Council will consider adding to a potential emergency ordinance next week. 11 Chair Cribbs: Thank you. Commissioner Brown? 12 Commissioner Brown: I like the idea of an annual pass. I think it encourages people to 13 visit the park and understand where to go, what protocols are, and they can sort of serve 14 as ambassadors. I don’t know what kind of email blast we can get on, but maybe we could 15 help them encourage to volunteer or to just spread some of the information around about 16 our practices. 17 Chair Cribbs: Thank you. Commissioner Olson? 18 Commissioner Olson: I’m very much in support of the annual pass. I think it’s critical to 19 have that if we have a daily entry fee. 20 Chair Cribbs: Thank you. Commissioner Reckdahl? 21 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yes. Definitely, and I think the numbers are about right the 80, 22 60, 45 I think is the right spread. Two issues. One is I think we should specify this is for 23 non-commercial vehicles. I don’t think we want this entry fee to be used for someone 24 who’s bringing busloads of people up there, so I think in the law we should specify non-25 commercial. The other is transferable. I looked around at some of the county parks, and 26 most of them the pass is tied to a specific person, so if you buy the pass and your wife 27 wants to go, you have to be with her, or she can’t use your pass. In the East Bay, instead 28 of having it tied to a person, it’s tied to a car. That means if you have two cars, you have 29 to buy two passes. Down in Monterey what they do is it’s a household. If you buy the pass, 30 you specify four people in the household, and any of those four people can use the pass, 31 so I think that’s some of the devil in the details, like is it tied to a person or tied to a car? 32 Or just a hanger than anyone can use? 33 Chair Cribbs: That’s all good information, Keith, and really good comments. But in 34 general, you support proposing that we should have a pass as part of this? 35 APPROVED Approved Minutes 45 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yes, I agree, and the fact that you can get a low income discount, 1 I think, is critical. We’re not getting a low income at the gate, and we’re not giving a 2 resident discount at the gate. Everyone just pays a flat fee, but having a low income on the 3 annual pass I think is a very good thing. 4 Chair Cribbs: Great. Thank you. Commissioner Moss? 5 Commissioner Moss: I agree with everything that people have said, and we should have 6 an annual pass. 7 Chair Cribbs: Okay, well I’m glad we got through that, and I think that it’s appropriate 8 consensus to have an annual pass. There are some devils in the details, for sure, but I think 9 in general, having an annual pass would be great, and I think it’s consistent with our 10 neighbors, as is the vehicle fee. Council Member Kou, do you have any comment? 11 Council Member Kou: No. I’m absorbing everything that you are saying, so thank you. 12 Chair Cribbs: Good. I just want to make sure that I don’t skip you again, so - 13 Council Member Kou: No, not at all. 14 Chair Cribbs: I’m just learning the system here. 15 Council Member Kou: Thank you. 16 Chair Cribbs: Let’s go to the visitor limit now. I’d like to ask Daren to, just once more, 17 explain the visitor limit, just in case people have questions. 18 Mr. Anderson: Thank you, Commission Cribbs. Where we’re at right now is at 750. This 19 is based on the previous Council action, and this change that was discussed at the last 20 Council meeting that will be discussed again on February 1st, would change that limit to 21 400, not to exceed 500. Again, that would take place, if Council approves it, the following 22 day we would implement that. It’s effective immediately. 23 Chair Cribbs: Okay, thank you. Let’s start out with the Ad Hoc again. Jackie? 24 Commissioner Olson: Yes, I am in support of having of range like that. Ideally, we could 25 have a little broader range, but I’m happy with any kind of range and with that discretion. 26 Thank you. 27 Chair Cribbs: So, just to put you on the spot here. In your range, what would the numbers 28 be? 29 APPROVED Approved Minutes 46 Commissioner Olson: I would say probably 400, up to maybe 600 or more, because the 1 park, the number of people that can fit in the park is quite a few. The problem is that they 2 cluster in a few different areas. Like, around the lake and on the Vista Point. If people keep 3 driving all the way down to the end, that parking lot back there is completely empty, and 4 there’s not a soul around, and they’re beautiful spaces back there, but people aren’t making 5 it all the way down there. So, there could be situations where you’ve got groups and a lot 6 of people that have actually made their way all the way down to the end, and we’re over 7 400 or 500 people, but it actually is not impacting the safety of the people in the park, or 8 isn’t having that same feel when they all try to cluster in a few small spots. I think giving 9 staff more of a range there, so that they can manage without having to close it down when 10 it’s really not an unsafe situation I think would be good. 11 Chair Cribbs: Thank you very much. Commission LaMere? 