HomeMy WebLinkAbout2016-09-27 Parks & Recreation Agenda PacketAGENDA IS POSTED IN ACCORDANCE
WITH GOVERNMENT CODE SECTION
54954.2(a) OR SECTION 54956 PARKS AND RECREATION COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING September 27, 2016 AGENDA City Hall Chambers
250 Hamilton 7pm *In accordance with SB 343 materials related to an item on this Agenda submitted to the Commission after distribution of the agenda packet are available for public inspection in the Open Space and Parks Office at 3201 East Bayshore Road during normal business hours. Please call 650-496-6962.
Attention Speakers: If you wish to address the Commission during oral communications or on an item on the agenda,
please complete a speaker’s card and give it to City staff. By submitting the speaker’s card, the Chair will recognize you at
the appropriate time.
I. ROLL CALL II. AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, DELETIONS
III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS Members of the public may address the Commission on any subject not on the agenda. A reasonable time restriction may be imposed at the discretion of the Chair. The Commission reserves the right to
limit oral communications period to 3 minutes.
IV. BUSINESS 1. Approval of Draft Minutes from August 23, 2016 Parks and Recreation Commission Meeting – Chair Lauing – Action – (5 min) ATTACHMENT
2. Review of Aquatics Program Analysis – CSD Staff Jazmin LeBlanc – Discussion – (45 min)
ATTACHMENT
3. Parks, Open Space, Trails and Recreation Facilities Master Plan – Kristen O’Kane – Discussion – (45 min) ATTACHMENT 4. Other Ad Hoc Committee and Liaison Updates – Chair Lauing - Discussion (20 min)
- Baylands Comprehensive Conservation Plan Update
V. DEPARTMENT REPORT VI. COMMENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
VI. TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR OCTOBER 25, 2016 MEETING
VII. ADJOURNMENT
ADA. The City of Palo Alto does not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. To request accommodations, auxiliary aids or services to access City facilities, services or programs, to participate at public meetings, or to learn about the City's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, may contact 650-329-2550 (voice), or e-mail ada@cityofpaloalto.org This agenda is posted in accordance with government code section 54954.2(a) or section 54956. Members of the public are welcome to attend this public meeting.
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MINUTES 5
PARKS & RECREATION COMMISSION 6
REGULAR MEETING 7
August 23, 2016 8
CITY HALL 9 250 Hamilton Avenue 10 Palo Alto, California 11 12 Commissioners Present: Jim Cowie, Anne Cribbs, Jennifer Hetterly, Abbie Knopper, Ed 13
Lauing, David Moss, Keith Reckdahl 14
Commissioners Absent: Jim Cowie 15
Others Present: 16
Staff Present: Daren Anderson, Rob de Geus, Amanda Deng, Peter Jensen, Kristen 17
O'Kane 18
I. ROLL CALL CONDUCTED BY: Amanda Deng 19
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II. AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, and DELETIONS: 21
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Chair Lauing: Are there any agenda changes, requests or deletions? 23
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III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS: 25 26 Chair Lauing: I think there's one speaker card for an item that is not on the agenda, but a 27 familiar face. David Carnahan. 28
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David Carnahan: Yes. Thank you, Chair Lauing and Commissioners. As you, I'm sure, 30
know by now, if I'm here the City is recruiting for Boards and Commissions. Currently 31
the City is looking to fill positions on the Historic Resources Board, the Parks and 32
Recreation Commission, the Planning and Transportation Commission, and the Storm 33
Drain Oversight Committee. One of the main reasons we come and speak at all of the 34
Boards and Commissions is we encourage you, especially those of you whose terms are 35
running out at the end of December, to reapply but more importantly that you reach out 36
also for all the Boards and Commissions to members of the community that you know, 37
that you think might be a good fit and also to get interested members of the public who 38
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are watching or attending in person the information, making sure that they are aware. I'll 1
try and do this very briefly. For Historic Resources Board, we're looking for three 2
individuals, Parks and Recreation four, Planning and Transportation Commission three, 3
and the Storm Drain Oversight Committee two. For all of these, the deadline is 4
September 7th at 5:30 p.m. We'll have some flyers in the back, and I'll do a quick 5
summary of the requirements. For the Historic Resources Board, one person does need to 6 be a Palo Alto resident. All the other members don't need to be a resident, but there are a 7
few spots for architects and a couple of other specific positions. The Planning and 8
Transportation Commission does require Palo Alto residency. For the Parks and 9
Recreation Commission, as all of you know, you need to be a Palo Alto resident and need 10
to have a demonstrated interest in parks, open space, and recreation matters. For the 11
Storm Drain Oversight Committee, members must be either a resident or an employee or 12
owner of a Palo Alto business or an owner of real property within the City of Palo Alto. 13
Again, deadline is September 7 at 5:30 p.m. We hope that you can spread the word for 14
other members of the community to apply and also if your term is up soon, we hope that 15
you will consider applying to continue serving. Thank you. 16
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Chair Lauing: Are all of these effective January 1 in terms of new terms? 18
19
Mr. Carnahan: One of the terms on the Planning and Transportation Commission is an 20
unscheduled vacancy, so as soon as the appointment is made, they will begin serving. All 21
the other terms will begin on December 16th. 22
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Chair Lauing: Any other questions? Thank you. 24
25 Mr. Carnahan: Thank you. 26 27 Chair Lauing: We have another "not on the agenda" item, Shani Kleinhaus. 28
29
Shani Kleinhaus: Thank you, Chair Lauing and Commissioners. I usually am the last 30
minute when I submit letters on anything, because I'm the environmental advocate for 31
Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society. We work all around, all the cities in the area. 32
Usually I'm last minute. I really tried hard to get a letter to you ready in time for 33
everybody to read it. Somehow, it didn't make it to you. I wrote two with Sierra Club 34
and Audubon. You have them now, but I sent them a while ago. The concern I have is 35
that there's other mail that you're not getting. I don't who else writes letters and doesn't 36
know and follow up to find out that the Commission didn't get their letters. I don't know 37
where things break, but it would be good if you fixed it. Thank you. 38
39
Chair Lauing: Thank you. 40
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IV. BUSINESS: 1
2
1. Approval of Draft Minutes from June 28, 2016 Parks and Recreation 3
Commission Special Meeting. 4
5
Chair Lauing: Our next item of business is the approval of draft Minutes from June 28, 6 2016. 7
8
Approval of the draft June 28, 2016 Minutes as corrected was moved by Commissioner 9
Reckdahl and seconded by Commissioner Hetterly. Passed 5-0-1 10
11 2. ITT Antenna Field Site in the Baylands 12 13
Chair Lauing: The next item of business is an interesting one, the ITT antenna field site 14
in the Baylands. Assistant Director O'Kane will give a little bit of a status on that. 15
16
Kristen O'Kane: Good evening, Chair and Commissioners. I'm Kristen O'Kane, 17
Assistant Director with Community Services. This item today is just an informational 18
item transmitting, first of all, the Council staff report of June 27, 2016 but asking Council 19
to purchase an exclusive easement from Global Wireless for a 36.5-acre parcel within the 20
Baylands. This is a parcel that everything else around it has previously been dedicated as 21
parkland, but this 36 acres was never dedicated because of an exclusive easement that 22
was still on the property. The City of Palo Alto owned the actual property, but the 23
easement on top of it didn't allow us to have that property dedicated as parkland. At the 24
June 27th Council meeting, Council did approve the purchase of the easement. Now the 25 City will have full control of that site. I did provide a map to all of you. You can see on 26 Map 3.1 the overall property that's referred to as the former ITT property. Within that 27 property is the 36 acres, and that's on Map 3.3. The cross-hatched part is the part that we 28
will now have full control over. One of the next steps then is to dedicate this 36.5 acres 29
as parkland. In the Baylands Master Plan, there's actually a policy included in the 30
Baylands Master Plan that we think allows this to happen without the Commission 31
making a motion to do so. Our next step is to proceed with starting the process to getting 32
this 36.5 acres dedicated as parkland. We will be coming back to the Commission with 33
that. Another step that needs to happen is there are some structures on the property. One 34
of them has been designated as eligible for being on the National Register of Historic 35
Places. Staff needs to go through the process of determining what will happen to those 36
structures, what the best step forward is for those. I think moving forward one thing we'd 37
like to do is possibly take the Commission out to the property, show you the property, 38
show you the structures that are out there, and then we'll be making a recommendation to 39
the Commission as to what we think should be the best step forward with those 40
structures—there are some antennas out there as well—and then ask for your feedback on 41
that. These are all steps that will be happening in the future, but we are getting the ball 42
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rolling on getting this property dedicated as parkland, and then also assessing the site and 1
those structures to see what we can do. 2
3
Chair Lauing: There are actually a couple of speakers that want to speak to this item, I 4
believe. I will call on the first one, which is Herb Borock, before we have Commissioner 5
comments. Three minutes, thank you. 6 7
Herb Borock: Thank you, Chair Lauing. Good evening, Commissioners. I'm handing 8
out something I got today from the County Recorder's Index of Recorded Documents that 9
shows that there was a deed transfer from Globe Wireless to the City on July 28th. It 10
would seem that the actual document is not online. You have to go down to San Jose or 11
contact the Director of Real Estate on the fourth floor. It's a question of coordination 12
among staff whether the sale has already happened. Of course if it has, then we can 13
proceed to do the dedication which will require some work in Public Works to perhaps 14
draw the boundaries again, and this time without the exclusion in the middle of the 15
property because the Park Dedication Ordinance currently would first indicate the 16
boundaries of the entire 151-acre parcel and then say except this piece of 36.5 acres. It 17
seems to me it's really a simple clerical problem to prepare the Park Dedication 18
Ordinance. I heard what sounded like contradictory things from Ms. O'Kane. First, you 19
said that the Baylands Master Plan indicates that you did not have to bring a Park 20
Dedication Ordinance to the Commission first, that it could go directly to the Council. 21
Then, I thought she said that they'd be bringing it to you. If it doesn't have to come to 22
you, then it shouldn't be coming to you and should go directly to the Council. It seems 23
that this is something that could be done fairly quickly and be on the Council's Consent 24
Calendar just as the staff report was. Then, you can go ahead and see what you might 25 like to recommend to do. I mean, if there's any other or further type of construction 26 substantially one way or another, that would require a Park Improvement Ordinance, but 27 first you have to get the ordinance to dedicate the whole thing as parkland, and that will 28
take two readings of the Council, and then waiting 31 days to act on that. I would hope 29
by your next meeting that you'd have a status report or either it's actually been before the 30
Council already or you'd have an actual date. Thank you. 31
32
Chair Lauing: Great, thanks. Let's see. Next is—I don't even have to look—33
Ms. Kleinhaus. 34
35
Shani Kleinhaus: Thank you. This is very exciting, and I'm really glad to see that the 36
ITT property is moving forward to becoming dedicated parkland. I would encourage the 37
City to remove the antennas, to remove all the other buildings whether there's something 38
that's been there and it's old and it's really in the wrong place. Potentially you could open 39
that to the public like the 7 acres up on Foothill that the public was invited to look at and 40
consider what could be done with it. Here, I think, native restoration or just leave it alone 41
and removing all the guy-wires that birds can collide with, and really giving it back to 42
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nature would be really important. Especially since the capping of Byxbee, a lot of the 1
habitat that was available to birds has been diminished. This is really exciting. It 2
provides a great opportunity. Hopefully it will become part of nature. Thank you. 3
4
Chair Lauing: Thank you. The next speaker is Doria Summa. 5
6 Doria Summa: Hi. Good evening, Chair and Commissioners. Doria Summa from 7
College Terrace. Just very briefly, I wanted to thank everybody, staff and all of you and 8
the Council, for purchasing this property and for the intention to restore it to natural open 9
space. I just urge you to get it dedicated as parkland as soon as possible. Thank you. 10
11
Chair Lauing: Thank you. Now Commissioner comments on the status report. 12
Commissioner Reckdahl. 13
14
Commissioner Reckdahl: First off, how's the habitat there? Are we going to have to do 15
any restoration or has it been left untouched by and large? 16
17
Daren Anderson: Good evening, Daren Anderson, Open Space, Parks and Golf. The 18
36.5 acres, there's sections of it that have some pickleweed. By and large, it's been razed 19
because they put the buildings on that portion. It's not very good habitat. The policy in 20
the Parks Master Plan does call for turning it back into marshland. It would require 21
restoration. 22
23
Commissioner Reckdahl: How about the areas outside of where the road is? Is that ... 24
25 Mr. Anderson: The areas outside the 36.5 acres is good habitat. It could be better with 26 increased tidal flow, and there was a project that was done in 1988 where they put in a 27 connecting pipe from the old yacht harbor to bring tidal water into that portion of the 28
wetlands. It has improved it, but I think with more flow it would be better. It's 29
something Public Works has talked about. I think it's something we investigate in the 30
future. 31
32
Commissioner Reckdahl: It's still attached ... 33
34
Mr. Anderson: It is connected. 35
36
Commissioner Reckdahl: ... by a pipe? 37
38
Mr. Anderson: Yes. 39
40
Commissioner Reckdahl: How big a pipe is this? 41
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Mr. Anderson: I'm not sure. 1
2
Commissioner Reckdahl: The driveway, are we going to be using that as a driveway? Is 3
there any way that we can incorporate that at Byxbee or are we going to be getting rid of 4
the driveway? 5
6 Mr. Anderson: I think that's really something for the public and for the Commission to 7
weigh in on. I think it's a very viable opportunity to have that be a part of the trail. One 8
option to consider is putting some sort of bridge so that you could go from the ITT 9
property directly over to Byxbee and create a good nexus of trails. That's something for 10
the public and the Commission and the Council to weigh in on. 11
12
Commissioner Reckdahl: I personally would like that just because right now when you 13
come off the Bike Bridge, you have to backtrack quite a ways, over a half mile, and then 14
cut back again and backtrack again to get back to Byxbee. This would be a much more 15
direct route. I'd request when we talk about Byxbee that we have the path going up the 16
other way. I did check that out later, and there's just too much water there. We would 17
have to have a significant amount of fill to have the path go around the other way. What 18
are the plans for that road that runs right on the edge of Byxbee right now? That 19
construction road. 20
21
Mr. Anderson: It would be public access at some point. 22
23
Commissioner Reckdahl: That will be just a ... 24
25 Mr. Anderson: A trail. 26 27 Commissioner Reckdahl: ... trail open to the public. 28
29
Mr. Anderson: Open to the public. Like many of the trails at Byxbee, also used by some 30
of the staff to maintain pieces of it, yeah. 31
32
Commissioner Reckdahl: Also, the other thing about that driveway is right now it has a 33
nice view of the freshwater lagoon. That would be very good for birding or just for 34
watching nature in general. I would be leaning towards keeping that driveway and 35
incorporating that as a trail. That's it. Thank you. 36
37
Chair Lauing: Commissioner Hetterly. 38
39
Commissioner Hetterly: I just have a couple of questions. First, I assume that whatever 40
decision-making needs to happen around the buildings and the antenna field is unrelated 41
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to the Dedication Ordinance, and that can move forward immediately without waiting for 1
that process. Is that correct? 2
3
Ms. O'Kane: That's correct. We're going to move forward with dedicating the parkland 4
as quickly as possible. There will be a longer analysis of the actual structures that are 5
there. 6 7
Commissioner Hetterly: Can you clarify what the process is for achieving that 8
dedication? Does it need to come back to us? Does it go straight to Council? How does 9
that work? 10
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Ms. O'Kane: Can you address that, Daren? 12
13
Mr. Anderson: I believe it'll go straight back to Council. We'll work with the City's real 14
estate staff and put together the necessary documents and get it to Council on the Consent 15
Calendar most likely. 16
17
Commissioner Hetterly: What is the timeline that we might expect that to happen? 18
19
Mr. Anderson: I'm not quite sure. I think we can start working on it ASAP though, this 20
week. 21
22
Commissioner Hetterly: One month, six months, eight months? 23
24
Rob de Geus: (inaudible) 25 26 Mr. Anderson: Yeah, I would guess a month. 27 28
Commissioner Hetterly: Thank you very much. 29
30
Chair Lauing: This might be too early of a question, but do you anticipate that with 31
increased traffic we'd have to have some other kind of parking facility out there? 32
33
Mr. Anderson: I don't think that site lends itself to parking. It's surrounded by wetlands, 34
and I don't think it's a good spot. It's something we should be looking at as you analyze 35
the site for best uses. My personal opinion is it's not suitable for that. It would be more 36
of a pedestrian access, pedestrian and bike. 37
38
Chair Lauing: I think a tour for folks that would like to see it would be a great idea. 39
That's really cool. Do you have any comments? 40
41
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Commissioner Cribbs: Can you talk about if you decide not to designate some of the 1
structures? Do you have to designate all of them as historical or do we have that choice? 2
3
Ms. O'Kane: It's my understanding that not all the buildings are eligible to be registered 4
as historical. That's going to be part of the process. I don't know which ones and how 5
many. 6 7
Commissioner Cribbs: Thank you. 8
9
Chair Lauing: Commissioner Moss. 10
11
Commissioner Moss: I think this is a great opportunity. I'm all for having open space 12
useful for lots of people. I hope that that building of historical significance will be made 13
into some kind of a facility like the Lucy Evans building where there will be classes or 14
tours or maybe a museum of some sort, a historical museum. I would love it if there was 15
a little bit of a parking lot very near the road, Bayshore Road, so that people could walk 16
in. There would be more access to the marsh and to this facility. I'm thinking like the 17
children's Discovery Museum building near the Golden Gate Bridge on the north side of 18
the Golden Gate Bridge. That mix of old buildings and a museum is a fantastic 19
opportunity. If we could have that mix, that would be great. Also, there should be some 20
historical signage that describes the history of that facility. I was fascinated by the staff 21
report that you sent me. That's it. 22
23 3. Update on Service Delivery Options under Consideration for Aquatics 24
Program. 25 26 Chair Lauing: The next item on the agenda is update on service delivery options under 27 consideration for the aquatics program. 28
29
Kristen O'Kane: Thank you. This is also an informational item, just to let you know that 30
we will be coming back in September with a larger item related to aquatics. What we'd 31
like to share with you today is just an update on where we are. As you likely know, the 32
past two summers we've contracted out our swim lesson program, our Learn to Swim 33
program, for the summer season. This was a result of difficulty in staffing the program, 34
getting staff but then also retaining staff during the summer. To maintain the quality of 35
service that we wanted, we ended up contracting out that program. While we were doing 36
that, we've also been analyzing whether or not we should be contracting out our program 37
in the long term. This would be either just our Learn to Swim program, the whole 38
aquatics program or perhaps none of it. We're in that evaluation process now. We're 39
considering things like what will be the cost to the City, what will be the cost to the 40
customer, will the quality of the program change and in what way. We're talking to 41
different user groups of the pool, the lap swimmers, the parents of the kids who attended 42
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swim lessons as well as recreational swimmers. We're trying to get feedback from them 1
on their thoughts behind this. We'll be coming back in September with the results of our 2
analysis of those three different options. After we come to the Commission, we'll be 3
going to Council with a recommendation as well. We just wanted to provide you an 4
update on where we are. This past summer, we used Team Sheeper which is also the 5
company that manages the Menlo Park swim facility. We've received some positive 6 feedback from the community. We do evaluations after our programs. The results of the 7
evaluations were very positive. We think they're a good company, and we think they can 8
provide us with a quality service. What we need to decide is what's best for the 9
community and what's best for the City. That's where we are. 10
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Chair Lauing: Any comments? Commissioner Moss. 12
13
Commissioner Moss: I'm all for getting the most out of our assets. The pool is highly 14
used now, especially in the summer. In your report, you indicate that after kids go back 15
to school in August, there's still a whole lot of people who want to take swimming 16
lessons, I guess, August, September, October, until it starts to get cold. Is that true? How 17
many people are asking for swim lessons in those 2 1/2 to 3 months? 18
19
Ms. O'Kane: One of the things that we have heard through the evaluation process and 20
even through the master planning process is that people would like a longer swim season. 21
They would like the aquatics season to go into the fall and start earlier in the spring, but 22
also have a longer day as well, more options, more opportunities to take swim lessons 23
and also do recreational swimming. 24
25 Commissioner Moss: If the way to do it is to get an outside vendor, then that's fantastic. 26 Will this take away jobs from teens during the summer? 27 28
Ms. O'Kane: This is all part of the analysis that we're doing, looking at the different 29
options. We're doing that analysis now to determine what the result would be. 30
31
Commissioner Moss: I would hope that whoever you ask to do this, that you put in a 32
clause that says that they should hire local teens when you can and then backfill from 33
there. The other thing is do we have enough—you said that you were going to maybe 34
have to upgrade the pool and the buildings. What happens when we do that? Is that 35
scheduled, to upgrade the Rinconada Pool and make it the correct length and also the 36
buildings and other things? 37
38
Rob de Geus: Rob de Geus, Community Services. The long-range Rinconada Master 39
Plan—or long-range plan I think we call it—which has yet to go to Council and be finally 40
approved, has recommendations for improving not only the pool but also the buildings, 41
which are quite old. The locker rooms do need to be upgraded. Specifically, is it 42
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scheduled on the CIP? Not at this time. I think we're waiting for the long-range plan to 1
go to Council for approval, and then have it scheduled. When the work happens, the pool 2
is closed. 3
4
Commissioner Moss: All right. That will impact how many people you can serve when 5
that happens. This sets a really good precedent, having a longer period of use of the pool. 6 7
Chair Lauing: Did you have a comment? Commissioner Cribbs. 8
9
Commissioner Cribbs: I'm excited that you're looking at this. I think the more that we 10
can use the water that we have, the better off we're all going to be, especially getting kids 11
to swim and not have them drown since it's a big concern for everybody. Is it your 12
thought that—maybe you don't know yet—they would contract for all aquatic services 13
with one entity or you would parcel it out? How are you thinking about separating our 14
swim team from the other things that are going on? Just probably not there yet. 15
16
Ms. O'Kane: We're not quite there yet. If we were to contract out the lifeguards as well 17
as the swim instructors, that would be one contract, if we were to go that way. We 18
wouldn't separate that. There is the existing Masters Swim program as well as PASA, the 19
youth swim team that's there. This is part of, again, our analysis that we'll bring back. 20
Our intent is not to impact those programs. They would still be present at the pool. 21
22
Commissioner Cribbs: Would your analysis also include perhaps a bubble for winter-23
time use for swimming lessons? A lot of private pools or private entities are really 24
successful doing that, and they're usually busy all the time. 25 26 Ms. O'Kane: You mean a cover over the pool? 27 28
Commissioner Cribbs: Uh-huh. I mean a bubble that goes over the pool. 29
30
Ms. O'Kane: Right. That's not in our analysis. We're not looking at that as part of this 31
analysis. 32
33
Mr. de Geus: Another good question. We put out an RFP for this, and then had 34
responses. We allowed people to bid on one, two, three, or all of the functions. There's 35
recreation swim, there's lap swim, there's the Masters Swim program, the competitive 36
youth swim program, swim lessons. What am I forgetting? Birthday parties, and there's 37
probably one other. People could bid on all of them. The bid that we're really looking at, 38
they are open to taking the whole thing or part. We're sort of negotiating with them. It's 39
important to understand that we have in the past contracted out part of it already. The 40
Masters program has been contracted out for some time and so has the competitive youth 41
swim program, while the other components have been in-house. 42
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1
Chair Lauing: Commissioner Reckdahl. 2
3
Commissioner Reckdahl: In the report, you mention that a lot of the employees that we 4
are hiring, lifeguards and such, are students and they go back to school. Team Sheeper or 5
these other private entities, do they hire students also? Are they full-time employees? 6 7
Ms. O'Kane: I think it's a combination. They have a larger staff, and I think they have 8
more full-time staff that are working year round. They also employ students. I think they 9
offer more incentives to their employees who are working their private company. They 10
have a larger staff as well. I don't think they have the same issues that we have as far as 11
retaining staff. 12
13
Commissioner Reckdahl: I'm trying to understand why they don't have retention issues if 14
we have retention issues. Are they hiring a different group or are they paying more? 15
16
Ms. O'Kane: They are paying more, and they also provide benefits to staff who work a 17
certain number of hours and over. That could be one of the reasons why they have 18
greater retention. 19
20
Commissioner Reckdahl: Do we have that option of paying the lifeguards more or are 21
we constrained? 22
23
Ms. O'Kane: That would be a Council decision. If we decide to continue this program 24
in-house and one of the directions from Council is to do that, it could also be a direction 25 from Council to increase the pay of our lifeguards and our swim instructors. 26 27 Commissioner Reckdahl: I don't have any problem with the private company coming in 28
