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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2018-09-25 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 September 25th, 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 COMMUNICATIONSMembers of the public may address the Commission on any subject not on the agenda. A reasonable time restriction may be imposed at the discretion of the Chair. The Commission reserves the right to limit oral communications period to 3 minutes. IV. DEPARTMENT REPORT V.BUSINESS 1. Approval of Draft Minutes from the August 28th, 2018 Parks and Recreation CommissionMeeting – PRC Chair McDougall – Action (5 min) ATTACHMENT 2. CSD Operating Budget: Follow-up Report on Questions from July 27th Meeting – Jazmin LeBlanc – Discussion (45 min) 3. Baylands Comprehensive Conservation Plan - Former ITT Area Concepts – Daren Anderson – Discussion (40 min) ATTACHMENT 4.Other Ad Hoc Committee and Liaison Updates – Chair – Discussion (15 min) VI. COMMENTS AND ANNOUCEMENTS VII.TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR OCTOBER 23rd, 2018 MEETING VIII.ADJOURNMENT PUBLIC LETTERS DRAFT Draft Minutes 1 1 2 3 4 MINUTES 5 PARKS & RECREATION COMMISSION 6 SPECIAL MEETING 7 August 28, 2018 8 CITY HALL 9 250 Hamilton Avenue 10 Palo Alto, California 11 12 Commissioners Present: Anne Cribbs, Jeff Greenfield, Jeff LaMere, Ryan McCauley, Don 13 McDougall, David Moss, and Keith Reckdahl 14 Commissioners Absent: 15 Others Present: 16 Staff Present: Daren Anderson, Kristen O'Kane 17 I. ROLL CALL 18 II. AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, and DELETIONS 19 Chair McDougall: With the attendance taken, let's look at the agenda. Any requests for 20 changes, deletions to the agenda? Commissioner Moss, are you okay if we keep the 21 agenda as structured? 22 III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS 23 Chair McDougall: Do we have any oral communications? I actually have one card here. 24 I haven't filled it out yet. I will soon fill it out for David Carnahan to speak to us. 25 David Carnahan: Thank you, Chair McDougall and Commissioners. David Carnahan 26 from the City Clerk's Office. I'm here because we are again doing Board and 27 Commission recruitment. The City is currently looking to fill three positions on the 28 Architectural Review Board, three positions on the Parks and Recreation Commission, 29 which we're hoping three of you will consider reapplying, and then also two positions on 30 the Planning and Transportation Commission. As you know from your work here on the 31 Commission, this is a fantastic way to make a mark on Palo Alto and help contribute to 32 the fantastic services that the City provides to the community. All of these terms run 3 33 years for the Architectural Review Board, Parks and Recreation, and then 4 years on the 34 DRAFT Draft Minutes 2 Planning and Transportation Commission. Again, we're recruiting to fill three positions 1 on the Architectural Review Board, three on Parks and Rec, and two on the Planning and 2 Transportation Commission. Applications are available on the City's website, 3 cityofpaloalto.org/clerk, and applications are due by October 17th at 4:30 p.m. I'm going 4 to hand out your homework, which is to reach out to a couple of community members 5 that you think might be a good fit for one of these Boards or Commissions. Thank you. 6 Commissioner Cribbs: May I ask a question? 7 Chair McDougall: Yes, please, Commissioner Cribbs. 8 Commissioner Cribbs: Can you tell us exactly what kind of outreach that you do for the 9 Park and Recreation Commission? 10 Mr. Carnahan: For all Boards and Commissions, we go to each Board and Commission 11 meeting. The City Manager announces the recruitments during a couple of City Council 12 meetings during the recruitment period. We run several ads in the Palo Alto Weekly, the 13 Daily Post, the Embarcadero Media Express, and then the Communications Office 14 reaches out through Nextdoor and reaches out to PAN, and then through Facebook and 15 Twitter. 16 Commissioner Cribbs: Thank you. 17 Chair McDougall: Thank you, Mr. Carnahan. If there are no other questions, I would 18 like to reinforce what Mr. Carnahan has said. Anything that we can do to help recruit 19 people that we can identify would be valuable to any of those Commissions would be 20 extremely useful. Thank you. The next thing would be—I would like to add one thing. 21 I'd like to note that we have received in the last couple of weeks a couple of times from 22 Natalie email on various subjects from the community. We should be reminded that 23 that's the equivalent of oral communications and use that as input and part of our outreach 24 and input from the community. 25 IV. DEPARTMENT REPORT 26 Chair McDougall: The next thing I'd like to do is ask Kristen to introduce the 27 Department Report. 28 Kristen O'Kane: Thank you. Kristen O'Kane. I have one item, and then I'm going to 29 turn it over to Daren who has some additional things to report. I just wanted to let 30 everyone know again that our first community meeting to co-design and master plan the 31 Cubberley Community Center site is going to be September 27th at 7:00 p.m. at the 32 Cubberley Pavilion. We are just kicking off our outreach. Hopefully, you'll be seeing 33 this on banners throughout town, Nextdoor, Facebook, email. I encourage you to reach 34 DRAFT Draft Minutes 3 out to your organizations and groups that you're involved with to help spread the word. I 1 did email you all some information that you can share. As we have more media 2 publications produced, I'll forward those as well. I am setting up a meeting with the ad 3 hoc possibly for this Friday in advance of this meeting so they're onboard and can chime 4 in on what we're proposing. That's it. Now, I'll turn it over to Daren Anderson. 5 Daren Anderson: Good evening. Daren Anderson, Community Services Department. 6 Chair McDougall: Before you start, I would like to point out that Kristen did change the 7 date of that community outreach for Cubberley to not conflict with a local political event. 8 I think that should be appreciated and responded to with our encouragement to get people 9 to participate in both events. 10 Mr. Anderson: Excellent, thank you. Just a quick update. The public art project at 11 Byxbee Park that I've emailed the Commission about and we've spread the word among 12 stakeholders of the Baylands has started … 13 Chair McDougall: Excuse me. If I could ensure that the visitors that are coming in are 14 quiet please. Thank you, Daren. 