HomeMy WebLinkAbout2018-04-24 Parks & Recreation Agenda PacketADA. 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.
AGENDA IS POSTED IN ACCORDANCE
WITH GOVERNMENT CODE SECTION
54954.2(a) OR SECTION 54956 PARKS AND RECREATION COMMISSION Regular Meeting April 24, 2018 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 at the Lucie Stern Community Center at 1305 Middlefield Road during normal business hours. Please call 650-463-4912.
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 reasonabletime restriction may be imposed at the discretion of the Chair. The Commission reserves the right tolimit oral communications period to 3 minutes.
IV.DEPARTMENT REPORT
V.BUSINESS
1.Approval of Draft Minutes from the March 27th, 2018 Parks and Recreation Commission
Meeting – PRC Chair McDougall – Action (5 min) ATTACHMENT
2.Presentation by Friends of the Palo Alto Parks (FOPAP) – Roger Smith, FOPAP Co-Founderand Director - Discussion (45 min)
3.Golf Course Opening and New Operator – Lam Do – Discussion (30 min)
4.Temporary Lighting at Cubberley Field: Assessment of Pilot – Adam Howard – Discussion(20 min) ATTACHMENT
5.Pickleball and Tennis Courts Update – Adam Howard – Discussion (20 min)
ATTACHMENT
6.Other Ad Hoc Committee and Liaison Updates – Chair - Discussion (15 min)
VI.COMMENTS AND ANNOUCEMENTS
VII.TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR MAY 22, 2018 MEETING
VIII.ADJOURNMENT
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MINUTES 5
PARKS & RECREATION COMMISSION 6
REGULAR MEETING 7
March 27, 2018 8
CITY HALL 9 250 Hamilton Avenue 10 Palo Alto, California 11 12 Commissioners Present: Jeff Greenfield, Jeff LaMere, Ryan McCauley, Don McDougall, 13
David Moss, and Keith Reckdahl 14
Commissioners Absent: Anne Cribbs 15
Others Present: 16
Staff Present: Daren Anderson, Kristen O'Kane, Natalie Khwaja 17
I. ROLL CALL 18
II. AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, and DELETIONS 19
Chair McDougall: Do we have any agenda changes, requests, deletions? We can't make 20
any additions, but any requests, changes, or clarification? 21
III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS 22
Chair McDougall: Oral Communications. We have one oral communication, which is 23
relative to the Jerry Bowden Park dog park. I don't believe dog parks are on the agenda 24
this evening, so the appropriate time to have that conversation is now. Barbara Millen. 25 Barbara, you would have 3 minutes. 26
Barbara Millen: I would like to put Jerry Bowden Park on California Avenue back on the 27 table for consideration as a site for a new dog park. It was removed from consideration 28
because it has two sculptures, which are in the area that would be surrounded by the fencing 29
of the dog park. A designated dog park at Jerry Bowden would have many benefits, which 30
I know that the Commission park and recreation people know about. For the people in the 31
art world, I'll just go over it a little bit. People in Old Palo Alto wouldn't have to drive to 32
a place where they could take their dogs and exercise and socialize with other dog owners. 33
It would be another park for people to go to and not overload other neighborhoods that will 34
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have a small dog park. It promotes a lot of socialization, reduces isolation of the people 1
within the community. It really, I think, is beneficial for the sculptures that would be there 2
because right now they are maybe quickly seen by people passing by at 40 miles an hour 3
on Alma. Otherwise, I don't think they get very much recognition. If they're within the 4
dog park, they will get a lot of admiration. The park is underutilized because it does border 5
Alma and is very busy, and it's a dangerous area. If you're not taking your child into the 6 children's area, you're probably not doing much at that park except walking through it. 7
There seems to be a belief that public sculpture and dogs cannot coexist. This is an 8
important consideration because public art is protected by the Visual Artist Rights Act of 9
1990, which prohibits intentional or grossly negligent destruction of a work of art. The 10
Ellen Clark Sculpture Garden at the St. Louis University is an example how the two can 11
coexist. It's an unofficial dog park, but it's a sculpture park that has about 18 sculptures in 12
it. They've been coated with weather-resistant paint that also protects them against urine. 13
They've had little bushes put around them so that the dogs head for the bushes. They don't 14
really care about the sculptures so much. I question can Palo Alto protect two sculptures 15
to the satisfaction of the artists and have the artists been contacted, presented with the needs 16
of the community, and asked their advice and cooperation with any contractual changes 17
that might be required to incorporate the work within the dog park. I don't know whether 18
or not that's happened or not. Many of us in the dog—pardon? Many of us in the dog 19
owners' community have been advocating for dog parks throughout the City for over 10 20
years. We hope that a small hurdle, which I think this is a small hurdle, won't get in the 21
way of providing that service. Thank you. 22
Chair McDougall: We are aware of the issue of art, and we are expecting the Public Art 23
Director to make a presentation to us this evening for us to understand better the issue of 24
removal, protection, etc., relative to art in public parks. 25
Ms. Millen: Thank you. 26
Commissioner McCauley: Don, I think it'd (inaudible) generally. Daren can probably give 27 us an exact date when construction might start on Peers Park, which is located just about 3 28
blocks away from Bowden Park. There's something that's in the works that's in the very 29
near proximity to Bowden Park. Daren, what's the new construction date? 30
Daren Anderson: April 16th for Peers Park dog park. 31
Chair McDougall: We have another speaker. I don't see tennis or pickleball on the agenda 32
this evening. Monica Williams. Monica, you'll have 3 minutes. 33
Monica Williams: Good evening. I just wanted to give a very quick update on the 34
pickleball in Palo Alto. We had our very first Palo Alto recreation pickleball class for this 35
season, the spring season. It's our fifth season of teaching pickleball classes. We had a 36
total of 44 participants. When we first started this, we had 16. That was four seasons ago. 37
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This time it's 44. Just to let you know how pickleball is growing. On behalf of all the 1
pickleball players in Palo Alto, I urge you to make a decision as soon as possible to approve 2
dedicated pickleball courts at Mitchell Park. Thank you very much. 3
Chair McDougall: Thank you. There are no other speakers. We can go on to Department 4
Report. 5
IV. DEPARTMENT REPORT 6
Kristen O'Kane: Good evening, Kristen O'Kane, Community Services. I just have one 7
announcement, but I wanted to do it now, at the beginning of the meeting. I'd like to 8
introduce you all to Monique Ziesenhenne. Monique has been the Director of Libraries 9
with the City of Palo Alto for almost 7 years. We're doing a little bit of an organizational 10
experiment here at the City. Monique is going to be the Director of Community Services 11
as well, which is our Parks, Recreation, Open Space, Golf, and our Arts and Sciences as 12
well. Monique will be taking on that role 'til the end of fiscal year '19, which is June 2019. 13
The reason we're doing this is just an experiment to see how the two departments can work 14
more closely together and collaborate on programs and services that we provide to the 15
community. There already is collaboration that happens. There's a lot of overlap within 16
our two departments. We want to focus the next year and a half on seeing how we can 17
collaborate a little bit more. Did you want to say something, Monique? 18
Monique Ziesenhenne: Thank you very much. Thank you to everyone so far for their 19
warm welcome. I really appreciate it. I look forward to working with you. In the event 20
that you're thinking, "The Librarian, what could she possibly know about all of this," I have 21
done this in the past. When I was the Library Director in the City of Richmond, I came on 22
as the Recreation and Public Art and Community Services Director for a time and really 23
gained a broad appreciation for how these two departments can work together. I know that 24
historically Library and Community Services were together in one department here. I want 25 to say that we're not planning that. We have been very clear, and the City Manager has 26 been clear that's not our intention because we've all got a lot of work that we can do 27 separately, but I think we're interested in looking at what does—studying what might it 28
mean for us going forward, how might we leverage each other's strengths and think 29
strategically going forward about how to benefit from improved collaboration and 30
relationships. The information we get here, you'll all be involved at some point. We'll 31
have periods where we'll check in. Again, if you want to get in touch with me, I'm in the 32
City. I'm here; I'm happy to meet with you. I'm happy to talk more with you. I look 33
forward to working with all of you. Thank you. 34
Chair McDougall: Monique, on behalf of the Commission, I welcome you. I would attest 35
to the fact that, having worked with you on the Library Commission, you're great to work 36
with. I think everybody will enjoy your presence. Monique wasn't very forthcoming about 37
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where she is in the City. If you just go across to the Library right over here, you can find 1
her. 2
Ms. Ziesenhenne: Yes, my office will remain at the Downtown Library, right behind City 3
Hall. 4
Chair McDougall: We're not going to let you hide from us. David. 5
Commissioner Moss: I want to make one more comment. If you don't know already, the 6 staff that we work with every week is fantastic. We really appreciate their dedication. 7
Anything that can be done to make their job easier would be greatly appreciated. 8
Ms. Ziesenhenne: I will take that under consideration, but I've already recognized it's a 9
really fine organization. Recreation and Community Services, everybody is great, does 10
really leading work. Hopefully, we'll make everyone more aware of that. Thank you. 11
Chair McDougall: I think we would all second David's comment. These are good people 12
that we work with. Thank you. 13
Commissioner McCauley: Don, I have one quick question. Welcome again, Monique. To 14
your comment about undertaking this with an open mind and not with a preset 15
determination as to which way the City organizationally may go in the future, is there a 16
timeline for the City to decide whether or not they would continue to have these 17
organizations together in one? 18
Ms. Ziesenhenne: What I've signed up for is through fiscal year '19. At that point, there 19
may not necessarily be some product other than a report, strategy guide, something like 20
that. I think the City Manager's Office just wants some flexibility. Again, the intention is 21
not for us to become one department. It really is to work with the two departments and see 22
how we might leverage those relationships, not combine them. 23
Commissioner McCauley: Let me just note that I'm a huge fan of studying ways that 24
government can do better. That's great. That's a good thing to be looking into. Are you 25 going to be then launching another search for a new Director of Community Services at 26 the end of fiscal year '19 or is that all undetermined? 27
Ms. Ziesenhenne: My understanding is that will be launched maybe even—I don't know 28
if they're intending to wait after that, at the end of that, or even start working on it before 29
the end of that. I know there is every intention of doing another search. I will not be 30
applying. Not that I don't love it, but I love libraries and what I do. 31
Vice Chair Greenfield: Will any other headcount be added to the Community Services 32
Department in the interim period? We certainly appreciate the staff we have, and we also 33
appreciate that they're overtaxed quite often. 34
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Ms. Ziesenhenne: I don't have that expectation. I don't think any one of us did. The status 1
quo will remain at this point. 2
Chair McDougall: Are there any other comments or questions? 3
Ms. Ziesenhenne: If you think of something later, please feel free to contact me. 4
Chair McDougall: Again, Monique, welcome. Welcome to our team. Do you have more 5
to say? 6
Ms. O'Kane: I do not. Daren Anderson does have more to say. 7
Chair McDougall: Thank you, thank you, thank you. 8
Mr. Anderson: Good evening. Daren Anderson with Open Space, Parks and Golf. I have 9
a couple of brief updates to share with you. One was that dog park construction date. This 10
is for Peers dog park starting construction on April 16th. Again, about a 4-5 week 11
construction window. There were some emails going around about the Cubberley 12
bleachers. Again, this is an older facility where the wood had rotted out. We've added 13
new wood. We're a little over halfway done. I anticipate about 2 more weeks. In addition 14
to the wood plans, we're also putting fresh chain link on the sides to make sure it's entirely 15
safe. An update on the Foothills Park trails. You might recall that there are two closed 16
trails up at Foothills that have been closed for quite some time, since the last big storm 17
system last year. We had done a first round of surveys. We had missed a window where 18
a particular plant was not flowering, so we had to do it during this winter. We've done that; 19
it's now complete. We did not find this particular plant species, so that's a good thing. 20
We're just waiting for the report from the consultant to come back together with Planning 21
to discuss the next step. I'll report back to you as soon as I find out. The Cubberley field 22
light pilot that we did, when we came out with those temporary lights to light the fields, to 23
add capacity and play into the evening, went well. You'll have a formal report at the next 24
Commission meeting. Suffice it to say just a brief update that we didn't receive any 25 complaints, at the least Parks team. By and large, everything seemed to function well and 26 as planned. The Baylands Comprehensive Conservation Plan is moving along. I provided 27 you with an update at the last Commission meeting. Since that time, we have followed 28
through on some of our ideas. At the last Commission meeting, we said, "What are we 29
going to do to reach out to those underserved groups that aren't participating in the 30
stakeholder groups," youth, running groups, kayaking groups, all those different groups 31
that we know are in the Baylands but wouldn't necessarily come to the stakeholder meeting. 32
I worked with the consultant to put together a fairly brief form. I can have the Rangers go 33
out into the field and meet with those different groups. For example, for our youth they're 34
going to a Save the Bay environmental restoration day where they often have a class full 35
of kids. They'll stop for 15 minutes and talk to them about the plan and pick their brains 36
and find out what's important to them. We'll do the same for a regular running group. We 37
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have a group of windsurfers that some to the sailing station. We'll try to hit a number of 1
different underrepresented groups. That'll be tied into the next steps in terms of feedback 2
and what to do. Our consultant's working on the next chapters for the Plan itself, the 3
recommendations, and things like that. Hopefully, we'll have a draft for your review either 4
April or May. The golf course, we're still in negotiations with a new golf course operator. 5
It's going a little slower than we thought and anticipated. It's still being reviewed right 6 now, but we're targeting a new date for opening of mid-May. The capital budget, I've had 7
a few dialogs with different ad hocs about where we're at with our capital budget. It's still 8
under review. Right now, it's with the City Manager's Office, as I understand it. We'll 9
hopefully be getting something back from him that I can share with you all. That's all I've 10
got for Department Report. 11
Chair McDougall: Are there any questions of Daren? 12
Commissioner LaMere: I just have one comment. Daren, I want to compliment you in 13
terms of reaching out and going to the stakeholder groups at the Baylands and seeking them 14
out rather than just putting something out and saying, "We didn't get any feedback. We're 15
going to move forward with whatever plan we had." That's a great idea of being proactive 16
and trying to seek out those groups to get the appropriate feedback. I want to really 17
compliment you on that. 18
Chair McDougall: I agree. David. 19
Commissioner Moss: Were you going to mention anything about the Los Altos Treatment 20
Plant or is that going to be in the next presentation? 21
Mr. Anderson: That'll be in the next agendized item. 22
Chair McDougall: On the golf course, obviously it won't be open before the next meeting. 23
Mr. Anderson: That's correct. 24
Chair McDougall: Should we plan a review of the opening ceremony or process or 25 whatever the word might be? 26
Mr. Anderson: We're anticipating this new operator will really lead that endeavor. That's 27 where their experience will come into play and help us out a lot in making sure it's 28
successful. 29
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V. BUSINESS 1
1. Approval of Draft Minutes from the February 27, 2018 Parks and Recreation 2
Commission meeting. 3
Approval of the draft February 27, 2018 Minutes was moved by Commissioner Reckdahl 4
and seconded by Commissioner Moss. Passed 6-0, Cribbs absent 5
2. Approval of Draft Minutes from February 23, 2018 Parks and Recreation 6
Commission Retreat. 7
Vice Chair Greenfield: Regarding the summary of the past year's work on the Commission, 8
I forwarded my notes to Natalie to add into the record. These are the notes I spoke from, 9
which were a little clearer than what was in the minutes. I recommend making this change 10
to the Minutes. The ad hoc which is currently named Fields and Facility Use Policy should 11
be Parks and Facility Use Policy. 12
Chair McDougall: I think we all agreed to the name change; we just didn't incorporate it. 13
I'm sorry that we missed those going into this. 14
Approval of the draft February 23, 2018 Minutes as amended was moved by Vice Chair 15
Greenfield and seconded by Commissioner McCauley. Passed 6-0, Cribbs absent 16
3. Update on ITT Property, Byxbee Park, and Renzel Wetland. 17
Chair McDougall: Update on ITT Property, Byxbee Park, Renzel Wetland. Karin's joined 18
us. 19
Mr. Anderson: Karin North is the Manager for the watershed protection group with Public 20
Works. 21
Karin North, Watershed Protection Manager: Good evening, Commissioners. I know I'm 22
a new face. I know you were hoping that Phil Bobel would be here, but he's actually 23
enjoying life in Hawaii. I've worked with Phil for 17 years, so I've been his silent partner 24
in crime trying to get all the work done that he has visions for. Daren will help me as well 25 on some of the questions that I may not know all the answers to. I think you've got a good 26 team here to help answer your questions. My understanding is the Commission was 27 interested in getting an update on what's going on with Byxbee Park, the ITT building 28
specifically, and then the Renzel Wetland. Is that correct? I just want to make sure I've 29
got the right presentation. 30
Chair McDougall: Phil was quite vocal at the most-recent Baylands Comprehensive Plan 31
meeting. He managed to go around and speak to every—somehow managed to end up at 32
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every table in every session. I don't know how he did it. I felt the Commission should hear 1
what that committee heard. 2
Ms. North: He was filling in for me since I was coaching track practice that night. We like 3
to wear many hats. Just to give you an update. This is an aerial view. I always like to do 4
pictures because it tells a lot more than trying to explain it. That area is Byxbee Park now, 5
the former landfill. As you can see, it's growing in nicely. The other area that we're talking 6 about is this Renzel Wetland, which was previously the ITT property. This area that Daren 7
is showing right now is the freshwater marsh, which is actually treated effluent from the 8
wastewater treatment plant. I'm actually housed at the wastewater treatment plant; that's 9
where my office is. We are a regional wastewater treatment plant, where we treat 20 10
million gallons of water per day. Part of flow actually goes into this Renzel Wetland, about 11