and giving the services. Sometimes they have expertise and do a better job. I don't have 29
an issue with that. I don't want to just do it because we decided not to pay them enough, 30
and they return around and pay their people, and they're taking a cut. We end up paying 31
more, but part of that's going to the private company. I want to be aware of that. Thank 32
you. 33
34
Chair Lauing: Anyone else down here? My only comment was related to that. It looks 35
like your intent is to be cost neutral on the current program, not to do more cost recovery 36
or to probably go in the hole where we'd have to be negative on cost recovery. Is that the 37
goal going into this? 38
39
Mr. de Geus: There's multiple goals that we're trying to accomplish here. I think 40
primarily to use the asset that we have here and maximize its use for the community, the 41
Palo Alto community in particular. The pool is actually underutilized right now in terms 42
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of the hours that it's open and the number of swim lessons we can accomplish. We want 1
to fix that. We want to serve the community better and improve access to the pool. The 2
question for us is how do we do that. We're looking at a third-party solution to that, but 3
we're also looking at an in-house solution. What would it take if we were to run a year-4
round aquatics program as a City organization? What would that mean we would have to 5
pay in order to really do that effectively? We're evaluating both of those and even a third 6 option, which we'll share with you next month, the results of that analysis and also some 7
of the community feedback. I would add, though, that we highly subsidize the swim 8
program right now and the swim lesson program. It's likely that the cost of swim lessons 9
will increase either way in order to make it pencil out, so that it's not costing the City 10
more than it does now. 11
12
Chair Lauing: Thank you. 13
14
4. Approval of Dog Park Recommendation. 15
16
Chair Lauing: Now we are on to Item 4. We're doing a sound check. One of our many 17
viewers out there called in and said that our audio is a little soft, so we're going to check 18
that. I'm not going to sing for the sound check. We're just going to have the guy do it. 19
Item Number 4 is the approval of a dog recommendation. We do have a couple of 20
speakers. I'd like to go ahead with that. Herb Borock. 21
22
Herb Borock: Chair Lauing and Commissioners, I support the recommendation, both 23
having at least one and preferably both of these near-term parks having dog exercise 24
areas and also having this proposal go separately and not wait for the Master Plan to be 25 completed. Currently on the Council's tentative agenda, the Master Plan—I guess that's a 26 Study Session on the status of the Master Plan—is scheduled for the Council meeting in 27 four weeks on September 19. The dog parks aren't there because you haven't made a 28
recommendation yet. Once you do, it'll take a while for a staff report to go through the 29
normal process of finding an agenda date and having the Manager's Office review it three 30
times over a five-week period and make edits before it's approved and gets there. I would 31
suggest that it be at a time on the calendar when it's convenient for people to come, not 32
do it near the December holiday period, but some time when people have an opportunity 33
to participate. When the dog exercise areas were first tried out on a temporary basis and 34
then made permanent on three parks, that started with four parks, and the fourth park was 35
Eleanor Pardee. That didn't get a permanent dog park. At a later date, there was another 36
attempt to have a dog exercise area at Eleanor Pardee. In both cases, the neighborhood 37
was opposed, and there were also many fewer households with dogs than we have now. 38
You've had people come to you from the north end of town, encouraging you to support 39
dog exercise areas in parks in the north end of town. They need to organize themselves 40
to come to the Council, because I expect opposition from neighbors of both of these 41
proposed parks. There's some sense of a feeling in some neighborhoods north of Oregon 42
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Expressway that dog parks are only for people on the south side of town, that they can't 1
(inaudible) north. Just in the same way as bathrooms in neighborhood parks somehow 2
don't get put in neighborhood parks in the north, but it's done in the south. It requires 3
essentially a new constituency of households that own dogs to come to the Council and to 4
make their case. Decades ago when I was in a household with a dog and I was walking 5
around all of Palo Alto, I never met anyone else who had a dog in that neighborhood. 6 Now, it's much different. Thank you for bringing it forward and moving it along. I look 7
forward to a status report next month that we have a date on the Council agenda. Thank 8
you. 9
10
Chair Lauing: Thank you. The next speaker on this topic is a familiar face, Shani 11
Kleinhaus. 12
13
Shani Kleinhaus: Thank you. Shani Kleinhaus. This time I speak for the Audubon 14
Society and the Sierra Club. You also received a letter today, this evening, from Canopy. 15
Dog parks are great. I use them; I have two dogs. Dog parks are not compatible with 16
native habitat and birds and oaks. A proposal for a dog park at Eleanor Pardee Park in 17
the middle of the oak grove is not compatible with the Urban Forest Master Plan. The 18
planting that Canopy's already doing there is part of their re-oaking focus and the attempt 19
to bring nature into urban parks as indicated in both the old and the now revised 20
Comprehensive Plan. My recommendation is if a dog park is going to continue being 21
recommended in Eleanor Pardee Park, it should not be near oaks. Oaks are the center for 22
bird life and other creatures' life in the Valley. Dogs have impacts merely for their 23
activity, but also they do produce a lot of urine in dog parks, and that's not really 24
compatible with oaks and other native vegetation. Our recommendation is either not to 25 have a dog park at Eleanor Pardee Park or, if it is to be there, then away from the oaks 26 and the native restoration areas. Thank you. 27 28
Chair Lauing: Thank you. That's the last speaker on that topic. I think we'd like to—29
there's a motion and this is an Action Item in the packet. I'd like to ask the dog parks ad 30
hoc, Commissioners Knopper and Hetterly, and of course Staff Anderson to give 31
background on it and the intent here, and then we can all ask questions. 32
33
Commissioner Hetterly: I don't think I need to spend a lot of time giving background as 34
we've had lengthy discussions about dog parks over the last very long time. The reason 35
we have this in the packet tonight is, in fact, because we've been talking about dog parks 36
for at least a decade and haven't made any progress. We had hoped—I think our last 37
presentation we had recommended installing at least one near-term park prior to the 38
completion of the Master Plan process because we really wanted to get the ball rolling. 39
That's been delayed through an inability to be able to check in with Council. Staff has 40
been trying to meet with Council for several months, and we just keep getting pushed 41
back. They're finally meeting next month on the 19th. We wanted to make sure that we 42
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had a formal action on the table to highlight for the Council, as they're thinking about the 1
Master Plan, that an issue of dog parks in the nearer term is really important to us. That's 2
the point of this motion. We're hoping that you all will support it. We also in the last 3
week or so have gone back and forth with staff. We really wanted to put a cost estimate 4
in the motion, but weren't able to sort out the numbers before it went in the packet. I 5
think that we finally came to a number that the ad hoc is okay with and that staff is okay 6 with. I'd like to propose amending this memo to include the following language in the 7
last paragraph, second sentence in the last paragraph, to say "typical costs for a basic dog 8
park range upward from $30,000 depending on size and design. If water, benches, shade 9
structures or additional amenities are added, the cost escalates." That's what we're hoping 10
you all will support tonight in order to send in the packet to Council on the 19th. We'd be 11
happy to answer any questions. 12
13
Chair Lauing: Did you want to add anything, Abbie? 14
15
Vice Chair Knopper: No. 16
17
Chair Lauing: Sorry, what was that? 18
19
Commissioner Reckdahl: I was asking whether the 30,000 was per park or total for the 20
two. It is per park. 21
22
Chair Lauing: Right. That's ... 23
24
Commissioner Hetterly: That's not an exact number for an exact park. That's a ballpark 25 figure so they have an idea of whether we're talking about a $10 project or a $1 million 26 project. Doing it in advance of the Master Plan means more likely it will not come out of 27 a CIP; it would have to come out of existing CIPs because the new CIP—to get it into the 28
new CIP cycle would probably hit FY '18 which is a lot longer than we want to wait. 29
30
Chair Lauing: Did you want to make a comment, Keith? 31
32
Commissioner Reckdahl: My only comment is I think this is a very good idea. I 33
wholeheartedly support it. I think it's well worth the money. We have a lot of people 34
with dogs, and I think they'll appreciate both parks. 35
36
Chair Lauing: Do you have any comments, anybody? It's all right; you don't have to. 37
38
Commissioner Moss: I wholeheartedly agree with the recommendation as well. 39
40
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Commissioner Cribbs: Me too. I think it's a really, really good idea that we move on as 1
quickly as possible with the cost and start in with the pilot program and see how it all 2
goes. I'd love to know what the process is once this is accepted, what has to happen then. 3
4
Chair Lauing: I think we can go into that. I just want to make one comment. Some 5
viewers or others would say this is out of phase with the Master Plan. I think we could 6 all tonight say one of the top ten things we've learned, that we know we're going to do in 7
the Master Plan is going to be put in at least one dog park. I personally don't feel that it's 8
out of phase. There's a sense of urgency. The Commission has more or less committed 9
as much as we can for a number of years to the dog owners that we're going to work on 10
this, we're going to get it done. We tried way back at El Camino and got shot down by 11
the environmental rulings there. We've been trying and trying, and we have this 12
commitment. It's really not out of phase. Just putting one in there now is very consistent 13
with the staff report and the other work that the dog committee has worked on tirelessly, 14
and particularly Daren has worked so hard to come up with the right list of where to go 15
and site maps and tremendous work. I think it'll get wide acceptance at Council. I think 16
that's why I'm comfortable saying it's ready to go now. Did you want to add something 17
else, Commissioner Hetterly? 18
19
Commissioner Hetterly: I was just going to respond to Commissioner Cribbs' question 20
about what the process is going forward. Putting this forward isn't asking Council to say 21
yes, we're going to put a dog park here on this date. It's saying we want them to be 22
considering that as part of the discussion since we're in front of them. The process, they 23
wouldn't have the authority to do it right then on the spot anyway. If they give the go 24
ahead and say, "Yeah, we're on board. We think this is a good idea. Let's look into it," 25 then staff initiates outreach specific to the neighborhoods we're looking at. As you will 26 recall, in the Master Plan policy there's a list of a number of dog parks. We go down the 27 list until we find something that works. After you get the public outreach from the 28
surrounding neighborhood, a Park Improvement Ordinance would be developed, then 29
bids would go out, contractors would be hired and it's built. Of course, there's that step of 30
the funding. Staff would have to find the money. 31
32
Chair Lauing: Did staff want to add anything to that summary from Commissioner 33
Hetterly? 34
35
Daren Anderson: No, I think that was it. If you said it, I didn't hear it accentuated 36
perhaps, and that is the public outreach piece and how big that is as we determine which 37
of these options we go with. I'm really excited about it, and I can't wait to help. 38
39
MOTION 40
41
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Chair Lauing: Any other comments? Then it's the motion as amended by Commissioner 1
Hetterly to add the cost estimate in there. All in favor of the motion as amended, please 2
say aye. Any opposed. That passes unanimously. Thank you. 3
4
MOTION PASSED 5
6
5. Parks, Open Space, Trails and Recreation Facilities Master Plan. 7 8
Chair Lauing: Item 5, Parks, Open Space, Trails and Recreation Facilities Master Plan. 9
We have two speakers on that. Perhaps we could have those before we have a staff 10
presentation that interfaces with the ad hoc presentation. The first speaker is Doria 11
Summa. 12
13
Doria Summa: Good evening again, Chair, Commissioners and staff. Doria Summa, 14
College Terrace. I am the president of the College Terrace Residents Association; 15
although, I am speaking for myself tonight. I am also on the Comp Plan Citizens 16
Advisory group, where we're very interested in the future of our parks. I wanted to talk 17
for a minute about an opportunity that I think exists at Mayfield Park, which is the library 18
park in College Terrace. Adjacent to the park there's an empty lot. This lot is owned by 19
a resident in College Terrace. It was used during the restoration of the library building as 20
a temporary site for the childcare facility that went back into the library building. I don't 21
know if you guys have thought about this or if it's too pie in the sky or crazy. The 22
Neighborhood Association tried to pursue having the owner of that property make it 23
available for a community garden, which we very much wanted. That didn't work out. 24
Since the property owner is willing to lease the property, I think it would be a great 25 location for a community garden. It's continuous to the Mayfield Park, and then the 26 whole Mayfield Park could stay open for children in nearby apartment buildings to run 27 around and play. I also noticed that there's a similar potentiality next to Boulware Park 28
with the AT&T site that the Ventura Neighborhood Association brought to your 29
attention. I hope you will look at those carefully. Maybe we can work creatively with 30
you. The Neighborhood Association would love to assist in something like that. Finally, 31
as a CAC member, the Comp Plan Advisory Citizens Committee, we're very concerned 32
about the adequacy of our parkland acres per capita and the future of that and wanting to 33
preserve a reasonable amount of park. Also, we're very concerned about the preservation 34
of our natural open spaces. I would like to say that the Fry's site also has been discussed 35
at the Comp Plan group as a great opportunity for a park and possibly even one that 36
includes naturalization of the creek as it goes through the site or some sort of semi-37
natural state. Thank you very much. 38
39
Chair Lauing: Thank you. The second to last speaker on Item Number 5 is Shani 40
Kleinhaus. 41
42
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Shani Kleinhaus: Thank you again. Shani Kleinhaus with Santa Clara Valley Audubon 1
Society and also for the Sierra club about the 10.5 acres of land that is available because 2
the golf course is retreating. I sent you a letter about that. I looked through all the 3
documents that were in front of you before and revisited some of the decisions that were 4
made before, including the mitigations for trees that are being removed from the golf 5
course. When I looked at all the different survey results, it looks like just as many people 6 wanted sports fields as wanted nature, hiking and bird watching. If you look at the 7
numbers, for example, of people with children, 460 wanted to have nature, hiking and 8
bird watching on the 10.5 acres and sports fields got 522. Without children, the nature 9
got more than the sports fields. Still, these things are split pretty well. In the letter I sent 10
you, I summarized that in a table for you. The removal of the trees on the golf course 11
would deal quite a blow to birds. There are a lot of birds in the golf course. They're 12
using it quite heavily, and there's birds that we don't usually see in the more urban areas. 13
Potentially and hopefully at least for the time being, the 10.5 acres can be used to 14
mitigate those impacts and potentially to create a bird park which would be quite a nice 15
facility. There are a lot of migratory birds that choose that area because it's so close to 16
the creek and to the Bay and open space. It provides an opportunity that is not available 17
everywhere in town. Given the interests of the community , it would be something that if 18
it could be looked at as something to move forward with, the investment is not huge. It's 19
not like an investment in actual facilities. You don't need to do CEQA for that. It's a 20
pretty easy potential something to take on and move on fast. Thank you. 21
22
Chair Lauing: Thank you. On this item I think we first want to look at the recommended 23
changes that you've put into the new document from the ad hoc and review the policy 24
changes and then get into the text of the chapters. 25 26 Kristen O'Kane: We can do it that way. The way we have the presentation organized is 27 we're going to just briefly introduce Chapters 1-4. When I get to Chapter 5, which is the 28
policies and programs, I was going to go into more detail as to the changes that were 29
made. 30
31
Chair Lauing: Is that going to work for the ad hoc? Okay. 32
33
Ms. O'Kane: Good evening, Kristen O'Kane with Community Services. I also have Peter 34
Jensen here, Landscape Architect with Public Works Department. We're presenting on 35
the latest of the Master Plan development. The first thing I'd like to do is—we're pretty 36
excited to include in the packet the draft Chapters 1-5. I'd like to emphasize that they are 37
draft. We felt excited to see the culmination of all the work that has been going into the 38
Master Plan and to see what the Master Plan is developing into and what it will look like. 39
As we go through the first four chapters, there shouldn't be anything in there that is really 40
new to the Commission. Everything has been shared with the Commission, and the 41
Commission has provided feedback on it. Chapter 1 is really the introduction to the 42
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Master Plan, why we did the Master Plan and went through the process, including the 1
planning process that we embarked on to do the document. Chapter 2 describes the 2
elements of the Master Plan, specifically what parts of the system the Master Plan covers. 3
This is the parks, trails and natural open spaces, the recreation facilities as well as 4
recreation programming. Chapter 3 is the needs and opportunities chapter. This includes 5
a description of all the technical analysis and assessment that we did as well as the 6 community outreach process. It includes the data summary and then opportunities to 7
include in the Master Plan. Chapter 4 is really where we start to get into the meat of it. 8
Chapter 4 describes the principles of the Master Plan, which really represent the vision of 9
the Master Plan. It also introduces the reader to the six goals of the Master Plan. Also 10
included in Chapter 4 are the system concept maps. These are the maps that we've shared 11
with you before. These are the pollinator pathways, the trail pathways between parks, 12
and then also the park search area. Chapter 5 is the document that you've all spent a lot 13
of time commenting on. This is the goals, policies, and programs document. At the last 14
Parks and Rec Commission meeting, which was in June, we received comments from the 15
Commission. Those have been incorporated. Since that time, we've also received 16
additional comments from the ad hoc committee. Those comments have mostly all been 17
incorporated. There were two comments related to moving a program from one policy to 18
the other that I chose not to move. The program is still there, so it's still represented. I 19
just wasn't comfortable moving it to a different policy. I did include in the packet all of 20
the changes that were made from the ad hoc. A lot of it was just moving things around, 21
but there was some language change as well as some new program. Also in the packet, at 22
the end of the table that was included, there were additional programs that staff made. I 23
wanted to make sure that those were included as well. If there's any comments on those 24
changes, we can discuss them now. 25 26 Chair Lauing: Did you say now? I thought you were going to go the other direction. 27 That's fine. We want to now take a look at the policies. Those are redlined in terms of 28
the changes that the ad hoc suggested. We can shift over to that. The ad hoc has 29
reviewed your redlines and said that they're basically fine. Do you guys want to make 30
any comments on those or just wait for questions from other Commissioners? Just do the 31
questions from other Commissioners on our recommendations for changes there. I'd just 32
state that the ad hoc met at least two, maybe three times between the last meeting and 33
now, and we've had a lot of correspondence with the Assistant Director on a lot of stuff. 34
We've been active. Commissioner Moss, did you have a question or comment? I thought 35
you raised your hand. 36
37
Commissioner Moss: I have several questions about (inaudible). 38
39
Chair Lauing: This is just on the policies, the redlined policies. 40
41
Commissioner Moss: (inaudible) 42
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1
Chair Lauing: Commissioner Cribbs? 2
3
Commissioner Cribbs: No, I don't. 4
5
Chair Lauing: I guess we're good to go there. No changes there. Do we want to go back 6 to the chapters then? I'm sorry; I thought you didn't. Go ahead. 7
8
Commissioner Hetterly: I just remembered it. It's based on actually the comment we 9
heard from the public earlier today. I wondered if there were two areas that maybe we 10
could add into the policies and programs. Sorry, Kristen. One was in the Audubon and 11
Sierra Club letter. They talk about a band of native trees along creek channels including 12
concrete channels. We had added a policy, 4.C.3, about a low-impact buffer zone along 13
creeks. I wonder if we can just add something like "a low-impact buffer zone with native 14
tree planting along those creeks," just to make sure we cover that piece of it. The other 15
was the idea raised about Mayfield. I don't know about the AT&T site, whether it might 16
be a possibility there or not. The idea of securing a long-term lease from a private 17
landowner for sites adjacent to parks that we want to expand. I know there are policies in 18
here that talk about pursuing partnerships with community organizations for that kind of 19
thing. There was nothing about pursuing lease agreements. That seems like yet another 20
way that we could expand the system without having to purchase the real estate. I 21
wondered if we could add that also to that suite of policies. 22
23
Ms. O'Kane: Yes. Thank you also to the Master Plan ad hoc group. I know you 24
reviewed many times the policies and programs. We've gone back and forth many times. 25 Thanks for the time spent on that. We appreciate the extra set of eyes and insight. I 26 guess I did skip over Chapter 1-4. 27 28
Chair Lauing: Pardon? 29
30
Ms. O'Kane: I did skip over (inaudible) back on Chapters 1-4. We're ready for that now. 31
32
Chair Lauing: Do you want to do it chapter by chapter, just so there's some organization 33
for the panel? 34
35
Ms. O'Kane: Chapter by chapter, I think, is fine unless there's overall comment on the 36
first four chapters. They should flow from one stage to the next. If there's comments on 37
that, on the flow, if there's any obvious omissions or gaps in the first four chapters, we'd 38
like to hear that as well. 39
40
Chair Lauing: Unless the Commission has other ideas, I think we should take it chapter 41
by chapter, unless somebody wants to comment on the preliminary data or just reference 42
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back there. Chapter 1, anyone? Is it standard to do the terms upfront? Is that the basic 1
way to do it? The glossary, excuse me. 2
3
Ms. O'Kane: It is. It could go into an appendix as well, but I think it makes it obvious to 4
the reader that they're there. I think we're open to restructuring those. 5
6 Chair Lauing: Chapter 1. Commissioner Moss. 7
8
Commissioner Moss: I was going to suggest that you put the glossary at the end, but 9
that's okay I guess. I wish that a lot of the process could be put as an appendix and 10
summarize Chapter 1 to like a quarter of it. Put the meat of the process in the back. 11
We're way down the path already. If that's going to delay it, then leave it the way it is. It 12
seems like we want to get to the meat, and we've got 40 pages to read before we get to the 13
meat. That would be my only comment about Chapter 1. 14
15
Chair Lauing: I actually have quite a number on Chapter 1. Here and in a few other 16
places—it's just a structural comment—there's jargon that may not be entirely clear. We 17
can point that out as we go along. The first page there, we need holistic guidance for 18
managing parks and so on. That gets a little bit—I don't know—touchy feely to me. 19
Right away in the beginning we're talking about a planning process. We're talking about 20
community needs, which is good. Then, we're talking about current and forecasted 21
demographic and recreation trends which, as we get into the meat of it, as I think we'll 22
see, we're still very short on demographic trends and data, which we discussed at the last 23
meeting and about the last ten meetings. At some point, we've got to get that forecasted 24
data in here. I was a little concerned about the wording on page 5, community and 25 stakeholder engagement. You said that the Master Plan was designed to be community 26 driven, which is absolutely true, but in a sense that's at least equal to data driven. It's not 27 just getting impressions from citizen interest groups and then making a call, I don't think. 28
Again, it's back to the data orientation and the numbers where that can be valid and where 29
it can be operative. I think the engagement methods as itemized there are quite good and 30
quite straightforward. People should know about this. I don't mean this at all as a 31
negative; I've mentioned it before. At some point, I think, we have to put in here that 32
these are not necessarily statistically projectable kinds of things from the numbers of 33
people that we've heard from and the splits and so on, so that we don't hear two years 34
from now some Council Member quoting these statistical reliable things and therefore we 35
should do X instead of Y. There's valuable data, but it's not survey data. I appreciate the 36
specifics on the numbers of respondents in certain areas, 487 on page 7 for comments on 37
park quality, 16 shareholder interviews. It's good to know exactly how many folks are 38
giving these impressions, 731 respondents. Over on page 12, again it's the data question. 39
The Plan is based on sound information and the best available data. I guess now is the 40
time to ask where is that going to be. Is that going to be embedded in these chapters or 41
can we have a preliminary chapter that talks about forecasting and so on? Later on in 42
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here, the only two demographic items that are referred to are, I think, children under 18 1
and that there's a growing senior population. That's not much of an analysis to tie a lot of 2
actions to for the next 20 years. I guess I'd just like to know where it's going to be and 3
when. 4
5
Ms. O'Kane: There's a lot of data that we've collected. Some of it will be in the 6 appendices. There's a memo that MIG did on the demographic analysis. That's 7
something that could be in the appendix. I think we'll have to choose what goes in there. 8
Otherwise, the document is going to be ... 9
10
Daren Anderson: (inaudible) binder. 11
12
Ms. O'Kane: It's going to be like the green binder. It's going to be this thick. Some of it 13
will be included in the appendices, but some of it won't. We can possibly link it to the 14
website in the Master Plan. We want to do a thoughtful process of deciding what will go 15
into the actual document. Rob and I spoke earlier today, and we agree the demographic 16
trend analysis needs to be beefed up a bit. We'll work on that and get the more-detailed 17
information in the appendices. 18
19
Chair Lauing: There's at least a couple of aspects to that. One is to have it, population 20
data, growth, segmentation data of a number of segments where we think we're going to 21
take action. As Commissioner Reckdahl mentioned at our last meeting, it's almost like 22
we're looking in the rearview mirror, because some of this data only goes out two years 23