15 Mr. Anderson: Sure. Again, the public art project at Byxbee has now started. This is the 16 foraging habitat island out at Byxbee. Again, the intent is to provide habitat for prey 17 species. Normally, we focus a lot on predator species. This will have both insects and 18 rodents and provide habitat for those animals which, again, will feed burrowing owls, 19 foxes, and other predator species that live there. The project's already started, and the 20 upcoming volunteer events are scheduled to start on Saturday, September 1st. I'll post all 21 the times and hours in the back, and it was in the email. The word's been spread. The 22 Baylands Comprehensive Conservation Plan. Earlier today I emailed out to the 23 stakeholders and the Commission a copy of some concepts for the former ITT area. I'm 24 excited to both hear from our stakeholders and bring this to the Commission for a robust 25 discussion very soon. I'll probably save that until I also have a conceptual plan for 26 Byxbee Park, which will be coming very shortly. I'll email them to you, and you can 27 peruse them, and then we'll have a discussion in an upcoming Commission meeting. A 28 brief update on Renzel Marsh. As you know, the Public Works Department has been 29 working on that area. They're currently working on building up the berm around the 30 marsh. We'll have an update from Karin North at the November meeting on next steps 31 and what's going to happen. I had a request from Commissioner McCauley, who noted 32 that we've started a new contract with our park landscape maintenance provider. The last 33 one was a 5-year contract with Gachina, and we've started a new one. We now have 34 BrightView Landscaping. He asked if I could tell a little bit about that because it's a 35 change that you will see. Not only is it a different provider, but they're new to the area. 36 Their understanding of the scope and breadth of so many sites is a little bit challenging. 37 There's a little bit of stumbling as they orient themselves to this really robust scope of 38 DRAFT Draft Minutes 4 work. We're trying to help them along and get them going, but we've had a couple of 1 trips here and there. I thought I might share at least what they do very, very succinctly. 2 It's a 5-year contract, so it would expire in June 2023. They do medians and roadside 3 planting strips, parking lots, parking garages, City facilities like community centers and 4 fire stations, utility substations and well sites, tennis courts. The big piece is the 5 maintenance at the non-athletic center parks. While our City staff takes care of Greer and 6 Baylands Athletic Center, Stanford-Palo Alto, and El Camino, your other ones like Peers 7 and Hoover are maintained through this contractor. It's a significant amount of work. 8 Just lastly, a little bit on how we work together with them. We have two park inspectors 9 that are really in charge of making sure that they're complying with their scope of work, 10 that they're living up to the standards we've set, and that they're responsive to our 11 community needs, concerns, and complaints. We also work with them very closely. 12 Irrigation is done all inhouse, but they're out in those parks and they're seeing things, 13 whether it's dry or wet field conditions or broken sprinklers. They're in very close 14 communication with our team, and we work pretty well together. The last update I had 15 was regarding the Baylands Boardwalk. The project start date is predicated on the 16 delivery of the wood, the Alaskan yellow cedar. We're ordering an enormous amount 17 because the bulk of the Boardwalk will be made of that material. The delivery dates are 18 still a little uncertain, but the latest timeframe that we're anticipating is mid-September 19 with the completion date in early January 2019. 20 Chair McDougall: Are there any questions for the Department Report? Commissioner 21 Moss. 22 Commissioner Moss: Daren, do you have an update on the Magical Bridge? 23 Mr. Anderson: The status of the actual bridge replacement over the creek is it's moving 24 along well. There were a few problems with unanticipated breaks in the mainline. It was 25 at the base of the concrete footing. It shut off water to the park for a little while, the dog 26 park and some of the restrooms. I need to acknowledge Miguel Jacome, the park 27 supervisor in charge of irrigation. He brought out his team, and they spent 6 to 8-hour 28 days out there trying to get everything running. They water was only down for 2 days, 29 and then they got it back up thankfully. There were some challenges there. I don't have 30 the latest ETA for completion. I'll get that and share it with the Commission. 31 Commissioner Moss: Are you going to use the same bridge over again? You were 32 thinking about doing that. 33 Mr. Anderson: We're saving the bridge, and there's a possibility. Phil Bobel from Public 34 Works, the Assistant Director, has saved the bridge and transported it to the MSC area. 35 There's the possibility that we could utilize it in the ITT area where we could cross over 36 to Byxbee. 37 DRAFT Draft Minutes 5 Commissioner Moss: One more question. The Renzel Marsh, did you say that they were 1 going to start up again like September 1st? 2 Mr. Anderson: They're starting now with building up the berm around there. There will 3 be a couple more updates. September 4th they're going to start moving sediment and 4 some reeds. Karin North will be here in the November meeting to give some more 5 updates. 6 Commissioner McCauley: I'll just jump in, Daren. 7 Chair McDougall: Thank you, Commissioner McCauley. 8 Commissioner McCauley: Excuse me. Sorry, Don. Thanks for your report. From what 9 I've seen, BrightView seems like they're doing a great job thus far. They actually seem to 10 have a little bit less of a physical presence than Gachina, just from my own observation. 11 They perhaps are maintaining the parks at different hours, but the parks seem to be well 12 maintained. They definitely, from my perspective, are the frontline eyes and ears in the 13 park on a daily basis. I think that's a really important contract. I'm curious to know what 14 the evaluation mechanisms are between now and June 2023. Will there be regular 15 opportunities for you to provide feedback? What does that look like? Is there some sort 16 of probationary period? 17 Mr. Anderson: There isn't a probationary period, but the feedback is constant, really 18 daily. Via those two park inspectors and a park supervisor, there's no day that passes 19 where we're not in dialog with their project manager and usually several of their field 20 staff. Sometimes, it's directing more focused attention to a given area based on either our 21 knowledge or feedback from the community or special events coming up, that kind of 22 thing. Sometimes, it's transitions like at some point in the near future we're transitioning 23 in areas where we just have single trash cans, for example. That's no longer allowed by 24 Code. By the end of the year, we need to be transitioning to three bins for every spot. If 25 you had a trash can, you need to have recycling and compost. Those kinds of transitions 26 call out for good coordination between us and the contractor. In regards to evaluating 27 their performance, I would say that's a daily thing. We keep track of the bigger faux pas 28 and have weekly and sometimes monthly meetings with them to check in and say "here 29 are the problem areas we need you to address, here is the time period for our 30 expectations." There are liquidated damages in the contract. If they were to 31 underperform, somehow damage our facilities or infrastructure, we could have 32 recompense that way, through those liquidated damages. What we try to do is, rather 33 than wait for larger corrections, correct them immediately. It's those weekly and even 34 daily check-ins to say "wait a minute, you missed this, and we need you to be on it the 35 next week." 36 Commissioner McCauley: How competitive was the bidding process? 37 DRAFT Draft Minutes 6 Mr. Anderson: We had three bids, as I recall. This one with BrightView was 1 significantly lower than both of the incumbents and then the other bid by a fairly hefty 2 margin. 