5 percent of our flow. It is actually part of our requirements and our NPDES permit to 12
maintain this wetland. Byxbee Park is obviously very important to the City. We spend a 13
lot of time working on maintaining Byxbee Park. It's a team project between Public Works 14
and Community Services, which is great. We collaborate and work together really well. 15
These are some images of when they got Byxbee Park. If you haven't hiked up there, it's a 16
beautiful location. It's got fantastic views of the Baylands, of Renzel Wetland. It's just a 17
gorgeous spot up there. What we have been working on. In 2016, Public Works and 18
Community Services installed four different vegetative islands. They put in some tanks, 19
and they're utilizing recycled water to irrigate these vegetated islands. Each cluster has 20
about three to four islands of raised soil planted with a palette of native plant species. It's 21
been a great attractor of birds and butterflies and other insects. If you look at the overall 22
[sic] and you're walking around there, it's nice to have some pockets of vegetation. It's 23
been really good. The other update for Byxbee Park is the landfill gas and leachate piping 24
upgrade. In April, Public Works staff is planning to repair settlement in the southeast 25 portion of Byxbee Park for the landfill gas and leachate control system replacement work. 26 There's new piping that will be laid underground to replace the current system, which is 27 basically past its current life. That's the joy of having to maintain a park on top of a landfill. 28
We still have to maintain the landfill since that's part of our requirements. There will be 29
some trail closures in the area while that work takes place. You want to add anything on 30
that? 31
Mr. Anderson: Only that that's going to be rotating. While they repair those three systems 32
and have to make sure—that's the leachate, the condensate, and the regular gas. That's 33
what they're protecting when they bring this back to grade. There are a couple of reasons. 34
It's important to know right now they're focusing on that area to the east that Karin 35
mentioned. Eventually, it'll be all over the Byxbee area. It's going to be settling, so trucks 36
will have to continually come in and relevel that area. It's unfortunate, but Public Works 37
is really good about minimizing the impact as best they can. There are a few wildlife 38
opportunities for improvement when they do so. One we're exploring right now that we 39
couldn't before was we can't have burrowing rodents on Byxbee. It violates the permits 40
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and violates State law. They're looking into a way around that. Without burrowing rodents, 1
you don't have burrowing owls. That's something we've always wanted there. There are 2
some ways and some creative ideas we've got about adding extra material so they couldn't 3
possibly get down to the clay cap. That's one of the options we're looking at that could 4
coincide. It's kind of a habitat positive that comes out of this necessary maintenance. 5
Ms. North: The Public Works staff did want to tell you that there are four burrowing owls 6 that have been spotted regularly at Byxbee Park. Even though Daren says they're not there, 7
they're actually there. 8
Mr. Anderson: They're not nesting there. 9
Ms. North: We have been finding them there. This is something my staff came up with, a 10
historic photo of what Byxbee Park and the Renzel Wetland area looked like. If you look, 11
this is the original tidal flow coming in from the Bay through here, which is now Byxbee 12
Park, and then into these slough areas. This is the area back in 1991 we got a Coastal 13
Commission grant to restore, trying to get it back to tidal wetland. This area of upland 14
habitat is what we utilize with our Renzel Wetland freshwater marsh. Just to give you a 15
perspective of what it was historically. In the middle of that Renzel Wetland is the ITT 16
property. These are some photos of what it used to look like when we took over the lease 17
and the City was in charge of trying to fix it up again because it had been leased for a very 18
long time. This has all been cleaned up. There is a lot of hazardous waste material that 19
was removed, a lot of cleanup and abatement. People were in there looting, trying to get 20
the copper. Lots of windows were broken in the building. Our Public Works team has 21
really done a great job of trying to maintain the history there 'til we determine what we're 22
going to be doing in the future. All the substations were removed. All the transformers 23
were taken out of there. In a sensitive habitat you don't really want all this hazardous 24
materials in there. All of that has been removed. This is what it looks like now. It's a little 25 scrubbed clean, painted, boarded up with a fence around it. At least now we have a good 26 new roof, all these new things that we've done to maintain the integrity of the building. 27 There is one other little building on that parcel still, and Public Works staff is actually 28
looking to remove one of those smaller buildings. Just to keep you guys updated on the 29
actual ITT property. Moving on to the Renzel Wetlands. This is the image that I was 30
showing you before. Here is the proper ITT building. Those that are historical were the 31
original World War II where they heard about the Pearl bombing. They had these copper 32
coils, which is part of the reason why this freshwater marsh has this curve. We have the 33
old drawings, and there are copper coils underneath here. That's how they actually received 34
that information. Technology has improved dramatically. We've been working on this—35
let me give you a little bit more perspective. This is the Byxbee landfill, now Byxbee Park, 36
back when it was a landfill because it was closed off to tidal. We put in a pipe here. This 37
is during high tide. Water flows in here, and it flows down. It's about 12 acres. It basically 38
flows through gravity. There's a pump that you guys may have seen if you've walked 39
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around there. That's on a float switch so, when it fills up, it pumps into Matadero Creek. 1
To mitigate for the saltwater going into that portion, they didn't want to change the creek. 2
In 1991, they built this Renzel Wetland, which is freshwater from our effluent. It's tertiary 3
treated effluent. You can see the pipe coming through. It doesn't actually provide any 4
treatment, but it's about 1 million gallons of water per day. That water flows into Matadero 5
Creek, and part of it is to mitigate that salt balance, to make sure we weren't changing the 6 salinity in the creek. That's why the freshwater marsh is in there. This is an old image of 7
what it looked like when we were originally building it. I'm just going to go through these 8
quickly just so you get a sense. In 2002, there's something that dramatically changed. We 9
had these islands in here. It looked pretty clean. 2009, you can see we have a lot more 10
vegetation filling in there. 2014, you can see how much it's filling in. We've also had 11
muskrats in there. We have some pretty severe leaks over on this portion of it. This past 12
year we had over ten leaks along here, along this side as well. We've basically been doing 13
band-aid fixes. This is how deep it is now. It was originally 2-4 feet deep, so it's really 14
shallow. It's been filling in 27 years. We're talking about a long lifespan of doing band-15
aid fixes. The reason why I'm here to day is we originally—Daren and I were working on 16
trying to look at the whole Renzel Wetland to try and improve trails. We're still doing that. 17
We were hoping that we could look at this freshwater marsh and do the permitting process 18
and maybe expand it. I came to some of the previous meetings to discuss that, but the 19
maintenance and the time horizons and the budget are not lining up unfortunately. We still 20
have plans to try and expand it. In the meantime, we've got to fix what we currently have 21
since it is a requirement in our permit. Our plan this summer is we're going to start draining 22
it starting this week so we can give the habitat time to evolve. We've got the Rangers 23
involved too. We've been talking about minimizing the potential habitat loss there. We've 24
already done a biological assessment in 2017. We just had the Rangers go out and do it 25 again. We're going to drain out the pond. It will probably take a long time because it's 15 26 acres to drain. Then, we're going to do another biological assessment while we try to get 27 some contracts in place. We are going to try to do most of the work inside that Renzel 28
Wetland because that was previously an upland habitat, and it's under our maintenance 29
contract through our NPDES permit. We've already talked to the Regional Board; we've 30
talked to all the regulators. We were hoping we could do this much bigger-scale, takeaway 31
this little curve which is where a pinch point is happening. They said we have to go through 32
all the permitting process to expand it, even if we wanted to expand it slightly. We decided 33
that we're going to move forward on that, but it's probably more of a 5-year horizon. We 34
can't keep on band-aid fixing this berm that's falling apart. This is our tentative … 35
Commissioner McCauley: Forgive me for just one moment. Just for my edification, what's 36
the rationale for draining it? 37
Ms. North: We have to do all of the work inside the confines. This is where we put on our 38
creative Public Works hat of how do we do this. We have one access coming in here. We 39
have to do all of the work, as much as possible, within the actual wetland. Trying to get in 40
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there with heavy equipment to clear out the cattails and remove the silt, we really have to 1
drain it and start moving. We are also having a problem with drying out all that silt 2
material. That's part of the reason why we're doing this in two stages. We're going to 3
excavate one portion of the pond, and then keep this side as a drying area. Cost is a 4
consideration. As you can imagine, hauling water is really expensive. We're hoping 5
someone will want to purchase it and use it as a soil amendment because it's going to be 6 high in nutrients. It might be high in other stuff too, so that's why we've got to test it. We'll 7
be looking at that to make sure whatever quality it is it will go to the right place. This is a 8
staged process. Unfortunately, we do have to drain it because we can't fix the berm if it's 9
not drained. We're going to widen the berm so we can drive a vehicle around it for 10
maintenance. When it was originally built in 1991, you could not drive around it. As you 11
can see it's in the middle of a wetland. It's really hard to maintain. It will also provide a 12
trail system around the top of it. It's definitely an engineering challenge to fix it within the 13
confines of it. The last one is showing you how large it used to be. Now, it's just filling 14
in. Unfortunately, we can't let it fill in completely. The City does other preventative 15
maintenance where they remove cattails at Boronda Lake. We are a little behind the game 16
on removing it. The trouble we are having is the fact that we have to do all that work within 17
the confines of the Renzel Wetland. It's not easy construction-wise. Any questions? 18
Vice Chair Greenfield: Could you clarify again what the process is? You're going to be 19
draining half the primary area and keeping half of it wet. You're going to drain it all and 20
excavate on one side and let the other side dry out. 21
Ms. North: The plan is to drain the whole thing. We're going to excavate one side of it, 22
put in a temporary berm so that silt can dry out, and then fill it back up. That's what we're 23
tentatively planning on doing. We'll have to come in the next year, drain it again, and then 24
excavate the other side. We're still working out those logistics. We're trying to figure out 25 how do we improve the habitat, keep it for as long as possible while we're trying to fix the 26 berm. 27
Vice Chair Greenfield: Roughly how long will it be drained in each of these cycles? 28
Ms. North: Our tentative timeline is this will be drained and at least half of it will be back 29
in before the winter season. We're hoping by October. 30
Vice Chair Greenfield: How many months would it be drained? 31
Ms. North: About 6, 7 months of drain. The original permit in 1991 expected us to drain 32
it every summer for mosquito abatement. Because of the habitat benefit, for 27 years we 33
have not drained it. We drained it, I think, the first summer or two according to Phil. After 34
that, we decided not to drain it because of the habitat. 35
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Vice Chair Greenfield: I'm sure you've thought through this carefully. What are the 1
implications to the habitat from draining it? What are the losses anticipated and the time 2
horizon for restoration? 3
Ms. North: The loss of habitat. One concern we have is it is bird nesting season. That's 4
why we've sent out the Rangers to assess. They didn't find any nests. Prior to doing 5
excavation work, we'll be bringing out the Rangers again to ensure we're not impacting any 6 of the nests. It is a freshwater marsh that's managed, but there are probably some fish in 7
there. We're trying to net them once they come out. We've got the mudder, so we've been 8
planning that, to go out to pools and try and get the large fish out and move them over to 9
Matadero Creek. Any time you have to do some kind of restoration work you are going to 10
have some issues to the habitat. That's why we're trying to limit it to the upland area, which 11
is the freshwater marsh. We're doing it in stages. At some point in time, we still need to 12
maintain the saltmarsh, which is the other side, because that hasn't had maintenance in 27 13
years. We've been sending people in there to hand dig out channels because it's silting up. 14
At some point in time, we're going to need to do that. We're trying to minimize doing 15
everything all at once because that just impacts the habitat too quickly. 16
Vice Chair Greenfield: The Perimeter Trail around the pools, is this new or this is … 17
Ms. North: This would be new. Right now, if you went out there, you'd probably twist 18
your ankle because the berm is so—it's basically settled, has huge cracks in it. The cattails 19
have come in there. Pretty much every time we walk out there we find another one. 20
Vice Chair Greenfield: I haven't observed an inviting path recently. This would be a 21
benefit to the community. 22
Ms. North: This would be a benefit to the community that you can actually quickly get off 23
the trail and be able to walk and feel completely removed even though you're right next to 24
the freeway. When you're out there in the cattails, you do feel very removed. We're not 25 planning on putting cattails back in there, but we anticipate they will grow naturally. Once 26 we fix it, we're not going to be actively restoring the vegetation within the pond because it 27 will naturally come back just like it did with what we're dealing with right now. Any other 28
questions? 29
Chair McDougall: Karin, thank you for the presentation. I think you said you're through? 30
Ms. North: Yes, I am done. 31
Chair McDougall: Daren, do you have anything you want to add? Maybe we should go 32
one end to the other. Jeff. 33
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Commissioner LaMere: Obviously this is going to fill in again. Is that correct or are there 1
mitigation—is there a way to mitigate that? I'm curious about some of the planning going 2
forward. When it was built 27 years ago, they knew it was going to fill in. As far as having 3
a plan and being forward-thinking in what we're doing with it, is that part of budgets going 4
forward, maintenance budgets and so forth? 5
Ms. North: Absolutely right. Twenty-seven years is actually a really long time horizon 6 for a wetland to have very minimal preventive maintenance. We're hoping if we build up 7
this berm and we can drive around the perimeter, then we can go in and do cattail harvesting 8
on a more regular frequency. It's really the cattails that seem to have impacted the integrity 9
of the berm. The berm's also going to be a lot wider and sturdier, so it shouldn't be breaking 10
down as quickly. That will be built into our wastewater treatment plant fund budget to be 11
doing maintenance on a regular basis. 12
Commissioner LaMere: What do you do about the depth of the water in terms of its—the 13
silt fills in. Does that need to be dredged? What's the process of that and what's the process 14
of that in the future without draining it? 15
Ms. North: We anticipate a lot of the silt came from the vegetation in there because we 16
don't have a lot of solids in our effluent that's going into the pond. It's mostly the vegetation 17
that's dying off that's created the silt naturally. If we handle the vegetation, I think we'll be 18
handling the dredge material as well in the future. 19
Commissioner McCauley: Are you going to be presenting a negative mitigated assessment 20
or anything along those lines to this group later in the year? 21
Ms. North: In terms of environmental documentation like you're talking about, a Mitigated 22
Negative Dec, because this is originally from our 1991 permitting, maintenance is allowed 23
through our NPDES permit. We are not required to do a Mitigated Negative Dec because 24
it's in an upland habitat that's managed by the wastewater treatment plant. It's basically an 25 engineered wetland that we maintain. We're supposed to be maintaining it. We waited a 26 long time because we knew about the habitat loss. We're at the point now where doing the 27 band-aid fixes isn't sufficient. We want to go in there and fix it correctly so we can get 28
another 27, 30 years of life out of it. 29
Commissioner McCauley: Have you reached out to local users of the area? Has there been 30
any sort of community feedback? 31
Ms. North: We sent out a press release. We also have sent information to all the folks that 32
are attending Daren's meetings. We pretty much know the people that are involved in that 33
community. We're also making signs so people will know, if they have questions, who to 34
contact. There will be three signs out there. If people are curious as to what's going on 35
and why the wetland is being drained, there's going to be information out there. We're 36
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trying to do our due diligence. We're communicating early and often. With the wastewater 1
treatment plant, we're used to having to communicate early and often. These are great 2
questions. 3
Commissioner Reckdahl: I have a question about Jeff's question. You drain the whole 4
thing, and then you put up the temporary levee in the middle, and then you refill. Do you 5
refill the whole thing or just the portion that you fixed? 6
Ms. North: Just the portion that we fixed. 7
Commissioner Reckdahl: Half of it will remain dry for one full year then? 8
Ms. North: Correct. We're going to fix the berm around the whole perimeter. We're 9
hoping we may only have to drain the whole thing once. We've got the best plans out there, 10
but I don't want to say they'll go perfectly because the environment out there may change. 11
We will bring in the heavy machinery, pull out all the cattails, dig up one side that was 12
originally 4 feet deep, try and get it as deep as we can again, move all that soil and material 13
to the northern side so we can dry it out, put in a temporary berm. The next year after it's 14
dried out, we'll bring in equipment. It'll be probably not as invasive just because the berm 15
around the perimeter will already be built. All we're going to do is remove that silt and 16
dispose of it. Then, we can open the whole pond up. That's our plan right now. 17
Commissioner Reckdahl: As we dig this up, is there any chance for a "gotcha"? Will there 18
be some endangered species that we'll find or anything else that might delay the project? 19
Ms. North: I don't anticipate that just because it is a freshwater upland habitat area. The 20
endangered species that are around there do exist within the Renzel Wetland, but they're in 21
the saltmarsh portions of it, not the freshwater portions of it. 22
Commissioner Reckdahl: For Byxbee, we have the methane capture. What happens to the 23
methane that's captured? Do we sell that? Do we burn that? 24
Ms. North: Right now, there's a sewage sludge incinerator. We utilize that in the 25 afterburner because we have to put it in a high temperature to burn off any of the 26 contaminants. I don't know if you're aware we will be getting rid of the sewage sludge 27 incinerator. Then, we need to be looking at other alternatives for natural gas because then 28