or three years, and then we're going to guess the rest of the way. It changes so much that 24
we'd also like to get something that's a little bit more long term from whatever source. 25 Somewhere people are making forecasts about what's happening here. If it's a Master 26 Plan for 20 years, I agree with some of the comments that staff has made that we can't 27 implement for the next 20 years and say what we're going to do 20 years from now. 28
Getting a feel of what might change, I think, the example that Commissioner Reckdahl 29
used was maybe at some point the aging population could safely be projected to go down 30
because they don't live forever and maybe they move at that point. It just seems we're 31
making a lot of conclusions so far without showing what the data is even to us, let alone 32
to Council. I think that's really a need that we have to have. I didn't actually quite 33
understand what the last bullet points were for recreation program analysis. One is what 34
we just talked about, demographics and recreation trend analysis, which I don't see. I 35
don't really know what a planning environment summary is. I could guess it's a 36
(inaudible) review. Whatever it is, it ought to be precise in terms of what you're saying 37
there, I think. 38
39
Rob de Geus: If I can chime in. Several of what you're mentioning there, Chair Lauing, 40
are reports that MIG have written. They're on the website. There's probably 20-plus mini 41
studies, reports that they've written, some of which we've had them do a couple of times 42
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to get it right. Even then, we weren't satisfied with all of them. I understand that. That's 1
what it's referring to. 2
3
Chair Lauing: Is this Palo Alto specific data or some of their national trends and sports? 4
5
Mr. de Geus: It's both. Some of it is local; some of it is regional; some of it is national. 6 Several of those reports will be included as appendices to this report. What we might 7
look at, as Kristen and I were talking, some of the specific data in those reports should be 8
pulled out and actually put in the chapter, because it's too thin in some areas. It's just not 9
enough information to tell the reader what's happening, what are the big trends that we're 10
seeing in some of these demographic areas. We're also working closely with and will 11
continue to with the Planning Department and the Comprehensive Plan that they're 12
working on. They're doing a lot of projections on growth. We want to be aligned with 13
their assessment. 14
15
Chair Lauing: Right. One of the things that is in the ad hoc memo, that we passed out at-16
place tonight—this was a memo that I exchanged with Kristen on the 14th. The findings 17
that we talked about last time too is kind of where this thing starts. Those sort of 18
summary conclusions have to be right up front, and a lot of that is going to be driven by 19
"pick this one out." Seniors are getting much bigger, so we have to make sure we have 20
programs for that. I don't think we want big things like that in the appendix. I agree with 21
you it doesn't have to be 83 pages of data before we get to the thing, but there has to be 22
enough up there to say why are we doing anything here. If it's not there, then I don't see 23
how we can tell somebody we have to do a lot for seniors in this case that I made up. I'm 24
not saying that's what we need to do. The findings have to be not just interesting but 25 actionable. We want stuff up there that's not just "that's kind of cool, something might 26 happen," but what are we going to do because this is real. Growing segments, we've 27 talked about since Day 1. The reference matrix on page 13 is also talking about a large 28
number of possibilities. Was that all the things that was—I think you're referencing there 29
all the projects that we could do to line up with the areas of focus and so on. I'm pretty 30
sure that's what you mean by that on 13. That may be Peter's department. A detailed 31
reference matrix with supporting documentation identifying needs and opportunities. 32
33
Commissioner Hetterly: (inaudible) 34
35
Chair Lauing: Right. Before I make my comment, I want to make sure that's what we're 36
talking about. To me that was more like opportunities than needs. A need is something 37
that—we've talked about this before too. If we find that there's some gaps that you guys 38
figure out and the data figures out, that's a need. That comes, we've already said, before 39
feedback on preferences from the citizens, because that's a real gap. A lot of that matrix 40
wasn't, I don't think, meant to do gaps. It was meant to fill in things like make parks 41
more comfortable and welcoming, which might mean when we do a restoration we put 42
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benches in there. That's a little bit different than a gap. My concern is it makes it sound 1
here like we've got all this figured out with data, and that's not really data. That's a list of 2
projects that we could do. I just want to make sure that we're clear about what we're 3
talking about here in terms of the intent. I don't think we should be claiming this as the 4
holy grail of "this is what everything has pointed to, and now we just pick off this chart 5
the best things to do." That's all my comments on Chapter 1. 6 7
Mr. de Geus: Can I just add something to that? I'm not sure I agree with that 8
perspective, respectfully. That matrix, we did use the word opportunities and carefully 9
so, but it was needs and opportunities. It was meant to point—the reason we say needs 10
and opportunities is because we can throw the word needs around pretty loosely. We 11
have a pretty darn good parks and recreation system. All the things we want to do are not 12
all needs. A lot of them are opportunities. We did look at gaps and changing 13
demographics and other things where we're projecting gaps into the future. That large 14
matrix, which we spent a lot of time on, has all these different sources of information that 15
we gathered in all these different ways to try and identify where we felt the needs and the 16
gaps and the opportunities exist. To say that it's just opportunities and didn't really look 17
at needs and gaps, that certainly wasn't the intent, and I don't think it was the outcome 18
either. 19
20
Chair Lauing: I think what I just heard you say is it's more opportunities than needs, 21
which is basically what I'm saying. 22
23
Mr. de Geus: I think I said that. If I did, I didn't mean that. It's a combination of needs 24
and opportunities. We used opportunities as a word specifically so we don't call 25 everything a need that might be a "nice to have" or a want or an enhancement. They're 26 different. True gaps and needs, that's what we ought to focus on first and make sure we 27 get that right. 28
29
Chair Lauing: Right. They should have higher priorities because they're defined as gaps 30
by staff, that we need to get this stuff done. There are certain things that, if we got no 31
votes for them from the community, you know that they're a gap and we would need to 32
do them, which is good. That's fine because you're using your judgment to determine that 33
there's that gap there. 34
35
Mr. de Geus: It's fundamental to this whole planning process. If we don't have faith in 36
the information we gathered from the public through all of these different sources to 37
develop essentially Chapter 5, which is the goals, policies, and programs, then it's not 38
much of a Plan. We better believe that we've gone through this process and concluded 39
that these are the areas we should invest in most and first and in this order because of all 40
of this feedback and data that we've gathered over this period of time. I feel pretty good 41
about it, but I'm getting a sense that maybe you're not. 42
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1
Chair Lauing: I don't think we're there yet, if that's what you're saying. 2
3
Mr. de Geus: I don't think we're there yet either, but I think we're a long way there. 4
5
Chair Lauing: Should we move on to Chapter 2? 6 7
Commissioner Reckdahl: I have a follow-up. One thing that still bothers me about the 8
needs assessment is we can look at things like playing fields and look at when they've 9
been reserved and when they haven't been, but we can't look at swing sets. Do we have 10
enough swing sets? It's all anecdotal; we don't have any way of measuring whether we 11
have enough swing sets or open play areas where kids can just frolic. We don't have a 12
very good idea of whether we have sufficient capacity for the population. We have really 13
good data in some areas and just a paucity of data in others. That's the thing that still 14
bothers me about our needs. 15
16
Mr. de Geus: It's imperfect, I think, for sure and it'll never be perfect. We'll never get all 17
of the data. Tomorrow, the data will be different again because we have new people 18
coming and going and people getting older and so on. Do we have enough data that we 19
can make some reasonable assumptions and decisions about how to develop a goal and a 20
set of policies and programs? I'd like to think we do. We certainly have worked hard 21
enough as a team, both the Commission and staff. I was just a little concerned that 22
maybe you weren't quite as far as we were in terms of our confidence as to where we're 23
headed here. I'd love to hear other Commissioners' points of view. 24
25 Chair Lauing: Why don't you go through some of the other chapters, get more feedback 26 on the chapters? 27 28
Commissioner Moss: I want to make one comment about data collection. I don't want to 29
get into analysis paralysis. I think we have a ton of data. I think we have to do the best 30
job we can with what we've got so far. I have a bias for action. I want this done. You 31
said you do the best with what you've got. I don't see any glaring—you've covered a lot 32
of bases. That was my comment with Chapter 1. You've covered so many bases that I 33
don't know if I need to hear or read about everything you did. I'd like maybe a three-page 34
summary that you did these kinds of things and these kinds of things and these kinds of 35
things and maybe you had this many people or many comments, and then put the rest of 36
that stuff in the back. I might get overruled. That's all I want to say about that. 37
38
Chair Lauing: Chapter 2. Let's start down here. Commissioner Reckdahl. 39
40
Commissioner Reckdahl: On page 17, down at the very bottom, when they go through 41
the system today, it talks about some of the descriptions. For example, native species and 42
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less manicured landscapes are generally not present. That's another thing where you're 1
making these statements. Are they objectionable or not? It's just kind of data. I would 2
like to see some actionable. Are we planning to address this? Is this something that we 3
think is acceptable, not acceptable? I would like to see some follow-through on some of 4
these statements as opposed to just making statements. A collection of facts. I think we 5
should really say what we're going to be doing with these facts. We see this sprinkled 6 throughout the chapters, statements of where we're at and no tying that down to what 7
action is going to be taken. Page 19, on the table, for example, the Stanford-Palo Alto 8
playing fields down near the bottom, that is not owned by the City. That is owned by 9
Stanford, and we leased it out. We really should correct that. Also, El Camino Park is 10
the same thing. We lease that from the City. For the Stanford playing fields, I think we 11
have 40 years left on the playing fields, and then it reverts back to Stanford. What about 12
El Camino Park, do we know the terms of that lease? Does it have a sunset? 13
14
Mr. Anderson: Yes, it does. It was extended right before we did the water reservoir, the 15
emergency water reservoir in our park project. I want to say it's something along those 16
lines of 2045, but I'm not positive. 17
18
Chair Lauing: I recall that. 19
20
Commissioner Reckdahl: Those are two cases. I think everything else on that page is 21
owned. That's a big deal. If Stanford says, "No, we want to build a hotel at El Camino," 22
we would be out playing fields, and it would be very hard to find that chunk of land 23
elsewhere in Palo Alto. Page 26, we're listing other providers. I'm not quite sure why 24
we're doing this. It's a slippery slope when you start listing groups outside of the City. I 25 can see if these are private groups that contract with the City or give services on City land 26 or something like that or partners, then it makes sense to say these people help us out. 27 The way I read this, this is just a bunch of groups that do similar things that we do. I'm 28
not sure of the purpose of that. 29
30
Chair Lauing: Can I just tag-team on that comment? It almost implies that maybe we 31
don't have to do as much as a City, because we're getting backed up by that. We don't 32
control it, and we can't control the quantity. 33
34
Commissioner Reckdahl: On one hand, we don't control it. It could go away tomorrow, 35
and we don't have any recourse. On the other hand, it does soak up demand if you try 36
and balance demand and what we have. For example, my kids swam at Greenmeadow. 37
A lot of kids swim at Eichler. Both of those are private pools. If they weren't around, 38
we'd have a lot more demand and a lot more people complaining that we don't have 39
enough swimming pools. In that sense, maybe they do belong in an asset, but we don't 40
have control over them. It also just gets to be data overload, I think, also especially when 41
we start going into private companies, private gyms and all this other stuff. I guess my 42
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question is why are we having it in here and what does it buy us. How does it make the 1
report better? 2
3
Commissioner Moss: I think it's really useful to have it here because of what you just 4
said about knowing all of the facilities that we have in the City, and that the City-owned 5
parks are just a portion of that. We do want to leverage these. We talk a lot about 6 partnering with other groups. These are the groups that we're going to partner with to 7
provide enough, because we cannot provide all the swimming lessons in that Rinconada 8
Pool that are needed. You don't put in here—you put private gyms and fitness centers but 9
also swim clubs or swimming pools. I think it's important to show what we've got in the 10
City. This is an inventory of what we've got in the City. 11
12
Commissioner Reckdahl: You could have a whole chapter on recreational opportunities 13
in the City that aren't offered by the City. 14
15
Commissioner Moss: This is a pretty good list in general. I don't know what else you'd 16
add besides maybe swim clubs. 17
18
Commissioner Reckdahl: My example of Greenmeadow and Eichler. There are a lot of 19
kids that ... 20
21
Commissioner Moss: I would have private gyms, private fitness centers and swim clubs. 22
23
Commissioner Hetterly: Plus tutoring. 24
25 Commissioner Reckdahl: I just don't ... 26 27 Mr. de Geus: Can I offer something here? This chapter is intended to represent existing 28
conditions of the system and not get at solutions, which come later, to issues that are 29
here. In reality, recreation services is not something the City does on their own. For 30
perspective of the reader of the Plan, providing some information but not all information 31
about the private sector and nonprofit sector that also provide some recreation 32
programming is relevant. That doesn't mean because they do it, they'll always do it or we 33
don't need to do it. I don't think that’s the intent. The intent is that there are other people 34
in our community providing recreation services, and that is part of the landscape that we 35
work within as a City providing recreation programs. 36
37
Commissioner Reckdahl: I see both sides. It does give me pause, though, when we start 38
spending too much time on assets that we don't control. That was my thought. Let's see. 39
That's all my comments on Chapter 2. 40
41
Chair Lauing: Abbie. Commissioner Moss. 42
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1
Commissioner Moss: On the first page of Chapter 2, you say elements of Palo Alto's 2
parks and trails. Could you use the word inventory instead? This is a list of what we've 3
got. Elements or maybe "inventory colon: elements of parks and rec." I don't know. 4
This is the inventory, and it seems like that would be a little bit easier for people to 5
understand. That was on ... 6 7
Chair Lauing: Is that it? 8
9
Commissioner Moss: No, I've got two more. I love charts. On page 22, you have Table 10
2, Palo Alto facilities. Is there any way you could add the number of pools, one; the 11
number of dog parks, three; the number of community gardens, four; the number of 12
community centers, three; and other facilities, four, to that chart? That really summarizes 13
nicely the rest of the wording. It was a great start. I just went through the rest of the 14
sections and just added those to the bottom of that chart. On page 25, the circular chart, 15
is there any way to split youth and teen sports from youth and team aquatics? I think 16
those needs are quite different. I think they should probably be split, if you can. We 17
already covered my last point on page 26. That's all I had for Chapter 2. 18
19
Chair Lauing: My comments on Chapter 2 are that this is probably useful to have 20
somewhere, including the location of the parks. Given that this initially, not exclusively, 21
is for Council, I think this could be an appendix. Everybody knows where the parks are. 22
We've got pages here talking about community gardens and picnic areas and so on. It 23
could be compressed or put into an appendix. I think the charts are helpful, but there's 24
not much learning that's going to be done, I don't think, by the Council Members. Again, 25 I know that they're not the only audience for this. It just seemed like there wasn't much 26 content here that was going to be new. It just kind of delayed getting to more of the 27 meat. Others of my comments have been mentioned. There was some repeat of some 28
paragraph at the top of 27; maybe that was intentional. The same paragraph that came 29
earlier in the document. I probably won't be able to find where now. Maybe that was 30
intentional, because you were doing an introduction and then a summary. That's all my 31
comments on two. Shall we move on to three or did you guys want to ask anything about 32
two? Chapter 3. 33
34
Commissioner Reckdahl: I had one comment. 35
36
Chair Lauing: Go. 37
38
Commissioner Reckdahl: Thirty-eight is an example of this, at the bottom of 38. We're 39
saying we're having some problems here. The current policy of everyone plays is widely 40
supported but makes expanding these programs difficult without sacrificing quality due 41
to limited gym and field space. Again, are we going to address this or is this something 42
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we have to live with? As a reader, I read through it and said, "Are they bothered by 1
that?" It seems like it bothers me. What are we going to do to reverse this or are we just 2
going to say, "No, we can't do anything"? I don't know how to do that. 3
4
Chair Lauing: You're hitting on a point that I want to bring up. This is my most 5
important point in this chapter as well. It's the same data-driven question. This is just a 6 statement of fact without anything to back it up. As we're sitting here right now, we don't 7
know if we need gyms or fields, so how can we put this in the document? Maybe you do 8
because you've seen different data, but we haven't seen that data. It's making the 9
assumption in the document that we need field space and gym, it seems like. 10
11
Male: (inaudible) 12
13
Chair Lauing: Bottom of 38, under recreation program opportunities, bullet point 2. 14
15
Commissioner Hetterly: I actually think that's one of the areas where we actually do have 16
data that middle school sports are over capacity. Field demand, I think, we don't have 17
much on, but middle schools sports, I think, was clearly documented in the recreation 18
piece. 19
20
Peter Jensen: On field demand, currently we have a booking policy that basically is 21
allowing people to use it, but we know there's a lot more demand for using that. We 22
know that there is a higher demand for sports fields. From the community surveys, that 23
was one of the highest responses, adding capacity or more sports fields to our system. 24
From those two data points right there, I would say it ranks very high to add or enhance 25 the fields that we have. 26 27 Chair Lauing: Even in the policies, I think we used the word enhance capacity now 28
instead of actually "more fields." I'm just wondering if something like middle school 29
athletic programs are largely over capacity. Instead of going halfway there in terms of 30
explaining the problem, we should either go all the way there and explain the data and 31
what it is, so it's got some teeth, or we shouldn’t be commenting ad hoc on limited gym 32
and field space. I think that's part of what you're saying. 33
34
Commissioner Reckdahl: The way this particular paragraph is worded, it seems like 35
limited gym and field space is a given. There's nothing we can do because gym space is 36
limited. We could say, for the other side, we could expand it if we had additional gym 37
space. That puts a much different spin on that same fact. 38
39
Mr. de Geus: I think we could look at some rewording in that way. Again, I would say 40
this isn't where the solutions are. That's Chapter 5. That's where we define the goals, 41
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policies, and programs to address these needs and opportunities and gaps that have been 1
identified in this chapter. 2
3
Commissioner Reckdahl: As an opportunity, I think if you word it the way I worded it, 4
it's an opportunity. 5
6 Mr. de Geus: Yeah. 7
8
Commissioner Reckdahl: Here it's just saying it's a constraint. I think we want to word 9
things as opportunities. What can we do to get rid of this constraint? 10
11
Mr. de Geus: Also, just as a reminder, the City has no gyms. We don't own any gyms. 12
The School District has gyms. There's no community gym in Palo Alto. There's a 13
question about are we short gyms in this community. There's no question. We definitely 14
are. 15
16
Chair Lauing: Again, I think we're saying the same thing. The conclusions are later, but 17
it seems like it's either making a conclusion here or sort of leading the witness by making 18
it sound obvious that we need gyms and we need field space. Sorry, Keith, go ahead. I 19
just thought it time to ... 20
21
Commissioner Reckdahl: No, that's very good. There's other comments here. Higher on 22
the page, it talks about dog parks are almost entirely located south of the Expressway and 23
things like that. Again, we're talking about constraints as opposed to what can we do to 24
solve that problem. That'd be my take on this. I don't think all of the facts are worded in 25 terms of opportunities. 26 27 Chair Lauing: Commissioner Hetterly. 28
29
Commissioner Hetterly: I have a lot of comments on this chapter. Listening to the 30
discussion that just came before, I think a lot of my comments revolve around a different 31
understanding of what you meant by needs and opportunities. As I read this and the way 32
my brain works, I thought needs are problems we have to solve, unmet needs that we 33
want to fill, gaps, preferences maybe also. Opportunities wasn't we could build a park 34
here or—I can't think of an example now. I thought of opportunities more along the lines 35
of we have all these needs and we have all these constraints, but having surveyed the 36
system and understanding what our community preferences are, we have opportunities to 37
build in more flexibility, to create new partnerships, to plan comprehensively for 38
distribution across areas, that kind of thing. Just to give you the context of how I was 39
thinking about needs and opportunities. My comments are really first, I think, this 40
chapter has too much about methodology. There's a lot of real estate dedicated to talking 41
about the matrix. When you have a whole chapter in the front talking about process, how 42
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the analysis was done, I don't think it needs to be repeated here. I kind of see this chapter 1
as one of the really meaty pieces of the entire plan. It's essentially the only place to 2
represent what our needs assessment is. Without that, how do we justify what it is we 3
want to do. I felt like the needs were expressed largely in these bullets as community 4
support as opposed to needs. I think what we're saying is these are things the City should 5
invest in to meet the community needs. Whereas, all this terminology about neighbors 6 support this or the community supports that made me feel like if we had a ton of money 7
to invest, these are things that are popular. That was a tone issue that struck a nerve for 8
me. I also don't think it addresses any of the big overarching needs that didn't necessarily 9
emerge from community engagement. You all have a sense of needs that Joe Resident 10
wasn’t going to raise in a community outreach process. There's no section in this chapter 11
to address those. That could include things like Cubberley. We use those gyms 12
extensively. We use those fields extensively. Our future access is very uncertain. We 13
have no idea if we'll continue to be able to use those facilities. Therefore, it's a big need 14
for the community either to lock in long-term use or to find an alternate location for that 15
kind of activity. That seems to me a big need that should be represented in this chapter. I 16
think the 7.7 acres and the 10 1/2 acres at the Baylands are kind of in the same category 17
where those are needs that we're aware of, but that the community hasn't necessarily 18
filtered up, and they should be addressed here. The demographic analysis, I think, we 19
must have spent hours and hours and hours about that when it first came around. I think 20
we hoped that it would come back around reflecting that input and it never did. I don't 21
know what changes were made in the interim to that piece, that bigger piece that the 22
consultants did. The trend analysis is supposed to tell us basically what the community 23
doesn't yet know that it needs. It's supposed to tell us where we're headed and, therefore, 24
what we need to do to meet those future needs. The key trends that are bulleted here tell 25 us very little about the trends, especially looking forward. Steady growth doesn't really 26 tell us much. It would be meaningful if it looked forward and anticipated that we've had 27 steady growth for the last 30 years, but the Comprehensive Plan that's under 28
consideration has scenarios for significant increases in housing. We may well have 29
significant increases in population. As the Comp Plan focuses on more multifamily units, 30
then we're talking about more families in houses that don't have yards, and the parks are 31
going to have to fill that gap. That, I think, is some important data to put in the 32
demographic trends, because that's a likely trend we're going to face as we try to resolve 33
our housing crisis. Average age of residents is increasing, but that doesn't really tell us 34
anything except that the average age is increasing. It would be more useful to have 35
something saying, for example, the population over 55 has grown at this rate over the last 36
ten years, and we expect it to grow at this rate over the next ten years. That actually tells 37
us we've had a lot of seniors, but we're going to have a lot more seniors. Maybe we don't 38
have enough supports for them. We have lots of bike commuters; that's not a trend. I'm 39
not sure what it tells us to advise our planning, except that we want to have access by 40
bike to a lot of different things. The focus on commuters kind of distracts from even that 41
point. I'd like to see actual numbers represented in the demographic bullets about things 42
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that are actionable in terms of the planning. I'd like to see a second section under the 1
demographic trends that says something like therefore, since we see this on the horizon, 2
we're going to focus on these things or we're going to enhance services in these areas. 3
Kind of answering the "what about the trends" question. I think we could have a 4
paragraph about that in this section. Opportunities, as I say, you see differently from me. 5
What I expected to see in terms of opportunities—I didn't see any of it here—were things 6 like now that we know all this, we have an opportunity to strategically strengthen what 7
we have. We have an opportunity to build connections for people and nature more 8
comprehensively across the whole City. We have an ability to target opportunity to serve 9
more diverse needs through flexible facilities and cross-functional usage. We can 10
accommodate more intensive use with enhanced investment in maintenance or more 11
durable turf or strategic water usage. There are a lot of opportunities that we can pursue 12
as a result of everything we know here, that really are opportunities as opposed to just 13