12 Commission LaMere: I am in favor of the staff recommendation of 500 to 750, and as 13 Commissioner Olson noted, there is ample space in the park, and we may need to do a 14 better job of, when people drive in, directing them to those spaces for parking and so forth. 15 Obviously, we need to address some parking issues and how we number parking spots or 16 stripe parking spots, or whatever that may entail, but I’m in favor of providing access, and 17 I do think the park is a rather large park and would like to see it open to use that staff 18 recommendation as our guide. Thank you. 19 Chair Cribbs: Thank you. Commissioner Moss? 20 Commissioner Moss: I definitely would prefer that it start at a 400 range and a maximum 21 of somewhere around 500 or 600 at the very most, and when Daren says that they can 22 manage 500, Commission LaMere just pointed out, and also Commissioner Olson, that 23 managing is extremely difficult and I don’t believe. I don’t believe that they can manage 24 to push people off of Vista Hill and away from the lake and away from the Orchard Glen 25 parking lot and push them to the back of the park. I would rather err on the side of nature 26 and the preserve, and keep it as low as possible. I want to make one more general comment, 27 and that is, I thank the City Council for the wisdom to let staff manage the details on a 28 day-to-day basis, rather than legislating these numbers, because we would come to the 29 City Council every week with another issue that has to be managed. So, thank you very 30 much, Commission Kou, for allowing that to happen. 31 Chair Cribbs: Thank you, David, very much. Commissioner Brown? 32 Commissioner Brown: I am leaning towards accepting the staff recommendation of the 33 500 to 750 an allowing staff to make the call on what that should be with the comment that 34 all of this is sort of unknown. It’s only been open for a certain period of time, and we’re 35 going to eventually get to really nice weather when everybody’s going to want to be out 36 in the park, and so really considering the impacts, the additional costs are really largely 37 APPROVED Approved Minutes 47 unknown of what the impacts to the park is going to cost from a monetary perspective, but 1 also from a natural resources perspective. So, I don’t want to micromanage staff in any 2 way and allow them to make those decisions, because I feel like they know best in terms 3 of making that decision, but maybe some additional information on what would trigger the 4 change in that threshold from staff, just for transparency with the public. I think that would 5 be helpful moving forward. 6 Chair Cribbs: Good idea. Commissioner Reckdahl? 7 Commissioner Reckdahl: A question when you’re debating what limit to use is what are 8 we trying to optimize? Are we trying to optimize public enjoyment or are we trying to 9 optimize protection of nature? I think we have to weight it more towards protection of 10 nature. This is a preserve. This is not a park. So, that said, 750 makes me very nervous. I 11 would want a limit – and again, I like the fact that Daren can set this. I trust Daren to be 12 responsible to the public and also to the nature – so I agree with what Vice Chair Greenfield 13 said, having no lower limit. So, I would say from 0 to 600 would be my range. And if 14 Daren hits 400 and still thinks there’s impacts, and he wants to lower it, I think he should 15 have the freedom to lower it. I don’t think he’ll have to, but I think he should have the 16 freedom to do that. But I think I would target 400 to start with. I would rather start too 17 small and ratchet it up, because there’s multiple things happening here. You have learning 18 curves going on. People have never been in this park, so as time goes on we may be able 19 to digest more people. But right now, we’ve already swamped the park. I don’t want to do 20 this again. I’d rather start too low, have things be too quiet and too calm, and ratchet it up, 21 than to have to come back and debate this. So again, 0 to 600 would be my range, and 22 target 400 for an initial number. 23 Chair Cribbs: I think that’s all the Commissioners. I didn’t leave anybody out, I don’t 24 think. Everybody had a chance to speak? 25 Vice Chair Greenfield: Could I speak, please? 26 Chair Cribbs: Yes, of course. 