we will have to flare it. We are also looking at other alternatives for our biosolids as well, 29
hoping that we can come up with a technology that can utilize the natural gas in that 30
process. Yes, for a short period of time we will have to be off-gassing that unless we get 31
a cogen engine in there. 32
Commissioner Reckdahl: By off-gassing you mean burn onsite? 33
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Ms. North: If you walk over by the flare, you can actually see it from Byxbee Park. It's 1
on the wastewater treatment plant process in the confines of the wastewater treatment plant. 2
Commissioner Reckdahl: How much methane do we get? Is it a truckload a day, a 3
truckload a month? What would be … 4
Ms. North: I'd have to get back to you on the actual values of methane. We have been 5
utilizing it in our afterburner, and that's actually helped us with our greenhouse gas 6 emissions. The other good thing that's helped us with our greenhouse gas emissions is we 7
are currently buying—all our gas and electric are carbon neutral. 8
Commissioner Reckdahl: Other sites that do this, would they truck it out or would they set 9
up some pipeline? How do they get rid of it normally? 10
Ms. North: Most folks that have methane collection are either doing a cogen or they're 11
flaring. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District—ironically cogens are under more 12
scrutiny than flaring. It's a whole environmental regulation that really doesn't make sense. 13
We're finding many of the wastewater treatment plants that have anaerobic digesters are 14
flaring because putting a cogen onsite—environmental regulations are harder through the 15
Air Board. It does not make sense. I totally agree. This is a conversation we have with 16
the Air Board on a regular basis. 17
Commissioner Reckdahl: The plants that we're putting up there are native plants, so they 18
don't need irrigation long term. 19
Mr. Anderson: That's correct. The plan is to wean them off irrigation. 20
Commissioner Reckdahl: Right now, we're trucking water up there to (crosstalk). 21
Mr. Anderson: There are tanks in the ground we fill with water trucks. 22
Commissioner Reckdahl: They have automated sprinklers? 23
Mr. Anderson: Mm hmm. 24
Commissioner Reckdahl: How are those powered? 25
Mr. Anderson: Through gas. We've got pressure up there. There are air pressure tanks 26 that they utilize to turn the valves on and off. 27
Commissioner Moss: Last meeting we talked about weed suppression on the top of Byxbee 28
hill. Is there any kind of update or short-term plan for that any more than what you 29
mentioned last time? 30
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Mr. Anderson: The plan is the same. We vigorously attack it as best we can. You're 1
talking about such a broad area. When we're talking about 100-plus acres, usually the 2
technique is not hand-pulling. It's just impossible in an area that size. Where we do hand-3
pull, it's more strategic and targeted towards areas where we really have a chance, usually 4
in a wetland area. In these upland areas, it's typically done by mower. Timed mowing is 5
the best way that we've done it. We're losing the battle, to be quite frank, in terms of 6 invasive species. The vast majority of Byxbee is filled with invasive weeds. The reason 7
we opted for these habitat islands was under the restoration premise that if you plant 8
intensely and cared for a little area of natives, then perhaps it would spread on its own. 9
That's one hope. We're still seeing how that's going to work. Right now, we're actually 10
seeing the reverse. Since it's surrounded by so many invasive weed species, those seeds 11
are blowing in, and we're finding lots of volunteer weeds amongst the native habitat. Those 12
areas are small enough where I can have staff come out and either hand-pull or weed whip 13
them out. It's a challenge, and that's why we did this interim plan at Byxbee. We're 1 1/2-14
2 years in. We're learning, but it's still evolving. 15
Commissioner Moss: Did you say something about timed mowing? There are certain 16
times of the year when there are no seeds, and you mow them before the seeds grow. You're 17
hoping to stop a new generation of seeds. 18
Mr. Anderson: That's right. Usually right before they go to seed, the root has exhausted 19
its energy to put up the flower and get ready to go to seed. If you hit it right then, you've 20
got a chance of killing the root and the plant. If you miss by a couple of weeks one way or 21
the other, you just train that plant to flower and go to seed at a lower height. It's really 22
difficult to time it just right. Plus, you're dealing with 20 different species of weeds all 23
with slight variations on when they're growing, and they're all mixed up. It's a challenge 24
for sure. We're doing the best we can. I think the long-term solution is planting more 25 natives, not just endlessly weed whipping or cutting down the weeds or pulling them out. 26 That will only lead to a succession of the next weed. If you plant strategically and target 27 natives that have a chance to compete, maybe over time those can creep out. I think that's 28
the game plan. 29
Commissioner Moss: That's using Save the Bay to get a bunch of people out there to plant 30
an intense planting? 31
Mr. Anderson: In Save the Bay's case, they mainly focus closer to the wetlands. They 32
aren't typically the group up there. We're using other one-off volunteer groups. Ultimately, 33
the game plan will be to get a group to adopt a given planting island. I'd like to see adopted 34
areas throughout Byxbee. If you go long enough and get enough sustained stewardship, 35
you've got a real chance to convert that to really valuable habitat. 36
Commissioner Moss: The Los Altos Treatment Plant, what is the plan for that? You 37
mentioned it briefly last month. 38
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Mr. Anderson: The last update I provided had to do with the building. It's falling apart, 1
and they're going to remove it. Long-term use is still to be determined. The City's 2
examining different needs such as the Animal Shelter and other storage. I truly don't know. 3
It's in the City Manager's Office as far as I understand it. We're certainly asking and 4
inquiring to see what the next steps are. I'll be glad to share that report once I have more 5
information. 6
Commissioner Moss: You're not increasing or decreasing the marsh around it? 7
Mr. Anderson: As far as I know, there are no plan changes at all. 8
Commissioner Moss: Commissioner Reckdahl and I had a tour of the work being done 9
near the Baylands Athletic Center on the levees between the marsh and San Francisquito 10
Creek. They talked about how complex the process of building those levees up so that they 11
don't leak. Are you working with that same engineering group on the levees for the Renzel 12
pond or are you doing this separately? 13
Mr. Anderson: It is separate. The Renzel pond work that Karin's group is working on has 14
its own City engineers. It's a little different where it doesn't have the same level of 15
waterflow, not even near what San Francisquito Creek would handle. Do you have any 16
thoughts on the engineering around the berm that's going around Renzel? 17
Ms. North: The San Francisquito Creek levee is a designated levee, and that's why it needs 18
to have such sophisticated engineering. It also had to go through a lot of permitting 19
requirements. You may have heard that it took over a couple of years to get that permit 20
through. We actually have the original engineering drawings for this berm. It survived 27 21
years. We're going to be building it stronger than it was built the first time around. We're 22
just going off the original engineering drawings because engineering drawings don't 23
change after that many years. 24
Commissioner Moss: The only thing I was thinking about is the composition of the berm. 25 They have a complex composition; whereas, you were thinking of taking the silt—26 excavating and shoving it up. 27
Ms. North: Sorry if that was not clear. We actually have a whole soil contractor coming 28
in with specifications on soil and keying it into the berm and compacting it. That's a 29
separate contractor to the silt remover that we're dealing with. The silt will not be used in 30
creating the berm, building up the berm. That will actually need to be removed. We're 31
going to try and see if we can find someplace that will want it as a commodity. If not, it's 32
going to be another ticket price for us, which is part of the reason why we're staging it in 33
fiscal years and stockpiling it. 34
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Vice Chair Greenfield: The information that we're talking about, the signage and all, is 1
that included on the City website as well? 2
Ms. North: It will be included on the City website. It's not currently on the City website 3
because this has been a fast and furious project in terms of getting the signage up, doing 4
the press release. All that will be up probably by early next week. 5
Vice Chair Greenfield: Where would this be located? 6
Ms. North: We'll probably have it linked to the wastewater treatment plant page. If you 7
want to go to cleanbay.org, it'll be a news detail under cleanbay.org. That's the wastewater 8
treatment plant's page. Since we are a regional facility, we have a URL that directs you 9
directly to the wastewater treatment plant page. 10
Vice Chair Greenfield: Would it make sense to have a link from the Parks and Rec page 11
as well? 12
Mr. Anderson: (inaudible) Baylands page makes a lot of sense. 13
Ms. North: We'll cross link them. 14
Chair McDougall: Karin, I'm sorry that you're here and not Phil so I can beat on him. My 15
comments are probably partly informed by what you've said tonight and also by being at 16
the Bay Comprehensive Plan sessions. You started by saying part of the landfill is sinking. 17
We had that explained to us. The area up there is nice for walking around. I would be 18
remiss and the rest of the Commission would be disappointed if I didn't point out that there's 19
an awful lot of blank sign holders up there. The last time I attacked the Parks Department 20
on that, they said it wasn't their job. It was … 21
Mr. Anderson: (inaudible) 22
Chair McDougall: Then I'll attack again. Sooner or later we should remove those damn 23
things or fill them up. I don't think we're doing anybody any favors by just leaving the 24
blanks there. I'm not expecting you to apologize or respond to anything I say. 25
Mr. Anderson: This one is mine, not Karin's. We had done the interim plan, came up with 26 sign designs. At the same time as we came to finalizing designs for those signs, we started 27 the Baylands Comprehensive Conservation Plan, which has interpretive sign elements. It 28
didn't make sense to have one-off signs at Byxbee that are going to last for 25 years when 29
we're about to look at all our signs comprehensively and come up with some 30
recommendations going forward. I had hoped we'd move that element along early enough 31
that I could move on it, get something in there. I hear your frustration. Maybe there's 32
something I could do in the interim because it's going to be another 6 months before I'd 33
have something ready to go. Perhaps there's something I could do in the interim to get 34
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something up there. I share your frustration. It will be part of the Baylands Comprehensive 1
Conservation Plan. 2
Chair McDougall: Don't worry; I'll remind you every month. You said you have those 3
islands. I am really impressed. I go up there all the time, and I really like those islands. 4
My notes said, "More??" or expand the ones we have. Is the plan to take the islands you 5
have and in each year make them another 2 feet bigger? In response to a question, you 6 discouraged me to believe that those islands aren't likely to even be there next year because 7
the invasive plants are going to take them over. You talked about hoping or whatever. I 8
would like to volunteer to help create a group. If some of the existing groups aren't 9
appropriate, then this Commission or me personally should help create a group that would 10
be involved in protecting those islands. Without those islands growing, you don't have 11
anything up there. 12
Mr. Anderson: We'd be grateful. In answer to your first question, it's both. We would 13
look to expand those existing ones and add new ones in various other places on the parcel 14
up there. Maybe I spoke out of turn in saying I think they'll be gone. I don't think they'll 15
be gone. 16
Chair McDougall: You didn't say that. That was my extrapolation of your concern over 17
whether they would survive. 18
Mr. Anderson: I think they'll be compromised as will any restoration site that you don't 19
always maintain. I've got ones that were started 15 years ago. They're never done. I always 20
have to come back because it just never stops. The realistic thing is you never will be done 21
with those. I don't care how well you plant them, eventually weeds will get in. If someone's 22
not diligent, it will become all weeds. 23
Chair McDougall: I believe that, and I would like to talk to you about how do we do better. 24
You talked about the pipe replacement and the burrowing owls. Phil talked about the fact 25 that we might put artificial burrows in there or in some way that has been done elsewhere. 26 From what I can see, most of the grading has already been done in this area. I'd be surprised 27 to believe that—I've seen no evidence that there are any pipes being put in. In that first 28
section, hasn't it already been filled in? 29
Ms. North: My understanding is in the southeast portion they're going to have to replace 30
the existing pipe, so they'll be regrading it and adding some more soil because it's been 31
sinking. They're constantly going to be going in at the landfill and adding more soil. What 32
Daren has also talked about with Ron Arp, who is our manager for the landfill, is seeing if 33
we can get the regulatory approval to put in the burrowing owl habitat. It's an iterative 34
process. I don't think we're there yet. Phil thinks we should be there. Phil says yes, and 35
we figure out how to get there with all the regulations. 36
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Chair McDougall: I hear a bunch of "see if," regulations, and "see if we can." I hope we're 1
being more aggressive than is implied in those statements. I understand why you're making 2
them. I just want to encourage. 3
Ms. North: Absolutely. Encouragement will be taken. We also have the encouragement 4
from Phil. It's not going onto deaf ears. 5
Chair McDougall: The Coastal Commission was the one that gave us the money to build 6 the freshwater wetlands. It sounds like that was not necessarily a nice gift they gave us. 7
In the end, it did good things for the area. Is there any chance that the Coastal Commission 8
would like to help us fund this work? Has that been addressed or did they just give us this 9
gift horse and we're stuck with it? 10
Ms. North: It's a one-time gift, and then the maintenance is on the City. The other driving 11
forces at that point in time, the early '90s, was in the lower South Bay the Regional Water 12
Quality Control Board was encouraging us to reduce freshwater flows into the Baylands. 13
If you walk by the airport, we actually have converted some of that into a freshwater marsh 14
that was a saltmarsh. Diverting some of that water and encouraging recycling diverted 15
about 1 million gallons of water per day into the creek. That helped reduce our flows going 16
into the lower South Bay. There are multiple benefits and multiple reasons why we did 17
that project early in the '90s. Now, it's explicitly in our NPDES permit, our National 18
Pollution Discharge Elimination Systems permit, that we need to keep the Renzel Wetland 19
and maintain it. This is where we're—it is a plant-driven project. We are a six partner-20
agency plant, so they will be helping participate in funding the maintenance of this wetland. 21
Chair McDougall: I'll pursue it at a different time, but what you just said doesn't sound 22
consistent with ambitions to expand the freshwater pond. Don't answer that now. You've 23
got the Rangers looking at the habitat loss issue. Are the Rangers sufficiently habitat-loss-24
qualified to do that or are we just getting away with that because we don't need extra 25 permits? 26
Ms. North: There are a few things there. You're correct that this is a maintenance project. 27 We're going above and beyond what is required. In a berm maintenance project, we're not 28
required to do a biological assessment and determine potential habitat loss. We are actually 29
going above and beyond just because I'm the Watershed Protection Manager. I am an 30
environmental steward. I want to make sure that we're not impacting the environment any 31
more than we have to. Obviously, draining a 15-acre pond is going to have environmental 32
concerns. That's why we're doing it slowly so hopefully the species in there can adapt and 33
evolve over time. The Rangers are qualified. They know what's living in the Baylands. 34
They are probably the best qualified because they're out there every day, so they know how 35
to identify those species. They did a great biological assessment back in 2017, and they 36
just went out again. Having them on staff and knowing the areas, they're going to be able 37
to go out there multiple times, which we're thankful for because I don't have that expertise. 38
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They went out right before we started to drain it. They're going to go out again before we 1
bring in any heavy equipment. We may have to adjust and adapt. If there are some birds 2
there, we will push the schedule out because we do not want to cause any more 3
environmental impacts. We've put that into the schedule, the ability to push out the timeline 4
a little bit. 5
Chair McDougall: Like the owls need other rodents to eat, the egrets or whatever the birds 6 might be in that freshwater area need fish to eat. I think you're doing a very good thing by 7
getting as many fish out as you can and into the creek, but I don't know that there's any 8
way to get fish back into that pond. 9
Ms. North: You're absolutely right. The pond was never designed for fish. They just 10
happened either—we're not sure how they got in there. There are many theories of how 11
they got in there. At some point in time, if we don't fix the berm, it's completely going to 12
leak, and then it's going to cause other environmental problems in that area. 13
Chair McDougall: I don't doubt that we should be doing it. In my own mind, I'm happier 14
with the thought that we're not necessarily—we created an artificial habitat. At some level, 15
the obligation to protect an artificial habitat is less than protecting a natural habitat. To 16
some extent we're damaging this artificial habitat. Not to some extent, to a substantial 17
extent we're destroying this artificial habitat that we built. 18
Ms. North: Temporarily. 19
Chair McDougall: More than temporarily. If you're not allowing some species to come 20
back that are feeding other species, then it's not just temporary. It's more than temporary. 21
Phil did reach out, and I have a copy of the letter that Daren was nice enough to pass on to 22
the Commission. The last sentence in this is basically—maybe it's not the last sentence. 23
In this letter, it talks about the fact that we want to maintain the historical value. You talked 24
about maybe having other paths around and the possibility of the paths leading through the 25 thing and reaching out to the stakeholders. The stakeholders was the BCCP stakeholders 26 group. I would say 80 percent of the people in the room said, "Do what you can to restore 27 this to its natural wetlands habitat, not maintain the buildings." Everything I see here reads 28
as if we've already decided we're maintaining the buildings. I don't think that's what the 29
stakeholders in general were talking about. There were interesting theories that you could 30
take parts of that building and rebuild an airport terminal or something like that. In general, 31
the historical value of the whole thing is the whole thing. The reason they got radio signals 32
there was because the wetlands were reflecting the signals. If we destroy the wetlands, 33
you're maintaining a building but not anything that was there. We need to make sure we're 34
listening to the stakeholder group and not—I think I'm hearing an implication that we're 35
going to restore or maintain all that. I don't think we should be. 36