things that might—opportunities to solve some of the needs identified as opposed to just 14
nice things to have. Finally, on this section, the second bullet on page 33 identifies as a 15
key community theme strategic enhancements and improvements needed to better meet 16
evolving needs and trends, adapt to growth and changing demographics. Those concepts 17
are kind of lost in the rest of this chapter certainly. It seems to me that they're kind of 18
fundamental to the overarching purpose of this entire plan. How do we meet the growing 19
and changing needs of our community, given the constraints of the system? I would love 20
to see the chapter rewritten to define that as the challenge. How are we going to meet our 21
changing needs within the constraints of the system while remaining true to our values? 22
Then, we identify current gaps and preferences, anticipate future needs with the trend 23
analysis and highlight opportunities to meet that challenge. I think you can do that 24
without doing any further research. I think we have enough stuff in the binder to be able 25 to lay out that argument. This is the chance to make the argument that these are the 26 needs, these are the challenges we face, and this is how we're going to get there from a 27 strategic, big-picture perspective as opposed to a policy and programs perspective. I 28
think this chapter just doesn't reach the bar in terms of specifics. I think there's a lot of 29
talk throughout the document, especially in the methodology piece, about how data-30
driven it is. We're constantly talking about how data-driven it is, but then we don't 31
provide any of the actual data in the report. I don't think we need to integrate the whole 32
memo that MIG did, but we should pick out the key points that support our conclusions 33
that drive our recommendations within the body of the piece. 34
35
Mr. de Geus: Can I respond a little bit to that? I think that was helpful. I think we can 36
do some things to make this chapter a lot better with data. I think it is thin on that. I 37
found that really helpful, and we'll go back and rework that some. What I don't 38
understand is the idea that we would talk about how we would solve the issues and gaps 39
in this chapter. Are you suggesting that we merge Chapters 4 and 5, which are about our 40
future and what we want our future to be and how we're going to get there, into one 41
chapter, which is the needs chapter? 42
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1
Commissioner Hetterly: Sort of. When we got to four, I was going to suggest that we 2
merge Chapter 4 into Chapters 3 and 5. We put the goals that are in Chapter 4 in the 3
policy and programs chapter to introduce them. The other things, the other pieces of 4
Chapter 4 maybe go—let me see. I've got to shift my thinking for a second. I think the 5
maps that are in Chapter 4 really tie well into the community input. They look at the 6 geographic areas of unmet need, the focus areas for improved connections. They're 7
mindful of the intersection with nature. That all ties together with the needs and 8
opportunities. The principles tie into the Chapter 3 discussion of areas of focus. I 9
thought standing alone Chapter 4 didn't add enough value to justify standing alone. I 10
liked the three maps and I liked the concept of a multilayered system, but I don't think it 11
illustrates how the goals and principles will play out across the City. Those three maps 12
really address specific issues. They don't fully address or communicate the entire vision 13
that's represented in the goals. I don't want to overstate the impact of planning around 14
that broad physical context when those three maps don't really tell us anything about the 15
quality of facilities and inclusion. They don't tell us about capacity and variety and 16
quality of uses. They don't tell us about encouraging active and passive use, innovation, 17
data-driven management and sustainability efforts. Those are all specific goals among 18
our six goals, but the three maps don't address those issues. That why I would move the 19
maps into the analysis, Chapter 3, and the goals into the policies and programs, and the 20
principles into Chapter 3. I think I said that. Just to babble a little further. Those maps, I 21
think, are a good introduction to a discussion of opportunities if you're thinking of 22
opportunities the way I was, in terms of expansion, of supply, of access, of natural 23
systems. If you supplemented those maps with some narrative about cross-functionality, 24
flexibility, collaborative use of public space, strategic investments to manage intensity of 25 use, then you create a whole picture of what the needs are and the opportunities are. 26 Then, you go to Chapter 5 and say these are our goals, and these policies are going to tie 27 those together. 28
29
Chair Lauing: Did you have anything, Abbie? 30
31
Vice Chair Knopper: No. 32
33
Chair Lauing: I'm now going to be very short. That was exactly what I was going to say. 34
I'm not trying to claim it. I'm just saying that's exactly right on point in terms of what I 35
was talking about earlier, about needs and opportunities and how you need to focus it 36
around the data-driven. I just want to ask one formatting question, because you also 37
asked for that in this section. Page 43 and 44 actually have the same graph, I think. I 38
didn't quite understand what—you went from areas of focus. I think the first line on top 39
of 43 is supposed to be a bullet point offering more of existing programs, and then there's 40
some copy that starts "these areas of focus were used" such and such. You concluded 41
that a smaller number of participants placed a very high priority on improvements. I 42
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don't understand this whole section. I don't understand the objective of this. Are we 1
trying to conclude in that one paragraph that—let's see. Second from the top, analysis, 2
the results reflect strong interest heard throughout the process for (1) community center 3
space, (2) integrating nature and (3) making parks more welcoming. Are you trying to 4
make a conclusion that those are the three most important points that residents have voted 5
for? This whole section on page 43 and 44 was confusing to me. 6 7
Mr. de Geus: You're talking about page 43? 8
9
Chair Lauing: And 44, yes. 10
11
Mr. de Geus: Isn't it talking about the survey and the results of the survey? 12
13
Chair Lauing: It starts out talking about areas of focus on 42. I think it continues type-14
wise over to the top line, and that was supposed to be a bullet point on page 43. It's 15
offering more of the existing programs, classes and events. Is that an area of focus? 16
17
Mr. de Geus: I'll have to go back and check. It could be. 18
19
Chair Lauing: Then it says these areas of focus were utilized to review the direction. I 20
wasn't clear about why any of this on page 43 or 44 necessarily related to areas of focus 21
and why you were concluding around those three "highest ranked." 22
23
Mr. de Geus: We used the areas of focus for a challenge, where we gave community 24
members a certain amount of money and they had to allocate it across the areas of focus. 25 This is describing that (crosstalk). 26 27 Chair Lauing: You're describing the results of one feedback mechanism. Again, I'm not 28
sure how that addresses needs. Other comments on Chapter 3? Commissioner Moss. 29
30
Commissioner Moss: On page 34, the third bullet, you talk about universal design and 31
access. I don't know how many people know what universal design and access is. You 32
either put it in the glossary or something to do with disabilities or inclusiveness. You say 33
it in the second part of the sentence, but it's not that clear. You use that universal design 34
and access several other places in there. If you just mention it once, what it is, that'd be 35
great. In the next bullet—this is a question for all of us—is this just for local residents or 36
is it for residents and businesses? Are we prioritizing facility availability for Palo Alto 37
residents and businesses or just for Palo Alto residents? They've got just Palo Alto 38
residents, and I was wondering if you include businesses as well. Is that a priority or not? 39
40
Ms. O'Kane: Commissioner Moss, this section describes feedback we've heard from the 41
community, so the community specifically said Palo Alto residents. 42
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1
Commissioner Moss: That's all I had for Chapter 3. 2
3
Chair Lauing: Number 4. Sorry. Commissioner Hetterly. 4
5
Commissioner Hetterly: I just have a couple of minor comments on Chapter 3. Page 37, 6 at the bottom of the page just above geographic needs and opportunities, it's talking about 7
the geographic analysis identified some things that are highly desired by the community. 8
The second bullet says equitable access to natural open spaces. I don't remember that 9
being something that was highly desired by the community. I'm not sure what it means. 10
I'd like clarification of that. On page 38, at the top of the page, the third bullet says dog 11
parks are almost entirely located south of Oregon Expressway. They are entirely located 12
south of Oregon. Take out "almost." Finally on page 39, the third bullet at the top talks 13
about the Art Center and the Junior Museum and Zoo and how many of those programs 14
have wait lists, partly due to limited space in the specialized buildings. I remember this 15
being something of a question during the analysis phase. As I recall, there was no 16
analysis done about programs offered by the Art Center, the Junior Museum and Zoo, and 17
the Children's Theatre. When they did that program analysis with enrollment and 18
capacity, facilities were not included in that analysis. Was that correct or am I 19
remembering that wrong? 20
21
Mr. de Geus: We did include the program analysis of the Junior Museum and Zoo and 22
the Art Center and Children's Theatre. We had the managers of those two programs meet 23
with MIG and share data with them. 24
25 Commissioner Hetterly: That program analysis is inclusive of these groups as well? 26 27 Mr. de Geus: It's not as comprehensive as the analysis done on the recreation programs, 28
but they did do some. 29
30
Commissioner Hetterly: Thanks. If you could clarify that equitable access to natural 31
open space, I'd like to know what that's about. 32
33
Chair Lauing: Chapter 4. 34
35
Mr. de Geus: I'm not sure—sorry. Just on that question about equitable access to open 36
space. I'll have to go back and look at this a little further. I recall there was discussion 37
and data around access to the Baylands. For some residents, it's easier to access, and 38
some it's really difficult. Partly why we want to build another bridge over 101 for 39
improving access. I think that's where it might come from. We'll go back and look. 40
41
Chair Lauing: Chapter 4 comments? Commissioner Moss. 42
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1
Commissioner Moss: On page 62, I love charts. That's ... 2
3
Chair Lauing: That's Chapter 5. Did I get this wrong? 4
5
Commissioner Moss: Actually, it’s not a chart. On the upper right-hand corner, you 6 have population standards. 7
8
Commissioner Hetterly: Where are you? 9
10
Commissioner Moss: Page 62. 11
12
Chair Lauing: Are we doing Chapter 4? 13
14
Commissioner Cribbs: That's five. 15
16
Commissioner Moss: Sorry. 17
18
Chair Lauing: Nothing on four? 19
20
Commissioner Moss: No. 21
22
Chair Lauing: Keith. 23
24
Commissioner Reckdahl: (inaudible) 25 26 Chair Lauing: Go ahead. 27 28
Commissioner Hetterly: I have a question on four, on the bikeways and pedestrian routes 29
to parks and recreation facilities. You've got the map. 30
31
Chair Lauing: Page? 32
33
Commissioner Hetterly: Page 51. My question is do these connections that are identified 34
on the map differ from the Bike and Pedestrian Transportation Plan in significant ways. 35
If so, I think it would be useful to show what's new, what we're recommending to 36
supplement that bike plan. I'll leave it at that. Thanks. 37
38
Chair Lauing: Abbie? I had a couple on four. Just another jargon or clarity of language. 39
On page 50, envisioning the future of the system, talking about guiding the creation of a 40
multilayered system of parklands and connections that serve both people and natural 41
systems. Maybe those are park terminology, but it didn't seem like great English. 42
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There's a reference under the search areas to Figure 12. I see them as Figures 6 and 7 and 1
8, but I never got to 12. That's on page 50. It identifies areas where Palo Alto residents 2
lack access to parks, which is a really important map that you guys have created. I want 3
to make sure Council Members can find it. That's all I had. We're on to goals. Since 4
that's kind of a separate thing and that's before you got to implementation, maybe just 5
reference the rest of the ad hoc report that we put in that note to you. As we said, we 6 didn't think that all this would be covered, and it's not, and that's fine. We're just trying to 7
raise the key issues going forward. The first one, as I've already mentioned, was findings 8
and data driven. The second one is basically prioritization and timeline, and that's 9
upcoming and soon. The quantification has kind of come full circle from a very tight 10
quantitative program to something less than that. We'll look forward to finding a middle 11
ground there. A middle ground rather than just "we'll figure it out later." We're still 12
trying to do a Master Plan for 20 years, not for 3 years. I hope there's that way forward in 13
terms of how to prioritize future things. The project budgets, I know you still have a lot 14
of work to do on that. I guess our question was do you want to do 5,000 budgeted 15
projects or does it make more sense to look at 20 right now, big ones and small ones. It 16
just seems like a lot of work to be spec'ing out all these projects. That said, we 17
understand that Council's going to say what does this cost in the first five years and the 18
first ten years and so on. If there's a way that you could reduce your work load there. 19
Another item that we brought up before is there are some projects that are going to 20
probably need some more research to take data-driven action. Those should be called 21
out. The research costs rather than the project costs need to be identified. That could be 22
dedication of Foothill parks or need for gyms or many more items. We need to get a 23
plan, and then we're going to do the research, and then what. Sort of X, Y, Z so we make 24
sure that we get to it. Otherwise, if we don't do this research on some of these projects, 25 either nothing will happen on them or potentially well-meaning folks in the future will 26 skip the research and just say, "It sounds like a good idea. Let's do it." We lose the 27 prioritization there over the next 20 years. We haven't done that yet, but it'd be great if 28
we could figure out what those are that need research and get that underway as part of the 29
Plan. Any questions on that? We're on to the ... Do we want to look at goals in any 30
more detail or did we already do that with the redlines? On to seven. 31
32
Mr. Jensen: Chapters 6 and 7 are being prepared now. We wanted to touch on a couple 33
of things. Chapter 6, focusing on the site concept plans more specifically for parks and 34
facility locations. As you know, the site concept plans have been online to review as well 35
as review at the May Fete Parade event at a community meeting, of course, by the group 36
here as well as staff and the project team. That survey closed or the site concept review 37
closed its online review for the community a few weeks ago. This is a few of the 38
feedback that we got from that. Twenty-seven of the 36 concept plans did receive 39
comment. Some of them just received one comment, but there was at least a comment to 40
the majority of the plans, which means that it did get fairly good circulation to the 41
community. Two hundred seventy-one comments were received online, and 42
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approximately 30 written comments were produced from our locations at different 1
facilities around the City, libraries and Lucie Stern center. Those are being added to the 2
comment list now. They were not part of the summary that was included in the staff 3
report; it just included the summary of the 271 comments that are online. Chapter 6, like 4
I said, does just focus on the concept plans. From that, we do have a few neighborhoods 5
that formed committees that supplied some response. The Barron Park neighborhood is 6 looking at both Bol Park and Juana Briones. They are going to bring back their 7
recommendations to us soon. The Ventura neighborhood formed a little committee and 8
submitted their response to the concept plans, the aspects they liked and did not. Those 9
two pieces of feedback from those specific neighborhoods are also being considered. 10
How we are going to use that information? It was basically a way to verify that those 11
things we see in the surveys before, as far as being high priority, like bathrooms and dog 12
parks, providing nature in parks, held true for looking at inserting them into parks. The 13
majority of those elements that we saw in previous surveys held up in this one as well. 14
There were things that did come to light, that some neighborhoods did not like in the Park 15
Plan, which will be considered when the plans are finalized and moved into the Master 16
Plan. Basically we're getting this information to provide guidance to what new amenities 17
are included in the Master Plan. We know now that not all items shown on the concept 18
plans can be done just for time and budget purposes. It'll help to complete timing and 19
budget analysis, and that is being developed for Chapter 7. That's Chapter 6, which 20
focuses on the site concept plans. Like I said, they're being reviewed and produced now, 21
limiting the number of amenities that were on that with direct feedback views from the 22
community. We can take questions about Chapter 6 or we can move to Chapter 7 and do 23
them together. We'll move into Chapter 7 and do a review of that. Chapter 7 is the 24
implementation. Like I said, both Chapters 6 and 7 are under development right now and 25 inform the strategic direction for implementing the Master Plan. The recommendations 26 are for the near term which is 0-5 years, the mid-term which is 6-10 years, and the long 27 term which is 11-20 years. The structure for that chapter is an action plan, funding today 28
and tomorrow, a review of the funding that is necessary to implement the Master Plan, 29
and the recommendations. Evaluating future projects and the process will take a progress 30
report of methodology, which is basically check-ins with the Master Plan, are we 31
achieving what the Master Plan is asking us to do, and then a call to action. That is the 32
structure of Chapter 7. There's two samples in here. One of a capital project action plan 33
and one of a program Master Plan. This first one is an action plan for a capital project. 34
It's basically derived from the program that we have, 2.E.2, which is the City will actively 35
pursue adding park restrooms at the following potential locations, basically drawn from 36
the program in Chapter 5. It identifies those locations here. This graph starts to show 37
how that will be laid out in Chapter 7 and visually represented. This calls out—you can't 38
see the left side, but it references the 2.E.2. It references the location of what the 39
program is, where those projects are slated for individual parks. It goes through and 40
identifies the year in which those projects will be implemented as well as the cost for 41
implementing and the additional operating cost that will be involved with maintaining 42
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those things on a yearly basis. This shows the action plan for the restrooms which is a 1
high priority. The years only extend out to 2026, because we'd like to do those sooner 2
than later. That's basically how it was chosen for those specific years. The next sample 3
is one for a non-capital project, mostly for programs. Create a robust volunteer 4
recruitment and management program, which is Program 1.I.1. Again, this breaks down 5
in the same way. The graphs here are samples of what the finalized graphs could look 6 like in Chapter 7. This one, again, identifies developing the volunteer opportunities and 7
doing that in basically 2020. It does not yet provide an estimate of the costs or the 8
operation costs to that. It gives you an idea of how the action plan will be set up as far as 9
when and how much that will be discussed in Chapter 7. Now we'll take some feedback 10
on the approach and the format to Chapter 7 and Chapter 6 as well. I'll open that up to 11
the Commission. 12
13
Chair Lauing: Commissioner Reckdahl. 14
15
Commissioner Reckdahl: Right now the prioritization in Chapter 7 is kind of vague, how 16
we're going to do that. We may iterate along the way. We only have so much money, so 17
what can we spend? We could look at those charts and say we're going to stretch things 18
out because we can't afford it. Are we going to say this is what the need is and here's the 19
price tag at the end? Are we constraining ourselves by need or are we constraining 20
ourselves by capital? 21
22
Mr. de Geus: It's the latter. The need is driving the action plan. By the way, the charts 23
up there are early drafts. They may change a little bit. They give you a sense of how 24
we're thinking the action plan will look, which really takes the goals, policies, and 25 programs and gets more specific as to what we're trying to do. The action plan is very 26 specific; it starts to talk about specific capital projects and program investment. I think 27 it's fair to say that the action plan will change. It will evolve and be something we need 28
to evaluate annually to some extent as things change. That's something we've been 29
talking about internally, how much of the action plan gets included in the Master Plan. 30
We cannot create an action plan for 20 years that's going to be in any way real. To Chair 31
Lauing's point, costing out every one of those projects across 20 years would not be a 32
sensible thing to do right now. We couldn't do it accurately, and we'd spend a lot of time 33
on it. The nearer term investment and capital we can get more specific with the budget 34
and so on. The further out we go, the analysis is going to be less so in terms of the 35
costing. To your question, it's not driven by budget. It's driven by community 36
preferences, the community gaps that we identified, growth, and those five criteria that 37
we've defined as a group in terms of how we'll prioritize projects. 38
39
Commissioner Reckdahl: We'll plan it out and say this is what we think needs to be 40
done. It'll have a price tag, and the Council will look at that price tag and say, "Where 41
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can we find the money? Do we have to put a bond measure? Can we pay for this 1
ongoing?" 2
3
Mr. de Geus: We're still figuring some of this out. We're going to have be a little 4
careful. We don't really want a price tag for the whole 20 years, because we don't know 5
what that all is going to cost. It's going to be frightening to look at. The Council's not 6 going to want to approve it. How can we be specific enough that gets action to those true 7
needs and gaps that we know are there, but is not too scary for the elected officials to say, 8
"We're behind this, and we're going to approve it. We're not writing a blank check." 9
Finding that balance in the final writing of the report is going to be the work over the next 10
couple of months with the Commission, to try and get that balance right. It'll be good to 11
check-in with the Council this next month. We don't have that yet. We're just working 12
on it. 13
14
Commissioner Reckdahl: Thank you. 15
16
Chair Lauing: Commissioner Hetterly. 17
18
Commissioner Hetterly: On page 1, in the first paragraph you say this final chapter will 19
be a tool kit that builds the case and provides key information for implementing the Plan. 20
Hopefully the case was built in Chapter 3 and Chapter 5. This is really a tool kit with 21
tactics to implement the strategies that are in the policies and programs. I would rephrase 22
how you couch this implementation plan, the action plan. I appreciate you showing the 23
charts. I'm hoping that it won't just be a giant spreadsheet, that there's going to be some 24
narrative describing what the action plan is. We'll see that when we see it. On page 2, 25 the last bullet under action plan, the separate analysis for long-range, high-investment 26 capital projects. I'm not sure exactly what that analysis is going to look like, so I'll look 27 forward to seeing that. I hope that it will not just identify a long-term need and then punt 28
to the future how we're going to deal with it, but it'll dip its toe in the alternative 29
strategies that we can use to chart a course to actually meet those needs. The progress 30
reporting methodology, I have a lot of concerns about. It seems that the indicators in the 31
bullets are very timid indicators and not very closely tied to the goals. This is on page 3. 32
The first bullet, remaining catch-up costs compared to original 2011 inventory, that's 33
really about measuring progress towards the IBRC goals. I don't think it's about 34
measuring progress towards the Parks and Rec Master Plan goals, though it's a part of it 35
of course. The number of users in preserves as opposed to parks, I'm not sure we have 36
expanding usership in open space necessarily as a goal of this Master Plan. I think 37
measuring users in parks would be much more informative than users in open space; 38
although, I understand that's harder to tally. I would like to see indicators along the lines 39
of park acreage added or dedicated in priority search areas, percent increase in funding, 40
number of new partnerships resulting in more shared space, more funding, more 41
coordinated services. That would be with PAUSD, Stanford, Friends groups, nonprofits, 42
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businesses, property owners, whoever they may be. Increased participation in teen 1
programming, I'd like to see more take-up. I think that's an indicator of whether we've 2
been successful in designing programs that meet that identified need. Number of new or 3
more services for seniors, acreage or square footage of native planting or habitat added. 4
If in determining what parks were under-used we tracked the usage there, then it'd be 5
useful to track any increased usage at those underutilized parks. Number of dog parks, 6 restrooms, gardens created. Number of facilities serving new activities including nature 7
play. Number of dog owners using fenced dog parks. It'd be great to know that because 8
if we built a dog park, we have more people who are abiding by the law in exercising 9
their dogs within the dog park. Those are the kind of indicators that directly tie to the 10
goals and actually allow Council and the public to see that we meant what we said, and 11
we're doing it. Thanks. 12
13
Chair Lauing: Abbie. 14
15
Vice Chair Knopper: To Jennifer's point just now, I was just thinking about every year 16
when you recap to Council, this is what we implemented in 2018 and this what we had 17
taken from the Master Plan, how we recap that so we can keep moving forward. You 18
want to tout your success and say, "We developed this five-year plan. This is what we've 19
done," and then moving forward. Is it going to be different than the way you've been 20
doing it? You're developing this whole new playbook for the City. Every year you go in 21
and you say, "We've done this. We've done that. This has been successful. That hasn't." 22
Are you going to want to do things differently since you're going to have this bible, so to 23
speak, of programs now? Do we want to include that somehow in this final chapter, 24
saying this is what we're recommending and how that communication is going to be 25 moving forward? 26 27 Mr. de Geus: That's a good question. Obviously we haven't drafted this yet. These just 28
represent some examples of things that we want to do. We will be doing things 29
differently, hopefully better, more strategic, a little longer term even. At the same time, 30
we want to be able to fit the way we're planning both program improvements and capital 31
improvements in a way that's aligned with the capital budget process, so we can smoothly 32
fit in the hopes and expectations of this Plan into the five-year capital plan and beyond. 33
This is a 20-year Plan; we're going to have a timeline that goes out 20 years, just 34
recognize the last 10 years is more likely to shift. 35
36
Chair Lauing: I concur again with Jennifer's comments. My comment on the last one is 37
this whole thing needs to be a strategic plan. It's a strategic implementation plan. When 38
we talk about action plan, it almost gets by definition tactical. I don't want to get into the 39
nomenclature, but this has to be strategic. These bullet points on reporting methodology 40
didn't feel strategic. Appreciate the detail that Commissioner Hetterly put in on that. 41
Similarly, if there's stuff that you really need to get done in the fourth year and it just 42