3 Commissioner McCauley: You're confident that's it's going to be equal quality 4 notwithstanding the lower bid? 5 Mr. Anderson: Yeah. I think in some ways the quality will be enhanced. We did a lot of 6 work on that scope to enhance certain elements that were maybe a little weaker in the 7 past. One example would probably be related to care of the turf in certain parks, where 8 the scope of work for the previous contractor was lower. We also buttressed up the 9 mandated number of staff. They have to have 16 FTE, where in the previous contract it 10 was a little more nebulous, and they would slip below that threshold on occasion. My 11 anticipation is the quality will improve. The scope has grown slightly. I think we'll get 12 better service. 13 Commissioner McCauley: You just mentioned one of the things that I think is very 14 important, the turf management component. In some of our parks where I think there's 15 adequate irrigation, as you get through the summer turf wears. It's in rough shape by this 16 time of year. That's excellent. Last question is really a request perhaps. Some of our 17 parks get very heavily used on weekends, and they have large accumulations of garbage 18 such that garbage is overflowing. I think they get emptied at some point on Sunday 19 mornings, but oftentimes when you walk through a park on Saturday evening there's a lot 20 of trash. I wonder whether seasonally it would be possible to have a sweep of the heavily 21 used parks to try and clean that up a little bit. 22 Mr. Anderson: I think that's a good request. It's something we've tried to address. I'll 23 give you a couple of examples. Probably Magical Bridge is the most poignant where no 24 matter what we did, how many trash cans we added, or how many extra services, we 25 could not keep up with the production of trash. We're still kind of managing that, but it's 26 something we haven't solved yet. 27 Chair McDougall: Commissioner Cribbs. 28 Commissioner Cribbs: Thank you. About the trash. A long time ago we talked about 29 making a garbage bag or two available on the weekends—is that a possibility still—to 30 people because people are really good about picking up their trash if the garbage cans 31 aren't overflowing. If they're overflowing, the tendency is to say "it's already 32 overflowing, nobody cares, I'm just going to do the same thing." I would love to explore 33 that. Have we as a City looked at the new garbage cans that are solar powered, that 34 actually have a lid that the seagulls can't get into, and that compact the trash? You could 35 put lots more trash in them. 36 DRAFT Draft Minutes 7 Mr. Anderson: Good question. First of all, let me address the bag idea. In certain areas 1 we've done it. When I managed the Baylands as a ranger we did leave extra bags out 2 really for litter getter folks that wanted to go around and collect loose trash, but not 3 necessarily leave them around a picnic area or the duck pond. We didn't do that and 4 haven't explored that as much. I think the opportunity to reevaluate our entire debris, 5 recycling, composting, and trash collection is now because we've got that new law that 6 says you have to have those threesome containers, no longer isolated single trash or 7 recycling or composting. It has to be the three. It's a good time, and we're looking at it 8 right now. I think the plan will be probably to pilot Rinconada Park. This is partially led 9 through our Zero Waste Program, which is through Public Works in combination with us. 10 Once I know more about what that pilot will look like, I'll bring it to you via Department 11 Report probably. If you have an ad hoc that you want to learn more about it, you're 12 welcome to work with staff. I think that would be a good place. The last question you 13 asked was about compacting trash. We did look at a special service; it wasn't solar 14 powered. This was about 2 or 3 years ago. It was a much deeper trash can that you'd 15 have to remove with heavy equipment. In isolated areas we thought it might work. 16 Imagine a very deep and robust, heavy bag that you could reuse. It goes under the 17 ground maybe 6 deeper feet so you could—in theory it wouldn't overflow. You'd have 18 room for maybe a full week of trash in that one container. It was expensive because you 19 had to have special equipment that we wouldn't have. It would be a contractor. They 20 would need access to those areas. On the periphery of some parks, it seemed to maybe 21 make sense, but not enough to justify us jumping into that yet. We said at the time that 22 we'd monitor to see what other Bay Area municipalities were experimenting with that and 23 do tours to see how it was working and where. So far, we're sticking especially with this 24 new change of Zero Waste policy and those three trash containers. 25 Commissioner Cribbs: Thank you. The last question is does the new company who's 26 doing our garbage in the park or our maintenance in the park have something like a 27 sustainability officer or somebody who looks out for sustainability as part of the contract. 28 Mr. Anderson: That is mainly handled through our partnership and relationship with 29 GreenWaste. They're the real processors of that. Whereas, BrightView is really moving 30 it from one place into a central area where it gets picked up by GreenWaste. 31 Commissioner Cribbs: Thank you. 32 Chair McDougall: Vice Chair Greenfield. 33 Vice Chair Greenfield: Back to trash. I'm struck by the image of consistently 34 overflowing bins, particularly in an area like the Magical Bridge. I'm wondering if 35 there's some sort of educational opportunity here, some way of encouraging people to 36 create less trash as part of the process of reducing the trash problem. I don't have any 37 specific ideas, just a concept to throw out there to think about. 38 DRAFT Draft Minutes 8 Mr. Anderson: It is an interesting one. You're right. In cases like that, you really have to 1 come up with another methodology because adding more trash cans is not the solution. 2 Either you're exploring a pack-it-in-pack-it-out—that kind of thing has to be integrated. 3 The other piece we did implement is at Foothills Park. A good example that may work at 4 other places like the Magical Bridge or even other parks is Orchard Glen picnic area at 5 Foothills Park has several picnic tables in there. Each one had a trash can next to it. We 6 changed that because even though we had the right lids that prevented or tried to prevent 7 wildlife from getting in there it didn't stop them. They would chew holes in it or the 8 ravens would lift the lids off and find a way. Debris would spread everywhere. In the 9 mornings, we'd find trash all over the place. What we did was get rid of all those 10 individual trash cans, put three bins in the parking lot next to it so everyone had to relearn 11 or train themselves to carry their trash from your picnic area to where you parked and 12 dump it in the big trash containers as opposed to a trash can. It's been very successful. 13 Vice Chair Greenfield: I agree. I've experienced the walk to those trash cans myself 14 when occasionally dining in that area with a group. It worked quite well. I think what 15 you're alluding to is really we're looking for ideas on how we can change behavior. It's 16 not a short path, but it's a worthy one. 17 Mr. Anderson: I think so. 18 Chair McDougall: Are there any other comments? I will make one more semi-trash. 19 The artwork which is a collection of twigs and whatnot, do we have a good collection of 20 people, are we well volunteered for that, or how is that going? 