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Mr. Anderson: I can add to that. It really is not with the intent of restoring. It's protecting 1
it until a decision can be made. It was very likely that that place could be burned down. 2
We were finding fires in there on a regular basis from vandals. The roof was very close to 3
collapsing. 4
Chair McDougall: That's what I'd like to hear. I'd like the Commission to be able to 5
participate in what happens with that whole acreage. 6
Mr. Anderson: I wanted to make clear—one thing I didn't get a chance to say is all that 7
other discussion of where trails would go, what would become of the building is still very 8
much for the public process through the Commission, through the Baylands Plan, as well 9
as some other Commissions. 10
Ms. North: I may have misspoken saying that the top of the berm will be available for a 11
trail. We're not anticipating adding any trail access at this point in time, until we get 12
through planning for the entire area. It's going to be an added benefit if someone wanted 13
to walk around there, they could. We are not directly giving people access until we are 14
directed at the staff-level. 15
Chair McDougall: Thanks for that. Are there any other comments? 16
Vice Chair Greenfield: When you do a walk around the Baylands, a loop, at the end of the 17
loop you're walking along Bayshore. If you could do an edit, you could change your loop 18
to walk along the berm closer to the Bay and end up on the Loop Trail. If there were some 19
connections available with that in mind, it could make a more pleasant loop away from the 20
highway. That would be nice. 21
Commissioner Reckdahl: Who paid for the habitat islands? Was that your budget, Daren? 22
Mr. Anderson: It was through a CIP to do the interim plan for Byxbee. 23
Commissioner Reckdahl: If they experience shrinkage now and we have to regrade that, 24
who rebuilds it? 25
Mr. Anderson: If it fails because of subsidence, I would look at my partners from Public 26 Works to pay for that. If it was for some other reason, it would probably be on Community 27 Services. 28
Commissioner Reckdahl: We've seen cratering or sinking ground all over Byxbee. It 29
wouldn't be surprising to find this … 30
Mr. Anderson: No, it wouldn't. 31
Commissioner Reckdahl: They have the budget to fix that? 32
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Mr. Anderson: I think so. 1
Ms. North: This is the same soil contractor that they have coming through for the berm 2
replacement. Ron did a fantastic job of—they're bringing soil for us at basically zero cost 3
dollar. It's just all the other work that's involved. We're trying to take advantage of the 4
fact that he negotiated a very good contract for 2 more years. 5
Commissioner Reckdahl: That'd be filling but also replanting and moving the benches and 6 all that? 7
Ms. North: We fill the dirt, and the planting and the benches come from—this is why it's 8
a team effort. 9
Mr. Anderson: They'll be hydroseeding it too. As they put in the new dirt, it all gets 10
hydroseeded. 11
Commissioner McCauley: I kind of echo Don's points about destruction of habitat. It's 12
somewhat worrisome as you sit here and think about a 15-acre space. It's possible that you 13
could have some pretty strong public response. I would definitely err in favor of building 14
in enough time to give people the opportunity to digest what you're planning to do and to 15
really go over the top on reaching out and signage for that area, etc. 16
Ms. North: Note taken. It's a lot easier to deal with stuff at the front end than trying to 17
deal with a wildfire. We are early and often. We've already had some interested parties 18
have discussion. We anticipate this will not be—people will not be super excited about 19
draining a 15-acre wetland. We're not excited about it either. We've pushed it off; we've 20
been looking into it for about 3 or 4 years. We were trying to see how long we could band-21
aid it and could align the timing with what Daren was working on and look at the overall 22
area. Unfortunately last summer just killed us with the amount of band-aid fixes we had 23
to do. I'm actually really concerned that we're going to completely change the habitat out 24
there if we don't go in and fix it properly. That's the main reason why we're doing it. We 25 could drain it completely and leave it dry and don't fix it at all, which is another option. 26 We're trying to do what we think is the best for the environment. 27
Mr. Anderson: Those are two key points. The implications of not doing it have perhaps 28
even more detrimental habitat impacts. When she says not fix it, we're talking about 29
desalinating saltmarsh, which is a big deal. The other opportunity of not filling it means 30
the rest of that million gallons goes out towards the main effluent on the other side of the 31
Baylands near the Nature Center, which is already desalinating that entire area. We've 32
converted 14 or more acres from saltmarsh to brackish marsh because 21 million gallons a 33
day was being pumped out of there. It goes over the levee and over 30, 40 years desalinates 34
it. The implications of not doing it are also problematic. 35
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Chair McDougall: To Ryan's point, the two answers that you both just gave are 1
enlightening relative to the alternatives that were considered. Several of us have been on 2
the Foothills ad hoc with you Daren. One of the things that's been really interesting is we 3
have discussed ad nauseum alternatives. We're well aware of the efforts that have been put 4
into alternatives. What was missing from the conversation tonight was the answers you 5
just gave, which is "what we're doing is presenting what we think is the best alternative, 6 and here are the alternatives that we considered." I don't doubt that this is not your last 7
opportunity to make a presentation like this to us or others. I would suggest that saying 8
"here are the alternatives and why this is the best one" as opposed to "this is the one we're 9
doing" would be useful. 10
Ms. North: Great point. Thank you very much. 11
Commissioner Moss: I thought this was a great presentation. I would love in one of the 12
next few meetings if you as Watershed Protection Manager could come back and talk to us 13
about the other areas of the Baylands. I had no idea how much of the Baylands is north of 14
the golf course and east of the golf course. Bringing in the San Francisquito Creek work 15
and also what Daren just said about the effluent going out to the north would be a great 16
second presentation if you can do that. 17
Ms. North: Sure. 18
Chair McDougall: Thank you very much for your attendance tonight and your 19
perseverance with our questions. This was quite meaningful to everybody. 20
Ms. North: I appreciate all your questions because we've been thinking about it and talking 21
about it. It's always good to come into a public forum and actually have to discuss it. We 22
do appreciate it. Daren and I have been working on this, trying to brainstorm the best way 23
to do this for the least amount of environmental impact. Unfortunately, we didn't come up 24
with a really great option besides what we're moving forward with now. 25
Chair McDougall: Thank you very, very much. 26
4. Public Art Placement and Visual Rights Act 27
Chair McDougall: The next item is Public Art Placement and Visual Rights. Elsie [sic], 28
you've been here before. Welcome back. Elise, I'm sorry. 29
Ms. O'Kane: Before we start on the presentation, I did just want to introduce Elise 30
DeMarzo. She's our Director of our Public Art Program in Palo Alto. I invited Elise to 31
come based on feedback I received from the Commission that this would be a helpful 32
presentation for all of you to better understand public art placement within Palo Alto and 33
also the Visual Rights Act that drives our public art placement. I know the interest for you 34
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is parks, open space, and recreation facilities, but Elise's presentation is not necessarily 1
specific to all of those areas. It would apply to any public space within Palo Alto. With 2
that, I will turn it over to Elise. 3
Elise DeMarzo, Public Art Director: Thank you so much for the introduction. Thank you 4
all for having me here this evening. My name's Elise DeMarzo. I'm with the Public Art 5
Program. I'm always happy to discuss public art. A little bit about the Public Art Program. 6 The Public Art Program has been in existence in various forms since the 1970s. We also 7
have an advisory commission. We just passed our first Public Art Master Plan in 2016, 8
guiding the public art for the next 10 years or so within the City. We've been hard at work 9
implementing that. We oversee public art in municipal projects, all of our libraries and 10
various facilities, including upcoming projects, the various garages, the Public Safety 11
Building, things like that. The municipal projects—we also receive public art in private 12
development of which there are about 50 projects that qualify. Not all of those commission 13
art onsite; some of them pay to an in-lieu public art fund. We're able to pool those funds 14
for larger, more impactful projects. We oversee the temporary projects, for instance, the 15
Toby Fraley piece in front of City Hall currently. We have ongoing temporary rotating 16
exhibitions there and in other areas of the City. Also the care and keeping of almost 100 17
objects that are permanently sited outdoors. We have very limited funds for the 18
maintenance of these artworks. It is a financial and a legal obligation. These are valuable 19
City assets, and it is in our best interest to preserve them as we do any other City assets. 20
Full disclosure, I am not a lawyer. I have worked in the arts for about 20 years, most of 21
those in public art. Talking about artists' rights and copyright is endlessly fascinating. We 22
could be here all week discussing it. My intent this evening is not to be here all week but 23
to give you an overview of what some of those Federal and State rules are about artists' 24
rights and show a few examples of how that is played out so that you can see some of the 25 interpretations and how that might impact discussions around when we move sculpture or 26 possible impacts to existing works. Of course, this was the piece that kicked it all off. This 27 is Richard Serra's Tilted Arc, which was installed in New York City in Federal Plaza. It 28
was a Federal Percent for Art commission. Those of you who have seen Richard Serra's 29
work in SF MOMA and the piece that was installed at Stanford know that in his 30
monumental sculptures he likes to alter the way you perceive a space. Any time you walk 31
around these enormous pieces, your experience of the space is different and your 32
interpretation of the sculpture is different. He was doing something very similar here. The 33
piece is 120 feet long and 12 feet tall. It was installed in 1981. What happened, because 34
on the right-hand side of the slide is actually the entrance to the building, is many of the 35
employees who worked in the building did not like to have to walk around the sculpture 36
every day on their way to the door and started complaining about it. It stimulated a lot of 37
really great conversation about the importance of an artwork, what are an artist's rights. 38
They held hearings in 1985, and it galvanized the community. Most people came out and 39
spoke in favor of the artwork. Lo and behold, in 1989 they went in in the middle of the 40
night and cut it out of the plaza and put it in the scrap heap. That was really what instigated 41
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this Visual Artists Rights Act [VARA] that visual artists have a right to copyright and the 1
protection of their work in the same way that authors do, musicians do. That's the one that 2
kicked it off. I'm not going to read this slide. This is the most pertinent language on the 3
Visual Artists Rights Act. It does go on quite a bit. There's lots of gray area and lots of 4
nuances in this. In fact, I get emails weekly from my colleagues around the country about 5
various suits and ways that VARA has been interpreted. Most of the cases I'm going to 6 show you now are within the last couple of years and some within the last 2 months. The 7
artist always retain the copyright. If you think about it, the large red sculpture, which is 8
called Albuquerque, out in front of the Art Center along Embarcadero Road—I'm sure most 9
of you are familiar with it. If we decided we wanted to paint it blue perhaps, it would no 10
longer be the artist's work. We would have altered it in a way that would not be acceptable. 11
That is a very extreme interpretation of it. There have been cases where cities have tried 12
to maintain a work or upgrade a work and unintentionally altered the artist's wishes and 13
drawn a lawsuit. The same with restoration. Also, a city can be liable for negligence of 14
care. That's what I was getting to. It's the city's legal obligation to care for these sculptures. 15
Now, we're really fortunate and lucky that the City does give us a very modest allocation 16
every year for the maintenance of the sculptures, but it's $30,000 a year, which doesn't go 17
far. We are very thrifty with it. The other thing to keep in mind is when we do commission 18
new artworks, maintenance is of course a big consideration and the materials that are used, 19
the siting of the artwork. Most of the projects that we do, if you think about the municipal 20
projects at the Rinconada Library and the Art Center, those are very site-specific. The 21
intent is to avoid what's considered plop art, which is an artwork that fell from the sky and 22
has no relation to the surrounding environment. Additionally, California was very 23
proactive in passing the California Art Preservation Act, which actually adds a whole other 24
layer onto VARA about the protection of the artwork and that it is in a community's best 25 interest to preserve these artworks. Now, I'm going to get into a few interesting examples 26 to how this law has been applied. The first one is actually really recent. This is 5Pointz. 27 Most VARA cases you'll find are based on murals. Murals legally are extremely 28
complicated, so most of the VARA suits have to do with murals. This is a little different. 29
This is a family-owned property. The family had owned the property for 40 years in 30
Queens. They knew they were going to redevelop the property, and they just allowed 31
artists—if they wanted to paint on it, fine. They did not commission these artists. Some 32
of the artists painted over each other's work, but they just let it happen. In 2013, the family 33
was granted permission to redevelop the site, and the artists tried to block the demolition 34
because of the importance and significance of the artwork there and that it had become a 35
destination. A federal judge said the family had the right to raze and rebuild. The owners 36
went in and without giving any notice whitewashed the building. Then, the artists filed a 37
lawsuit, and it came down in favor of the artists last month, ordering the family to pay 38
$6.75 million to the 21 artists who filed the suit against the building owners. Ownership 39
of an artwork does not give you permission to alter it. This wasn't even commissioned 40
artwork. As I said, all these cases have a lot of nuances. Bear with me because we can 41
talk about this all night. The next one is a pretty interesting one. I like it because it's tree-42
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based. This project is Trinity Root. This was at Trinity Church's St. Paul's Chapel. It was 1
a huge tree, a 100-foot Sycamore tree that sheltered most of the chapel from falling debris 2
during the 911 attacks. The tree did not survive, but it did shelter the chapel. The artist 3
took this 600-pound stump back to his studio and did more than 200 castings to create this 4
sculpture. It sat there until a little over a year ago, I believe. The church decided to move 5
it to their Connecticut property, again, taking the project and moving it someplace where 6 the artist did not intend, so he has filed a lawsuit, which is still pending with the church. 7
This one I'm sure you're all familiar with. Di Modica's Charging Bull in and of itself was 8
its own guerrilla art that was just left out there and has owned that space for a long time. 9
One Fearless Girl turned up, and Di Modica threatened to sue because the context of the 10
work had changed. The meaning of the sculpture, the bull, completely changes once 11
Fearless Girl is standing there. Here you have a sense of what the context might mean. 12
There was actually an interesting third sculpture that appeared very, very briefly. Someone 13
installed a small dog lifting its leg, urinating on the Fearless Girl, who is staring at the bull. 14
It was removed very quickly. You get the point. It's an interesting problem. To some 15
more recent instances where we've run into VARA challenges here within the City. In the 16
image on the left, you can see Gene Flores' Filaree as it was placed along the Bay Trail. 17
The solar panels were not there when it was placed there. It was intended to be something 18
that people would enjoy as they went along the Bay Trail. The solar panels went up 19
unbeknownst to us, and the artist was not thrilled, and the Public Art Commission was not 20
thrilled. We were able to find a new home for it, but any time you relocate an artwork it is 21
challenging. There is considerable expense in engineering and pouring a new footing, 22
evaluating the piece, if it is sturdy enough to withstand the move or it needs work before 23
you move it into place. We can move sculptures sometimes, but it does come with some 24
considerable expense. We were very fortunate that we were able to move this piece into 25 Greer Park, which is a far more suitable site for Filaree. This project did bring about a 26 change in policy that whenever there is a project within 100 feet of a public artwork, we 27 need to be in that discussion so that we're certain we can mitigate any of the challenges 28
having to do with artists' rights. An example on the upper left is California Avenue, 29
California Native. When the California Avenue streetscape happened—you know there is 30
quite a bit of public art along that streetscape. We did reach out to Susan Steinman 31
regarding the elements of her artwork and how they would be re-integrated into the site 32
and potentially shifted or changed. Most artists are more than happy to work with us on 33
these changes. In fact, all the artists along California Avenue were very helpful and open 34
to those discussions. There was a time in the past when California Avenue was looking to 35
plant more trees, and there was a proposal to plant a tree in that median, which we were 36
not permitted to do. Some of you may have caught some recent press regarding the Digital 37
DNA egg in Lytton Plaza, which is a project that we have recently gone through a rather 38
lengthy de-accession process to say farewell to it. The artist has threatened to sue the City 39
for violation of her VARA rights. There's a lot of challenges to VARA and lots of nuances 40
to it. We can't get into all of it this evening. I know this sounds really heavy in gloom and 41
doom. I did want to let you know that we worked very closely with our City Attorney on 42
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our current contracts with artists. Most of the previous contracts were these older works. 1
VARA was not addressed there. In our new contracts, the expected lifespan of the artwork 2
is addressed there. Projects like Digital DNA that are made of materials that are not suitable 3
for an outdoor environment would not be commissioned at this time. A lot of the challenge 4
we've had with some of these previous artworks and with navigating VARA and potentially 5
de-accessioning we are handling with our current contracts. It will help facilitate any future 6 needs for addressing the aging collection. I do want to point out that these artworks are 7
really City assets. We maintain them the way we do our facilities, buildings, open space, 8
trails, and all of that. I'm hopeful that this will give you a little bit of an overview of some 9
of the things we consider when we look at impacts to public art. Of course, I know you 10
have lots of things to consider when you're looking at open space and park usage and the 11
many desires there. 12
Chair McDougall: Thank you very much. We all found that interesting. You were using 13
an acronym, VARA. 14
Ms. DeMarzo: Visual Artists Rights Act. 15
Chair McDougall: Let's go this direction this time. David, would you like to go first? Do 16