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costs too much, then it still should probably be in there as a strategic objective. Like any 1
other capital budgeting stuff, things get lopped off the bottom, because you can't afford to 2
do them. At least you've stayed true to the strategy that was developed in all the work 3
that's been done to say this is a high priority. If we decide we can't do it in the first five 4
years, it's still a high priority and we had a budget constraint. An action plan in this kind 5
of document isn't a budgeting plan. It's still a strategic plan. That was the kind of 6 overview that I had on this. Others? 7
8
Commissioner Cribbs: In regards to if it costs too much and it drops out of the list or 9
something like that, if there's a way that we can encourage in the report the opportunity to 10
look for a way to find the funding or to create a vision that people might be enchanted by, 11
there could be a way that we could get something done even if it seems to be too much 12
money in the budget. 13
14
Chair Lauing: Concluded on that item? Schedule. 15
16
Mr. de Geus: I did want to add we had agenda planning with the Clerk's Office and City 17
Manager. The dates are always moving around for items. We got bumped from the 19th. 18
We're pushing to actually go earlier on the 6th. We would have liked the 12th, but that 19
couldn't work. I didn't want to wait any longer because, as you all know, we've been 20
moved out enough. We're scrambling a little bit to get the report finished and completed 21
by this week so that we can actually go on the 6th and give Council a delayed update. It's 22
September 6th. Related to your memo we talked about earlier, we'll include that as well 23
for the 6th. It's an hour and a half. 24
25 Chair Lauing: The other points in your draft Master Plan, fall '16 which is now. When 26 you say winter approval, is that winter approval by Council? 27 28
Mr. de Geus: Yeah. I'd like to see us complete this Plan by the end of the calendar year 29
for the Council Members that are leaving and also for the Commissioners that have done 30
so much work on this. I don't know if you're renewing or what. If we can complete it 31
this calendar year, I think that'd be great. 32
33
Chair Lauing: That would be four months, a little bit less. Any comments on schedule or 34
content or other direction? Should we put more content into the next meeting so we can 35
make sure we stay on track? We spent a couple of months in sort of abeyance here. Was 36
there another comment? 37
38
Commissioner Hetterly: I just wanted to make another plug for in Chapter 3 or Chapter 7 39
that you have some stated emphasis on the maintenance issues that are associated with 40
growth. Not only are we going to have to do the catch-up and keep-up from the IBRC, 41
but as we have more intense use of limited facilities, wear and tear is going to increase 42
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more and more and more and more, and this Plan should acknowledge that and articulate 1
a strategy for serving it. 2
3
Chair Lauing: If there's more growth in housing and population, that's going to 4
contribute as well. Thank you for that effort. 5
6
6. Other Ad Hoc Committee and Liaison Updates. 7 8
Chair Lauing: The Director's Report. No, sorry. Ad hoc committee reports. We might 9
have a short one on gyms. Do you want to make any comments on that? 10
11
Commissioner Cribbs: No, not at this time. 12
13
Chair Lauing: Any other ad hocs? I think all others have reported. 14
15
V. DEPARTMENT REPORT 16
17
Chair Lauing: The Director's report. 18
19
Kristen O'Kane: I will start just with some announcements of some upcoming special 20
events that are occurring. On Saturday, September 10th, the City is partnering with the 21
YMCA to offer a Palo Alto community health fair. This will be at Mitchell Park 22
Community Center from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Again, on September 10th. 23
September 16th is the annual Moonlight Run. We did have to readjust the route of the 24
5K run because of the creek project. We did get a new route, so that's still moving 25 forward. October 2nd there is an expo, a bike and alternative transportation expo that the 26 City is working on. We've just started planning that. I don't have a lot of detail on it at 27 this time. I can provide that as we get it. I'm going to turn it over to Daren now, who's 28
going to give a brief update on the golf course construction. 29
30
Daren Anderson: The good news is the golf course project is underway. We started on 31
July 11th mobilizing the project team and bringing in Wadsworth, the contractor who's 32
working on that job, bringing in their trailers and mobilized their entire operation. Part of 33
that was a wetland and endangered species and cultural artifacts awareness training for 34
their team. As they're excavating soil and digging down, should they find anything, 35
they're trained on what to do. Putting in our erosion control and storm water protection 36
plan measures. They're finishing right now installing the wetland salt marsh harvest 37
mouse and tree protective fencing. The next step—this is the big one—is the earth work 38
that will start up very soon. That'll be the reshaping and contouring of the golf course 39
utilizing the stock pile. That'll continue on until March 2017; that's a good long stretch 40
we'll be working with the earth and soil. Concurrently with that, we'll be doing the 41
drainage and irrigation and those aspects. Around April 2017, they'll be building the new 42
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cart paths and constructing the greens and growing in grass. Once the turf is established, 1
the project will be complete. That'll be right around October or November 2017 2
tentatively at this point. 3
4
Commissioner Reckdahl: The golf course is completely closed down? 5
6 Mr. Anderson: Yes. With the exception of the driving range and the putting green. Of 7
course, we still have the Bay Café and the pro shop open. 8
9
Commissioner Reckdahl: They're staying open—the pro shop is going to have enough 10
business to stay open? 11
12
Mr. Anderson: Yes. 13
14
Chair Lauing: It's such a relief to actually be building it after all this effort and debate 15
and delays and bureaucracy. Just speaking for all of us, it feels so good to be underway. 16
Did you have any others? Commissioner Moss. 17
18
Commissioner Moss: I want to echo the Audubon Society's concerns about how we have 19
to take out 80 percent of the trees. Is that really, really necessary? Also, the part that's 20
over near the Baylands Athletic Center, is that part of the same project? Take out 90 21
percent of those trees. 22
23
Mr. Anderson: The tree removal part of the golf course was debated heavily as we 24
worked through the project planning stages. I think we retained as many trees as we 25 could. I think it was kind of a necessary part of the project. If you're going to 26 reconfigure the whole golf course, there's not a lot of ways around some of those trees 27 coming out. Yeah, I think that unfortunately is necessary. We did put in mitigation plans 28
to address that by increasing habitat both at the Baylands—that's nearby habitat-29
beneficial improvements—and up at Pearson-Arastradero Preserve with caging of, I 30
think, 650 oak saplings to protect them. 31
32
Commissioner Moss: Is it possible to plant more mature trees than saplings? 33
34
Mr. Anderson: This isn't planting them. This is protecting them with caging. I don't 35
believe the funding would allow for too much more additional planting. 36
37
Chair Lauing: The design is a Baylands design. It's supposed to be integrated with the 38
Baylands look. Those trees are actually not native and don't have anything to do with the 39
Baylands. 40
41
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Mr. Anderson: Although it wasn't really factored into the mitigation, the reduction of 50 1
acres of irrigated turf. In its place, though not trees, there are a lot of Baylands native 2
shrubs that offer high habitat value. It's just a different variety. 3
4
VI. COMMENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS 5
6 Chair Lauing: Did you have anything else for announcements? 7
8
Commissioner Reckdahl: I have (inaudible). 9
10
Chair Lauing: Go ahead, Keith. 11
12
Commissioner Reckdahl: Last month we talked about Lucy Evans, and they're supposed 13
to start construction in September. Is this early September or late September? When are 14
we going to be starting the Boardwalk? 15
16
Daren Anderson: I don't have a start date. Next Commission meeting, I'll bring you an 17
update. 18
19
Commissioner Reckdahl: We're really tight for scheduling. If the start date slips, we 20
may lose our window and the Boardwalk will lose a full year. I'm very anxious. 21
22
Peter Jensen: I do have a small announcement. It's not a large project, but the Wilkie 23
Way pathway connection into the Somerset—I think that's right—Hills residential area is 24
not yet complete but should be open. I would say it's 95 percent completed. Open to the 25 public hopefully next week or the week after. That is allowing access into that new 26 residential area which was built a few years ago. It has an open area park in it with a 27 playground. It's very close to Monroe Park, so those two parks can now work in 28
conjunction. The playground equipment there is a lot more robust than what we find in 29
Monroe Park. The park is not as big as Monroe, even though Monroe is not very big in 30
itself. It does allow access from that surrounding neighborhood to that facility. 31
Something we've been working on for a while. 32
33
Chair Lauing: Anne. 34
35
Commissioner Cribbs: Is there an update on Cubberley and the rental process? 36
37
Rob de Geus: There is now that you mention it. We've put out an RFP for Foothill 38
College leaving. They're leaving by the end of September. We received 28 or 29 39
responses. This last Friday, the staff did a mapping exercise to see how many could be 40
accommodated in all the different rooms. There's some 40,000 square feet being vacated. 41
It's a big puzzle. We're not there yet, but we think we can accommodate a lot of folks, 42
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which we're very happy about that. We're at the point of having a draft of what we think 1
we can do and are reaching out to the different potential renters this next week. 2
3
Commissioner Moss: Is that no two-story construction or anything like that? It's just 4
existing facilities. 5
6 Mr. de Geus: That's right. The existing facilities at the Cubberley Community Center. 7
Foothill College had a great deal of space. It's just a little scary because we've got to 8
generate that revenue that the City's counting on. At the same time, it's able to 9
accommodate a lot of nonprofits and people that need space. That's been kind of 10
exciting. 11
12
Commissioner Hetterly: Is there any further progress with the School District on 13
designing a planning process under the compact? 14
15
Kristen O'Kane: We've been meeting with the School District every few months. They 16
are going to their Board in October to ask for more direction on what they would like to 17
do with the property. They've discussed having a school there. They've discussed 18
possibly some other uses. We're meeting with them to stay in touch, but we're waiting on 19
this School Board meeting in October to be able to take it to the next step. 20
21
Chair Lauing: How about Avenidas? That's not necessarily in our bailiwick, but they 22
were here once. Is that moving forward or what's the status on that? 23
24
Mr. de Geus: That's moving forward as well. Interestingly, they would love to see 25 Cubberley as a temporary location for them when they're rebuilding. They're still at least 26 a year away before beginning. 27 28
Vice Chair Knopper: I have a quick question. Has the State of California talked to the 29
City? Is Zika a concern here, like mosquitoes? I don't know what kind of season it's 30
supposed to be. Is it rainy, is there supposed to be a lot of water? Currently we have 31
none, so I don't think a mosquito is an issue. I was just wondering. 32
33
Mr. de Geus: Daren probably knows more about this. I think West Nile is a bigger issue 34
here, because of the type of mosquitoes we have. The mosquito that carries the Zika 35
virus is not generally in this area. That's not to say I'm not a bit nervous about it. Daren, 36
do you have anything? 37
38
Mr. Anderson: I would just say that we're in close communication with Santa Clara 39
County Vector Control. We haven't received any notifications of threats in our area. 40
41
Chair Lauing: David. 42
Draft Minutes 45
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1
Commissioner Moss: You had mentioned that—Jim Cowie and I are going to Midtown 2
on the 18th, I think it is. We're supposed to talk about the Master Plan. What portion of 3
what we've talked about here are we allowed to talk about or not allowed to talk about? 4
Can we talk about everything? 5
6 Chair Lauing: Yep, it's public. 7
8
Ms. O'Kane: Yes, absolutely. Commissioner Moss and Commissioner Cowie will be 9
attending the ice cream social of the Midtown Neighborhood Association just 10
representing the Parks and Rec Commission, but also there to answer questions on the 11
Master Plan process. I'll be there as well for support. Anything that we've discussed here 12
is public information. 13
14
Vice Chair Knopper: David, I wouldn't really worry. I did it last year, and I was covered 15
with vanilla ice cream. There wasn't much time for questions. It was a lot of scooping. 16
They'll put you to work. 17
18
Commissioner Hetterly: I just warn you that one of the issues that they're very concerned 19
about in Midtown is the prospect of a dog park in Hoover Park. You are likely to get 20
some questions about that. You might want to read the dog park staff report before you 21
go just so you're armed with some info. 22
23
Commissioner Moss: I also know about the—also the Matadero Creek Trail caused some 24
questions, so I have to be able to talk about that a little bit. 25 26 Chair Lauing: Rob. 27 28
Mr. de Geus: I would just add, Commissioner Moss, to listen more, I suppose. That's the 29
main thing that you want to do, listen to the residents. If they ask you questions about 30
where the Commission stands on something, unless the Commission has taken a vote and 31
a position on something, then you wouldn't suggest what you think about this park is a 32
Commission perspective when it’s not. 33
34
Chair Lauing: Good counsel. I just wanted to make a comment that I'm going to as 35
many of the park concerts as possible. I went to Patti and Tuck Saturday night. The 36
place was slammed, jammed. We need a much bigger park there. Judge Lucky does a 37
good job of rallying the troops. The comment I wanted to make is that we do it for 38
community, and that's working because there's a lot of times more community than there 39
is listening to the concert, particularly the children. That's great because that's one of the 40
objectives. You meet your neighbors, and you meet new people. The kids run wild, and 41
Draft Minutes 46
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they're safe. It's just really cool. People thanked me for putting on the concert, if they 1
know I'm on the Commission. I go, "It's the least I could do for the community." 2
3
Mr. de Geus: I missed you there, Chair Lauing. I was there too with my family. It was 4
fun. Talk about safety. I don't know if you saw those kids. There were kids up in the big 5
redwood tree, maybe 40 feet up. I was like, "Is that for real?" My son, 12-year-old 6 Jacob, said, "Can I do that, Dad?" I said no. 7
8
Chair Lauing: Yeah, I was kind of stage right, meaning off to the left, but it was really 9
crowded. Anything else? Jennifer. 10
11
Commissioner Hetterly: I just want to make a quick announcement. The Comp Plan 12
Advisory Committee has been working on the Land Use Element for quite some time 13
now. It looks like we are going to finally—we may finally move off of that and onto the 14
Natural Environment Element. At the very least, we'll have an introduction into that 15
element at next month's meeting, September 20th if anybody's interested. That's really 16
the element that has the most guidance about our open space and natural ecosystems. 17
18
Chair Lauing: I hear you're putting in a couple of hours a week on that committee. Is 19
that right? Very intense. David. 20
21
Commissioner Moss: The Baylands Conservation Plan, that's moving along. You're 22
going to have something to look at in the next month, I guess. 23
24
Ms. O'Kane: That's correct. Daren and I have drafted the scope of work for the Baylands 25 Comprehensive Conservation Plan. We've distributed that to other internal stakeholders 26 that might have a vested interest in that. We've received some comments. We're also 27 going to have some of the environmental groups review that. We'll also send it to the ad 28
hoc group of the Commission. You can expect that, I would say, in the next couple of 29
weeks. 30
31
VII. TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR SEPTEMBER 27, 2016 MEETING 32 33
Chair Lauing: The next item on the agenda is tentative agenda for the September 27th 34
meeting. We could put the Master Plan on there. Do we expect the Zoo to be back? 35
36
Kristen O'Kane: We do. That should be in September. We'll also come back with 37
analysis of the aquatics programs that we're working on. We'll also be having a 38
presentation on our special events that we do through Community Services, what we've 39
accomplished last year and what we're planning on moving forward with this year. 40
41
Chair Lauing: Is that going to be a short one? 42
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1
Ms. O'Kane: Yeah, that'll be a short one. 2
3
Chair Lauing: The first three that we mentioned are going to be long. 4
5
Ms. O'Kane: We can talk about that. If it's better to move it to a different date, that's 6 fine. 7
8
Chair Lauing: I think it'll depend on how much content you have on the Master Plan. If 9
you can get through six and seven and revise some of the stuff we've got, that's going to 10
be content laden. 11
12
Ms. O'Kane: I thought it would be nice to share something other than the Master Plan at 13
our meetings. 14
15
Chair Lauing: We agree. The aquatics is good. The Zoo will be fun. Probably the 16
special events is 20 minutes, 30 minutes. 17
18
Ms. O'Kane: Max. As we get closer to the date, we can talk about it. 19
20
Chair Lauing: Any other things for that agenda? I think we're done. 21
22
VIII. ADJOURNMENT 23
24
Chair Lauing: I would entertain a motion for adjournment. Don't have one. Did you 25 move? 26 27 Meeting adjourned on motion by Commissioner Hetterly and second by Vice Chair 28
Knopper at 9:45 p.m. 29
Draft Minutes 48
TO: PARKS AND RECREATION COMMISSION
FROM: JAZMIN LEBLANC, STRATEGY AND OPERATIONS MANAGER,
COMMUNITY SERVICES DEPARTMENT
AGENDA DATE: SEPTEMBER 27, 2016
SUBJECT: PROPOSED CHANGES TO THE PALO ALTO AQUATICS PROGRAM
RECOMMENDATION
Staff requests that the Parks and Recreation Commission provide feedback on the policy
implications that arise from potentially contracting out the aquatics program. Staff has
reviewed four management alternatives using the following criteria:
• City and Customer Costs
• Quality of Service and Customer Satisfaction
• Diversity of Programming and Accessibility
There are advantages and disadvantages to each of the alternatives. The alternatives differ by
the extent to which the cost of aquatics programming is subsidized by the City versus borne
more heavily by users. The question of how much the community will value additional pool
hours and expanded programming is also a major factor.
Executive Summary
Rinconada Pool is a valued community asset, receiving over 58,000 drop-in visits to its lap and
recreation swimming programs each year and providing swimming lessons to over 1,000 youth
annually. In the past few years, City residents have made clear that they would like better pool
access. Residents want open swim programs available for an extended swim season and would
like to increase daily open hours. They would also like more access to youth swimming lessons
with more lessons available and at more convenient times during the week. This increased
demand for both recreational and instructional swimming, together with CSD’s difficulty in
hiring adequate lifeguarding staff to provide swim lessons has led staff to recommend several
changes to the Aquatics Program.
In December 2015, after receiving direction from the Finance Committee and subsequently the
full Council, staff released a Request for Proposal (RFP) to solicit bids for Aquatics Management
services to improve the City Aquatics program. The evaluation is still ongoing however staff
believes there are opportunities to not just maintain the aquatics program but to meet
community requests to expand and enhance aquatics programming for Palo Alto. Staff is
1
looking forward to discussing the analysis with the Parks and Recreation Commission to answer
questions and listen to its perspectives as we work toward a recommendation.
The objective of the RFP is to consider alternatives for how we might best achieve the
following:
1) Expand the recreational swimming season to open both pools for recreation swimming
in mid-April and keep the pool open through late October.
2) Adjust and add open hours for lap swim and recreational swimming programs to better
meet customer demands for pool use outside of 9 to 5 weekday hours.
3) Expand the swim lesson season to match the expanded recreational swim season and
adjust swim lesson offerings to provide more evening and weekend lessons.
Staff is evaluating four alternatives, each with advantages, disadvantages and tradeoffs:
Alternative 1:
CSD staff manages the recreation and lap swim
programs and expand the season and hours to
better align with customer scheduling preferences
and demand, lap and recreation swim hours are
increased and adjusted and the recreation swim
season is expanded by 8-10 weeks to open earlier
in the spring and close later in the fall. CSD
contracts out the learn-to-swim program to Team
Sheeper as well as management of Rinconada
Masters and PASA.
Alternative 2:
CSD enters into an agreement with Team Sheeper
to take over full operation of the City’s aquatics
programming including the learn-to-swim
program, management of PASA, a masters
program, as well as lap swim and recreational
swim. Team Sheeper’s proposal offers to expand
programming by offering more swimming lessons
year round, more weekly lap swim and recreation
swim hours, a longer season of recreation swim,
summer swim camp, and swim pro services.
Alternative 3:
CSD expands and updates the in-house Aquatics
Program in order to provide a similar level and
quality of service as the Team Sheeper proposal.
This would entail using more lifeguarding hours
than in previous years, dedicating a Community
Services Manager position to aquatics (the
aquatics program currently uses 25 percent of a
Community Services Manager,) increasing
lifeguarding hourly pay rates, and expanding the
use of SEIU hourly lifeguards.
Alternative 4:
(Status Quo) The City chooses not to implement
any of the first three alternatives. CSD would
continue managing the pool in the same way as it
has for the past two years. This means that
Rinconada continues to operate with similar hours
and scheduling as in previous years and the City
contracts out the learn-to-swim program as well as
management of Rinconada Masters and PASA,
each to separate providers.
Background
During the summer season, which runs from mid-June through mid-August, the City of Palo Alto
Aquatics Program offers a variety of activities for the community including:
• family recreation swim,
• adult lap swim,
2
• learn-to-swim lessons,
• facility rentals for private pool parties,
• a youth competitive swim team (PASA - Palo Alto Stanford Aquatics), and
• an adult competitive swim team (Rinconada Masters).
The City has existing contracts to provide the Rinconada Masters and PASA programs, while City
staff historically has provided staffing for remaining programs. The majority of the aquatics
programs are held at the City-owned Rinconada pool with some summer swim lessons also
taking place at the JLS Middle School pool.
Throughout the rest of the year (mid-September through mid-May), the only aquatics activities
that are offered at Rinconada are adult lap swim, PASA, and the Rinconada Masters.
For the past two summers (2015 and 2016), the City has struggled to hire and retain adequate
pool staff to meet community demand for the Lap Swim, Learn-to-swim and Summer
Recreation programs. In 2015, CSD entered into an emergency contract with an outside vendor
to mitigate its Learn-to-swim staffing shortages. Working on a very short timeline, CSD was able
to write and approve a contract with Team Sheeper INC., a professional third party aquatics
service provider who was able to mobilize quickly and provide qualified professional swim
instructors and lifeguards to support the Palo Alto aquatics programs.
Following the 2015 summer swim season, CSD staff conducted program evaluations of the
summer lessons that Team Sheeper INC. had provided. Parents of participants were very
pleased with the experience and felt their children’s progress and technique had improved over
the course of the lessons. Because the 2015 Team Sheeper program was well received by the
community and worked well from a departmental standpoint, CSD entered into another short-
term limited contract with Team Sheeper INC. to manage the Learn-to-swim program for the
Summer 2016 season.
There are several reasons the City aquatics program is experiencing difficulty hiring and
retaining staff. The pay rates for lifeguards and swim instructors are not as competitive
compared to other employment opportunities for high school and college students. The City
offers mostly seasonal work opportunities and not year round part-time employment. The
majority of the aquatics employees are students and after summer they have limited work
availability.
Provision of aquatics services for cities in the region is delivered in a number of ways. For
example, the City of Menlo Park contracted out their entire aquatics program to Team Sheeper,
Inc. and it now operates in a public-private partnership as Menlo Swim & Sport. The City of
Morgan Hill has a unique partnership with the YMCA to run their recreation programs. As
partners, the City of Morgan Hill and YMCA partner to provide high quality health and fitness,
youth, teen, family, and senior programs including aquatics for residents and the surrounding
community to enjoy. Currently, the City of Palo Alto provides a hybrid program where the
3
Aquatics program is predominantly run in house with the exception of our Master’s and PASA
programs which are provided by contractors.
In December 2015, CSD issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the following services: 1)
Learn-to-swim lessons; 2) Youth Competitive Swim Team; 3) Adult Master Swim Team; and 4)
aquatics facilities operation, including recreational swim, lap swim, and pool rentals. Firms
were invited to submit a proposal for one or all of the above services and attend a pre-bid
meeting. Two proposals were received and both bidders were invited to present their
proposals and respond to questions from the consultant review team. The consultant review
team was represented by five City staff, a Recreation Supervisor from the City of Mountain
View, a Recreation Supervisor from the City of Milpitas, and a pool user (lap swim).
After careful review of both proposals, discussing with the consultant review team and
interviewing the two potential service providers, CSD staff began evaluating short and long
term alternatives for future program delivery with Team Sheeper INC.. Team Sheeper has the
experience, staffing levels, and innovative programming to not only maintain the City’s aquatics
program at its current level of service, but also expand it and add additional new programs if
the City so desires.
Discussion
In response to community feedback staff hopes to achieve the following:
1) Expand the recreational swimming season to open both pools for recreations swimming
in mid-April and keep the pool open through late October.
2) Adjust and adding open hours for lap swim and recreational swimming programs to
better meet customer demands for pool use outside of 9 to 5 weekday hours.
3) Expand the swim lesson season to match the expanded recreational swim season and
adjust swim lesson offerings to provide more evening and weekend lessons.
These recommended changes will result in better service to the public and will allow CSD to
better meet our core values of:
• Health, Wellbeing and Creativity – We provide high quality relevant programs and
services that promote health, wellbeing & creativity.
• Accessibility and Inclusivity – We deliver a diverse portfolio of programs and services
efficiently and effectively, striving to be inclusive and accessible to a wide range of
cultures, ages and abilities.
• Proactive Stewardship – We protect and preserve parks and open space through
comprehensive conservation policies and programs, and we maintain and enhance
community facilities through best practice asset management.
4
• Strategic Partnerships – We strategically partner with the non-profit and private
sectors, along with individuals in the planning and delivery of programs and services to
build and strengthen community.