21 Mr. Anderson: I need to check in with the art team, Elise DeMarzo one more time to see 22 where we're at. I've been hearing good things, and people have been calling me to say 23 "how can I sign up," and I direct them to Brittany Amante, who's doing the organization. 24 I don't know if you've heard, but it's already started. We've got the skeleton framework 25 already there, which is great. I'm confident we'll get a successful structure built in these 26 next 4 volunteer days that are planned. 27 Chair McDougall: I really hope so. I was at a meeting last night where somebody was 28 appealing to the group to go to Palo Alto to help with this because they're short of people 29 on Thursday morning or whatever. I would encourage even now you might start thinking 30 about alternative days that go after that so that you're not scrambling after the fact. It'd be 31 worth checking and know if you have a contingency plan. 32 Mr. Anderson: Will do. 33 Chair McDougall: I hope all the Commission members are planning on being out there. 34 DRAFT Draft Minutes 9 Commissioner McCauley: I had one sort of unrelated question. I don't know if it falls 1 under Department Report or not. Last month you presented a bunch of numbers for us, 2 budget and revenue numbers. Don, you were going to work with Kristen and others. 3 Chair McDougall: I met with Jazmin and Kristen, and we've created some good 4 questions and some structure. We decided that considering the agenda tonight we would 5 bring them back next time. They weren't particularly time critical. In order to provide a 6 better structure and understanding, we're going to bring that back to the next meeting. 7 With completion of the Department Report, we'll move onto the next item. 8 V. BUSINESS 9 1. Approval of Draft Minutes from the July 24, 2018 Parks and Recreation 10 Commission meeting. 11 Approval of the draft July 24, 2018 Minutes was moved by Commissioner Reckdahl and 12 seconded by Commissioner Cribbs. Passed 7-0. 13 2. Recommend to Council Approval of Revisions to City of Palo Alto Field and 14 Tennis Court Use Policy to Include Addition of Pickleball to Policy 15 Chair McDougall: The next item on the agenda is the recommendation to Council for 16 approval of revisions to the Field and Tennis Court Use Policy. So that everybody 17 understands the process we will use, we will have the staff report and staff 18 recommendations, then we will have public comment, then we will have questions across 19 the Commission in a first round. In a second round, we'll have comments. Hopefully we 20 can move to a motion from that. Relative to the public comments, I have between 20 and 21 25 cards here. I assume I have all the cards that are going to be submitted. If you have a 22 card that's not submitted, if you want to just hand it to me right now, then I've got it. 23 There are 25 cards. At 2 minutes a piece, that'll take us about an hour. I'm going to, 24 number one, strictly limit it to 2 minutes. I don't mean to be rude if I tell somebody there 25 time's up, but I'm going to limit it to 2 minutes. I'm going to encourage that it's probably 26 more effective if you're shorter than 2 minutes. With that, I'll turn it over to Adam for the 27 staff report. 28 Adam Howard: Good evening. Adam Howard, Senior Community Services Manager for 29 the City of Palo Alto. Thank you for having me here tonight. I am here and asking the 30 Commission to send forward policy suggestions to the Field and Tennis Court Use Policy 31 to include pickleball. A little bit of background. The City of Palo Alto of has seen 32 increased pickleball players and requests for pickleball space. The Silicon Valley 33 Pickleball Club has been very active in Palo Alto, currently using Mitchell Parks courts 5, 34 6, and 7 on a first-come-first-serve basis. That play is actually not supported by our 35 current policy, which is very strict to tennis courts. Mitchell Park courts 5, 6, and 7 36 DRAFT Draft Minutes 10 weren't heavily reserved but were heavy for drop-in use and are the only lit courts in 1 south Palo Alto. Recently, Silicon Valley Pickleball received a Proclamation from the 2 City Council recognizing pickleball as the fastest growing sport with 2.5 million 3 participants. Palo Alto also hosts the senior game pickleball matches. Basically, we're 4 seeing a lot more pickleball interest in Palo Alto. With the increased demand, the Parks 5 Department and the Rec Commission began looking into available space for pickleball 6 use. We originally proposed converting those three courts, 5, 6, and 7 at Mitchell Park, 7 into pickleball courts. That was met with heavy resistance from the tennis community, 8 specifically around the idea of losing lit courts and preferring to keep the courts joint use. 9 As we continue to gather information and look at additional proposals, we think it's 10 important to send forth the policy changes to allow some designated times for pickleball, 11 to allow them tournament times, really allow pickleball some areas to grow here at 12 Mitchell Park, and really see how evening play, weekend play is adapted with the new 13 policy. Staff understands that ultimately we need designated pickleball courts, so this is 14 not what we consider the end solution but something to legitimize what is happening on 15 our courts and give a little bit of room for growth within the policy. We're dedicated to 16 revisiting the policy in 6 months or less to see how things are working, see if we have 17 further solutions that would be more permanent. The primary policy changes are up on 18 the screen. This is a summary of the changes that we're recommending. The first one is 19 around court usage. Currently the policy is very specific. It only allows for tennis. What 20 we're allowing is a change in language for more flexibility to call these courts rather than 21 just tennis courts. We don't know what sports are coming, so we don't want to 22 pigeonhole ourselves into one sport on these spaces. We're allowing more flexibility. 23 We are designating priority hours on Mitchell Park courts 5, 6, and 7 for both pickleball 24 and tennis. We're allowing some drop-in time, nonpriority use for first-come-first-serve 25 use. The priority times that we're suggesting for tennis would be 4:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. 26 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. 27 Pickleball priority would be 4:00 to 10:00 Mondays and Wednesdays and 8:00 a.m. to 28 2:00 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. Any time not listed, the courts are available for 29 first-come-first-serve use. We also are looking at court reservations and tournaments. 