27 Vice Chair Greenfield: Thank you. I just wanted to clarify a couple things. One, that the 28 staff recommendation originally was a starting point of 500, but to be adjustable, not to 29 exceed 750, but there was no lower limit. So, it would be helpful if the Commissioners 30 that align themselves with the staff recommendation could clarify they’re okay with going 31 below 500 – so 0 to 750, effectively, or 500 to 750 is what they intended. Also, I would 32 point out that based on later conversations with Daren, batting around numbers, what’s the 33 appropriate upper limit to use. In Daren’s opinion, 650 was a better number for full 34 flexibilities. It’s probably too high, but we don’t know. Staff can adjust it quickly and 35 easily. I agree with the comments that it’s better to start low and increase it, but I think the 36 number may be getting adjusted fairly dynamically, starting lower and moving up was 37 APPROVED Approved Minutes 48 definitely what I heard from Council when they were considering the subject. I think there 1 is concern that 400 might be too low to start out, but if it is too low, it can be changed 2 quickly and moved up. I would support, as is proposed on the table here, to have a limit 3 from 0 to 650, but with staff being able to adjust it and starting at 400 or 500. 4 Chair Cribbs: So, would that be a recommendation that everybody on the Commission 5 could live with? Any objections? 6 Commissioner Reckdahl: Going above 600 does make me nervous. Daren, you’re 7 confident that you can assess the…? Because as we’re getting up towards 650, we’re pretty 8 close to where we are right now, which is causing problems. That makes me think that you 9 think the problems are rather minor at this point. 10 Mr. Anderson: Thanks, Commissioner Reckdahl. I guess where I’m at is, we’re looking at 11 some alterations to the park in terms of improving the parking situation, putting in areas 12 where pedestrians can walk off the main road and be on a pedestrian trail in many areas, 13 and long term, maybe there’s infrastructure improvements in the lower part of the park 14 that draw and disperse some of that usage around. For example, the 7.7 acres becomes 15 more interesting to folks if we do a renovation project that we had talked about for many 16 years. I guess where I stand is it would be nice to have the option to go a little bit higher 17 if the park would allow it. As to the question about what would be those thresholds? Boy, 18 I think that’s a really thoughtful and good thing to be considering. It’s really up to the City 19 Manager, with staff input, so the Rangers, of course, making daily observations on what’s 20 going on and looking at multiple threshold points – visitor safety certainly one that we’ve 21 been…that was just so obvious right off at the beginning. Impacts to the resources – our 22 natural areas, our trailheads. Are social trials becoming issues? Are trash impacts being 23 problematic? Certainly, that would be part of the analysis, and I’m sure a few others, 24 especially in cooperation with our partners, Grassroots Ecology, who are at the site almost 25 every single day, and of course, are looking at it from a very environmental and habitat 26 and wildlife perspective. 27 Commissioner Reckdahl: Gven that, I’m happy with 0 to 650. 28 Chair Cribbs: Everybody else happy with that? I think that that was a useful discussion, 29 and we had some good suggestions. I’d like to see if we could put the…I know it’s getting 30 a little bit late, but I’d like to do one more pass, and put up the multi-colored “Foothills 31 Issues and Policy Considerations.” Can you do that? 32 Vice Chair Greenfield: Can you see it now? 33 Chair Cribbs: Yes, thank you. Perfect, that was great. I think it would be useful for the 34 Commission to look at this, the part in green, the immediate policy priorities. These are 35 some of the details that are going to need to be talked about and resolved as we go through 36 APPROVED Approved Minutes 49 this. I think that, for me, if the other members of the Commission have anything they want 1 to add to this list, I think this is a good time, between now and our next meeting. Or, 2 actually in the next week, to make some additions or send some emails either to Vice Chair 3 or me or Daren, if that’s appropriate. Maybe it has to go all to Daren, right? 4 Vice Chair Greenfield: Chair, could I add really quickly that this document will become 5 part of the public record and will be shared with the Commission, and scrolling down here 6 you can just get an idea of the details that are included with each of the items. So this will 7 kind of help jumpstart the full Commission with all the details that we have.. 8 Chair Cribbs: Yeah, that’s great. Thank you for that. I just want to make sure that the full 9 Commission has the ability and opportunity to add their thoughts. This is a great trigger, 10 because it’s a lot of things that we didn’t think about at the beginning, and then we started 11 to think about it, and I heard some new comments tonight that I really appreciated. So 12 that’s all good. 13 Commission LaMere: Vice Chair, will you email this out to the Commission? 