There are four alternatives the City is considering as outlined below. These alternatives are in draft
format, the alternative that will be recommended to Council will be further refined as we hear from the
Parks and Recreation Commission (PRC) and additional members of the public. We ask the PRC to
consider the policy implications between the alternatives and ask questions that the Commission believe
to be most pertinent to help staff make a recommendation to Council that will result in the greatest
value and highest and best use of Rinconada Pool for Palo Alto residents.
Alternative 1:
CSD staff manages the recreation and lap swim
programs and expand the season and hours to
better align with customer scheduling preferences
and demand, lap and recreation swim hours are
increased and adjusted and the recreation swim
season is expanded by 8-10 weeks to open earlier
in the spring and close later in the fall. CSD
contracts out the learn-to-swim program to Team
Sheeper as well as management of Rinconada
Masters and PASA.
Alternative 2:
CSD enters into an agreement with Team Sheeper
to take over full operation of the City’s aquatics
programming including the learn-to-swim
program, management of PASA, a masters
program, as well as lap swim and recreational
swim. Team Sheeper’s proposal offers to expand
programming by offering more swimming lessons
year round, more weekly lap swim and recreation
swim hours, a longer season of recreation swim,
summer swim camp, and swim pro services.
Alternative 3:
CSD expands and updates the in-house Aquatics
Program in order to provide a similar level and
quality of service as the Team Sheeper proposal.
This would entail using more lifeguarding hours
than in previous years, dedicating a Community
Services Manager position to aquatics (the
aquatics program currently uses 25 percent of a
Community Services Manager,) increasing
lifeguarding hourly rates, and expanding the use of
SEIU hourly lifeguards.
Alternative 4:
(Status Quo) The City chooses not to implement
staff recommendations. CSD would continue
managing the pool in the same was as it has for
the past two years. This means that Rinconada
continues to operate with similar hours and
scheduling as in previous years and the City
contracts out the learn-to-swim program as well as
management of Rinconada Masters and PASA,
each to separate providers.
5
Net Cost of the Alternatives
The following charts depict anticipated net costs of the four alternatives in Year One and Year
Two.
Year One – FY 2017
Forecasted Fiscal Impact
Alternative
1
Alternative
2
Alternative
3
Alternative
4
FY 2018 Hybrid Contracted In House Status Quo
Revenue 602,747 4,194 602,847 437,083
Operating Expenditures 466,179 60,386 704,425 564,469
Contract Fees 265,000 0 0 265,000
Maintenance and Overhead 299,819 299,819 299,819 274,819
Net General Fund Impact (428,250) (356,011) (466,796) (622,991)
Potential Implementation Strategies
CSD analyzed each of the four alternatives using the following criteria:
• City and Customer Costs
• Quality of Service and Customer Satisfaction
• Diversity of Programming and Accessibility
Alternative 1 (Hybrid Management)
CSD staff manages the recreation and lap swim programs and expand the season and hours to
better align with customer scheduling preferences and demand, lap and recreation swim hours
are increased and adjusted and the recreation swim season is expanded by 8-10 weeks to open
earlier in the spring and close later in the fall. CSD contracts out the learn-to-swim program as
well as management of Rinconada Masters and PASA.
Customer Pricing
Lessons
Alternative 1 prices remain largely unchanged from the current pricing structure but with
slightly increased rates for youth swimming lessons. Palo Alto’s swim program fees have a cost
recovery goal of covering 30 to 70 percent of costs, consistent with the City’s User Fee Cost
Recovery Policy. The fee structure in place now has regularly met this recovery goal, with
approximately 80 percent of direct costs covered by fees; 60 percent of total costs covered.
6
Palo Alto’s pricing is also close to the average of twenty other surveyed public swim programs
with regard to group lessons (see Appendix A for more detail). Palo Alto’s group learn-to-swim
lessons are priced at about $11 per lesson, when the area average is about $13 per lesson.
Palo Alto’s private swim lessons are heavily subsidized and priced much lower than
benchmarked jurisdictions. Palo Alto’s private swim lessons are approximately $24 per lesson,
whereas the benchmark average was $40. If Council chooses Alternative One staff
recommends increasing swim lesson pricing to the benchmark average. Staff also recommends
increasing non-resident lesson rates to cover 100 percent of the contract cost per class.
Currently, non-residents pay 10-12 percent more for swim lessons than residents and account
for 20 percent of users.
Proposed Swim Lesson Prices
Palo Alto
Resident Non-Resident
Group Youth Lessons $13 $20
Semi Private Youth Lessons N/A N/A
Private Youth Lessons $40 $63
Group Adult Lessons N/A N/A
Private Adult Lessons $64 (60 min) $75 (60 min)
Summer Camps N/A N/A
Lap and Recreational Swim
Palo Alto offers two fee options at Rinconada Pool for entrance to the recreation and lap swim
programs: 1) daily entrance rates based on age (adult, youth, senior, and infant,) and 2) ten-
pack options with differing prices depending on age and residency status in Palo Alto. We
identified a benchmark average entrance rate for recreation and lap swim of $4 for adults—the
same rate as our ten pack adult price.
7
Lap and Recreation Swimming Prices
Alternative One Lap and Recreation Swim Pricing
Re
s
i
d
e
n
t
s
Adult Senior Youth Infant
Daily Rate $6.00 $4.00 $5.00 $3.00
10 Pack Per Use $4.00 $2.50 $3.50 N/A
No
n
-Re
s
i
d
e
n
t
s
Adult Senior Youth Infant
Daily Rate $6.00 $4.00 $5.00 $3.00
10 Pack Per Use $4.50 $3.00 $4.00 N/A
City Costs
Alternative 1 has an expected net General Fund cost of approximately $428,000 per year;
roughly $300,000 of that cost is borne as facilities maintenance and overhead. Alternative 1
does not require any change to City staffing levels although staff would work to increase
lifeguarding salaries in order to attract and retain pool staff. Alternative 1 would seek to
improve staff deployment at the pools to ensure that we are appropriately staffed at all hours
and in order to provide a longer swim season without adding additional hours of staffing at the
pool.
Quality of Service and Customer Satisfaction
Team Sheeper and the City both place high value on pool safety and have similar maintenance
and cleanliness standards.
The most notable difference in programming between Team Sheeper’s model and the City’s is
in the swim lesson model. Palo Alto offers summer-only group swim lessons that are held four
days in a row for two weeks at a time. Team Sheeper offers year-round group lessons that
meet once weekly and can last as long as necessary for a child to advance. Both programs offer
a ratio of 4 students to 1 instructor and utilize high quality instruction methods.
Team Sheeper’s swim lesson programming is different than the City’s traditional Red Cross
program. The City’s learn-to-swim program has emphasized water safety and building comfort
in the water. Team Sheeper’s program emphasizes water safety and comfort in the water but in
addition focuses heavily on building fundamentally sound swim techniques in all four swim
strokes.
8
Alternative One continues to use Team Sheeper to provide swimming lessons as we have for
the past two summer seasons. Customer satisfaction has been generally positive for both
summers using Team Sheeper to provide lessons. However, a sizable minority of residents have
expressed a preference for Palo Alto’s previous model with a desire that the same lifeguards
who provide lessons be the lifeguards used to staff the pool. This was the practice in the past
and helped to build a sense of community.
Diversity of Programming and Accessibility
Under Alternative One, the diversity of programming would not change but accessibility would
increase for recreational and lap swimming due to increased hours and a longer swim season.
Swimming lesson accessibility could be enhanced by allowing Team Sheeper to offer more of
their lessons on weekends and in the evenings. Because lessons are priced below Team
Sheeper’s prices, the number of lessons could not increase without increasing City costs, so
there would likely be more demand than available slots.
Alternative 2 (Fully Contracted Management)
Alternative Two assumes that CSD enters into an agreement with Team Sheeper to take over
full operation of the City’s aquatics programming including the learn-to-swim program,
management of PASA and Rinconada Masters, as well as lap swim and recreational swim. Team
Sheeper’s proposal offers to expand programming by offering more swimming lessons year
round, more weekly lap swim and recreation swim hours, a longer season of recreation swim,
summer swim camp, and swim pro services.
Customer Pricing
Alternative Two has the highest customer costs of the four aquatics management Alternatives
available. Increases in customer pricing would have the greatest impact on approximately
1,000 youth swim lesson participants and 1,800 10-Pack Lap and Recreation swim users.
Lessons
Team Sheeper would use the same pricing model for swimming lessons that it uses at Burgess
Pool in Menlo Park. Their youth swimming lesson pricing is significantly higher than Palo Alto’s
current pricing. Team Sheeper also maintains a different model for lessons going beyond the
water safety focus that Palo Alto’s lessons have traditionally had and focusing in on swimming
technique. Team Sheeper also offers more flexibility in their swim lesson program with the
ability to schedule “make-up” lessons, and easily switch lesson levels and scheduling. Proposed
swimming lesson pricing is detailed in the chart below:
9
Swim Lesson Prices
Palo Alto Sheeper Resident Percentage
Increase Resident Non-Resident
Group Youth Lessons $11 $12 $22 100%
Semi Private Youth Lessons N/A N/A $37 N/A
Private Youth Lessons $24 $26 $67 165%
Group Adult Lessons N/A N/A $30 N/A
Private Adult Lessons $64 (60 min) $75 (60 min) $37 (30 min) 16%
Lap and Recreational Swim
Team Sheeper would use the same pricing model for lap and recreational swimming as it does
at the Burgess Pool. Their proposal includes two tiers of walk-up prices, by differentiating
between residents and non-residents. Adult residents who pay upon entry would see no
change in the price they pay and youth over three years old would see a slight decrease in their
rates. Senior rates would increase slightly as would infant rates. The table below outlines
these changes.
Alternative Two Lap and Recreation Swim Pricing
Re
s
i
d
e
n
t
s
Adult Senior Youth Infant
Daily Rate $6.00 $4.50 $4.50 $4.50
Monthly Pass $48.00 $36.00 $36.00 $36.00
No
n
-Re
s
i
d
e
n
t
s
Adult Senior Youth Infant
Daily Rate $7.00 $5.25 $5.25 $5.25
Monthly Pass $54.00 $40.50 $40.50 $40.50
Roughly 40 percent of daily entrants to the pool currently are paid through the 10-Pack
program which is a lower cost alternative to paying the daily entrance fee. For the current 10-
Pack users, prices under the Team Sheeper contract would rise. The chart below indicates the
percentage increase in pricing from the current 10-pack prices to the daily entrance fees for
Team Sheeper.
10
Alternative Two Rate Increase for 10-Pack users
Re
s
i
d
e
n
t
s
Adult 50%
Senior 80%
Youth 29%
Infant 50%
No
n
-Re
s
i
d
e
n
t
s
Adult 56%
Senior 75%
Youth 31%
Infant 75%
In 2015, approximately 1,330 residents used a 10-pack at some point in 2015 an average of 13
times per year and another 443 non-residents used the 10-pack in 2015 an average of 12 times
per year. Approximately 30 percent of 10-pack users are seniors, 60 percent are adults, and 10
percent are youth.
City Costs
Alternative Two offers the lowest City cost to operate the aquatics facilities. Staff expects that
Alternative Two would cost the City approximately $356,000 to operate the Aquatics Program
in its first year of operations with the majority of the costs ($300,000) being attributable to
facilities and maintenance. Alternative Two has an impact of about $70,000 less to the General
Fund than Alternative One.
Alternative Two also impacts City staffing. Currently the City has one permanent position and
12 SEIU hourly positions in the Aquatics Program. (Only 5 of 12 hourly positions are currently
filled for a total of 2.06 FTE. The remaining 7 unfilled positions total 1.73 FTE.) Staff would
need to work with the SEIU and the employees through the Meet and Confer process defined in
the City’s Memorandum of Understanding with SEIU to determine how each employee will be
impacted.
Quality of Service and Customer Satisfaction
As discussed in Alternative One, Team Sheeper and the City both place high value on pool
safety and have similar maintenance and cleanliness standards.
The most notable difference in programming between Team Sheeper’s model and the City’s is
in the swim lesson model. Palo Alto offers summer-only group swim lessons that are held four
days in a row for two weeks at a time. Team Sheeper offers year-round group lessons that
11
meet once weekly and can last as long as necessary for a child to advance. Both programs offer
a ratio of 4 students to 1 instructor and utilize high quality instruction methods.
Team Sheeper’s swim lesson programming is different that the City’s traditional Red Cross
program. The City’s learn-to-swim program has emphasized water safety and building comfort
in the water. Team Sheeper’s program emphasizes water safety and comfort in the water but in
addition focuses heavily on building fundamentally sound swim techniques in all four
competitive swim strokes.
Customer satisfaction has been generally positive for both summers using Team Sheeper to
provide lessons. However, a sizable minority of lesson users this year had concerns that Team
Sheeper’s swimming lesson program is not as fun as Rinconada’s traditional lessons had been in
previous years.
Team Sheeper has provided the information below to elaborate on how their swim program
goes beyond a traditional swim safety program:
• Single Goal Approach- Swimmers focus on one skill or stroke at a time, they master the
stroke being taught, while building on previous skills with each new level.
• Each lesson is extremely focused on the individual student and their swim ability. We
teach to the student while in a group setting.
• Teachers will give students hands on and verbal instruction, they will modify the
instruction given with each interaction, giving swimmers the feedback they need and
tailoring the lesson to the student in each class.
• Each time a student comes to a swim lesson they have the opportunity to advance. After
demonstrating the skill they are working on successfully in three separate lessons,
swimmers receive a ribbon and are able to move on to the next skill while staying in the
same class.
• Instructors provide support to the progress of the swimmers in collaboration with Deck
Coordinators. Deck Coordinators are called over during a lesson to watch the student
swim; they then provide feedback to the swimmer, give direction as needed and serve
as a way to ensure the student is receiving the opportunity to advance.
• Team Sheeper’s program is year round and not session based. Swimmers can continue
progress without interruption. Session based programs can stop a swimmer’s
momentum. The year round approach allows students the opportunity to join a class at
any time, without feeling that they are behind.
12
• Year round classes allow Team Sheeper to hire full-time instructors with more
experience than seasonal employees typically have. Team Sheeper’s staff includes many
instructors with extensive backgrounds in aquatics, advanced degree in athletics, and
some were competitive swimmers in the past.
• They provide ongoing training and continued investment in all swim instructors, training
courses include: swim clinics, new teaching methods, innovation to curriculum, teacher
to student relationship building, and team building.
Diversity of Programming and Accessibility
Team Sheeper’s proposal offers more hours of lap and recreation swimming as well as other
programs that Palo Alto currently does not provide including summer and holiday swim camps,
aqua-fitness classes and swim pro services.
Weekly Open Hours
Status Quo Team Sheeper
Su
m
m
e
r
Lap Swim
39 79
Lap Pool Recreation
27 30
Wading Pool
55 86
No
n
-Su
m
m
e
r
Lap Swim
42 52
Lap Pool Recreation
0 4
Wading Pool
0 46
The biggest potential Accessibility drawback from using Team Sheeper would be that some
customers may feel they cannot afford the newly increased prices under a Team Sheeper.
Team Sheeper offers a financial aid program for swim lessons, water polo team membership
and lifeguard certification classes at its Belle Haven pool which they would explore bringing to
Rinconada.
Alternative 3 (Full-Service In-House Management)
CSD expands and updates the in-house Aquatics Program in order to provide a similar level and
quality of service as the Team Sheeper proposal. This would entail using more lifeguarding
hours than in previous years, dedicating a Community Services Manager position to aquatics
(the aquatics program currently uses 25 percent of a Community Services Manager,) increasing
lifeguarding hourly rates, and expanding the use of SEIU hourly lifeguards.
13
Customer Pricing
Lessons
Alternative 3 prices are identical to Alternative 1 pricing. Under Alternative 3, youth group
swim lesson pricing would increase to the area average of about $13 per lesson. If Council
chooses Alternative Three staff recommends increasing private swim lesson pricing to the
benchmark average of $40 per lesson. Staff also recommends increasing non-resident lesson
rates to cover 100 percent of the cost per class. Currently, non-residents pay 10-12 percent
more for swim lessons than residents and account for 20 percent of users.
Proposed Swim Lesson Prices
Palo Alto
Resident Non-Resident
Group Youth Lessons $13 $20
Semi Private Youth Lessons N/A N/A
Private Youth Lessons $40 $63
Group Adult Lessons N/A N/A
Private Adult Lessons $64 (60 min) $75 (60 min)
Summer Camps N/A N/A
Lap and Recreational Swim
Pricing for lap and recreational swimming would be unchanged from Alternative One and
Alternative Four (the Status Quo) and thus, would remain unchanged from current pricing.
Lap and Recreation Swimming Prices
Alternative One Lap and Recreation Swim Pricing
Re
s
i
d
e
n
t
s
Adult Senior Youth Infant
Daily Rate $6.00 $4.00 $5.00 $3.00
10 Pack Per Use $4.00 $2.50 $3.50 N/A
No
n
-Re
s
i
d
e
n
t
s
Adult Senior Youth Infant
Daily Rate $6.00 $4.00 $5.00 $3.00
10 Pack Per Use $4.50 $3.00 $4.00 N/A
14
City Costs
Alternative 3 has an expected net General Fund cost of approximately $468,000 per year;
roughly $300,000 of that cost is borne as facilities maintenance and overhead. In order to
successfully operate a fully in-house aquatics program, staff recommends adding staffing and
adjusting salary ranges. Specifically, Alternative Three requires an additional 0.75 FTE
Community Services Manager and recommends increasing lifeguarding salaries by
approximately 25 percent in order to attract and retain pool staff. Alternative Three would
seek to improve staff deployment at the pools to ensure that we are appropriately staffed at all
hours and in order to provide a longer swim season while minimizing additional hours of
staffing at the pool, however, under Alternative Three, we expect that we may need to switch
some unbenefited lifeguard positions to SEIU hourly lifeguards.
Quality of Service and Customer Satisfaction
The City places high value on pool safety and has high maintenance and cleanliness standards.
Additionally, the in-house swimming lessons have historically received high customer service
ratings and we would expect this to continue if Alternative Three were selected.
Diversity of Programming and Accessibility
Under Alternative Three, the diversity of programming would not change but accessibility
would increase for recreational and lap swimming due to increased hours and a longer swim
season.
Alternative 4 (Status Quo)
The City chooses not to implement staff recommendations. CSD would continue managing the
pool in the same was as it has for the past two years. This means that Rinconada continues to
operate with similar hours and scheduling as in previous years and the City contracts out the
learn-to-swim program as well as management of Rinconada Masters and PASA, each to
separate providers.
15
Customer Pricing
Lessons
Lessons are currently priced as follows.
Status Quo Swim Lesson Prices
Palo Alto
Resident Non-Resident
Group Youth Lessons $11 $12
Semi Private Youth Lessons N/A N/A
Private Youth Lessons $24 $26
Group Adult Lessons N/A N/A
Private Adult Lessons $64 (60 min) $75 (60 min)
Summer Camps N/A N/A
Masters Swim
$75-
80/month
$75-
80/month
Lap and Recreational Swim
Pricing for lap and recreational swimming would be unchanged from Alternatives One, Three
and Four (the Status Quo) and thus, would remain unchanged from current pricing.
Lap and Recreation Swimming Prices
Alternative One Lap and Recreation Swim Pricing
Re
s
i
d
e
n
t
s
Adult Senior Youth Infant
Daily Rate $6.00 $4.00 $5.00 $3.00
10 Pack Per Use $4.00 $2.50 $3.50 N/A
No
n
-Re
s
i
d
e
n
t
s
Adult Senior Youth Infant
Daily Rate $6.00 $4.00 $5.00 $3.00
10 Pack Per Use $4.50 $3.00 $4.00 N/A
City Costs
Alternative Four has the greatest expected net General Fund cost of approximately $640,000
per year; roughly $275,000 of that cost is borne as facilities maintenance and overhead. The
main drivers behind Alternative Fours high costs are: lower revenues from recreation and lap
16
swimming due to limited hours and higher staffing costs due to using outdating staffing needs
models and projections.
Quality of Service and Customer Satisfaction
The City places high value on pool safety and has high maintenance and cleanliness standards.
Additionally, the in-house swimming lessons have historically received high customer service
ratings and we would expect this to continue if Alternative Four were selected. However,
choosing the Status Quo will not alleviate the increasing demands from the community to
provide more pool accessibility in the form of an expanding recreational swim season and
longer pool hours.
Diversity of Programming and Accessibility
With the status quo, the diversity of programming and pool accessibility would remain
unchanged and would not address the desires of the community to increase pool access.
Impact on PASA and Rinconada Masters
Council has a choice regarding how to proceed with PASA and Rinconada Masters. If the City
elects to contract the aquatics program to Team Sheeper, Team Sheeper has proposed
absorbing the Rinconada Master’s program and would subcontract with PASA to operate their
program.
No matter which Alternative is chosen, CSD is committed to offering high quality master and
youth swim programs at Rinconada.
Timeline
• September 2016 – PSO meets with SEIU to notify them of the possible impact on 1 SEIU
permanent position and 12 SEIU hourly positions in the Aquatics Program. (Only 5 of 12
are currently filled for a total of 2.06 FTE. The remaining 7 unfilled positions total 1.73
FTE.)
• November 2016 – City Council presentation and discussion of the Aquatics Program
Alternatives.
• December 2016 – Pending City Council and CMO direction, contract with Team Sheeper
finalized or Aquatics Programming changes begin.
• January 2017 – Pool operations begin for 2017.
17
Resource Impact
The City’s cost recovery expectations for FY 2018 under the various Alternatives outlined in this
memorandum are detailed in the chart below.
Forecasted Fiscal Impact
Alternative
1
Alternative
2
Alternative
3
Alternative
4
FY 2018 Hybrid Contracted In House Status Quo
Revenue 602,747 4,194 602,847 437,083
Operating Expenditures 466,179 60,386 704,425 564,469
Contract Fees 265,000 0 0 265,000
Maintenance and Overhead 299,819 299,819 299,819 274,819
Net General Fund Impact (428,250) (356,011) (466,796) (622,991)
The intent of the recommendations in this memorandum are to provide an enhanced level of
service at or below current cost. Both Alternatives 1 and 2 meet this goal.
Policy Implications
This proposal is aligned with Comprehensive Plan goal G1: Effective and Efficient Delivery of
Community Services.
Environmental Review
The recommendation in this report does not constitute a project requiring review under the
California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
Attachments
Attachment A – Youth Swim Lesson Program Pricing Comparison
18
Attachment A
Youth Swim Lesson Program Pricing Comparison
Swim school lesson pricing (per 30 minutes)
Public Group Private
City of Mountain View 7.00$ 25.00$
City of San Jose (Camden Pool)8.33$ N/A
City of Cupertino 8.40$ 42.00$
City of Milpitas 8.63$ 38.00$
City of Morgan Hill 9.25$ 29.00$
City of Santa Clara 10.25$ N/A
City of Sunnyvale Pools 10.88$ 49.50$
City of Palo Alto 11.00$ 24.00$
City of Fremont 11.13$ 33.75$
Los Gatos/Saratoga Recreation 12.00$ 37.66$
Menlo Park Belle Haven 15.00$ 67.00$
City of Redwood City 15.00$ N/A
City of Campbell 17.50$ N/A
Menlo Park Burgess 22.00$ 67.00$
Rancho Rinconada (Cupertino)N/A 33.00$
Private
Laurelwood Cabana Club (Santa Clara)10.63$ 30.00$
Palo Alto YMCA - Ross 13.00$ 52.17$
Palo Alto JCC 16.00$ 55.00$
Flying Fish (Milpitas)18.00$ 54.00$
Star (Saratoga)19.50$ 78.00$
Sutton Swim (Campbell)22.00$ N/A
AVAC (Almaden Valley)22.50$ N/A
DACA (Cupertino)22.50$ 90.00$
Peninsula Swim School (Redwood City)23.12$ 46.00$
Kings Academy (Redwood City)23.25$ 64.00$
La Petite Baleen (Redwood City)23.50$ 64.00$
Waterworks (San Jose)27.25$ 80.25$
Resident/Member
19
TO: PARKS AND RECREATION COMMISSION
FROM: KRISTEN O’KANE, COMMUNITY SERVICES DEPARTMENT
DATE: SEPTEMBER 27, 2016
SUBJECT: PARKS, TRAILS, NATURAL OPEN SPACE AND RECREATION MASTER PLAN
RECOMMENDATION
Staff requests that the Parks and Recreation Commission provide feedback on the Revised Draft Chapter
Three and Draft Chapter Five of the Parks, Trails, Natural Open Space and Recreation Master Plan.