30 Currently, reservations are only made for USTA match play. The Palo Alto Tennis Club 31 has weekend mornings and some tournament play. The changes that we're 32 recommending is allowing pickleball reservations with residency requirements and 33 allowing the Department to run large events like the senior games. That's something that 34 actually is a practice that we're doing, but we want it written into the policy so we have a 35 policy that supports us for large-scale special events, for senior games specifically. We 36 do it for tennis and pickleball, but we want to have the ability to do that. Also, only 50 37 percent of the courts can be reserved for USTA match play. We're not changing that 38 policy, but we really want to be very specific especially when there are odd numbers of 39 courts that we're renting the lower. If there are nine courts, there were times we'd rent 40 five and leave four available. We're going to be very specific that we'll rent four and 41 leave five available. That's not a change in the policy as much as it is just staff 42 DRAFT Draft Minutes 11 commitment to following the rule. Next steps. If approved, we will bring the revised 1 policy to City Council. Although we think this is an important step, we know it's only the 2 first step. We're going to continue to investigate additional space for dedicated pickleball 3 courts. We want to examine tennis court fees compared to our neighboring cities to see if 4 our charges compare to others. We want to look at the process for USTA rentals and 5 residency specifically. Those two things are really to make sure that our residents have 6 the most opportunity to get on our courts. We want to look at additional lit courts, which 7 have their own concerns. We want to look at all the available options. There are two 8 courts considered paddleball courts in Mitchell Park, and they're primarily used for 9 pickleball. We want to restripe and make them designated. Those are two courts that are 10 pretty small and basically used for pickleball now, but we want to investigate the use. If 11 we feel that is what it's being used for, we would just restripe and make those two courts 12 pickleball courts as well. That's it for the staff report. 13 Vice Chair Greenfield: Excuse me, Adam. Is it two courts or one court? 14 Mr. Howard: The pickleball courts are currently two courts. 15 Vice Chair Greenfield: The paddleball? 16 Mr. Howard. Sorry. Yeah, the paddleball courts are two pickleball courts. 17 Vice Chair Greenfield: It's currently one paddle tennis court, but it could be converted 18 (crosstalk). 19 Mr. Howard: It could be two paddleball courts too. They're roughly the same size and 20 dimensions. It's the size of the net that would need to change. 21 Chair McDougall: With that, I'm going to go through the public comments. Again, I'm 22 going to go through them in the order that they were handed to me. I'm going to limit the 23 conversation to 2 minutes and encourage 1 minute. As you come up, please state your 24 name and your city of residency please. Kay Carey. 25 Kay Carey: Good evening. I'm Kay Carey, a Palo Alto resident, and I'm also a past 26 president of the Palo Alto Tennis Club. I first of all appreciate the hard work that's gone 27 into this by City staff trying to work out an arrangement for shared usage of the Mitchell 28 Park courts. The effort is really appreciated. I really appreciate also the spirit of mixed 29 use and keeping the three lit courts available for both tennis and pickleball. I think there 30 maybe should be some clarification to the usage rules so that players would understand 31 when they're allowed to use the courts and when they have to give way to the other racket 32 sport. I also think there needs to be clarification if a pickleball is being used, do they 33 have to use up one court before they can use a second court, so that you're not spread out 34 with maybe six pickleball players on the three tennis courts. Some consideration of the 35 DRAFT Draft Minutes 12 actual rules and maybe comments from both pickleball players and tennis players might 1 be of assistance. It would be interesting if you looked into facilities like SCRA where 2 they have mixed use, and their pickleball courts are a lot less confusing because of the 3 way they're painted in a light blue tone. Exploring some of those ideas would be useful 4 to do. I did want to say thank you for looking at this with fresh eyes and preserving the 5 ability to have lit courts. Do keep in the back of your mind that the Cubberley court 6 should also be lit for tennis. Thank you. 7 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Runlong Zhou to be followed by Robin Cook. 8 Runlong Zhou: Hi. My name is Runlong Zhou. I'm a resident of Palo Alto. I want to 9 give some opinion about the proposal. First of all, thanks for all the effort of sharing the 10 resource. That's definitely something we all support. In the meantime, I want to point 11 out that we have about 12,000 kids, and those kids use the tennis court quite a bit. The 12 resource currently we have is already very limited. Most of them actually using the court 13 after the school and maybe in the evening as well. Some of the kids ride bike to come to 14 the courts. Given the propose 2 day or even 3 days of the weekday, if we don't allow 15 those kids to play locally, I would worry that they would probably have to ride their bike 16 much further away, which can cause traffic, which can cause safety concerns. I would 17 like to see that when we make this proposal probably we want to share the tennis resource 18 with the pickleball community at the school time when our kids are in school and that 19 they don't necessarily use the court quite a lot. When the school is off, I think our kids 20 more often will be using the tennis courts quite a lot. We don't want to create that 21 concern and the traffic concern, especially the parent concern of their kids. That change 22 probably need to be considered about how our kids will be impacted because of this 23 policy. 24 Chair McDougall: Thank you, Mr. Zhou. Robin Cook. Dave Charney [phonetic]. 25 Dave Charney: I'm Dave Charney, a member of the Palo Alto Pickleball Club. I just 26 want to say I support the work you're doing on changing the policy to formally bring 27 pickleball players onto the courts. What you've written is great. 28 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Sam McConnell. Susan McConnell; I'm sorry. 29 Susan McConnell: Hi. My name is Susan McConnell. I'm a member of the Palo Alto 30 Pickleball Club. We are in the process of changing our name, because we think it's more 31 appropriate and our membership of Palo Alto residents has increased dramatically, from 32 Silicon Valley Pickleball Club to Palo Alto Pickleball Club. I've been a resident of Palo 33 Alto for 45 years. I would like to thank the Park and Rec Department and particularly 34 Adam for his dedication in bringing this new policy. Previously, pickleball had no 35 policy. You may not realize that we have almost 150 members who live in Palo Alto. 36 This number will continue to increase due to the pickleball classes taught by Monica 37 DRAFT Draft Minutes 13 Williams through the Palo Alto Rec Department. Our total membership as of June 2018 1 was 358; slightly more than 40 percent of our membership consists of Palo Alto 2 residents. The membership of the Palo Alto Tennis Club is declining. We believe that 3 we now have many more Palo Alto residents in our club, and we keep growing. Thank 4 you. 5 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Ann Lemmenes [phonetic] followed by Sam Friedman. 