14 Vice Chair Greenfield: Right now? 15 Commission LaMere: No, not right now. Just at some point. 16 Vice Chair Greenfield: It will go through staff, yes. 17 Commission LaMere: Thank you. 18 Commissioner Moss: I had a similar comment. This is the first I’ve seen of this, and I feel 19 that one Foothills Park subcommittee is absolutely not enough, and this critical year we 20 should have all hands on deck. Which means, that we should probably have two or three 21 or four subcommittees, strictly for chunks of this page. It was so much stuff that the Chair 22 and the Vice Chair had to take care of a lot of this, and it was not even enough for the 23 subcommittee and the Chair and the Vice Chair, so I would like to see this broken up into 24 two or three or four subcommittees, because I have, for instance, lots to say about almost 25 every one of these subjects, and I’m sure that every one of the Commissioners would like 26 to have a role to play. This is a critical issue. 27 Chair Cribbs: David, I think that was very, very well said, and that’s why we’ve got it up 28 here, and that’s what we’re looking forward to do and to discuss. 29 Vice Chair Greenfield: I totally appreciate what Commissioner Moss is saying, and there 30 is a lot ahead of us, and it is difficult to have just three people on an Ad Hoc working on 31 this. That’s why we’re seriously considering meeting more than once per month, 32 particularly next month if we want to get to a recommendation on the 23rd, I think we 33 should be considering meeting again between now and then and having a special meeting 34 APPROVED Approved Minutes 50 dedicated solely to discussing these considerations after people have an opportunity to 1 digest what we’ve put together. We’re obviously taking notes on the other ideas that people 2 have been adding. This is just a starting point. By meeting more often, perhaps we’ll need 3 to meet more often on other months. That’s kind of a way to get the full Commission 4 involved as opposed to farming things out to the Ad Hoc, which certainly serves a role. 5 That’s also why we’re suggesting not having a retreat next month and pushing it out a 6 month. 7 Commissioner Moss: Thank you. That’s why I brought it up, because I noticed that 8 Council Woman Kou has her hand up and has had her hand up for a while. Maybe she 9 doesn’t mean to have it up, but I do think that so many of these items need to be dealt with 10 as soon as possible, because the Council is inundated by the whole issue of Foothills Park. 11 So, for us to bring all hands on deck will speed recommendations to the Council and to 12 staff that wouldn’t otherwise happen in a timely fashion. 13 Chair Cribbs: Thank you. Council Member Kou, I do see your hand is up now. 14 Council Member Kou: Thank you. It was actually when you were discussing the capacity 15 at 650 or 400. I wanted to ask Daren, with that up to 650 people accessing the park, would 16 you still have to pull Rangers from the other open preserves? 17 Mr. Anderson: Yes. We’ll have to continue to do that, even if we stick with 400. The 18 number of closures I anticipate with the 400 range will likely require additional staff to 19 what we have. There are certain days of the week – especially mid-week – where we 20 sometimes have one Ranger for all three open space preserves, and they just kind of rove 21 around, so on those days, during the summer where we could hit capacity, even with the 22 400 range, we might just need two, maybe even three, so we’re still fine tuning what the 23 resource will be needed at each location and working on that, but I anticipate the need for 24 additional staff compared to what we’re currently situated with. 25 Council Member Kou: Okay, and do you anticipate CSD, some of the community services 26 staff will help out at the park? Or at the open preserves, not just Foothill, but the other ones 27 as well? 28 Mr. Anderson: Great question, Council Member Kou. Since the beginning of the 29 pandemic, we’ve received a tremendous amount of support from the rest of CSD and other 30 departments as well. I hope that will continue. I know at some point there are certain 31 transitions where people have to go back to their own jobs. The Community Service 32 officers are one example, where they’ve been dedicating so much time to Foothills, and 33 they have other jobs as well. So oftentimes, they’re having to go back to that. I know our 34 department head, Kristen O’Kane, is very supportive of making sure we have what we 35 need. She has been looking for opportunities for other CSD staff to help out where they 36 can. 37 APPROVED Approved Minutes 51 Council Member Kou: Okay, thank you so much. I was just wondering if we still are going 1 to have to pull…but even at 400, so that really helps me understand it. Thank you, Chair 2 Cribbs. 