BACKGROUND
The City of Palo Alto has 36 parks and open space preserves covering approximately 4,165 acres of land,
which includes Foothills Park, Pearson Arastradero Preserve, Esther Clark Park, and the Baylands Nature
Preserve. A Capital Improvement Project for a Parks, Trails, Natural Open Space and Recreation Master Plan
(Master Plan) was adopted by Council for the 2013 fiscal year. The purpose of this effort is to provide the
necessary analysis and review of Palo Alto’s parks and recreation system for the preparation of a long-range
(20-year) Master Plan. The Master Plan will provide the City with clear guidance regarding future capital
improvement projects and program enhancements aimed at meeting current and future demands on the
city’s parks and recreation facilities, recreation programming, the natural environment and facility
maintenance. The Master Plan will also include an implementation guide including funding and maintenance
needs for the near, mid, and long-term.
The Master Plan process consists of three phases:
1. Phase 1: Specific Site and Program Analysis and Community Engagement (complete): Development
of a comprehensive inventory and analysis of all Palo Alto parks, trails, developed natural open
space areas (picnic areas, parking lots) and recreational facilities and programs; analysis of current
and forecasted demographic and recreation trends, and analysis of community recreation needs.
Identify community and stakeholder needs, interests and preferences for system enhancements
using a proactive community engagement process.
2. Phase 2: Developing and Prioritizing Project and Program Opportunities (complete/ongoing):
Preparation of goals, policies, and programs; identification of capital projects, needed renovations
and other improvements; and identification of the highest priority projects and programs.
3. Phase 3: Drafting of the Master Plan, Review and Adoption (ongoing): Community, Parks and
Recreation Commission (PRC), and Council review; and Council approval to adopt the Master Plan.
Phase 1, which includes technical assessment and community and stakeholder engagement activities, is
complete. The goals, policies and programs in Phase 2 have been developed and were reviewed by the Parks
and Recreation Commission (PRC) and City Council. Staff and the consultant continue to develop and refine
the individual chapters of the Master Plan. At the August 23rd PRC meeting, staff provided drafts of Chapters
1 – 5 as they were defined at the time. Two additional chapters (6 – Site Concept Plans and 7-
Implementation) had not been drafted. Subsequent to the PRC meeting, the seven chapters were
consolidated into five. The chapters of the Master Plan have been reduced to five chapters through
consolidation of the previous Chapter 4- Our Desired Future into Chapter 3- Analysis and Assessment and
Chapter 5-Goals, Policies and Program. Additionally, the Site Concept Plans (Chapter 6) have been
eliminated from the Master Plan.
Previous Outline of Master Plan Chapters:
1. Introduction
2. Elements of Palo Alto’s Parks, Trails, Natural Open Spaces and Recreation
3. Needs and Opportunities
4. Our Desired Future
5. Goals, Policies and Programs
6. Site Concept Plans
7. Implementation
Revised Outline of Master Plan Chapters:
1. Introduction
2. Elements of Palo Alto’s Parks, Trails, Natural Open Spaces and Recreation
3. Analysis and Assessment
4. Goals, Policies and Programs
5. Implementation
DISCUSSION
A Council Study Session was held on September 6, 2016 to review progress to date and obtain Council
feedback on Chapters 1-4 of the Master Plan. Since the Study Session, revisions have been made to Chapter
3: Analysis and Assessment and a draft of Chapter 5: Implementation has been completed. Staff is
requesting feedback from the Commission on the revised Chapter 3 and the initial draft of Chapter 5.
Chapter 3: Analysis and Assessment
Previously titled “Needs and Opportunities”, this chapter was shared with the Commission at the August 23rd
PRC meeting. In response to the discussion and comments received on Chapter 3, revisions were made to
address many of the comments prior to the September 6, 2016 Council Study Session. Since then, staff and
the PRC’s Master Plan Ad Hoc convened a meeting to review and develop a plan for revising the chapter
further. A revised chapter, now titled “Analysis and Assessment” was drafted by the Ad Hoc and staff and is
included as Attachment A.
Chapter 5: Implementation
The implementation chapter is still under development and will continue to be refined. An initial draft is
being provided to show progress made and obtain initial feedback from the PRC. Included in this chapter are
the top 15 projects and programs that are considered priorities for Palo Alto based on what is known today.
These priorities arose from the data analysis and community engagement process, as well as PRC and staff
input. Staff is requesting feedback from the PRC on these priorities and will focus discussion on refining this
list (Attachment B).
2
NEXT STEPS
Staff and the Consultant will continue to refine the Draft Master Plan and anticipates presenting a Draft
Master Plan to the PRC in October or November 2016. The community will have an opportunity to provide
input on the draft plan during this time.
It has been determined that California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) compliance will require completion
of an Initial Study/Mitigated Negative Declaration (IS/MND) prior to City Council adoption of the Master
Plan. While the Final Master Plan is expected to be complete in December 2016, final adoption may be
extended to early 2017 to allow for completion of the IS/MND.
POLICY IMPLICATIONS
The proposed CIP recommendations are consistent with Policy C-26 of the Community Services element of
the Comprehensive Plan that encourages maintaining park facilities as safe and healthy community assets;
and Policy C-22 that encourages new community facilities to have flexible functions to ensure adaptability to
the changing needs of the community.
ATTACHMENTS
A. REVISED DRAFT Chapter 3 - Analysis and Assessment of Parks, Trails, Natural Open Space and
Recreation Master Plan
B. DRAFT Chapter 5 – Implementation of Parks, Trails, Natural Open Space and Recreation Master Plan
3
Draft Chapter Three – Analysis and Assessment Attachment A 9/21/16
Chapter Title Page Summary Statement:
Residents want a high quality, resilient parks and recreation system that embraces and protects
the natural environment, adapts to changing needs, and serves a growing variety of interests.
Introduction
The Master Plan was developed through a comprehensive, data-driven and community focused process
and includes an array of assessment, analysis and outreach strategies The results of the process
provides a detailed understanding of Palo Alto’s current system of parks, trails, natural open spaces,
recreation facilities and recreation programs and services. In addition, the process identifies current and
future needs of the community it serves and opportunities for system enhancement.
The identified needs and possible opportunities to enhance the parks and recreation system is based on
three types of data and analyses:
1) Demographic and Recreation Trends - Quantitative forecasts of previously published data on
growth trends in areas such as overall population, and growth of key demographic segments.
2) System Analysis - Park, facility and program inventory data including the quantity and location of
parks; field, pool and other facility usage program registration and other similar inventory data.
3) Community Engagement Results - Qualitative data compiled from the input of citizens and
stakeholders through a multitude of outreach tools.
Ultimately these data sources resulted in the “findings” summarized in this chapter. The findings
address the most notable population-based shifts supported by population and demographic growth
forecasts that the City will need to accommodate and respond to in the next ten to twenty years.
Conclusions drawn from the system analysis identified needs currently not being met or that will not be
met in future years and are considered gaps in the system, or “needs” for the City. Community
preferences identified in the community engagement and outreach phase identified areas that the City
can evaluate and implement to address citizens’ “votes” in various forums provided during this study.
These are community “wants” versus demonstrated gaps or needs.
The following sections describe the analysis completed and key findings from the process. More detailed
versions of the reports and work products summarized here can be found in the Technical Supplement
on the City website.
Demographic and Recreation Trends
The project team evaluated the existing demographic profile of Palo Alto including population,
household characteristics and transportation behavior, to identify patterns and trends that influence
recreation needs and preferences. In addition, this analysis evaluated regional and national trends in
health, sports, socializing, recreation, family and urban form for their potential to affect the direction of
the Master Plan.
1
Draft Chapter Three – Analysis and Assessment Attachment A 9/21/16
KEY DEMOGRAPHIC DATA AND TRENDS:
Population
Over the past five years, Palo Alto has grown faster than projected with an average annual growth
rate of 1.3%. The population of Palo Alto in 2015, as estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau was
66,853. Additionally, the City’s Comprehensive Plan Update (Draft Environmental Impact Report,
2016) contemplates housing scenarios that would exceed current total population projections,
indicating potential for an even greater rate of growth over the life of this Master Plan. Meeting
the demands of Palo Alto’s growing population without compromising the level of service will
require significant investment in park and recreation facilities, maintenance and programming.
Roughly 60,000 commuters come to Palo Alto to work, resulting in a daytime population well in
excess of the City’s resident population. Efforts to better understand the park and recreation use
patterns of this sizable group should inform strategic planning around facilities, maintenance and
programming.
Housing and Income
Over half (57.5%) of Palo Alto residents live in single-family detached homes, while over one third
(37.9%) live in multifamily units. As Palo Alto expands its housing stock, the City anticipates that
the vast majority of new housing will be multi-family units(Comprehensive Plan Update Draft EIR,
2016). This shift to a housing type that lacks the private open space typical of a single family home
will create an increasing need for publicly accessible outdoor space and recreation opportunities.
Median household income in Palo Alto grew by 73% between 1990 and 2012, to $118,936 per
household. However, housing costs have also increased dramatically. The median home sales
price in Palo Alto in 2013 was more than two and a half times that of the County median price and
rental prices in 2014 were more than double County-wide fair market rental prices (Comprehensive
Plan Update Draft EIR, 2016). Palo Alto’s high median income conceals the economic challenges
faced by many residents spending an increasing amount on housing. Recreation is a crucial quality
of life asset and people with less disposable income rely more heavily on public recreation facilities.
Planning for parks and recreation should reflect the unique local economic conditions in Palo Alto
and not rely heavily on statewide or regional data to determine income-based trends or demand.
Transportation
The city has a significant share of commuters who travel by bike (11%) and has seen a sizable
increase in student ridership, with approximately 40% of high school students bicycling to school.
Palo Alto can support and expand this popular mode choice by providing safe routes to parks and
recreation facilities. In addition to providing safe bike routes, encouraging users to use alternative
modes of transportation can be accomplished through limiting parking at parks and recreation
facilities.
Demographic Groups
National and regional recreation trends emphasize an outdoor lifestyle, physical and mental health,
and diverse options for older adults at multiple stages of life, universal design and access for people
2
Draft Chapter Three – Analysis and Assessment Attachment A 9/21/16
of all abilities, and a movement to connect children with nature. These trends point to several
specific segments within the population that require special consideration in this plan.
While the average age of residents is increasing, the city has a sizable population of children under
18 years of age. Seniors and children represent the largest growth segments in Palo Alto since
1980 and stand at 17% and 23%, respectively, of the City’s total population. These age groups are,
anecdotally, high users of parks and recreation facilities and services in Palo Alto and are the most
likely to access facilities by walking or biking.
Youth and Teens
Palo Alto’s under 18 population has grown steadily over the past 25 years, representing the City’s
fastest growing age segment (totaling 15,019 in 2010). However, PAUSD projects a downward
trend in school enrollment beginning in year 2020. Currently, PAUSD assumptions about future
new housing types and volume differ from those used in the City’s Comprehensive Plan Update
analysis, leading to inconsistent projections regarding the future size of Palo Alto’s student
population. Once the updated Comprehensive Plan is completed it will be important to coordinate
assumptions about housing growth and student generation rates in order to plan appropriately to
serve this large segment of the population.
Efforts have grown in recent years to build stronger community connections for area teens.
Innovative programs such as Maker Space and Bryant Street Garage teen grants are gaining
popularity. Additional programs such as The Drop teen center and LEAP (Learning Enrichment
After School Program) are also well attended. Additional teen programs are needed to better
tailor offerings to attract broader teen participation consistent with the goals of Project Safety
Net.
Seniors
The senior population is large and rapidly increasing. One-half of all Palo Alto residents are
expected to be age 55 or above by 2030. In 2000, it was projected that the senior population for
Palo Alto and surrounding cities will double between 2000 and 2020 and will continue to grow
until 2040 (Avenidas). As more seniors choose to “age in place,” programming and services must
evolve to address new demands.
3
Draft Chapter Three – Analysis and Assessment Attachment A 9/21/16
Special Needs
The majority of Palo Alto residents with disabilities are 65 or older (2,842 peple) while our
community is also home to an unusually high number of special needs students (1,100 students in
PAUSD as of September 2014). These two growing population segments call for expanded
inclusion efforts related to facilities, services and programming.
Ethnicity and culture
Palo Alto’s cultural and ethnic diversity is steadily expanding. In the past decade, the City’s Asian
population alone grew by 10%. Of all Palo Altans, 31% are foreign-born and 38% speak a language
other than English at home. PAUSD data reveals that the City’s minority population is young, with
a higher rate of Hispanic/Latinos and Asians in the school system (11% Hispanic/Latino and 39%
Asian) than in the general population of Palo Alto. Sensitivity and attention to the needs of this
growing and significant segment of the population will require expanded outreach, partnership
with PAUSD, and targeted efforts at inclusion.
System Analysis
The analysis of the system began with a site visit to each park, facility, and preserve to document and
evaluate existing conditions to develop an accurate and in-depth foundation of baseline information.
The observations recorded during these visits are compiled within a set of existing conditions maps.
These maps include the history, a summary of features and a description of opportunities and
constraints for each site. Each map also incorporates site-specific public input gathered through the
community engagement process. For the full set of existing conditions maps, see the Technical
Supplement on the City website.
Geographic Analysis
A geographic analysis of the parks, trails and natural open spaces system evaluated each component’s
walkability and accessibility. A Geographic Information Systems (GIS) model of the surrounding streets,
sidewalks, trails, and pathways was constructed using ESRI Network Analyst software to identify
“walksheds” or catchment areas for each park, reflecting the way people move through the city. The
analysis used ¼ and ½ mile travel distances, reflecting research on the distance a typical person can walk
in five and ten minutes, respectively. This analysis refined the understanding of the ½ mile distance first
cited in the 1965 parks plan and aligned with the goals of the Comprehensive Plan. The project team
also factored in physical barriers that impede access, incorporating feedback from the public
engagement process about specific streets and intersections people report as being difficult to cross.
Figure 5, on page 38, shows the ¼ and ½ mile walksheds for all parks in Palo Alto.
Many communities also analyze park systems using a function-based parks classification scheme
(neighborhood parks, community parks, regional parks). However, the parks in Palo Alto serve multiple,
and often overlapping functions. Community feedback indicated that people in Palo Alto are looking for
the park system to deliver five categories of activities on a widely accessible basis, regardless of how the
park is classified functionally. The analysis assessed the community’s access to each of these activities by
defining criteria for each category and applying the criteria to the geographic analysis model.
The five categories of activity and their analysis criteria are summarized below.
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Relax and Enjoy Outdoors. Palo Altans place a high value on parks that provide a quiet and calm
place to relax and enjoy the outdoors. While most Palo Alto parks support this activity, some parks
experience noise from highway/road traffic or from heavy sports use. Comments made by the
public on the online interactive map (and confirmed by site visits) also identified parks without
quiet areas.
Play for Children. Children and youth were regularly cited as one of the most important
audiences for the park system. Parks containing a playground, play area or unique play feature
(sculpture, nature play, etc.) best support this audience.
Throw a Ball. This activity encompasses kicking, hitting, and throwing balls and other objects such
as Frisbees, including both self-directed and league-based play. Parks containing open turf areas,
sports fields, or courts best support this activity.
Exercise and Fitness. Health and wellness has been shown to be important to Palo Alto
residents in this and other planning processes. Parks with perimeter or looped paths support both
walking and running, which are the top recreation activities both in Palo Alto and in the country.
Palo Alto’s Rinconada Pool also provides an exercise option for swimmers.
Gathering. The Palo Alto park system is an important provider of space for family, friends, and the
larger community to gather for picnics, social events, and group activities. Formal picnic areas,
shelters, and features such as amphitheaters facilitate this activity.
GEOGRAPHIC NEEDS AND OPPORTUNITIES:
The spatial analysis revealed the following:
Most Palo Alto residents have access to a city park within a ¼ and ½ mile. Gaps exist north of the
Oregon Expressway near Highway 101 and south of El Camino Real near commercial and
institutional land uses. Adding additional parks or park-like lands can improve park accessibility
for residents in these areas. Fewer neighborhoods have activity access to all five identified
activities within a ½ mile.
Parks that offer exercise and fitness opportunities are more common south of the Oregon
Expressway. The addition of exercise opportunities to north Palo Alto parks should be
considered.
Dog parks are all located south of the Oregon Expressway. Since dog owners prefer to use dog
parks near their residence, adding dog parks to north Palo Alto parks will improve residents’ dog
exercise opportunities.
Community gardens are currently located entirely north of Oregon Expressway The addition of
Community Gardens in south Palo Alto can improve garden access to those residents.
Palo Alto’s only public pool is located north of Oregon Expressway. The addition of a public
gymnasium or improving access to other public or private pools should be explored to provide
more access during peak times.
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Additional geographic analysis evaluated access to experiences, natural open space and recreation
facilities that were identified as highly desired by the community during the intercept surveys. These
include:
The experience and preservation of nature;
Improved ease of access to natural open space preserves (e.g., bike routes and shuttles);
Community gardening;
Recreation with dogs; and
Gymnasiums and swimming pools.
Recreation Program Analysis
To evaluate the capacity of Palo Alto’s facilities and programs to meet demand, the data on
reservations, minimum participation, program registrations and waitlists was analyzed along with
observations collected from staff and consultants. A crucial performance indicator in recreation
programming is enrollment at or above minimum participation, which is the minimum number of
participants needed to achieve the cost recovery goals of each class. These goals are set according to the
City’s cost recovery policy and the individual class budget. This, along with classes indicated as full or
with waitlists, provided insight into the capacity and demand for categories and specific types of
programs.
RECREATION PROGRAM OPPORTUNITIES:
The highest participation in City programs is in sports (adult and youth), aquatics (youth and
teen) and day camps. Continued demand for these program areas is anticipated and program
offerings should respond to this demand.
The current policy of “everyone plays” is widely supported for middle school athletics. Since
limited gym and field space makes it difficult to expand these programs, the City and PAUSD
should consider additional facilities or improved scheduling to maximize student involvement in
these popular programs. Furthermore, a shortage of instructors and coaches exacerbates the
difficulty to expand. Recruitment, training, and increased pay should be considered to improve
the supply of qualified instructors and coaches.
Demand for some classes and programs varies greatly by time of day. The program scheduling
should attempt to provide additional classes during the most popular times.
A limited number of gymnasiums available to the public and a lack of a City-owned gym
complicates the expansion of most sports programs. Increasing sports facilities, sharing of
facilities, and adjusting facility scheduling should be investigated.
Academic support programs offered to youth and teens are typically operating under capacity.
Improved marketing and updated offerings should be considered to increase the popularity of
these programs or resources should be shifted to other types of teen programming.
Programs offered by the Art Center, the Junior Museum and Zoo and the Children’s Theatre
serve thousands of additional adults, youth and teens. Many of these programs have waitlists,
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partly because of limited space in the specialized buildings associated with these divisions.
Adjusting the scheduling of current facilities and developing access to other facilities (such as
PAUSD) may increase the number of people that can be served by these popular programs.
Community Engagement Results
A variety of community engagement efforts, conducted at several stages in the process, collected input
from hundreds of residents and. The input of community members and stakeholders guided decisions of
where to focus assessment efforts. Resident and stakeholder input highlighted the need to look at
walkability and park access, as well as access to those highly desired experiences, such as play for
children. In addition, the analysis examined equitable distribution and need of specific facilities, such as
restrooms, dog parks and community gardens, as a result of the community interest in these features.
Community feedback largely confirms conclusions drawn from the demographic trends analysis. The
following section describes the, key topics and themes that emerged from the Master Plan community
engagement process.
KEY COMMUNITY TOPICS AND THEMES:
The following topics and themes were referenced multiple times by the community, City staff, partners
and decision makers. The key themes were critical in shaping the overall analysis of the system, and
provided direction for the development of the Master Plan principles, goals, policies and recommended
actions.
Respondents value, support and appreciate their parks system. They recognize that it is a high-
quality system.
Respondents believe that strategic enhancements and improvements are needed to better
meet evolving needs and trends, adapt to growth and changing demographics, and to continue
to provide world-class experiences to residents.
Limited land availability and high cost is seen as the major limiting factor to pursuing new park
opportunities.
Providing accessible and safe active transportation (walking, biking, etc.) routes to natural open
spaces, community centers and parks is a high priority.
Enhancing physical and mental well-being is a critical function of parks for Palo Altans. Loop
trails, bicycle and pedestrian paths to parks, and places to relax are top priorities, along with
exercise equipment or additional classes.
Protection of nature is very important to residents. There is widespread support for the
continued protection, enhancement and restoration of open spaces and wildlife habitat.
Residents want to feel connected to nature in their urban parks. There is interest in adding
nature play elements and wildlife habitats to more traditional park settings.
There is widespread interest in bringing community gardens, dog parks and aquatic facilities to
new areas of the city to improve access to these amenities for all neighborhoods.
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Residents strongly support improved and additional restrooms in parks. In addition, there is a
clear preference for features and amenities that support comfort, convenience and longer stays
at parks, including water fountains and places to sit.
The Palo Alto community strongly supports universal design and access and there is interest in
adding inclusive play elements to more parks.
Current policies that prioritize the availability of facilities for Palo Alto residents are widely
supported, and stakeholders generally agree that providing services to local residents is a higher
priority than providing regional attractions.
Residents would like to see enhancements to parks throughout the city including more types of
play experiences and environments. There is also support for smaller, more locally focused
events and programs (e.g., movies in the park) that are held in different parks throughout the
city.
The community strongly supports the kinds of local and regional partnerships (particularly with
the school district) that expand recreation opportunities and services for youth, teens and
residents of all ages and abilities.
Needs and Opportunities Summary
Review of the data from the Technical Assessment and Analysis and the Community and Stakeholder
Engagement tied these two tracks of the Master Plan process together in preparation for Developing
and Prioritizing Projects. As described in Chapter 1, this process produced a detailed reference matrix
(with supporting documentation) identifying needs and opportunities across the system.
The Data and Opportunities Summary Matrix included in the technical supplement synthesizes findings
from both the Technical Assessment and Analysis and the Community and Stakeholder Engagement
tracks across nine topics:
Current Service/Inventory
Level of Control
Geographic Analysis
Capacity/Bookings
Perception of Quality
Expressed Need
Demographic Trends
Barriers to Access/Participation
Projected Demand
The final step of the process was to summarize opportunities to enhance Palo Alto’s system through the
addition, distribution or modification of a particular element and component. These actions were
prioritized to develop the Master Plan’s final recommendations, based on the constraints posed by
limited land, staff, funding and other resources in the community.
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Key Findings
The review of the matrix identified groupings of opportunities that had emerged from the many analysis
and community input activities. The opportunities were crafted into a set of twelve Areas of Focus,
which represent a major development step toward goals for the master plan. The Areas of Focus are:
Distributing park and recreation activities and experiences across the city
Improving the accessibility of the full range of park and recreation opportunities
Exploring new types of programs, classes, events and activities for all ages and abilities
Improving and enhancing community center and recreation spaces across the community
Enhancing capacity and quality of sports fields
Increasing the variety of things to do in existing parks
Enhancing comfort and making parks more welcoming
Increasing health and wellness opportunities in parks and programs
Integrating nature into Palo Alto parks
Improving spaces and increased options for off-leash dogs
Expanding the system
Offering more of the existing programs, classes and events
The community prioritization challenge, a combination of online survey and in-person workshop,
reviewed the community’s opinions of these areas. Participants were asked to allocate a $10 budget
across each of the areas of focus, with the amounts allocated indicating the priority they place on a
particular area.
The analysis of the results reflects the strong interest heard throughout the process for community
center space improvements, integrating nature more thoroughly in the park system and making parks
more welcoming.
A relatively smaller number of participants placed a very high priority (and resulting larger budget
allocation) on improving options for off-leash dogs.
These results of the community prioritization challenge provided additional insight into the community’s
opinions about the future of Palo Alto’s parks and recreation. The full summary is available in the
technical supplement.