6 Ann Lemmenes: Hi. My name is Ann Lemmenes, and I'm a member of the Palo Alto 7 Pickleball Club and a resident of Palo Alto for 20-plus years. My husband was born and 8 raised here. I'm formerly a tennis player and now a converted pickleball player. I'd like 9 to thank the Palo Alto Parks and Rec Department and particularly Adam Howard for his 10 dedication in bringing us this new policy. It's certainly preferable to the current policy 11 which does not address pickleball at all. You might be interested to know that tennis 12 clubs throughout the country are coping with their declining memberships by starting 13 pickleball programs. Locally, the University Club, Los Altos Golf and Country Club, 14 Fremont Hills, Sunnyvale Tennis Center, and Alamaden Valley Athletic Club have 15 embraced pickleball. The iconic Bobby Riggs Club in San Diego turned towards 16 pickleball 2 years ago and now has more pickleball players than tennis players and is 17 enjoying a new source of revenue. On a personal note, I find it interesting that when I 18 visit my sister in Wisconsin, there are multiple dedicated pickleball courts. She's out in 19 the country, but multiple venues within a 20-minute radius from her rural home. I just 20 think it would be really helpful to achieve at least one dedicated pickleball venue here in 21 Palo Alto. Thank you. 22 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Sam Friedman followed by Rich Pearson. 23 Sam Friedman: Good evening. My name is Sam Friedman. I'm a member of the Palo 24 Alto Pickleball Club and a resident of Palo Alto since 1972. I would like to thank the 25 Parks and Recreation Department for this new policy. Please note we have between 40 26 and 80 people using three courts 7 days a week. On many days, newly resurfaced tennis 27 courts 1-4 are empty while courts 5-7 are full of pickleball players. Pickleball has 28 exploded in popularity, and Palo Alto needs to expand and modify its sports facilities to 29 meet this need. Anyone who has been playing this game for more than a month will tell 30 you pickleball is not a fad. I thank you and ask for serious consideration of establishing 31 dedicated pickleball courts in Palo Alto in the near future. 32 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Rich Pearson followed by Lori Michael. 33 Rich Pearson: Hi. My name is Rich Pearson, and I'm a member of the Palo Alto 34 Pickleball Club. I'm a resident of Palo Alto and have been for the last 12 years. I would 35 like to thank the Parks and Recreation Department and Adam Howard especially for your 36 hard work on this policy. It's an improvement over the current policy. Having said that, 37 DRAFT Draft Minutes 14 we really need permanent courts. Earlier this year, I understood that funds had been 1 earmarked for a pickleball court conversion project at Mitchell Park. Now, I've learned 2 that the courts will only be resurfaced at this time. As a Palo Alto taxpayer, this is very 3 concerning to me. Why can't we do it all at once? If we can't convert all three courts, 4 can we convert at least one? It sounds like a waste of money to me to do it in two steps. 5 Also, what steps can we take to get the court conversion project back on the agenda? It 6 feels like we've lost momentum, and I really want to get it back. Thank you. 7 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Lori Michael followed by Susan Kearney. 8 Lori Michelle [phonetic]: Hello. My name is Lori Michelle. I'm a resident of Palo Alto 9 and a member of the Palo Alto Pickleball Association. I'd like to thank the Palo Alto 10 Parks and Recreation Department for considering this policy change. In particular, thank 11 you to Adam Howard. It's certainly preferable to the current policy, which really doesn't 12 address pickleball at all. It may not take into account that published numbers state that 13 Palo Alto has over 51,000 residents and 12,000 are seniors. A large percentage of our 14 club in general is seniors. This is because it's an easy game to learn, the games are short, 15 and there's a lot of socializing. This socializing is the magic that has brought many of 16 these folks to this room today. Pickleball brings us together, keeps us physically active, 17 and it's fun. We would love it if we could get more permanent courts in the future. 18 Thank you for the progress to date. 19 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Susan Kearney followed by Jerry Krumbein. 20 Susan Kearney: Good evening. I'm Susan Kearney. I'm a member of the Palo Alto 21 Pickleball Club. I want to thank Parks and Rec, especially Adam Howard, for his effort 22 on this policy. I support the change in policy. It's a big improvement. Essentially, I 23 think it's a very good first step. I'm also grateful to Palo Alto's leadership and vision 24 regarding this relatively new and growing sport. I was able to travel around a little bit 25 this summer and was able to play pickleball in Hawaii and San Francisco and Lake 26 Tahoe. Nobody that I saw has the membership and the enthusiasm and the number of 27 people playing that we do here. I hope we can continue to grow the organization. Thank 28 you. 29 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Jerry followed by Linda Lettes [phonetic]. 30 Jerry Krumbein: That's Jerry Krumbein by the way. Like all the speakers before me, I 31 too am a member of the Palo Alto Pickleball Club and a Palo Alto resident for the last 50 32 years. Reinforcing what others have said, thank you to the Commission and to Adam for 33 what you've done in looking at this policy. Palo Alto has 45 tennis courts and no 34 pickleball courts that are dedicated. Obviously, to everybody here it's something we 35 would all like you to do. We know you're talking about resurfacing the courts at Mitchell 36 Park. That would obviously be a time to put in a dedicated court, at least on court 5. 37 DRAFT Draft Minutes 15 However, you could dedicate that court now just like that. I noticed several weeks ago 1 when I walked in two people were playing tennis on that court and 20 people were 2 standing around waiting for them to finish. That's not real neighborly, and it's a potential 3 cause of contention that I know nobody would like to see. I know you've been talking 4 about creating a dedicated court and building something new, but that's in the future. 5 We'd love you to do something now. Whatever it costs, if it goes above the budget that 6 you think is reasonable, I know the Palo Alto Pickleball Club will be glad to help create a 7 partnership that will be a win-win for everybody. Give it some thought. We're all going 8 to be there tomorrow. We hope that maybe there will be a place for us to do it. Thank 9 you very much. 10 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Linda Lettes followed by Thomas Foladare. 11 Linda Lettes: My name is Linda Lettes. I'm a member of the Palo Alto Pickleball Club, 12 and I'm a resident of Palo Alto. I moved here in 1964. I want to thank you all for this 13 updated court policy. I'm also here because I wanted to let you know how much fun I am 14 having playing pickleball with everybody here. I also wanted to let you know that when I 15 was growing up the tennis courts were always full. If I was going to go play tennis, 16 which I loved doing, I knew I'd have to wait about an hour for a court to open up. That 17 was just part of the experience. In the number of decades since then, I've noticed that the 18 tennis courts are never full any more and often completely empty. It used to make me 19 sad, as my daughter will tell you—I've told her a thousand times—the courts used to be 20 vibrant. The good news is that over at Mitchell Park the pickleball courts have come 21 alive again. It's because everyday there are pickleball players filling up the courts. For 22 years now, there has been room for something like pickleball. Now that there's so much 23 interest in the sport, I urge you to dedicate some of those courts over at Mitchell Park to 24 pickleball. Just that comment about—I didn't quite understand, but I thought you said 25 there were only lit courts at Mitchell Park. There are lit courts at Rinconada too. We just 26 looked it up, and the drive between those two parks is just 6 minutes. Thank you very 27 much. 28 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Thomas followed by Jamie Pearson [phonetic]. 