3 Chair Cribbs: You’re welcome. I’m sorry it took so long. 4 Council Member Kou: No, also I want to thank Commissioner Moss. Thank you both. 5 Chair Cribbs: Okay, so it appears that, Daren, we talked about having a meeting between 6 now and our next regularly scheduled PRC meeting, right? It sounds like people are okay 7 with that. We’ll just maybe leave it to you to see what staff would be available for that 8 meeting. You could provide a date for us, that week of the 10th, I think it is. 9 Mr. Anderson: Certainly, Chair. Catherine and I can confer, along with Department Head, 10 Kristen O’Kane, and find a date that works and send it to the Commission as soon as 11 possible, so we can get it on the books. 12 Commissioner Moss: And I think you should also consider breaking us into littler pieces, 13 so that maybe not all of the Commission is going to be working on all of these items. 14 Because I could see that meeting that you’re talking about, that single meeting, trying to 15 cover all of these items is going to be a very difficult thing to do, even if you had two 16 meetings it might be very difficult to cover all of these. Just something to think about. 17 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah, there is some inefficiency, though, to breaking into 18 smaller groups and you might be better off if you’re willing to do two meetings a month 19 with the whole group, that may be more efficient than going into small meetings and then 20 pow wowing – 21 Chair Cribbs: Having to relay the – 22 Commissioner Moss: Yeah. 23 Chair Cribbs: Well, I think whichever managing way we choose, it is obvious that we need 24 more time to communicate and to make decisions and make recommendations, so it’s great 25 that everybody is interested in being involved and doing that. Daren,, are you thinking we 26 now, on the agenda, move to the Ad Hoc reports and that graph, or is there more that you 27 need from us tonight as a Commission regarding Foothills Park? 28 Mr. Anderson: Thank you, Chair. It’s such a challenging one, because as you’ve all pointed 29 out, there’s so much to get our arms around on this enormous and complex issue. I think 30 the Chair and Vice Chair did a fantastic job of creating this document you see before you, 31 which helps put it in different priority buckets. Even with the good headway we’ve made 32 today, I think there’s still quite a bit to work on, and maybe just some good hard work 33 from the Ad Hoc and the Chair and Vice Chair in between now and that special meeting 34 APPROVED Approved Minutes 52 can help us, but even the discussion, the top one, on our immediate policy priorities, that 1 visitor limit versus vehicle limit – that alone is what we didn’t get to touch on today. Maybe 2 if I can just briefly highlight what that one pertains to. It’s the challenge of actually 3 counting people relative to vehicles. So, this policy on our limit pertains to how many 4 people are in the park at one time, and we’ve never had a good way of ascertaining that. 5 Even when we staff the booth on weekends, we count the people coming in, so they’ll 6 manually count out and make sure that every person that comes in is counted, but what we 7 don’t do – there’s just not enough staff, even when we’ve got two or three up there 8 managing it – to count the people leaving. They don’t slow down. They move real quick, 9 so the real time count of people in the has been – and has always been – problematic. 10 Usually what we’ve done is used multipliers on the vehicles, saying X number of people 11 per vehicle and using that as the qualifier. This bullet point you see at the top there – visitor 12 limit versus vehicle limit – suggests should we be thinking about vehicles as opposed to 13 people? Maybe even both. It’s complex, and I’m not sure I’ve got the best answer for that. 14 It’s certainly one we’ve got to put our heads together and do some work on. I’m not 15 proposing we do it all tonight. I’m just saying there’s just so much to do. 16 Chair Cribbs: Okay, thank you. I think certainly the work that’s been done so far in your 17 report and the PowerPoint, I think has given all the Commissioners a lot of additional 18 things to think about. I think it’s really now top of mind and starting to focus, so that’s 19 good. 20 Vice Chair Greenfield: Excuse me, Chair. Could I just make a suggestion that after we 21 forward this document to the Commission, that they take a look at it and can send some 22 initial comments to Daren, our staff liaison, to work on