you have any comments or questions? 17
Commissioner Moss: I have a couple of questions. Almost your final sentence you talked 18
about making sure that public art is suitable for outdoors. Of course, in my mind the biggest 19
example is the decapitated sculpture by the Linkoping artist and how we were not able to 20
protect it. I guess we learned that you—whatever happened with that? 21
Ms. DeMarzo: It was before my time. My understanding is that there were some 22
challenges in the way it was sited that left it vulnerable to damage. That's always something 23
when we're looking at siting and artwork and we're working with our partners whether it's 24
building a new facility or in a park or in open space to really take into account the behavior 25 here and how vulnerable is the artwork. 26
Commissioner Moss: Under a similar vein, you have the—I'll call them the woven reed 27 huts at the Art Center, which are not made to stand for all of time. They're made to be 28
temporary. What is your policy about that? 29
Ms. DeMarzo: Most of the temporary artworks throughout the City are commissioned for 30
a period of 1 year or less. That project was done in partnership with the Palo Alto Art 31
Center, and it was sited there. We evaluate it on a regular basis. The intent is it would stay 32
at least 1 year, but we monitor it constantly to see how it deteriorates over time and when 33
it's time to mulch it. 34
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Commissioner Moss: What responsibility do you have for the situation that happened 1
recently at Paly where they whitewashed the mural by James Franco? I'm sure they have 2
murals all the time by students. This just happened to be a big name. What is the policy 3
about that? Is that public art? 4
Ms. DeMarzo: We do not have any say on the artwork or what takes place on PAUSD 5
campus. I find it fascinating, but we had no role to play in that. 6
Vice Chair Greenfield: Thank you. If I understand correctly, all City-commissioned art is 7
not protected in the same manner, and this is really contingent upon the contract that was 8
established with the artist at the time the work is commissioned. Is that correct? 9
Ms. DeMarzo: No. These are Federal and State laws. 10
Vice Chair Greenfield: You were saying the newer pieces of art that have been 11
commissioned have different contracts. What's different? Is there a time horizon? 12
Ms. DeMarzo: It has more to do with managing expectations about the collection and that 13
things will remain in perpetuity. Public art is, more often than not, not forever. There is 14
an expected lifespan to the artwork. Entering into that contract with an artist and having 15
that very frank discussion of "this is an artwork; we estimate the lifespan will be 16
approximately 20 years." At that time, we may determine that it's in great shape, and we 17
will continue to maintain it or the artist recognizes at that time we may determine the cost 18
of maintaining the artwork outweighs the benefit or it's time to de-accession it. It allows 19
us at the end of the lifespan of an artwork to enter into a de-accession process more easily 20
than the previous contracts that did not address that. 21
Vice Chair Greenfield: Could you say a little bit more about the de-accession process? 22
There must be some criteria that a piece of art is perceived to be objectionable for some 23
reason (inaudible) of the change, the artist is judged to be objectionable. Maybe we found 24
out that the artist favored eugenics or something. 25
Ms. DeMarzo: That wouldn't qualify as one of the criteria. All of our policies and the de-26 accession policy is available on our website, cityofpaloalto.org/publicart. You can click 27 on our policies; the de-accession policy is there. There is very strict criteria for how a 28
project might qualify for de-accession. If there's a flaw in the materials, very specific 29
criteria. 30
Vice Chair Greenfield: It's more infrastructure-related to the piece as opposed to 31
perception then? 32
Ms. DeMarzo: It's interesting because it is not about public perception of an artwork. If 33
that was the case, we wouldn't have anything. Quite frankly, that's why that's there. That 34
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is an element in VARA as well. It really comes up if there's a flaw in the materials, if the 1
context of the space has changed significantly where the artwork no longer makes sense in 2
that environment, something to that effect. It's very strict criteria, and it's a long process. 3
For instance, Digital DNA, we started that process last August. The piece is still on the 4
plaza, but we hope to conclude that within the next month or so. 5
Vice Chair Greenfield: The time horizons that are associated with the expected life of a 6 piece of art is based on how long the piece will weather or be in manageable or 7
maintainable shape or the area changes as well? 8
Ms. DeMarzo: It's a lot of different things to consider. The durability of materials, we 9
always consult going in, how is this going to age, what is the maintenance of it going in. 10
Clearly if you're commissioning a new media piece, it's going to have a shorter lifespan 11
than if you're commissioning a stainless steel sculpture that is integrated into the 12
architecture of a building. It really just depends project by project and type. 13
Commissioner Reckdahl: I'm a bit confused. If we buy a painting and put it on the wall in 14
City Hall, we don't commit to having that painting on that same wall forever. Why is public 15
art treated differently than a painting? 16
Ms. DeMarzo: That painting is portable, and the public art is commissioned to be sited. 17
Public art, like any other element of a construction project, we have stamped engineered 18
drawings. It gets integrated with the architectural drawings and installed in a space. For 19
instance, if you went to Mitchell Park and the Stoller piece that climbs up the front facade 20
of the library and then continues to the inside soffit, you couldn't move that somewhere. It 21
wouldn't make sense somewhere else. It's built for that space. A lot of our projects are 22
built to be site specific, and they're commissioned for a specific space. For instance, we 23
put out a call for an artist for the Public Safety Building that's coming up. That artwork 24
will be integrated with that site, and it's not likely to make sense to move it to Animal 25 Services. 26
Commissioner Reckdahl: When we contract with the artist, can we put a sunset clause in 27 there and say we guarantee it'll be in this park for 10 years, but after that we can't make any 28
representation? 29
Ms. DeMarzo: Any time you move an artwork, you need to consult with the artist. 30
Commissioner Reckdahl: Even if the contract said after 10 years we have the right to move 31
it? 32
Ms. DeMarzo: You still need to consult with the artist. 33
Commissioner Reckdahl: Regardless of what the contract says? 34
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Ms. DeMarzo: Because they own the copyright, and it's protected. That supersedes any 1
contract language. 2
Commissioner Reckdahl: That scares me. After hearing this, I don't want to put any public 3
art in parks any more if we're constraining ourselves to having that piece of art there 4
forever. 5
Ms. DeMarzo: That's why we maintain our artwork. When it reaches the end of its 6 lifespan, which we've had a few that we've had to de-accession, we are ready and can do 7
that process. 8
Commissioner Reckdahl: Is there any accepted lifespan where if this thing is 50 years and 9
even if it could be maintained a little longer that we'd be okay to take it out or is it as long 10
as the thing is together in one piece we have to keep it there? 11
Ms. DeMarzo: You're talking about either relocating a piece or de-accessioning a piece. 12
Again, the de-accession criteria are very specific. For instance, if the piece now requires 13
excessive maintenance that outweighs the value of the artwork, then we would likely 14
consider de-accessioning the piece. They're two separate issues. 15
Commissioner Reckdahl: This has been very enlightening and very depressing though. 16
Ms. DeMarzo: It doesn't need to be depressing. 17
Commissioner Reckdahl: Our hands are tied. We have this area that we think is good for 18
a dog park, and we can't move the sculptures. We can't raise them. We can't do anything 19
to put the dog park in that area. 20
Ms. DeMarzo: There's nothing saying we can't move them. It is a process to move the 21
sculpture. When Daren and I met at the site—was it about a year ago—we talked about 22
moving that tall Cube Construction piece. It could potentially be relocated somewhere else 23
in the park. There are lots of considerations there, but that will be a very expensive piece 24
to relocate. I'm not saying it can't be done. It can be done. 25
Commissioner Reckdahl: Could we put a fence around it so the dogs have no access to it? 26
Ms. DeMarzo: Generally fencing off public art is not something we like to do. It is part 27 of our City collection, and we put it out in space so that it's accessible and open to the 28
public. 29
Commissioner Reckdahl: Even if we had the budget to move it and the desire to move it, 30
the artist could still veto it and say, "I want it to stay there in that spot forever." 31
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Ms. DeMarzo: I have no reason to believe—if you're talking about Cube Construction, 1
I've no reason to believe that the artist would fight us on that. I think he would like to be 2
re-engaged in what's the new site for it and help us work that out, which is generally how 3
we would handle that. 4
Commissioner Reckdahl: He could veto it and say it has to stay there? 5
Ms. DeMarzo: I would have to look—that piece has been there a very, very long time. In 6 fact, I think it's been there since 1966. I was looking at some old images of it. I would 7
have to look back at some records on that and how it was purchased and placed. I don't 8
know that that was commissioned specifically for that space. 9
Commissioner McCauley: This has been informative. Is there any concept of advanced 10
informed consent? This goes to Keith's question. Artists would provide consent in advance 11
by way of your contract or whatever else that there would be a sunset or is that totally off 12
the table under the Federal and State statutes? 13
Ms. DeMarzo: I think the other thing to think about when we're managing a collection is 14
sometimes you commission an artwork, and it increases in value or becomes very beloved 15
to the City. You don't want to commit to pulling something out at a given time. 16
Commissioner McCauley: Absolutely. By the same token though, a lot of these City 17
spaces are very prime places for public art. There's some degree of fairness from the idea 18
of giving other artists an opportunity to display their pieces of art in that place. Lytton 19
Plaza is a great example. I'm curious. Is there some way around this or is this truly an 20
impediment that you cannot work around? 21
Ms. DeMarzo: You bring up a couple of really interesting issues. In talking about it could 22
be a great opportunity for someone else to exhibit their work, a lot of—especially the 23
municipal Percent for Art projects, they're architecturally integrated into the building. 24
Another artwork couldn't just be placed there or retrofit the building facade to fit it. Lytton 25 Plaza is something we have discussed could be a space for ongoing rotating temporary 26 public art. There is no concrete plan for that in place at the moment. Absolutely in some 27 of the other plaza spaces like we do in front of City Hall, we have rotating temporary 28
projects. 29
Commissioner McCauley: This ties back to Keith's question. Is there, from your 30
perspective, some way in order to have that type of sunset whether it be 1 year, 5 years, or 31
10 years or is it if you had one of your temporary display artists say, "Nope. It's still in 32
good shape; you have to leave it there even though the 1-year period is up," you just have 33
to deal with it? Is that an impediment that you cannot work around? 34
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Ms. DeMarzo: No, that's different because the temporary public artwork is essentially a 1
loan to the City, and it is returned to the artist. It is their obligation to remove it within a 2
certain period of time or we remove it and bill them for the removal. It's different than 3
commissioning an artwork that is to be integrated and brought into the City collection. 4
Commissioner McCauley: It would possibly be an option to have all future City public art 5
not be actually owned by the City but be leased, for lack of a better of term, or something 6 provided to the City for the benefit of Palo Altans for a fixed period of time. 7
Ms. DeMarzo: That's what we do with the temporary public art. For these municipal 8
projects, it works better to have something that's integrated. You think about the Mitchell 9
Park Library, the owl bollards. 10
Commissioner McCauley: I understand exactly what you're saying, particularly when it 11
comes to architectural aspects. I'm thinking more of standalone sculptures that are in places 12
around the City. Maybe that, Keith, is an answer to your question. 13
Commissioner Reckdahl: It would be feasible to say we want a temporary art piece that 14
will be temporary for 10 years. We'd be able to contract that, and after the 10 years you 15
get it back. 16
Ms. DeMarzo: Our temporary public art policy defines it as 1 year for that reason. Really 17
at 10 years, you need to purchase the piece. It doesn't make sense to have a 10-year loan 18
in general. 19
Commissioner Reckdahl: We could do that, whether it makes sense or not? There are two 20
issues: is it legally possible or does it make sense. Legally, we could construct the contract 21
so that it's a loan for 10 years. 22
Ms. O'Kane: That might be—as Elise mentioned earlier, she's not an attorney, so that may 23
be something we would need to get an answer from our legal department. I wouldn't want 24
something said that isn't necessarily in agreement with the City Attorney's Office. We may 25 just not have the answer to that question right now. 26
Commissioner LaMere: I appreciate the Commissioners' questions prior to mine and your 27 presentation. My only question would be maybe to Daren or perhaps you, Elise. Is there 28
an estimate or a cost—you say it's very expensive to move these pieces. It would help us 29
to say it's going to be $100,000 or it's going to be $200,000 or $50,000 as far as when we're 30
thinking about this dog park and thinking about perhaps moving this art piece. To have a 31
number to it than just it's very, very expensive would help as we think about planning, 32
specifically to this park. 33
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Ms. DeMarzo: Cube Construction in particular, because it is such a large piece and 1
requires a pretty substantial foundation and I don't know what's going on underground on 2
the rest of the site, would need to be inspected to see if work needs to be done to it in 3
advance of craning it, moving it, pouring a new pad, getting it there. I would estimate it 4
would probably cost $7,000-$10,000 to relocate that particular sculpture off the top of my 5
head. 6
Chair McDougall: I would go back to the genesis of art in the parks. If we've got a park, 7
who gets to decide to put the piece of art in the middle of that park? How does that happen? 8
Ms. DeMarzo: I'm trying to think. We haven't put a piece in the middle of a park in a 9
really long time. Actually the most recent artworks that we've placed in a park, 10
freestanding sculptures, were in Hoover Park. It's the family of bears there, and that 11
actually came about because Midtown residents came to us and really wanted public art 12
that was playful and fun and discoverable in that park. We were able to commission the 13
mama bear and the babies. They are a hit with the kids. People are playing with them all 14
the time. That's probably the most recent time that we've put freestanding sculpture in a 15
park. 16
Chair McDougall: There is a process similar to "we want to play pickleball on this court." 17
We want to have art on this court that would be a public—the public wouldn't necessarily 18
get to decide what art, but they could participate in whether there was art in that location. 19
Ms. DeMarzo: Absolutely. As I said, most of the projects that we initiate have to do with 20
construction projects. Generally, it is folded into the outreach of that construction project 21
as well. We do put together a selection panel, which is a combination of stakeholders and 22
arts professionals, to help vet the various artists. Of course, it goes to the Public Art 23
Commission. We do involve the stakeholders and the community in that process. 24
Chair McDougall: (inaudible) proper conclusion here is thank you very much for the 25 presentation. I'm not sure you made anybody feel any better, but I'm not sure that was your 26 goal. It is obvious to me that you have some candidates for participating in the Arts 27 Commission from the questions that were asked. We all appreciate and have a better 28
understanding of the complementary nature of what you're trying to do and what we're 29
trying to do. That's the important thing. 30
Ms. DeMarzo: Thank you so much. We always like to partner with our partners in parks 31
of course because we collaborate a lot. 32
Mr. Anderson: I'd like to make two quick comments. One is to thank Elise. She is an 33
excellent partner. She really makes every effort she can to meet those park needs. That's 34
usually where my stance is usually from. She will do everything she can to make the art 35
accommodate that. It is a great partnership. I'm really grateful for it. The other comment 36
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I had relates to the Bowden site specifically. Thanks for explaining the box construction 1
piece. There are two pieces out there. One is called Rrrun, and the other is Box 2 Construction. Box might have the ability to be moved after further investigation and might 3
be from the $7,000-$10,000. You would know more after you delve in. I just don't want 4
anyone latching onto "$7,000-$10,000 is it; no problem, move it." The other big important 5
piece is that other art piece doesn't necessarily have the capability to be moved. I just 6 wanted to make sure they got to hear it from you. The Rrrun piece is integral to the 7
transportation theme adjacent to Alma and the train tracks, as I understand it. 8
Unfortunately, without moving that piece, it leaves about a tenth of an acre for a dog park. 9
It's important to know that it's still really not viable even if we were to move Box 10
Construction. I just wanted to make sure the Commission was aware of that. 11
Chair McDougall: I think that was the elephant in the room that needed to be brought out. 12
Thank you, Daren. 13
Ms. DeMarzo: That Rrrun piece that Daren mentioned is by artist Marta Thoma. It is 14
intended to be viewed from the train, from that transportation corridor, because it is 15
transportation-oriented as you may well know. 16
Chair McDougall: Thank you very much. 17
Ms. DeMarzo: I do have a couple of little flyers I'm going to leave here for you all. We 18
have an event April 25th for anyone who wants to meet the artist Toby Fraley, who created 19
The Artwork Forge out on the plaza. We also have a call for volunteers for the next public 20
art project on the plaza, which is the Blue Trees project. We'll have a wonderful event in 21
partnership with Canopy and Urban Forestry. I'm going to leave these here with you. 22
Chair McDougall: I expect all of these art enthusiasts up here with me to participate. 23
5. Bryant Street Garage Fund 24
Chair McDougall: Before Kristen introduces the next topic, I'd like to point out to the rest 25 of the Commission that we have had several parks-related conversations in this meeting, 26 and in many meetings all we do is deal in the various parks. It's important that the next 27 couple of presentations are much more related to CSD, and we welcome that. Kristen, 28
would you like to introduce it? 29
Ms. O'Kane: Absolutely. We have two items related to recreation coming up. The first is 30
an update on the Bryant Street Garage Fund. I'd like to introduce Stephanie Douglas, who's 31
our Superintendent of Recreation, and Jose Perez Sanchez, who is our Teen Coordinator in 32
Recreation. They're going to present on how the funds have been utilized in the past and 33
this current fiscal year and also ask for some feedback on how we can utilize some of the 34
reserve funds that we have for the teen programs. 35
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Jose Perez Sanchez: Thank you, Kristen. Good evening, Commissioners. My name is 1