29 Thomas Foladare: My name's Tom Foladare. I am the founder of pickleball at Mitchell 30 Park. I did that in 2014. I want to thank the Commission for all the work that they've 31 done in the last 2 years. I want to thank Adam for allowing me to abuse him for the last 4 32 years. The policy that is being presented tonight is actually pretty good, but I'm not sure 33 it takes into account the growth of pickleball as it stands today. In 2014 when we 34 founded the game, there were about 7,000 paddles being sold in the United States per 35 month. Right now there are 32,000 paddles being sold per month, so the growth is 36 starting to hit a hyper-growth stage. Indian Wells Tennis Center, which is the premier 37 tennis center in California, has just signed an agreement to hold the national 38 DRAFT Draft Minutes 16 championships for pickleball for the next 5 years. They have 2,000 players playing this 1 year, and the registrations were done in about 15 minutes. The local tournament, the 2 senior games, which I'm the tournament director, is growing 50 percent year over year. 3 This year we had 200 members. I wanted to also talk about the scale of tournaments. 4 The City of Naples in Florida this year is claiming that they will bring $6 million into 5 their economy because of their pickleball facilities. 6 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Jamie Pearson followed by Marlene Kawahara 7 [phonetic]. 8 Jamie Pearson: Hi everybody. My name is Jamie Pearson. I'm a member of the Palo 9 Alto Pickleball Club. I have lived in Palo Alto, where I own a home and pay taxes, for 10 12 years. Like everyone else, I want to thank the Parks and Rec Department for all the 11 hard work you've done and for recognizing pickleball and carving out a space for us at 12 Mitchell Park. It means a lot. The policy is a great improvement. Having said that, we 13 really need permanent courts, and we need them sooner rather than later. Many of you 14 probably don't know what it takes to set up our portable nets, so let me tell you what 15 that's like. Every single time we want to play, we lug bags of nets to the courts. They 16 weigh 25 pounds; they contain 12 pieces of steel tubing that we have to organize and 17 assemble as well as nets that need to be unrolled, installed, and tightened. It's time 18 consuming. It's a multi-person job and has kind of a steep learning curve. When we're 19 done playing, it all has to be taken down, re-bagged, lugged away, and stored. This is 20 why I'm asking the City for permanent pickleball courts. I honestly think it's only fair 21 that the City provide facilities equal to those that are provided to the tennis community. 22 If the tennis players had to set up and take down their courts every single time they 23 played, they'd play a whole lot less tennis. None of us is getting any younger. We'd love 24 to see this happen sooner rather than later. Thank you. 25 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Marlene followed by Barrie O'Donnell. 26 Marlene Kawahara: Marlene Kawahara. I've been a resident of Palo Alto for 25 years. I 27 just started playing pickleball about a month ago. I found out about it from a friend in 28 Marin. The community is so welcoming and so gracious with their time in teaching me 29 to how play. It's a lot of fun. I get a lot of sweat when I play. I encourage you to set up 30 some permanent courts for us. Thank you. 31 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Dave Winters followed by—pardon me. Barrie 32 O'Donnell followed by Dave Winters. 33 Barrie O'Donnell: Hi. My name's Barrie O'Donnell. I'm a Palo Alto resident and have 34 been living here in Palo Alto for 11 years. My son's at Gunn. I've been exposed to sports 35 my whole life, coached little league right here in Palo Alto. Like everyone else here, I 36 thank all of you for taking up this issue and appreciate all the work you've done. I think 37 DRAFT Draft Minutes 17 you're moving things in the right direction. Having said that, I still think the City can do 1 better. As others have said, the demand for this sport is huge. It's a life-changing type of 2 sport, addresses all kinds of demographic groups. This policy is a good first step and 3 should be taken, but I can guarantee very quickly we should be moving on to dedicated 4 courts. One of the things Jamie did not mention, the last speaker, was there's also a first 5 step to setting up these courts. Believe it or not, you have to have a combination to a lock 6 on a metal box to even get to the nets to set up pickleball. Imagine for a minute that you 7 want to play this sport, how difficult it would be and the kind of barriers that are already 8 in place for playing this sport here in the City. Yet, we still have hundreds of people 9 coming out to do it. I'd just ask you to maybe raise the bar even a little higher, take this 10 important first step. It will make a big difference, and it'll help us measure a lot of things 11 we need to measure. Be ready that we'll be coming back and pushing as hard as we can 12 for the dedicated courts that are going to help so many residents. Thank you. 13 Chair McDougall: Dave Winters followed by Peter Diepenbrock. I would just remind—14 when I say followed by, if that person could be getting ready. Dave. 15 Dave Winters: Hi. My name's Dave Winters. I'm actually a resident of Saratoga, but my 16 son works at Palantir. I hope that helps a little bit. I just wanted to thank the Parks and 17 Rec for the change in policy. I think it's going to really help. I'm a member of the Palo 18 Alto Pickleball Club and use the courts quite regularly. I just wanted to make sure you 19 guys are aware of the differences between pickleball and other sports in how it's played. 20 I liken it to pick-up basketball where you can just show up, and there's a community of 21 players there. Each game is only 15 minutes. I play with some people; I play with some 22 others, some different skill levels. It's a lot of fun, and I get a lot of exercise. I've lost 30 23 pounds since I started playing about 4 years ago. The dynamic of the game and the way 24 it's played—it's short games, and you switch players. It builds a community, and that's 25 what we have here in Palo Alto. I'd like to reinforce that. We've got good growth here 26 and a good spot at Mitchell Park. We've taken a first step in moving that forward. 27 Thanks for your time. 28 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Peter will be followed by Janet Diepenbrock. 