compiling these. We can perhaps 23 compile the comments and the comments can be adjusting priorities, ideas that we’re 24 missing, fleshing out other details on some of the items, stuff that we could then maybe 25 pass back a new iteration to the full Commission before we meet again, so that we can 26 work more efficiently when we do meet and be able to carve out specific items that we 27 want to talk about in more detail. Some of the things like the pedestrian and bicycle entry 28 fee. These are complex discussions. I know that Daren has said that staff was mixed on 29 their recommendation on what to do on this, and it’s not going to be any easier for us. But, 30 certainly just trying to figure out what’s the most efficient way to move forward between 31 now and our next meeting? Also, I don’t know if any other Commissioners have any 32 comments about just general comments about the proceedings and comments, but I had 33 just a couple. I think the idea of the resource management plan is a great idea, and that’s 34 something we’ve talked about and tried to allude to that by mentioning the environmental 35 monitoring and data collection, but that didn’t really do it full justice, so that’s something 36 that definitely would add on to the list. Also, I think some of the other…it’s great to hear 37 the idea, the student pass, that Council Member Stone mentioned before. I forgot to include 38 that. Finally, the bikes on trails is an issue that we are absolutely aware of. I’ve been up at 39 Foothills a dozen times since the park opened, and I am, unfortunately, seeing an increase 40 APPROVED Approved Minutes 53 of bikes on the trails. It’s a touch nut to crack, but I think people should know that we’re 1 going to figure it out, and really want to do whatever we can to discourage that. It’s against 2 the rules now, and we need to figure out how to enforce it. That’s all I’ve got tonight. 3 Thank you, Chair. 4 Chair Cribbs: I would like to recommend, then, that Daren, if you wouldn’t mind, sending 5 out this list to all the Commissioners tomorrow and if the Commissioners would take a 6 week, or less than a week, and send back your thoughts, ideas, what’s important to you, 7 what keeps you up at night about this, and all those kinds of things, then we can work on 8 compiling that together so that when we all meet – and it looks like the next week is 9 probably appropriate, so that’s the week of the 8th, depending upon when Daren and the 10 staff is available to meeting. Just depending on what’s good for people, then that would 11 give us another two weeks to get to our regularly scheduled meeting. Does that work for 12 people, or not? Sounds reasonable? 13 Commissioner Moss: Yes. 14 Mr. Anderson: And Chair, I can tell you, just from the staff perspective, I’ll make myself 15 available whenever. I’ll be working around the Commission’s needs. 16 Chair Cribbs: That’s not a surprise, Daren. You always do. Thank you very much. I think 17 we’ve had our brain full tonight of Foothills Park issues, and lots to think about, so let’s 18 do what we’ve decided and move on to any additional reports to the Ad Hoc committee. 19 Mr. Anderson: Chair, Council Member Kou had a question. 20 Chair Cribbs: Why can I not remember to look at that? 21 Council Member Kou: It’s okay. I just wanted to ask if you will also be looking at a policy 22 for corporate events at the park? 23 Chair Cribbs: Yes. 24 Council Member Kou: Okay. 25 Chair Cribbs: That’s on our list to discuss. 26 Council Member Kou: Okay, sorry. I didn’t see it. 27 Chair Cribbs: No, no, it’s okay. It’s there, probably on the last page. 28 Council Member Kou: Thank you. 29 Vice Chair Greenfield: It’s hidden under the group permit policy. 30 APPROVED Approved Minutes 54 Council Member Kou: Okay, thank you. The other thing is, this is a preserve nature, and 1 the signage, obviously I hope that you consider not having that many in there, or huge 2 ones, or maybe something that would kind of blend into…made of more natural materials 3 of some sort. It’s just, the two don’t go very well – commercial signage and nature. I just 4 wanted to bring that up, also. 5 Vice Chair Greenfield: I’ve heard Daren voice his concerns about sign pollution, so – 6 Council Member Kou: Right, that one. 7 Vice Chair Greenfield: I’ve also seen new signage that they’re going to add, just like some 8 bikes with a circle/slash in them to put on the trails signage, to add to existing trail signage. 9 I think staff’s doing some great work towards that already. But certainly, appreciate the 10 comments. 11 Council Member Kou: One last thing is I heard from the general public about when they 12 were looking at watching birds and so forth, they actually saw a drone up there, and 13 managed to find somebody in the park. Are drones something that’s allowed in there? 