Jose Perez Sanchez. I am the Teen Program Specialist for the City of Palo Alto's 2
Community Services Department, working out of the Mitchell Park Community Center. 3
Today's presentation is going to be on the Bryant Street Garage Fund, just like Kristen 4
mentioned. I'll talk a little bit about the background of the Bryant Street Garage Fund for 5
those of you that don't know, and then I'll also talk about how the Bryant Street Garage 6 funds have been used up to date through the different programming areas. Some of the 7
primary areas are Think Fund Grant Program, clickPA, Teen Arts Council, Palo Alto Art 8
Center, and Make X as well. A little history about the Bryant Street Garage Fund. Back 9
in 2001, City Council voted to lease the property formerly known as the Bryant Street Teen 10
Center with the stipulation that 75 percent of the net rental revenues would go into teen 11
programming. After a couple of years, they found there was tons of money in the garage 12
fund. We do have money that gets brought back into teen programming yearly. We also 13
have funds on reserve. That's what we're going to talk about later on, the next steps about 14
what we would do with the funds on reserve. This is a general look at what the funds get 15
spent on on a yearly basis. The Program Assistant I, part of the funding goes to that and 16
then the different programs areas that I'll also go over in-depth. The first one is the Think 17
Fund Grant Program, which is a grant program that I oversee. It's pretty successful. It 18
started back in 2014, fiscal year '15. We started this grant program where teens can request 19
up to $1,000 for any projects, programs, any ideas that they want to make happen in the 20
community. It started off as a pilot program. So many teens were interested in applying 21
for grants throughout the community and developing these amazing projects, we decided 22
to keep the grant program. In fiscal year '17 we rebranded the program. It used to be called 23
the Bryant Street Garage Funded Grant Program, but we rebranded it to Think Fund Grant 24
Program. Now Think Fund funds an average of 25 proposals each fiscal year. Every year 25 in May we host an annual grantee gala where we invite all of the grantees from the year, 26 the teens that supported them, as well as adult mentors to come out to celebrate their 27 success. In 2018, Think Fund received the Award of Excellence from the California Parks 28
and Recreation Society, CPRS. These are some of the programs about Think Fund. I really 29
love this program; I'm very passionate about it, just the fact that we give youth the 30
opportunity to come up with these passion-driven ideas that they really want to make 31
happen in the community and go out to the community and implement them. So many 32
youth feel empowered by this up to $1,000 that they can really be supported from. From 33
there, we also provide mentorship. I'll highlight two of the programs where they work with 34
companies or City of Palo Alto employees or departments where they were able to make 35
their ideas and visions a reality. Through Think Fund we have different groups. We have 36
a total of five different groups that get funded through the Bryant Street Garage Fund, 37
which we call Think Fund Groups. On average a month, they meet for about 4.75 hours. 38
They do have about 68 group members entirely throughout the five groups, and they serve 39
an average of 845 teens a month through the various programs, through different things 40
that they do during the month. These are some of the Think Fund-specific grant-funded 41
projects that we funded. This was in calendar year 2017. The number on the right is how 42
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many members of the community they served. This includes teens. The majority do 1
include teens, and it also includes some adults as well. As you can see, the total served is 2
about 1,576 in 2017, and this is an average. One of the highlighted grant programs is 3
TIBCO Empower Camp. TIBCO Empower Camp is a summer camp that a student from 4
Gunn High School wanted to implement in the community, the idea of having a camp 5
where teens in the community learn python. She wanted to have that peer-to-peer 6 relationship with middle school students. I was able to work with the student to really get 7
into the groove of the program and figure out how we can implement it. One of my 8
connections that I met through Think Fund is the company TIBCO, based out of Palo Alto. 9
I was able to connect the student with TIBCO. TIBCO actually hosted the camp at their 10
site, and they were able to provide mentorship and support for the student. One of the 11
highlights is 100 percent of the participants said the camp was fun and educational for 12
them. It was a really great success. The next highlight is Project Enybody. Project 13
Enybody is a group of teens that work towards fighting and combatting climate change 14
throughout the community. They do various green events in the community. They had a 15
Green Fest where they hosted different green organizations for the community, where they 16
were able to show community members the simple ways they can go green. I also have a 17
quick video highlighting what they do. This is a specific project they did last year. [Video 18
shown.] That video was created by a student from Palo Alto High School that's part of the 19
group Project Enybody. Just for those wondering, Enybody is not spelled incorrectly. 20
They actually use the acronym ENY, that stands for Earth Needs You, at the beginning. 21
ClickPA is another program that's funded directly through the Bryant Street Garage Fund. 22
ClickPA is an internship program for teenagers. There's a total of eight teenagers that meet 23
throughout the school year to manage the website clickPA.org. ClickPA.org focuses on 24
implementing and adding events onto one centralized website. These are events 25 specifically catered to the teen population in Palo Alto. These events are posted on this 26 website where teens can easily access it. They call it the one-stop shop for teen events, 27 opportunities, and activities. Through the Palo Alto Children's Theatre we have the Teen 28
Arts Council. The Teen Arts Council is a group of students. There are about 30 students 29
that meet every 2 weeks. This group really focuses more on performing arts. They host 30
open mics, poetry slams throughout the community as well as clothing swaps. With the 31
Bryant Street Garage Fund, some of the things they've been able to do is have increased 32
staff support and diversify their produced activities as well, involving more teens in the 33
community throughout their projects and programs. Through the Palo Alto Children's 34
Theatre, they created and designed the Mitchell Park Teen Center's mural. For those of 35
you that have been at Mitchell Park, you've noticed on the basketball court area a really 36
amazing and beautiful mural has been painted. The mural has been painted by around 39 37
teens back in the summer of 2017. What the focus was they worked with Megan Stephens, 38
which is a muralist. They worked to really capture what they see as the heart of Palo Alto. 39
As you can see, they decided to focus on the intersection of nature and technology and the 40
way they're interrelated with each other. The Buoyancy Festival is also funded directly by 41
the Bryant Street Garage Fund. It's an art and music festival for teenagers in the community 42
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that happens at the end of the school year. This year's Buoyancy Festival will be Sunday, 1
June 2nd, at Mitchell Park in the back. With the Buoyancy Festival, they provide an 2
opportunity for teens to focus on successes throughout the year. Teens come together; 3
they're all-teen performances that they have; teen volunteers host this event. They have 4
carnival rides, games for teens. It's a really successful event with over 300 attendees each 5
year. Moving on to the Art Center Teen Programs. These are some of the things that the 6 Art Center really highlights within their teen programs. As you can see, they do strive to 7
provide opportunities for teens to have a voice in their community and be heard. They also 8
create a satisfying experience for teens and volunteers. To highlight their programs, they 9
have the Art Center Teen Leadership group, which is a group of students that plan their Art 10
Center Teen Takeover events, where they have different art-related activities for teenagers 11
at the Art Center. They close up the Art Center and make it a Teen Takeover event. Other 12
ones include summer classes and camps and teen volunteer opportunities as well. These 13
are some teen testimonials from the Art Center's events. Make X is a makerspace for 14
students. This is out of the Cubberley Community Center. If you guys have stopped by, 15
it's really like a central location for teenagers where they have woodshop and different 16
things and power tools that they can use to create different things. Make X is supported 17
by the Cubberley Community Center staff. Over the year, they do have many students 18
engaged through different workshops, presentations that the students host. Their core 19
principle is really creative autonomy and wellness, and they do this through training and 20
support, mentor responsibility, community through-making, and then peer learning as well. 21
Make X is really peer-to-peer learning where the high school students do sometimes bring 22
elementary students, middle school students to tour their space and also provide them with 23
support on how to build and develop these amazing things and projects that the kids work 24
on. Some of their achievements are listed on here. Overall they really do foster community 25 collaboration and creativity. This is a very popular program as well, where a lot of students 26 know about it, and they really do stop by. They have drop-in hours where students can 27 drop by throughout the week and the weekend as well. Now, we'll hand it over to Stephanie 28
Douglas to talk about the next steps and our funds on reserve. 29
Stephanie Douglas: Before I get into the next steps, I do want to take a moment to thank 30
Jose Perez for all of his hard work with the Think Fund. It's not often I get an opportunity 31
to publicly acknowledge him, so I just want to say thank you and you do a great job with 32
the program. We do have the Bryant Street Garage Fund reserve fund. We currently have 33
$325,000 in that account. It was set aside specifically for teen mental and physical 34
wellbeing; that was the intended purpose when the fund was set aside. Staff have been 35
talking about what could we potentially do with that funding. We've come up with some 36
ideas with improving teen transportation, doing a new app—back when Pokémon was very 37
popular, we talked about doing something of that nature—an outdoor education project. 38
We really haven't made any decisions. We've been having these ideas come up. What we 39
really want to do is get feedback from the public and find out what the public feels is a 40
need. That's one of the reasons we're here tonight, to get feedback from the Commission 41
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of what you think would be ideal for that funding. Our idea is to go forward with a Request 1
for Proposals [RFP], and in that proposal have guidelines establishing that it'll be a 2-3 year 2
pilot program focused obviously on Palo Alto youth and teens, direct impacts on youth 3
mental and/or physical wellbeing as I mentioned earlier. It must include a sustainability 4
plan to ensure the pilot program will be a continuation. We don't want this to be a 2-3 year 5
thing, and then it disappears. We need to know an outline of how the program will be 6 measured and how we will know the program is successful. What we're looking for is five 7
criteria. In this RFP is how many youth and teens would a program serve; does the project 8
meet a specific need in Palo Alto; does the proposal have a clear sustainability plan as I 9
mentioned, making sure it can continue for the long term; and performance metrics defined. 10
That's where we're at right now. Again at this point, we're just going to Commissions. 11
We're coming to this Commission; we're actually going to Policy and Services in a couple 12
of weeks with the same presentation to get their feedback as well. 13
Chair McDougall: Kristen, were you going to add something? 14
Ms. O'Kane: I just wanted to point out that there is an at-places memo in front of you. We 15
had the incorrect balance of the fund reserve in the staff report, so we corrected that in an 16
at-places memo. 17
Chair McDougall: The fund is $356,000? 18
Ms. O'Kane: $325,000. 19
Chair McDougall: Does anybody have any questions, comments? Start at Jeff's end this 20
time. 21
Commissioner LaMere: I appreciate the presentation. These teen programs are wonderful, 22
anything we can do to reach out to them. Any resources that you can have to—I don't 23
know how you get the word out to them; I'm sure Facebook and social media and so forth. 24
Continuing to understand the platform that teens are using to get their information and how 25 we're getting this to schools and so forth is extremely important. I would also be interested 26 in—you've tracked certain numbers, but I would be interested in unique visitors as opposed 27 to we've had 1,500 people come through. Do we have kids that are doubling up in the 28
different things? What is our true reach of number of kids that we're impacting? These 29
programs are fantastic, and any way that we can support them and continue to grow them 30
and use that fund. What you guys are doing is really wonderful. 31
Commissioner McCauley: I'll say ditto to Jeff's comment. Well done, kudos. Just so that 32
I understand, each year you generate about $84,000-$85,000 from the 455 Bryant Street 33
Garage fund. Is that right? 34
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Ms. Douglas: Yes, the revenue making from that. Some of our funding does go toward 1
staffing cost. After the direct costs, my understanding is it rolls over into the reserve fund. 2
Commissioner McCauley: The amount that you put towards the Think Fund Grant 3
Program and all the other programs that Jose walked through is actually steady year-to-4
year. It doesn't fluctuate? 5
Ms. O'Kane: The first year, fiscal year 2014, the amount of revenue that went to the teen 6 programs, which was the 75 percent of the rental income, was $84,000. The programs that 7
our department established was based on $84,000. That amount hasn't changed, so we 8
continue to distribute $84,000 a year for these programs. The rent has gone up, so we 9
actually receive more than $84,000 a year. That additional money rolls over into this 10
reserve account. 11
Commissioner McCauley: Has that $325,000 built up just in the past 3 years? 12
Ms. O'Kane: There was an initial amount of $217,000 that went into—that was the 13
accumulation of fiscal years '09-'13. The revenue accumulated, and it was $217,000. Since 14
then, it has grown to the $325,000. 15
Commissioner McCauley: You have about $30,000 extra each year beyond the $84,000 16
and beyond paying for part of the salary that essentially you're looking to make use of. 17
Appreciating that you have that $325,000 pot of money, there's going to continue to be 18
accumulation in the future. 19
Ms. O'Kane: Exactly. When that may not occur is if we decided to go back to Council 20
and say, "Instead of the $84,000 that we're expending on these programs, we want to add 21
some programs. Now, we want our annual allocation to be $95,000" or something like 22
that, and then there would be less going into the reserve fund. 23
Commissioner McCauley: In part of the RFP process, are you thinking of continuing to 24
dedicate the excess funds to help sustain whatever programs come out of the RFP process? 25 What's the thinking there? 26
Ms. O'Kane: The RFP would be to fund a pilot project, which would be in the timeframe 27 of 2-3 years with the intent that they would be able to self-sustain after that without help 28
from this fund. That's the intent. If there was something that we found very beneficial, 29
that we wanted to continue to support, then we could go back to Council at that point and 30
say, "This program has been great. It's reached this many teens and is providing this 31
service. We'd like to have future allocations to that program from the fund." 32
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Commissioner McCauley: Are you thinking of expanding the existing programs like Think 1
Fund or some of the other programs that Jose talked about? Is that one of the options? Do 2
you think there's room for growth there or are you looking for new avenues altogether? 3
Ms. Douglas: We're open to that. Something that would complement programs that we're 4
already doing would be great. At this point, we're looking at it as a blank slate and seeing 5
what we get. That would be something we would definitely take into consideration. 6
Commissioner Reckdahl: Overall, this is a great program. We really need to outreach to 7
the teens and get them active. This is very good stuff. The one thing that concerns me is 8
we have 68 members, which is a pretty small slice of the population. If we only have 68 9
kids, I suspect there are some interests that are underrepresented and some that are 10
overrepresented. I really would like to see outreach to find those groups that are 11
underrepresented and bring more kids into the fold. Overall, if you have a wider base of 12
organization, you'll have a wider base of attendance. 13
Mr. Perez: With the 68 members that are represented, those are just through our five 14
leadership groups. These are students that are committed to attending meetings on a 15
weekly basis, biweekly basis, or once a month. Through the Think Fund Grant Program, 16
there are several teens. It's not just once teen that applies for a grant program. There are 17
typically 10-15, sometimes even more, teens that are involved in each project. We do 18
outreach more. I'm sorry that slide was a little bit misleading. That's just through the 19
leadership groups that we have. 20
Commissioner Reckdahl: I've asked students that I know about these programs, and very 21
few know about them. I think we really do need to make sure that we're doing (inaudible) 22
the City, whether it's the school newspaper or Facebook, really push through and outreach 23
and just assume we can't put up a couple of posters and everyone's going to understand it. 24
Mr. Perez: We also have been communicating with the Palo Alto Unified School District, 25 with Lisa Hall and Matt Hall, activity directors at both schools. It's just something that 26 we've been wanting to do, increase awareness at the actual school sites, since that's where 27 the students are located. That's one of the things that we've been working on for the next 28
school year, going out during their flex periods and presenting on our various programs. 29
Vice Chair Greenfield: Thank you, Jose, for your passion for this program and for your 30
leadership. It's a great contribution to the City. Stephanie as well. We certainly support 31
adding more enrichment for our youth. I have a daughter at Gunn, and she has some 32
awareness of the programs. I don't think she's been really jumping into it, but at least the 33
outreach has been effective. The awareness was there, so that's great. I certainly do 34
appreciate more. It's a difficult group to hit. I'm sure you appreciate that. You've got to 35
be creative with your strategies to get on the radar and get a second look as well. It's 36
expected from the Parks and Rec Commission to have a focus on outdoor activities or 37
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unplugged activities, and any additional focus that we can get to get groups of kids 1
outdoors, new experiences would certainly be welcome. Another more out-of-the-box idea 2
is I don't know if you've considered any sort of civic programs or high school internships 3
during the summer, doing something within City Hall or the civic building here. That 4
might be something that would be interesting. I know Palo Alto is very STEM focused, 5
but there really is renewed interest in political science and economics these days with 6 what's going on on a national scale. You could get some interest if you were to pursue 7
some opportunities like that. Thank you. 8
Commissioner Moss: These are all great programs. I'm really happy with the breadth of 9
these programs. You have some arts programs, five or six art programs. You've got some 10
technology programs. You've got some leadership programs. Maintaining that broad mix 11