Figure 6 shows a sample survey question result. Full results are available in the technical supplement.
Opportunities for the System
Three concept maps (Figures 7-9) illustrate a multi-layered system of park lands and connections that
serve both people and natural systems. The maps can also serve as tools for supporting decisions on
individual policies, programs and projects.
EXPAND THE SYSTEM
Figure 7 identifies areas of Palo Alto where residents lack access to parks and natural open spaces within
¼ mile of their homes. These “park search areas,” labeled A through E for planning purposes, will help
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the City focus future park additions in neighborhoods with the greatest need, for example those with
the highest density and/or largest population. Meanwhile, public access to school grounds that fall
within park search areas (noted in purple) should be maintained and expanded to better support
neighborhood park uses and enhance their natural open space value. Other City-owned properties
(noted in brown) may represent future park opportunities, but nearly all of these lands fall outside of
the park search areas.
CONNECT THE SYSTEM
A selection of Palo Alto’s existing and planned bikeways and pedestrian routes can be leveraged to
improve park and recreation access. Figure 8 illustrates this potential network of trails and enhanced
roadways that connect neighborhoods to local and regional parks, recreation facilities and natural open
spaces. These routes are part of the City’s adopted Bicycle Pedestrian Transportation Plan.
Recommended enhanced routes, labeled 1 through 3 for planning purposes, provide main north to
south travel corridors between Palo Alto’s parks and into neighboring communities. Regional trails like
the Bay to Ridge and San Francisco Bay trails provide similar travel corridors from Foothills Park and
Arastradero Preserve in the southwest to the Baylands Preserve and other shoreline parks and natural
open spaces to the northeast. Recommended park connectors complete the network by linking the
remaining park sites.
CONNECT NATURAL SYSTEMS
Figure 9 illustrates how the same corridors recommended for bike and pedestrian enhancements can
also provide connectivity for natural systems. Landscape design features such as increased urban forest
canopy, native species plantings, and stormwater bioswales can create safe paths of travel and provide
habitat value for local wildlife. Creek and riparian enhancements, supported by these “pollinator
pathways,” would improve water quality and habitat connections between regionally significant habitats
in the hills and in the bay. New street and park trees would benefit areas that currently have low tree
canopy coverage, highlighted in tan.
UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY SITES
In the overall context of limited land, three properties in Palo Alto represent unique opportunities as are
already owned by the City and are not yet designated for a specific use. These three sites each have
unique opportunities for park development, but also constraints. The status of each is summarized
below:
Cubberley Community Center: The City owns 8 of the 35 acres of this former high school campus
and has managed leases within the buildings with a number of community organizations and
businesses while also scheduling the gym and field space. The City and the Palo Alto Unified
School District have agreed to jointly master plan the redevelopment of the site by 2020.
Foothills Park Expansion: The City acquired 7.7 acres of land adjacent to Foothills Park and has
dedicated it as an expansion of the park. The expansion is cut off from the developed portion of
the park by the existing maintenance facility. Discussion of the future of this site is pending the
results of the Buckeye Creek hydrology study, which will be completed in summer 2017.
Baylands Athletic Center Expansion: As a result of the redesign of the Palo Alto Golf Course, 10.5
acres of land was added to the adjacent Baylands Athletic Center site for future recreation
opportunities. Considerations for developing this site include its relative isolation from
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residences (and access through a complicated and heavily impacted roadway exchange), its
proximity to adjacent park sites, site limitations due to wetland and its location below the mean
projected high water line after 3 feet of sea level rise, which could influence the type of
recreation opportunities at the site.
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Manuscript Draft Review Process
This is a manuscript version of the work-in-progress Chapter 5 of the Master Plan. This
manuscript follows the outline of Chapter 5 (previously Chapter 6), as described in the August
24, 2016 memo. Some content is still under development. Within this manuscript, areas where content is currently being developed or refined is indicated as follows:
• IN PROCESS BY CITY STAFF, for pieces that City staff are taking the lead on; and
• IN PROCESS BY PROJECT TEAM, for pieces that both City staff and MIG are developing.
• SECTION UNDER DEVELOPMENT, for sections that require more research
The intent of this manuscript deliverable is to provide a snapshot of the progress and provide
some framing for the content that is still being developed.
PARKS, TRAILS, NATURAL OPEN SPACE AND RECREATION MASTER PLAN
MANUSCRIPT DRAFT 5
9/21/16
Attachment B
DRAFT Chapter 5 9/21/16
Chapter 5. Implementation
Over the next twenty years, the implementation of this Master Plan will include an annual
process initiated by City staff with guidance and leadership from the Parks and Recreation
Commission and City Council. Palo Alto’s dedicated community advocates and partner
organizations will also play an important role in ensuring the proposed programs and projects
align with the needs of the community.
The annual process described in this chapter involves implementing projects and programs
described in Chapter 4 through an annual cycle of reviewing, planning, implementing and
reporting. These programs have undergone review by the public, staff, Park and Recreation
Commission (PRC) and City Council during the development of this Master Plan. The tools in
this Chapter are designed to work with Palo Alto’s existing budget and capital improvement plan
processes and include:
• A prioritization process to create and update the annual action plan;
• An evaluation process to consider new projects or programs proposed in the future; and
• A methodology for measuring the effective and efficient implementation of the Master
Plan.
Prioritization Process and Action Plan
Prioritization Process
The prioritization process applies a set of criteria drawn from the extensive community input
during the master planning process. These criteria are applicable to the entire range of projects
and programs and reflect both the Master Plan principles and goals.
When considering the priority of projects and programs and the order in which they are
implemented, the following set of criteria will be used as an initial guide to identify the benefit to
the community and parks system in relation to other projects and programs. Proposed projects
and programs will be ranked using a range of low, medium, and high; on how well the programs
meet the criteria. These criteria will not provide a numerical score, but will inform staff, the PRC,
and Council how a particular program could serve community needs. Each of the projects and
programs recommended will be evaluated against criteria as a guide to identify the benefit to the
overall system and in relation to other programs. Staff, PRC and ultimately the City Council will
determine the final order of implementation as part of the established CIP and Operating budget
process. The criteria are defined below:
• Fill existing gaps: Bring recreation opportunities (park land, facilities, programs) to areas
of the city and to users where gaps were identified.
• Respond to growth: Add features or programs and/or modify or expand components of
the system to prepare for and address increasing demand.
• Address community preferences: Target the highest priority types of projects and
programs identified through citywide outreach.
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• Maximize public resources: Create the most benefit for each dollar of capital and
operating expenditure possible.
• Realize multiple benefits: Advance the principles of this Master Plan as well as the
goals, projects and directions of other adopted City efforts.
Implementation Timelines
Not all projects and programs are ready to be implemented immediately because they require
additional planning, coordination, study or an initial event that is beyond the City’s control.
However, within the twenty-year timeframe of this plan, many projects and programs that today
seem far from possible can and will be completed if thoughtful, measured steps are taken
annually to realize the project or program.
This Master Plan looks at three time frames for implementation. These represent different
stages of implementation based on the application of the prioritization criteria.
• Near-Term (First Five Years):
Capital - For capital projects, planning for the first five years of implementation will be
through the City’s Capital Improvement Program (CIP). As each year’s projects are
completed, the annual budgeting process includes the addition of another year on the
rolling five-year CIP. This established budgeting process will be the primary action plan
for capital projects in the near term, along with preliminary planning for major efforts in
the mid and long term. New capital projects that result from this Master Plan that are not
currently in the five-year CIP will be proposed and prioritized during the annual CIP
process.
Operating -Non-capital projects and programs are more flexible and can be explored in
the near term, based on staff availability and existing resources, additional funding if
needed will be considered through the annual budget process.
• Mid-Term (6-10 Years):
Capital - During the mid-term timeframe, new capital projects prioritized in this Master
Plan will begin to be added to the CIP through the CIP process, with cost assumptions
adjusted to account for cost escalation.
Operating - New non-capital projects and programs will be balanced with the ongoing
implementation of new programs initiated in the first five years. The mid-term projects
and programs may be refined based on data collected during the first five years of
implementation, including progress reporting.
• Long-Term (11-20 Years): The long-term timeline includes projects that require either
significant up-front work and planning, or rare opportunities, such as new land
acquisition.
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High Priority Needs and Opportunities
There are some projects and programs that we know today are high priority needs and/or
opportunities. The list below was developed with feedback from the Parks and Recreation
Commission, community, stakeholders, and City staff and includes a summary of each of those
high priorities and an order of magnitude capital and operating cost for each. Achievement of
large scale capital projects will occur in the long term, however; several steps must begin in
near term and will continue through planning, design and ultimately construction.
THIS SECTION IS UNDER DEVELOPMENT. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON EACH
PRIORITY WILL BE ADDED AFTER PRC REVIEW
Projects:
1. Develop new dog parks in underrepresented areas
2. Construct new restrooms in parks
3. Develop adult fitness areas in parks
4. Develop new community gardens in underrepresented areas
5. Plan, design and construct 10.5 acre site in Baylands for park uses
6. Acquire new parkland in high need areas
7. Plan, design and construct a new public gymnasium
8. Develop conservation plans for open space preserves
9. Create wayfinding signage of safe routes to parks
10. Integrate nature into urban parks
11. Plan, design and redevelop Cubberley Community Center
12. Incorporate sustainable practices in the maintenance and management of parks, open
space and recreation facilities
13. Update Americans with Disabilities Act requirements in parks
14. Improve trail connections and access
15. Enhance seating areas in parks
Programs:
1. Provide intramural sports program for middle and high school students
2. Expand programs for seniors
3. Expand non-academic programs for teens
4. Encourage unstructured play at parks and community centers
5. Establish and grow partnerships and identify potential park donors
6. Collaborate with school district to increase access to playgrounds, gyms, and other
school facilities
7. Connect youth, teens and families with nature
8. Increase the variety of things to do in parks
9. Expand youth aquatics programs
10. Expand programs related to health and wellness
11. Pilot temporary/pop-up programming in parks
12. Invest in staff training to enhance therapeutic and inclusive program development
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13. Expand recruitment and training of coaches and instructors
14. Expand community-focused special events
15. Offer cultural enrichment programs
Capital and Non-Capital Projects
IN PROCESS BY CITY STAFF: Annual Action Plan summary tables. Introductory text to be
written by MIG after tables are drafted.
Example Action Plan – Capital Project
Example Action Plan – Program
Funding Today and Tomorrow
The City of Palo Alto uses a minimum of six funding sources for the majority of its capital,
operational and recreation program funding:
• General Fund;
• Consumer and Participant Fees;
• Parkland Dedication Fees;
• Development Impact Fees;
• Public Private Partnerships;
• Grants; and
• Donations.
These funding sources are defined and described in Appendix X: Existing Funding Sources
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There are limitations (both statutory and in practice) on the use of many of the existing funding
sources. Table X summarizes the existing funding sources by their applicability to capital and
operational projects and programs.
FUNDING SECTION UNDER DEVELOPMENT
Table X: Summary of Capital and Operational/Programming Use of Funding Sources
Existing Funding Source Capital Operational/Programming
General Fund
Parkland Dedication Fees
Development Impact Fees
Public Private Partnerships
Grants
Donations
Key
Eligible
Limited
Not Eligible
In addition, Palo Alto’s Infrastructure Blue Ribbon Committee (IBRC) process put the City on a
path to “Catch Up” on most of the backlog of replacement and major maintenance needs in the
park system, with a funding plan to do so.
Funding Gap
As Table X shows, Palo Alto has more options for funding capital projects than it does for
funding that can fund the operation, maintenance and programming of the system. The City
should sustain a sufficient investment to maintain its existing facilities, amenities and programs.
Future funding options should address this gap.
IN PROCESS BY PROJECT TEAM. This section will quantify the gap between current funding
and needed funding to catch up and keep up with the maintenance of the existing parks, trails,
natural open space and recreation facilities and programs. Moreover, this section will provide
costs for a variety of new amenities that will be evaluated annually as the department and City
develop and approve the capital and operating budget.
Potential Funding Options
While the total gap in capital funding is a substantial number, the limited options currently
available for maintenance, operations and programming funding is a bigger constraint on
achieving the Master Plan goals. The potential for a funding method to expand funding for
maintenance, operations and programming should be carefully considered as the City explores
options to fill the funding gap.
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Expand Existing Funding Sources
One important option is increasing the amount of funding from existing sources. The General
Fund could be expanded by increasing revenue generation.
• Parkland dedication fees could be reevaluated to ensure the rates are keeping up with
land costs.
• Development impact fees could be increased through action by the City Council.
• Donations and grants could also be expanded with effort by the City
• Public-private partnerships, which could include allocating staff time, creating a new
position focused on expanding these sources, or hiring a consultant experienced with
grant writing.
• Participation and membership fees should be evaluated to increase cost recovery and to
help pay for new and enhanced programs and services.
Issue Bonds
There are two types of bonds relevant to the Master Plan. While City Council would need to
initiate either type of bond, only one method would require a public vote.
General obligation bonds are voter-approved bonds with the assessment placed on real
property. The money can only be used for capital improvements, not for maintenance or
operations. This property tax is levied for a specified period of time (usually 15-20 years).
Passage requires a two-thirds majority approval by the voters.
Revenue bonds are sold to finance revenue-generating facilities, such as community centers,
performing arts centers and in some cases sports complexes. The interest and capital are paid
from the revenue produced from the operation of such a facility. The City has to guarantee
repayment, meaning that if revenue from the facility does not cover the necessary bond
payments, the City will be required to pay from another source.
Create a Special District
There are several types of special districts allowable by California law for recreation purposes.
The Mello-Roos Community Facilities Act of 1982 allows any county, city, special district, school
district or joint powers authority to establish a Mello-Roos Community Facilities District (a
“CFD”) to finance public improvements and services. The services and improvements that
Mello-Roos CFDs can finance include streets, sewer systems and other basic infrastructure,
police protection, fire protection, ambulance services, schools, parks, libraries, museums and
other cultural facilities.
Formation of a CFD requires a two-thirds vote of residents living within the proposed
boundaries. If there are fewer than 12 residents, then the vote is instead conducted of current
landowners. The assessment cannot be based on property value; instead it is based on the size
of the property or square footage of structures. By law, the CFD is also entitled to recover
expenses needed to form the CFD and administer the annual special taxes and bonded debt.
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The special assessment continues until bonds are paid off and then is typically reduced to a
level to maintain the investments.
The Landscaping and Lighting Act permits a public agency to assess housing units or land
parcels for a variety of city services, including parks. The assessment revenues can be used for
parkland acquisition, development and/or maintenance. The agency can choose to use the
revenue generated on a pay-as-you-go basis or can sell bonds in order to receive a lump sum
amount which is then paid back from the annual revenue generated from the assessment. The
pay-as-you-go method provides steady ongoing revenue to fund services. Bonding against
revenue provides a larger sum to undertake a bigger project. Establishment of a new
assessment district or revision to an existing one requires a simple majority vote of property
owners.
Exchange or Sell Property
If the City has an excess piece of property, the City could sell or trade the property to obtain a
site more suitable for park use.
Combining Master Plan Project with other Infrastructure Projects
As the primary part of Palo Alto’s green infrastructure, the parks, natural open space and trails
system connects to many other city services. Some projects can be vital parts of other
infrastructure projects or be applicable for funding from sources for transportation, stormwater,
flood protection and other engineered infrastructure projects. Combining or coupling Master
Plan projects with other infrastructure projects can reduce the costs all around, open up new
funding streams, provide mitigation and achieve multiple objectives.
Evaluating Future Projects
As time passes new ideas will emerge about how to optimize an individual site, add to the
system or change the mix of recreation opportunities. The combination of the goals (detailed in
Chapter 4) and the prioritization criteria create a framework that can be used to evaluate future
proposals for changes to the parks, trails, natural open space and recreation system.
Review Process
Following a similar process to developing the Master Plan projects and programs, the review
process for new ideas includes both staff and PRC review. The review process will follow the
steps below.
Step 1: Staff, individual or community group proposes a project or program.
• Step 2: Staff reviews the proposal to determine if the project aligns with the community’s
vision as expressed in the Master Plan principles and goals. If a compelling case cannot
be made, the process stops here.
• Step 3: Staff analyzes need using the same categories as in the Data and Needs
Summary (see Master Plan Chapter 3):
o Current service/inventory
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o Level of control
o Geographic analysis
o Capacity/bookings
o Perception of quality
o Expressed need
o Demographic trends
o Barriers to participation
o Projected demand
In some cases, information may not be readily available for staff to make an adequate
evaluation. In these cases, staff may obtain additional data by meeting with the
proposer or with local experts, conducting regional or national research or seeking
community input. Staff may also recommend conducting a specific technical study.
Once adequate information is gathered, staff will complete the analysis of need and
document it in a brief report. If PRC review is needed, staff will proceed to Step 4.
• Step 4: Staff makes a recommendation to the PRC. Using the results of the analysis of
need (Step 3), staff evaluates the proposal using the prioritization criteria and prepares
a staff report to the PRC with a recommendation. Staff may recommend that the PRC
add the proposed project or program for further development and eventual addition to
the Action Plan. Staff may also recommend against the proposal if the prioritization
scoring is low. Low scoring is an indicator that the proposal is not a priority, compared to
all opportunities.
• Step 5: The PRC considers the staff’s recommendation at a meeting. The proposer is
encouraged to attend and to present the proposal. After consideration at the meeting,
the PRC makes a determination and directs staff how to proceed.
For proposals recommended for further action, staff can explore the financial and practical
considerations and incorporate the proposal into Action Plan and/or the CIP process as
applicable.
Progress Reporting
The City has a standing practice of reporting on the annual citizen satisfaction survey as well as
a performance-based “Citizen Centric Report”, both of which provide data on parks and
recreation programs and services. In addition, there is internal reporting that that informs
program and service delivery decisions, budget proposals and policy and procedure changes.
These existing measures already provide a large selection of data points to draw from when
looking at any part of the parks, trails, natural open space and recreation system. Below are the
existing measures and indicators currently used along with recommended additional measures
and indicators to effectively monitor and report on Master Plan progress.
[Insert a table be created separated by elements of the plan and the goals of the plan,
populated with existing relevant measures and indicators and identifiable new measures and
indicators.]
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DRAFT Chapter 5 9/21/16
To track progress on Master Plan implementation, specific measurable indicators relate directly
to the goals, policies and programs, as described below. Annually, these will be applied and
reported to the PRC, City Council and the community.
Indicators
IN PROCESS BY PROJECT TEAM. A small set of indicators is anticipated, potentially
organized by goal. No more than one or two indicators per goal are recommended. Preliminary
ideas include:
• Number of users in parks (Goals 1, 2, 3)
• Acres of new native landscape and new habitat (Goal 4)
• Number of new recreation programs, events and locations piloted (Goal 5)
• Amount of water used for irrigation (Goal 6)
Other indicators relate to topics of concern, as identified in the areas of focus.
• Teen participation numbers in recreation programs and services
• Senior participation numbers in recreation programs and services
• Number of dog park users by site
• Number of timeslots used on sports fields
Call to Action
MIG will craft a call to action in parallel with development of the executive summary.
Appendices Related to Chapter 5
Appendix X: Existing Capital and Operations Funding Sources
General Fund
The General Fund is the pool of unrestricted tax dollars and other revenues that a City uses to
pay for most of the services it provides. General Funds are allocated out in the budgeting
process and dollars for park operations must compete with other city needs for limited
resources. Palo Alto uses the General Fund as the primary source for operations and
programming and also makes a substantial transfer to the Capital Improvement Program each
year. Recreation programs generate revenue from user fees, which flow directly into the
General Fund, not into the budget for recreation services.
Parkland Dedication Fees
A separate fee is charged at the time land is subdivided for additional development. The
parkland dedication fee is authorized under the Quimby Act (California Government Code
§66477) allowing cities to require developers set aside land, donate conservation easements or
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DRAFT Chapter 5 9/21/16
pay fees for park improvements. This fee is calculated based on the maximum land requirement
allowed under the act, 5 acres per 1,000 persons, the number of dwelling units and the current
value of land. This funding source will be relatively insignificant in the future due to the limited
opportunity to subdivide land within Palo Alto.
Development Impact Fees
The City of Palo Alto collects impact fees authorized by the Mitigation Fee Act for both new park
system expansion and community centers. These fees are collected at the time building permits
are issued for new construction and are based on a measurable impact of additional people to
the system. The fees are adjusted annually to account for inflation. The current impact fee
amounts are listed in Table X, below.
Table X: Development Impact Fees as of August 15, 2016
Fees: Residential Single Family Single Family
over 3000 square
feet
Multi-Family Multi-Family
under 900
square feet
Parks $11,864 $17,716 $7,766 $3,926
Community
Centers
$3,075 $4,605 $2,024 $1,021
Total Relevant*
Impact Fees Per
Home
$14,939 $22,321 $9,790 $4,947
Fees:
Non-Residential
Commercial Hotel/Motel Institutional Industrial
Parks 5.038 2.278 5.038 5.038
Community
Centers
0.284 0.128 0.284 0.284
Total Relevant*
Impact Fees Per
Square Foot of
Non-Residential
Construction
$ 5.322 $ 2.406 $ 5.322 $ 5.322
*The City also collects development impact fees for Public Safety Facilities, General Government
Facilities, Housing, Traffic and Public Art.
The amount of the impact fee is based on two variables, the projected growth of the user
population resulting from the development and the cost of planned improvements in response to
that growth. In 2014, the City revisited the nexus study and projects that form the basis of all of
the development impact fees charged. This study determined that the fees were adequate for
current needs but should be revisited following the completion of this master plan. In addition to
the ongoing collection of impact fees as development continues, Palo Alto currently has a
balance in the impact fee funds. For parks, this balance is $##### and for community centers
the balance is $#####. This balance is partially committed to improvements that are already in
the CIP.
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Grants
Both private and public agencies offer a variety of grant programs. Most park and recreation
grant funds originate with either the Federal or State government and are limited to funding the
acquisition, design and construction of parks, facilities and trails. The active list of grant
programs regularly changes, as Federal and State budgets expand and contract and the
application schedule and process must be learned and monitored. Further, most grants require
that the local agency match a percentage of the funding with local dollars.
In addition, private and corporate foundations are granting funding for the construction of
facilities and the acquisition of lands that further their missions. Some private grant agencies in
the health sector are currently funding pilot programs in some areas of the country to improve
health outcomes, but for the most part grants are not a sustainable ongoing source of funding
for recreation programming. Palo Alto has had some success with utilizing grant funding to
expand successful programs, including those at the Junior Museum and Zoo and the Palo Alto
Art Center beyond the borders of the City. This allows these unique programs to reach a larger
scale without costing the taxpayers of Palo Alto additional funds.
Public-Private Partnerships
The idea of working in close collaboration with a private entity to enhance park and recreation
opportunities is gaining in popularity across the country. The basic approach is for a public
agency to enter into a working agreement with a private corporation or non-profit entity to help
fund, build, and/or operate a public facility. Generally, the three primary incentives that a public
agency can offer is free land to place a facility (usually a park or other piece of public land),
certain tax advantages and access to public facilities. While the public agency may have to give
up certain responsibilities or control, it is one way of developing public facilities at a lower cost.
Palo Alto has had several high-profile successes, most recently with the Magical Bridge
Playground, with a fairly unique model of public-private partnership. In this model, the City
allows a partner organization to take on the design and construction process, carving out the
project site and leasing the property to the partner for the duration of the project. The City
remains involved in oversight and technical assistance and takes possession of the project at
completion. Putting the partner organization at the front of the effort has resulted in very
successful fundraising and a high quality and relatively lower cost process.
Donations
The donations of labor, land, or cash by service agencies, private groups or individuals are a
popular way to raise money for specific projects. The most effective agencies actively solicit
donations from both the general public and through developed relationships with local
companies and philanthropists. Friends of the Palo Alto Parks is an established channel for tax-
deductible donations that can be directed to specific projects or to park improvements in
general. The current level of donations has averaged approximately $15,000 per year. Labor
hours contributed by volunteers is another type of donation that benefits the City’s parks and
open space preserves. In Palo Alto’s history, there have been significant donations, such as
Lucie Stern Center.
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