14 Mr. Anderson: They are not. 15 Council Member Kou: Okay, so that’s another. I don’t know if the policy is in place 16 already, but perhaps consideration of the policy of that sort. 17 Mr. Anderson: Yeah, that one is currently in the Municipal Code that they are not allowed. 18 Council Member Kou: Okay, then enforcement. Thank you so much. 19 Vice Chair Greenfield: Are we allowed to shoot down drones? 20 Council Member Kou: I was thinking, you know, our eagle down over at the JMZ, maybe 21 we can train it to go and…Okay, well, thank you so much. It’s an interesting discussion 22 and very good for me to learn from. Thank you. 23 Chair Cribbs: Thank you very much. 24 6. Other Commission Ad Hoc and Liaison Updates 25 Chair Cribbs: Are there any additions to the Ad Hoc committees reports? 26 Commission LaMere: Yeah, I have one addition. I spoke with Sam Kaplinsky. He is the 27 young man who is advocating for the skatepark, this last weekend, so it was after 28 Catherine’s deadline. I think this would fall under the Recreational Opportunities Ad Hoc, 29 which we do need to get together. We haven’t really done as much as we need to with that 30 APPROVED Approved Minutes 55 Ad Hoc, but I think looking at the skatepark, Sam has actually done a lot of work with this 1 and has met with members of the City Council, so he’s really pushing this, and it’s an 2 interesting concept that seems to have a backing of quite a few people. I appreciate all the 3 work that he’s doing on this, and especially as a high school student. 4 Chair Cribbs: Great. Thank you. 5 Mr. Anderson: Commission LaMere, just on that topic, Peter Jensen and I were discussing 6 this a little bit earlier in the meeting, and he’s got some ideas that he thought might be 7 helpful and would be very glad to help engage with Sam on that topic. So maybe when the 8 Ad Hoc gets together, we can make sure Peter joins us, and we can dig into that a little bit 9 and look for opportunities. 10 Commission LaMere: Wow. Thank you very much. Thank you, Peter, and thank you, 11 Daren. 12 Chair Cribbs: Anybody else? 13 Commissioner Reckdahl: I have one more thing to add. North Ventura is wrapping up. It 14 went to PTC two weeks ago, and PTC asked for some more information from staff and 15 they are to come back. PTC isn’t talking much about parks. They agree with the consensus 16 that parks are important, but the point I want to make is that there are two developments 17 now, and neither one of them includes any parks, so the park decision really is being 18 pushed onto the City, and the City is going to have to be aggressive about this, because if 19 we twiddle our thumbs, there’s not going to be land left to buy for parks. They’re talking, 20 the designs that are going to PTC are huge. We’re talking thousands of people, so if we 21 say four acres per thousand people, we might need six acres of park in that area, so we 22 really do need to take the bull by the horns here and show initiative, because if we don’t 23 we’re going to be left out in the cold. Daren, is that something that you need Council 24 direction from? Or is that something that you can just do without direction? 25 Mr. Anderson: I think it’s sort of a mix, Commissioner Reckdahl. We can check in with 26 the Planning and staff and share thoughts and convey messages from our Commission to 27 them. I think we can do that without any additional guidance from anyone else. Beyond 28 that, perhaps we would need more direction. 29 Commissioner Reckdahl: So, if you know the number of people that they are 30 proposing…Now these are just proposals. They’re kind of aspirational, because it’s not 31 like the City is constructing this. The individual developers are, but if the City says, “This 32 is what we expect,” then we should be prepared to have that much park to support that 33 many people, so would you be looking at figuring out payment, how to pay for this? Where 34 to buy it? Where to place it? There’s a lot of issues. 35 APPROVED Approved Minutes 56 Mr. Anderson: I would think that’s absolutely something they should be coming to the 1 Parks and Recreation Commission for, for feedback, and yes, our staff, the CSD staff, 2 would be helping be part of that conversation, identifying ideas where what makes sense 3 to add on to existing parks, what underserved areas are, and of course, our Parks Master 4 Plan has got a lot of that information. 5 Commissioner Reckdahl: You say that Planning should go to you, or Council should go to 6 you? 7 Mr. Anderson: Your question is if they are looking for guidance on how much parkland to 8 add, that that would be an appropriate conversation for this Commission to help weigh in 9 on. 10 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yes, I agree with that. I think that’s just the first step, though. 