is really fantastic. That's great. The only comment I could make is that last time you came 12
there was a discussion about north Palo Alto versus south Palo Alto and proximity to 13
Mitchell Park and making sure there was transportation that would allow people, say, from 14
Paly to participate in equal numbers to Gunn. Have you done anything more about that or 15
had any more focus? Do you know what percentage is from one side versus the other? 16
Mr. Perez: It really tends to fluctuate each year with the amount of students from Palo Alto 17
High School and Gunn High School. We haven't talked about transportation since the last 18
time. I know we were planning to talk to the public transportation commission on their 5-19
year plan and figuring out how we can also be involved in that through youth and teen 20
programs. Other than that, we haven't done much more outreach. 21
Commissioner Moss: Hopefully, you can keep pushing for that. You mentioned in the 22
very beginning of the Think Fund kids come up with ideas. How do you do that? That's 23
one of the hardest things to do, to come up with these ideas. Are they the parents' ideas or 24
are these the kids' ideas? How do you get the kids to come up with these ideas among 25 themselves? Are there olders [sic] teaching youngers [sic], high schoolers helping mentor 26 middle schoolers, or something like that? 27
Mr. Perez: The ideas are a range. It could be from filming a documentary and 28
implementing it in the community all the way to an open mic. There's an array of different 29
projects that teens are focused on. When I meet with the students, I tend to meet them 30
where they're at. Some students are in the very beginning stages where they're starting to 31
brainstorm on what type of ideas they want to have. It could be like a design-thinking 32
session on what they want to do. Some students already know what idea they want to have. 33
They want to do a movie. They want it to be on suicides in Palo Alto, and they're very 34
specific with that. It's really being able to meet the student where they're at with their idea. 35
It could be something very small, and I help them expand that and their creativity, or it 36
could be something huge that they're set on that idea. It really is on a spectrum where I 37
meet the students and where they're at with each idea that there are. Most of these ideas 38
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are passion-driven with the students. There's no timeline. There's no commitment. There's 1
no deadlines. I find that much easier because it really aligns with what they're passionate 2
about. If students are going to apply for my program, if they're not passionate about it, 3
they won't follow through. If they are passionate about it, they're going to stick through it 4
to the end. 5
Commissioner Moss: That's great. Going back to what Commissioner Greenfield said 6 about outdoors and parks. I noticed, for instance, that there are a number of classes to do 7
with role-playing, the Medieval role-playing, in Mitchell Park. A different kind of use of 8
the park. If there were some better use of the outdoors, for instance, obstacle courses or 9
boot camp kind of things or hiking techniques—I grew up with the Boy Scouts, and the 10
only thing I really liked about them was being able to learn about hiking and backpacking 11
and camping and things like that. Anything you can do to get them away from their 12
screens—as a longtime Silicon Valley programmer, I think your idea of using python as a 13
starting point for some people who are so inclined is great. SQL is another simple, simple 14
way to get into technology that's limitless as far as what they can do with it. There's 15
something for everybody. If you can get them out into the parks some way, that would be 16
great. 17
Chair McDougall: I'll echo that you guys are doing great. It's great stuff. I do have a 18
question about the allocation of the funds. There's $84,000. Briefly, what does the $84,000 19
go to? 20
Mr. Perez: Let me go back to that slide. 21
Chair McDougall: I've got the list here. How does that get decided? How do you decide 22
that Make X gets $13,000 and the Art Center gets $10,000? 23
Mr. Perez: Typically what we do is at the beginning of each fiscal year we'll meet. As you 24
can see, these are different program areas from the different divisions of the Community 25 Services Department. We'll meet and figure out where the costs are, where the costs will 26 be, or where the expenses will be allocated. We'll meet in regards to Make X and figure 27 out what they purchased last year was mainly equipment that can be used for the next 5-10 28
years. We do meet ahead of time at the beginning of each fiscal year to decide. 29
Chair McDougall: This isn't necessarily a group of five teens showing up, and you're being 30
the venture capitalist and providing them the funds for the thing they ask for. That might 31
be an interesting way to approach it because that would be giving them an opportunity. If 32
you're looking for suggestions of programs, that would be my suggestion of a program. 33
You have a program with TIBCO relative to python. How aggressively have we pursued 34
other partnerships with both for-profit and nonprofit organizations? 35
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Mr. Perez: It really depends on the type of project that the students are developing. If it's 1
a project on mental health, then I do reach out to mental health organizations throughout 2
the community, like CHC, Project Safety Net. If it's a project such as technology, a lot of 3
the technology firms are companies in the area, working with Microsoft, working with 4
TIBCO. It really depends on the type of need the student has for their particular project. 5
We go from there on identifying which organization, whether nonprofit or profit. 6
Chair McDougall: The question that David had is where do these ideas come from. I don't 7
know why you're asking us because teens are going to have better ideas than we're ever 8
going to have. On the other hand, nonprofits, for-profits, and various City departments, if 9
you held a fair of some sort at the beginning of a year to stimulate their thoughts, if there 10
was a whole bunch of organizations around that caused them to say, "We could work with 11
that partner," an environment that would create some stimulation. They may come and not 12
be interested in working with whatever it is David's touting but might like what Keith's 13
touting. They'd still have to come back with the idea. How integrated is this now and will 14
it be with what the Library does? I know that there are programs where the Library has 15
similar kinds of activities. I don't know if that's a question for you guys or Monique or if 16
you'd like to come back some other day to talk about this. 17
Ms. Ziesenhenne: The Bryant Street Fund is only with Recreation. It's not for Library 18
programming. Make X was started with the Library and the Art Center, who were the 19
initial two departments. We had intended while the Library temporarily located at 20
Cubberley to maintain that relationship. We have allocated some of the money to that. For 21
the most part, everything is done separately. We do similar work, and that's something we 22
can definitely look at. 23
Chair McDougall: That's the issue. When we asked the question—I thought the question 24
was a good one—what's the real number of students, I was interested in the real percentage 25 of all of the—we talk about teens. I know one thing that happened at Mitchell Park was, 26 at least in my observation, we had the teen facility there. Pretty soon the teen facility was 27 taken over by all of the 11 and 12 year olds. They think they're teens, but that's not the 28
kind of teen that you're looking at. There's always that conflict. The percentage of high 29
school students—the question is how many of them are actively involved in the City 30
anyway because they're in any of the other programs that we're virtually competing with. 31
I really like the leadership part of this. That's a really important component of it. On the 32
other hand, I totally agree that since this is part of the Parks and Recreation Department 33
anything we can do relative to parks and outdoors is good. Since we just had a presentation 34
from the Arts Commission, I'm surprised how much time and effort we're putting into arts 35
projects. I'm not saying we shouldn't. Again, it's a question of who's partnering here and 36
how could they help facilitate even with thoughts and ideas or at least creating an 37
environment where they aren't giving the kids the thoughts and ideas but they're creating 38
the environment for thinking about the thoughts and ideas. Partnering would help. Kristen, 39
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when you said there's $84,000 last year, $84,000 this year, and we'd have to go back to the 1
City Council to get more, if this was a legitimate foundation approach or even a nonprofit 2
that had a reserve fund, any financing plan would allow you to take 4 percent of the reserve 3
every year out of the reserve because the reserve's growing in whatever way. I would 4
suggest that any time you go back to Council for more money there be an ask that some 5
amount of the reserve fund can automatically be added to the operating funds every year. 6
Ms. O'Kane: Thank you for that comment. I agree with you. I wanted to point out that 7
this RFP that we're planning on releasing would be—teens could certainly provide a 8
proposal or submit a proposal. It could also be a nonprofit. It could be a for-profit 9
company. It's open to anybody. It's not an extension of the Think Fund necessarily where 10
we would be providing grants for student-run projects. It's more to provide a service to the 11
teen community. This also goes to one of Commissioner McCauley's comments about 12
sustaining the project past the pilot program by providing initial pilot startup funding for a 13
nonprofit or even a private organization. We're starting the momentum, but then it would 14
be up to them to keep it going. I just wanted to make sure that was clear. I felt a little bit 15
that the assumption was it would be for teens to apply for this funding. 16
Chair McDougall: I understood it wasn't necessarily that, but it seemed to me an interesting 17
idea would be if you could create something that would provide them the leadership 18
experience of whether you're applying for the money or just applying in general. I think 19
all our questions have been answered. I really think you guys are doing—this is a 20
wonderful part of what the whole of Parks and Recreation does. I'm glad that for once 21
we're not just talking about art in the parks or invasive weeds or whatever it might be. 22
We're actually talking about something that's good for the youth of the City. Anybody else 23
want to close or everybody happy? 24
Ms. O'Kane: One final word is that, as Stephanie said, the presentation is going in front of 25 the Council's Policy and Services Committee April 10th. They have consistently heard 26 updates on the use of the funds. We're going to be asking them for feedback as well on the 27 use of the reserve funds. 28
Commissioner Moss: At one of the previous meetings, we talked about perhaps having 29
students present to us maybe at the beginning or end of the year, maybe as an off-shoot of 30
one of these projects. Is that still a possibility? 31
Ms. O'Kane: It is. We're actually going to have some of the teens present at the Policy 32
and Services Committee meeting. We had scheduling conflicts that it didn't happen 33
tonight. It would have been ideal. We can certainly bring teens back at any time to have 34
a conversation or a discussion. It's great experience for them to be part of this process and 35
your hearing it directly from the people who benefit from the programs. We'd be happy to 36
do that. 37
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6. 2018 Summer Programs and Camps 1
Chair McDougall: (inaudible) continue with the summer (inaudible) programs. 2
Ms. O'Kane: I'll introduce this one as well. With summer fast approaching, we thought it 3
would be an interesting presentation to share with you what our summer camps and 4
programs are planned for the summer. You all have a copy of the Enjoy! summer camps 5
catalog in front of you that shows all of the wonderful things that the City provides. 6 Stephanie is just going to give you an overview. 7
Ms. Douglas: Thank you, Kristen. Again, my name is Stephanie Douglas, Superintendent 8
of Recreation. Like Kristen said, I'll be giving you an overview of our summer camp 9
programs. Before I dive into that, I do want to go over the purpose of summer camps. It 10
really does go to our mission statement, which is to provide a stronger community through 11
parks, recreation, and arts and sciences. As I go through this presentation, I hope you'll see 12
that it really is the foundation of what our mission is for the department. To go over some 13
general data information from last summer. We had over 150 summer camps, 3,720 14
registrations. Eighty-nine percent of those were residents, 11 percent nonresident. We 15
brought in total revenue of $1,102,365.98. It definitely is a big part of our revenue for our 16
department. 17
Chair McDougall: Jeff, was that specific enough for you this time? 18
Commissioner LaMere: I am wondering about costs as well at some point. Yes, thank 19
you. 20
Ms. Douglas: Cost recovery averages about 35 percent. That's taking into account direct 21
and indirect costs as far as staffing. That basically adheres to the City's User Fee Cost 22
Recovery Policy. It averages about 35 percent. Just to give you some of our key dates. 23
March 16th, we had our due date for the draw. March 19th, we shut down all of our 24
community centers, and we went through all of the registrations. We had 631 draw 25 envelopes on that day. Just on that one day alone, we processed $606,000 in registration 26 fees. That's a busy day for us. We have resident registration beyond the lottery draw start 27 this week, March 26th. Nonresidents can register April 2nd. The last day of Palo Alto 28
Unified School District is June 1st, which is pretty much the launch date for summer camps. 29
We start our in-service training the week of June 4th. Our camps are going fully strong 30
June 11th through August 10th. The week of August 13th, Palo Alto Unified School 31
District resumes. We keep busy during those dates. First, I'd like to talk more about our 32
recreation camps that we offer. The camps we offer are Camp Palo Alto, Foothills, Teen 33
Week Out, Aquatics, Kidz Love Soccer, Skyhawks, Combo, and Special Interests. Camp 34
Palo Alto is an introduction to summer camps. It's a half-day camp for participants aged 35
3-4. There's usually about 15 participants per session. It's what you'd expect from a 36
summer camp. The camp has arts and crafts, songs, water play at Rinconada pool, visits 37
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to the JMZ, and story time at the Library. This is the first shot to get our lifelong customers. 1
We graduate into Foothills Camp. This is probably our most popular camp or most well-2
known. It ranges from Fun Camp, ages 5-7, all the way to Adventure Camp, ages 11-13. 3
We can enroll up to 55 participants in this camp. Again, this camp really is focused on 4
what you were speaking of earlier, which is that outdoor engagement, canoeing, outdoor 5
games, hiking. They also do an overnight for Day Camp and Adventure Camp. They get 6 to experience going outdoors and sleeping under the stars. Once participants outgrow the 7
Foothills Camps, we now have—this is somewhat of a newer camp. It's a Teen Week Out 8
camp for ages 14-17. We offer six sessions. These are more going to Alcatraz, going to 9
the beach, theme parks, things that teens would be more inclined to want to participate in. 10
We also work with a lot of contractors for our summer camps, one of them being Palo Alto 11
Swim and Sport. They do offer aquatics camps for ages 5-12 for swim camps and ages 9-12
14 for junior lifeguard camps. This is an opportunity for students who want to become 13
lifeguards later to get those fundamental skills. For the swim camps, they have a 4:1 ratio, 14
and they can take up to 24 participants. Next we have Kidz Love Soccer. This is also a 15
very popular camp that we offer. Obviously, it's soccer focused for ages 4 1/2-10, 20 16
campers per session. I know there was some talk earlier about how do we serve both north 17
and south Palo Alto. These are the kind of camps that we have in several locations 18
throughout the City. In addition, we have a Skyhawks summer camp, and this is sport-19
focused camps, ages 4-12, up to 30 participants, again locations throughout the City of Palo 20
Alto, everything from volleyball to track and field. If you're interested in sports, this is a 21
good camp for you. We also now offer combo camps. This is an interesting idea where 22
we've matched up different vendors and contractors, like Skyhawks with Palo Alto Swim 23
and Sport, to provide a camp with multiple sports. This is for ages 8-12, about 16 24
participants per camp, primarily located at Rinconada because that's the best location with 25 the pool and the park. Swim, tennis, soccer, flag football are the sports we can combine. 26 We also offer Special Interest camps. I think someone mentioned earlier that STEM 27 programs are very popular. We're definitely seeing that in camp programs. We have camps 28
that range from ages 5-15, 13-24 participants depending on the class. It really is focused 29
on technology. Girls Product Design is a new class we're offering because we've had such 30
a high demand for coding type things. My daughter took a camp last year in this category, 31
and it was her favorite camp all summer. She actually made a stop-motion film with Legos. 32
I was really impressed. As much as I want her running around outdoors, she seemed to 33
have a knack for this. Next, I'd like to talk a little bit about our Children's Theatre camps. 34
We go from recreation to more of the creative arts. Children's Theatre offers 62 theatre, 35
music, and dance camps. They have approximately 585 participants. They utilize 26 high 36
school interns and filmmakers. As Jose mentioned, they did the Teen Mural Project last 37
year with 39 teens. We have the Summer Hot Dog Series, which had 5,391 attendees. That 38
takes place at the Magical Stage at the Children's Theatre outdoor venue. When they did 39
surveys, 99 percent of parents surveyed would have their children return. That's definitely 40
a testimonial to how successful those programs are. To dive a little bit more into what 41
these camps are. They have Creative Dramatic Camps, and that's for the younger group, 42
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ages 4-8 years old, a variety of camps to introduce them to theatre. We have the Children's 1
Theatre Camps 1, 2, and 3-week Theatre Academy. This is for the older kids ages 8-16, 2
again a variety of different camps from performing arts to design tech. If they're interested 3
in the behind-the-scenes, they offer that as well. They also have a Storyboard to Screen 4
Camp for ages 12-18. This is all about film production from beginning to end, from 5
creating a concept to putting it into film. For dance groups, we have Prince and Princess 6 Camp, Hollywood Stars, Dancing in the Street, Dance Fever, Shape It Up. These are all 7
movement-based camps. It ranges from ages 3 1/2-11+. Next, we talk about the Palo Alto 8
Art Center camps. These camps range from ceramics to puppeteering to sculpture, more 9
of the hands-on type of creative arts. The ages for these camps range from 6-18. Some 10
highlights from 2017. All of these camps are taught by professional artists and art teachers. 11
They usually have a 12:1 student-teacher ratio. They also utilize five college interns. Last 12
year, they offered 56 1- and 2-week camps, 767 participants, 149 on a waitlist. Obviously 13
a very popular program. They also utilize a lot of Counselors In Training and Lead 14
Counselors In Training. For 2018, they're definitely making some changes. Now they 15
have 88 1- and 2-week camps, a significant increase in camps. They're going to have over 16
1,000 available spots for kids and new offerings at Mitchell Park. They're really trying to 17
reach a different demographic or a different side of the City. Next, I'll talk about the JMZ 18
and their camps. These camps are for ages 3-13. They offered 44 1-week camps and 4 2-19
week camps in 2017, 712 camp participants, 100 on the waitlist. Again, a very popular 20
program. They had 49 science camp assistants in grades 8-11 helping out with their 21
programs. Some of the camps they offer are Bay Camp, Jurassic Camp, Camp Kinetic. 22