11 First they have to say, how much parkland do we need? That’s a pretty easy calculation to 12 do. Then next thing is how do you actually accomplish that? That’s really hard to do. So, 13 we know that this needs to be done, but no one is taking the initiative, so who’s supposed 14 to be leading on this? Is this something that you need direction? That Council should be 15 leading, or that Planning should be leading, or that Parks should be leading? 16 Mr. Anderson: Planning is leading that endeavor on the NCVAP. For sure, that’s their 17 program that they’re running, and they’ve consulted with our staff along the way, but we 18 haven’t gotten questions quite as leading as what you’re proposing. If that’s what’s 19 missing, I’m glad to express that to them, and if it doesn’t kind of rise to what you’re 20 expecting, it might be something that Council would want to weigh in on and provide more 21 direction. 22 Commissioner Reckdahl: I think it would be worthwhile for our to have a discussion with 23 Jonathan and sort this out. 24 Commissioner Moss: The limit of a certain number of acres per thousand people, is that 25 open to change? In other words, is it impossible and therefore, why are we trying to do it? 26 Because I did an unofficial survey of Los Altos, and Los Altos Hills and Portola Valley. 27 None of them have city parks, or maybe they have one, one little city park in downtown. 28 They don’t have parks. So, they have thousands of people in those communities with no 29 parks. So, where did we get the idea of a certain number of acres per thousand people? 30 And why do we have it and they don’t? 31 Commissioner Reckdahl: David, you accepted or endorsed the Master Plan, and that was 32 all covered in there. But there’s a standard, a parkland standard, that there’s some national 33 organization recommends, any they recommend four acres per thousand people. That has 34 been a standard in the city for years. Comprehensive Plan endorsed that. Parks Master Plan 35 endorsed that. But we know that right now we’re below three. So, the Council knew that 36 APPROVED Approved Minutes 57 when the Parks Master Plan came and there was a discussion of should we lower this? Are 1 we being unrealistic? And the consensus of the Council was, “Well, if you lower it, you’re 2 just going go lower it again and lower it again,” so the idea was that yes, maybe four is 3 aspirational, but we don’t want to be too realistic, because people always undershoot their 4 requirements. What the Council was telling us then is they don’t want the number of acres 5 per thousand to shrink any more than it is right now. If we’re sitting at, I think, 2.84 or 6 something like that and they’re proposing stuff at NVCAP where it’s less than one acre 7 per thousand, we’re getting ourselves in trouble. 8 Commissioner Moss: This definitely has an impact Foothills Park, for instance, that we 9 are absorbing these thousands of people in Los Altos and Los Altos Hills who want to use 10 Foothills Park as their neighborhood park, so it’s bigger than what you’re saying. 11 Mr. Anderson: I was just going to comment. Unfortunately, this one is not an agendized 12 topic on our agenda, so we should be careful about how much we dig into it tonight. 13 Chair Cribbs: Thank you, Daren. I just want to appreciate Keith for his report in bringing 14 it up so that we can do something about it in the future, so thank you, Keith, very much. 15 Mr. Anderson: And as a follow up, Commissioner Reckdahl, I’ll talk to Kristen and see if 16 we can connect with Planning and try to work on this. 17 Commissioner Reckdahl: Thank you. I’d appreciate that. I think it’s something that people 18 want, but right now it’s falling between the cracks. 19 Chair Cribbs: Okay, anybody else with any report that needs to be part of this? 20 V. TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR February 23, 2021 21 22 Chair Cribbs: Moving to the agenda for February 23rd, I think we know what’s on the 23 agenda, but Daren, what do you have to add? 24 Mr. Anderson: Thanks, Chair. The additional one we have is a discussion on impact fees 25 for the Commission to discuss. We can discuss this more with the Chair and Vice Chair if 26 we think there’s just not space on the February 23rd agenda for that. I can talk to staff, but 27 they have consulted with a consultant, who is making plans to be there, so maybe I could 28 dig into that a little bit more and we could discuss it at an agenda planning meeting. 29 Chair Cribbs: Okay. 30 VI. COMMENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS 31 Chair Cribbs: Any other comments or announcements tonight? I don’t hear any. 32 APPROVED Approved Minutes 58 VIII. ADJOURNMENT 1 Meeting adjourned by motion by Commissioner Moss and second by Commissioner 2 Reckdahl at 10:40 p.m. 3