What they do and what I appreciate about their camps is they use natural resources and 23
community assets such as the JMZ or the Baylands for their camps. It's great that we have 24
these amenities in Palo Alto. Why not design camps around them? These are just some 25 pictures. This is really a hands-on experience for the participants. For 2018, they have 43 26 different 1- and 2-week camps. There's one less camp because they're moving to Cubberley 27 Community Center due to the renovations. They had to make some adjustments, but they're 28
still offering 43 camps, which is pretty impressive. They're adding a new camp called 29
Camp Chronos. The backbone to all of this is our staffing. They're central to our success 30
whether they're Counselors In Training or our paid staff. They really are pivotal to our 31
operations. Our Counselors In Training are typically ages 13-14. They are side-by-side 32
with our staff helping with games, assisting staff, really becoming mentors. That's the goal 33
of the program, to create those relationships. If we have participants that may need one-34
on-one attention, this is a great opportunity to use the CITs. The Art Center also has a very 35
robust CIT and LCIT program. You can see they have 78 1-week CIT spots and 9 1-week 36
LCIT spots, which is Lead Counselor in Training. That is a separate but specialized 37
program for those that are in the lead. We have camp counselors, and they have to be age 38
15-plus. Pay range can be $12-$20. We have a lot of returning staff. As they return and 39
get more experience, we can promote them to Camp Director or Assistant Camp Director, 40
which comes with higher pay. All staff and CITs are required to attend in-service training. 41
They have to be able to work 6 out of the 9 weeks of summer. One of the misconceptions 42
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is, if you are working as a summer camp lead, you give up your entire summer and can't 1
take time off. That's not the case. We try to work around students' schedules, but we do 2
ask that they work 6 of the 9 weeks. Working as a summer camp leader, that's how I 3
started, that's how a lot of recreation professionals have started their career. It's a great 4
first-time job. You can learn a lot. As I mentioned, our in-service training, all of our staff 5
have to go through this. We go over mandated reporting, conflict resolution—we actually 6 have Peninsula Conflict Resolution Center come out and do specialized training on that—7
first aid, CPR. Something new that we've been doing is sun safety and illness prevention. 8
We're going to have these kids outdoors for long periods of time, so we want them to be 9
safe as well and also recognize signs of heat stroke and whatnot. Also fairly new is 10
inclusion and LGBTQ awareness. We know the School District has a really good program 11
when it comes to working with LGBTQ issues. We want to follow in their footsteps and 12
provide training on that. Obviously, the developmental assets because that's the foundation 13
of everything we're doing, and customer services, and interacting with parents. I put "and 14
more," which includes filling out a timecard, paperwork to be hired, barbecuing. We have 15
the overnighter, and we realized that some of our staff didn't know how to do a barbecue, 16
so we now incorporate that into our training and make it a fun, interactive lunch program 17
as part of the training. I do have a short video I would like to show you. [Video shown.] 18
This video was made last summer. We had a professional photographer take some photos, 19
and our staff put this video together. One of the goals we have moving forward especially 20
in Recreation is to promote the Foothills Camp even more by doing things like this video. 21
That's one of the camps that's really a treasure for the City, the fact that we have Foothills 22
Park. Not a lot of cities have that, so we really want to capitalize on that and promote more 23
registrations in our camp. We still fill up pretty well, but there's room to grow that camp a 24
little bit. If you have any questions or comments? 25
Commissioner LaMere: As far as third-party vendors that run camps, I see we have an 26 extensive training. I'm sure we have a background check system in place for people who 27 are working for Palo Alto. What is the process for third-party vendors and what is our 28
oversight of them as they run the camps? 29
Ms. Douglas: Excellent question. We do contracts with all of our vendors. One of the 30
requirements of the contract is they have to do background checks for all of their 31
employees. We get verification that they've done that. They go through the same rigorous 32
process to make sure everything's covered on that front. 33
Commissioner LaMere: There were 3,370 registrations. I would be interested in unique 34
registrations. Additionally, roughly at what capacity are we running? I see that we have 35
waitlists for the art camp and for one of the other ones. In general, about what capacity do 36
we run for the camps? 37
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Ms. Douglas: It does vary from camp to camp. The robotics camps fill up every time. 1
Foothills Camps get almost to max capacity but not quite; that's why I think there's room 2
to grow. Arts and JMZ camps are very popular and usually get to capacity. Because there's 3
such a wide variety, it's hard to give an exact number. That's something maybe we could 4
run a report on and try to get a better sense. It really does depend on the specific camp. 5
Commissioner LaMere: Do we want or is there a way to get more nonresidents? I imagine 6 they pay a higher fee. Are there better ways to reach out to the neighboring communities 7
of Menlo Park and Mountain View? Are there ways to reach out to—there's a large 8
employee population at Stanford, so there are people coming from places and looking to 9
put their kids in camps. Is there a way to reach out or is that something we do actively? 10
Ms. Douglas: One of the challenges is the neighboring agencies offer similar programs. 11
Obviously, Foothills is a gem for us, so that's something we could promote. When it comes 12
to the STEM robotics camps and things of that nature, most of the agencies offer something 13
very similar. It can be a little political going into other cities and trying to get them. There's 14
certainly an opportunity there as well. 15
Commissioner Reckdahl: In your presentation, you highlighted some of the new camps. 16
How is the popularity of those new camps compared to the old camps? 17
Ms. Douglas: We don't know yet because we just started registration. For the STEM 18
robotics camp specifically, most of them filled up the first day of the draw. 19
Commissioner Reckdahl: During the Master Plan, the public told us they really wanted to 20
see new things. I'm curious to see if their surveys agree with what they registered for. 21
Vice Chair Greenfield: I assume the Palo Alto residency would apply to anyone who's a 22
resident or attends PAUSD schools. 23
Ms. Douglas: Yeah. 24
Vice Chair Greenfield: It's great to see that you're increasing seats in the busiest programs 25 to the extent possible. That's an excellent response. The breadth of the programs is 26 amazing. Thank you. 27
Commissioner Moss: I want to echo that. My daughter is a teacher in San Jose. They 28
have none of these things. It's just incredible. It makes me wonder how to expand it or 29
whether that would kill it. You've got a great thing going. I don't know if it makes sense 30
to expand. Do you get a lot of people form East Palo Alto or Redwood City or is it just 31
from, say, Los Altos? 32
Ms. Douglas: I don't know specifically what cities. I don't have the breakdown on that. 33
Eight-nine percent of our registrations are Palo Alto residents, so we can assume that the 34
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majority of them are obviously Palo Alto residents or Palo Alto Unified School District. I 1
don't know if we can break down the numbers as far as where the nonresidents are coming 2
from. I don't know if we can do that in our system. Going back to expanding, I don't think 3
it's an all or nothing. There's a lot of areas that we can expand, and that's something staff 4
continually needs to evaluate. My goal is really to polish and improve the programs we 5
have, how can we improve our in-service, how can we increase our hiring efforts, those 6 kinds of things. I don't want to make a blanket statement about expanding, but there are 7
opportunities. 8
Chair McDougall: I want to echo, as everybody said, the breadth and depth of what you 9
do is amazing. I had one son who was actually the leader of the Foothills Camp many 10
years ago, and the other son taught in the Camp Kinetics at one point. I'm aware of the 11
effort you put in and the effort that your hires, the summer leaders put in. We thank you 12
very much. I'm really pleased we got insight into what the recreation part of our 13
Commission is responsible for. Thank you very much for that. Good luck with the rest of 14
it. 15
7. Other Ad Hoc Committee and Liaison Updates 16
VI. COMMENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS 17
Chair McDougall: That takes us to comments and announcements. I welcome comments 18
and announcements if we can do it in order. 19
Commissioner Moss: I was wondering about Boulware and Fry's and what happened with 20
that. You had a meeting March 6th, was it? How did that go? 21
Ms. O'Kane: There was a public meeting for Boulware Park that I was not in attendance 22
because we had an aquatics meeting the same night. Peter Jensen and, I believe, Daren 23
were at the Boulware Park meeting. I talked to Peter afterwards. He said it went well. 24
There is a possibility that the project for Boulware is going to be delayed as part of the 25 capital budget for fiscal year '19. We don't know that for certain at this point; we'll let you 26 know. The meeting went well, and there were no decisions made. It was just informational 27 at this time. 28
Commissioner Moss: I fervently believe that tying Boulware Park to the AT&T purchase 29
to Fry's should be dealt with in one—there's a lot of connection between them. I would 30
hate that one goes off by itself without take the other two things into consideration. 31
Ms. O'Kane: I can provide an update on—we're calling it the Ventura Area Coordinated 32
Plan. I think that's the right terminology. Commissioner Reckdahl is the liaison to that 33
group. I don't know if they've reached out to you yet. 34
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Commissioner Reckdahl: They have not. 1
Ms. O'Kane: You are officially on the list of that group with our Planning Department. 2
You should be hearing from someone relatively soon about the process, the meeting times. 3
We will have a representative there. 4
Commissioner Moss: At the last meeting we had a lot of discussion from the audience 5
about tennis players versus pickleballers. Has there been any progress in getting the two 6 groups together to work on a compromise? 7
Ms. O'Kane: The ad hoc met earlier this week. We talked about next steps, and that is the 8
next step. One of the agenda items for our April meeting will be an update on pickleball 9
and tennis. 10
Commissioner Reckdahl: David arranged a tour of the JPA project. They were very kind 11
and very generous with their time. We went all the way from the golf course up through 12
some of the other bridges and showed some of the flooding issues. They gave us a long 13
tour; I won't go through all of it. One thing I found interesting is by the Friendship Bridge 14
there's a levee that's not needed for storm protection. They're leaving it there because that 15
area is the best population of Ridgway Rails. They're leaving an artificial levee there 16
because it creates a unnatural environment that is being used as habitat for something that 17
is normally threatened. I thought that was interesting. 18
Chair McDougall: Thank you, David, for the very well-written notes you put on that. I 19
showed up for that too; I just showed up on the wrong day. Any other comments? 20
VII. TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR APRIL 24, 2018 MEETING 21
Chair McDougall: Any suggestions for the agenda for the next meeting? Any burning 22
issues? 23
Ms. O'Kane: We will have a more detailed update on the temporary lights at Cubberley. 24
Adam Howard will give a little bit more detail on how that went. We'll also have Friends 25 of the Palo Alto Parks come and, like I said, pickleball. If there are other items that come 26 up between now and then, let me know or go through Chair McDougall, and we can work 27 on getting that incorporated. 28
Commissioner Moss: If we could get Karin to come back and talk about the San 29
Francisquito Creek and north sometime, that would be great. 30
Ms. O'Kane: We'll put that on our list. 31
Chair McDougall: Roger Smith, the founder of Friends of Palo Alto Parks, will be the one 32
who comes for that presentation. 33
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VIII. ADJOURNMENT 1
Meeting adjourned on motion by Commissioner Reckdahl and second by Commissioner 2
Moss at 10:14 p.m. 3
To: Parks and Recreation Commission
From: Adam Howard, Senior Recreation Manager
Date: 04/24/2018
Subject: Report of Temporary Lighting trial on Cubberley Turf Field
Recommendation:
Staff will present the results of the temporary lighting trial at Cubberley Turf Field. No action is
required.
Background:
During the winter months, when daylight saving time ends, there is a high demand for lighted
athletic fields in Palo Alto. The City of Palo Alto currently has three fields that are lighted and
available for rent; Mayfield Sports Complex (2) and El Camino Soccer Field (1). The three lighted
fields are booked 7 days a week, with peak times being 4pm-10pm Monday-Friday. During the
peak times there is no available free space. Youth and adult leagues are continually looking for
additional space during winter months.
Discussion:
The City of Palo Alto was approached by Palo Alto Soccer Club (PASC) with a proposal for a one
month trial that would place temporary lights on the Cubberley synthetic turf field for the
month of February. The proposal was presented to the Parks and Recreation Commission (PRC)
on Tuesday January 23rd and with feedback from the PRC, the trial was approved.
Palo Alto Soccer Club provided a proposal that included the following highlights (full report
included as attachment A):
4-6 temporary light stations brought onto Cubberley turf field
Lights are solar powered with generator as backup
Lights only used Monday-Thursday, Sunset to 8:30pm (lights off at 8:30pm)
All additional activity will go through Cubberley Community Center, no pick up/drop off
on Nelson Ave
Additional time on field will be used for practice only
Lights are secured and have 24/7 tech support
Lights will be placed to have least disruption to field and track, with safety precautions
taken to keep participants and the public safe from running into the lights
The trial period began on Monday February 12th and ended on Sunday March 11th. Prior to the
trial beginning, staff conducted outreach to the neighborhoods surrounding Cubberley fields.
The greatest concerns were avoiding traffic on Nelson Drive, limiting how late the fields were
used and limiting light pollution.
Post-trial Information:
The following provides the key points of the trial period:
Roughly 60-80 participants a day (4-6 teams)
6 light stations were used as it was determined after the first night that 4 stations would
not be sufficient.
Solar power provided all the lighting needs. Generators were never used
Schedule of Monday – Thursday, sunset to 8:30pm was followed with no reported
incidents.
Minor congestion on Nelson but issues seemed to be well monitored.
Lighting stations had minimal impact on track but could impact full field use.
Post-Trial Public Outreach
Staff contact information was provided to neighbors before the trial, during the trial and
after the trial. Staff was contacted one time regarding Nelson drop off, which was
immediately remedied.
Staff delivered a post-trial survey to the 18 residents that border Cubberley Field.
Residents were provided a self-addressed, pre-paid envelope and had the option to take the
survey online as well. City staff received a total of 8 responses. Survey questions and results
are below.
Next Steps:
Staff will meet with the Parks and Recreation Commission Field Ad-hoc Committee for
additional debrief and to discuss next steps, if any, moving forward.
Quesitons Yes No Comments
Were you aware of the temporary lighting trial on Cubberley Turf
Field?8 0 1) Impossible to miss them
Did the lights from the trial have any negative impact for you or your
family?1 7 1) We hated them. Noisy, bright, and in the way of usage of the field. Soccer is the only one use of the field and lights degraded all other uses
2) Parking and street congestion was well managed
3) Great to have this activity in the evenings
4) No problem whatsoever
5) probably has some cars sometimes on Nelson, but overall not a problem and we want kids to be able to play soccer
Would you approve of a smilimiar lighting plan taking place next
winter 6 2 1) Please have someone conutnie to monitor- that coaches are telling players/parents to park at Cubberley. Thanks
(Janaury - March) with the same restrictions as this year?2)While well intentioned, they were the dominant thing we could see out of the kitchen window or from street.
3) Too Few particiapnts! Possibly precedent setting. And this is not essential
Attachment A: Lighted Field Plan Proposal
Attachment B: Survey results
Prepared by
Adam Howard
Community Services Manager
City of Palo Alto
1
TO: PARKS AND RECREATION COMMISSION
FROM: ADAM HOWARD, COMMUNITY SERVICES DEPARTMENT
DATE: APRIL 24, 2018
SUBJECT: PICKLEBALL / TENNIS COURT UPDATE
RECOMMENDATION
Staff will be providing a status update on efforts to develop a long term solution for Pickleball play in
Palo Alto. No action will be taken by the Parks and Recreation Commission.
BACKGROUND
Pickleball is one of the fastest growing sports in the country, and has also become popular in Palo Alto.
There are currently no dedicated Pickleball courts in Palo Alto, however; Mitchell Park tennis courts 5, 6,
and 7 are striped for both tennis and Pickleball. These courts are temporarily converted into Pickleball
courts by an organized group of Pickleball players at certain times throughout the week. Since
Pickleball courts are smaller than tennis courts, multiple Pickleball games can occur on one tennis court.
There is currently no reservation system in place for Pickleball games or tournaments.
Tennis also continues to be a popular and valued sport in Palo Alto, for both youth and adults. There are
30 tennis courts located on City property and 24 tennis courts located on PAUSD property. Lighted
courts on City property are located at Mitchell Park (courts 1-7) and Rinconada Park (courts 1-5). The
standard practice for municipal tennis courts is to allow private, non-tournament use on a first
come/first served basis. Tennis court reservations are only available for Palo Alto Tennis Club and U.S.
Tennis Association tournament/match use. Additionally, only 50% of available courts at any location can
be reserved at the same time and date. The Mitchell Park, Rinconada and Cubberley Tennis Courts are
the most commonly requested tennis courts due to the number of courts grouped together, lights, court
conditions and bathroom facilities.
DISCUSSION
In response to the increasing popularity of Pickleball in Palo Alto, staff drafted a preliminary proposal to
convert Mitchell Park courts 5, 6, and 7 to Pickleball courts and add a new tennis court at Mitchell Park.
The tennis community opposed this due to the net loss in tennis courts. Additionally, since these courts
have lights it would have resulted in a loss of available space for evening tennis.
A Parks and Recreation Commission (PRC) Ad Hoc subcommittee has been working with City staff to
develop a process to identify a long-term solution for Pickleball play. The solution will ideally result in
identifying a consistent space for Pickleball to be played that does not result in major impacts to the
tennis community. The Ad Hoc and staff, using feedback received to date from both Pickleball and
tennis players are preparing several alternatives for review and discussion. A collaborative group
consisting of the PRC Ad Hoc, members of the Pickleball and tennis communities and staff will be
created and together will review, discuss and refine a proposed solution that will then be reviewed by
the broader community and the PRC.
There will be numerous opportunities for the community to provide input and staff will ensure
transparency throughout the entire process.