29 Peter Diepenbrock: Hello. My name is Peter Diepenbrock, and I'm a member of the Palo 30 Alto Pickleball Club. I'd like to thank all of you for considering this new policy. Thank 31 you very much, Adam, for your work on this. We also started a youth class this summer, 32 that was very successful in Palo Alto. Palo Alto and pickleball can really be a great sport 33 for all types of athletes. I'm in a little bit of a unique position having taught the youth of 34 Palo Alto at Palo Alto High School for the last 22 years, having taught tennis and 35 pickleball. It's incredible to me the change of the last 22 years as far as how popular 36 pickleball has become. The other thing that should be pointed out that pickleball is 37 unique is that in today's culture and youth with all the club sports going on and the 38 DRAFT Draft Minutes 18 amount of hours kids put in to specialize in certain sports before they even get to high 1 school, a lot of high school athletics is predetermined before they set their foot on Palo 2 Alto High School campus. Pickleball has been a great sport for kids that don't have a 3 sport by the time they get to high school. They're able to pick it up fairly quickly in class. 4 It's really, really been growing in popularity over the years. Like has been said, tennis is 5 definitely not nearly as popular in the last 5-10 years. The other thing that should be 6 pointed out also, when you go by these courts, is tennis players to every court there's two 7 obviously, maybe four players at the absolute most. Every time there's pickleball players 8 playing, there's 16 players on every tennis court. Those are the points I'd like to make. 9 Thank you very much. 10 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Janet will be followed by Monica Williams. 11 Janet Diepenbrock: Hi. My pickleball name is JD Diepenbrock. I'm a member of the 12 Palo Alto Pickleball Club and a resident of Menlo Park. I would like to thank the Palo 13 Alto Parks Rec Department and particularly Adam Howard for your dedication in 14 bringing us this policy. Thank you. 15 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Monica will be followed by Ed Anderson. 16 Monica Williams: Good evening, Chair McDougall and Commission. I'm Monica 17 Williams with the Palo Alto Pickleball Club. I'm representing all the Palo Alto 18 pickleball-playing families that couldn't be here tonight because of back to school night. 19 We want to thank Adam, of course, for working so hard on this court policy update and 20 the Commission for all the work that you have done. We want to allow us—and for 21 allowing us to reserve the courts. However, this does not address the necessity for 22 permanent pickleball courts. When we first appealed to you to update the court policy, 23 we only had 80 members in our club. You can figure that out, how many we have now. 24 We'd like to know when can we expect to play on dedicated courts. Despite the recent 25 heavy recreational use of the courts by Palo Alto residents playing pickleball, the City 26 has been able to delay and avoid taking any action to facilitate that play because of the 27 initiative and private funding from volunteers who provide nets and equipment as well as 28 free instruction. We need permanent pickleball courts. Because pickleball is a noisy 29 sport, we are limited as to where we can play. Mitchell Park is the only facility in Palo 30 Alto where we can play and that does not have residences within earshot. Tennis players 31 have a choice of 45 tennis courts, but we have none. If you can look at Mitchell Park and 32 take the facility that's already there, we don't need to build any more courts right now. 33 Just take what's there, resurface the courts, put permanent nets on court 5, multiuse line 34 all the others, and everybody will be happy. Please listen to Palo Alto taxpayers. In 35 respect to your time, not everyone here will take time to speak. May I ask all Palo Alto 36 pickleball-playing, taxpaying voters to stand up so that you didn't have to speak, and it 37 DRAFT Draft Minutes 19 saved a lot of time? Thank you, Commission. Please come and play pickleball with us 1 sometime. 2 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Ed Anderson followed by Kathy Danaher. 3 Ed Anderson: Hello. My name is Ed Anderson. I'm a Palo Alto resident and member of 4 the Palo Alto Pickleball Club. I thank the Commission for developing this detailed 5 proposal. I also have to say that this club has been one of the most welcoming and 6 enjoyable communities that I've been a member of in a long time. I'm really enjoying it. 7 I'm also a tennis player and understand the frustration of arriving at the courts and finding 8 them co-opted by a few dozen pickleball players. This is a good short-term solution, and 9 I'm definitely in favor of this new policy. Considering the national growth in this game 10 and also the local growth, I would like to urge the Commission to consider creating a few 11 dedicated pickleball courts. Thank you. 12 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Kathy followed by Anne Savage. 13 Kathy Danaher: My name is Kathy Danaher, and I live in Los Altos but only 10 minutes 14 away from Mitchell Park. It has been a life-changing experience to be involved in this 15 sport. You've heard it all tonight. Thank you to Adam and all of you for listening to us. 16 The fact that we can perhaps get reservations is good, and courts would be even better, 17 even really better. 18 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Anne Savage followed by Kathy Levinson. 19 Anne Savage: Hi. My name is Anne Savage; I live in Redwood City. I just really would 20 like to second everything people have said already. It's a fantastic game, and we really 21 need courts. Thank you. 22 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Jerry Fan [phonetic]. 23 Kathy Levinson: My name is Kathy Levinson. I've been a Palo Alto resident for more 24 than 40 years. I guess I was a resident before I was born. I'm a tennis player, a 25 racquetball player, and a pickleball player. I want to thank you all for your work on this 26 effort, and specifically for Adam to suggest the changes to the court reservation policy. I 27 want to acknowledge that what it basically does is give pickleball an opportunity to have 28 priority during certain times on three of the City's 45 tennis courts. I want to also make it 29 clear that, yes, courts 5-7 are lit in Mitchell but so are 1-4. We are unable to use courts 1-30 4 because they're not lined for pickleball. Courts 1-4 are right next to the paddle tennis 31 courts that Adam mentioned, but we can't use them. The paddle tennis courts in addition 32 to being restriped actually need modification because they're dangerous to play on. I just 33 wanted that to be clear as well. While I appreciate the change in policy, it's still falling 34 short of the national trends in terms of creating accessibility for pickleball play, as you've 35 DRAFT Draft Minutes 20 heard from everybody who spoke tonight. So far, I think the City has been able to defer 1 installing dedicated pickleball courts but still have so much recreational use because of 2 the willingness by and private funding from volunteers like myself who provide nets, 3 who provide equipment, and who provide instruction all without any recompense from 4 the City. Historically, the Parks and Recreation Commission and the City of Palo Alto 5 have partnered with nonprofit friends groups to install public improvements. As such, 6 our Palo Alto Pickleball Club is prepared to make up the balance of the cost to convert a 7 single tennis court, specifically court number 5, into four dedicated courts should such 8 cost exceed the City's already earmarked funds for resurfacing courts 5, 6, and 7, which 9 we understand to be imminent. This is the type of public and private partnership that can 10 produce a win-win for the City and for the public. Truly park resources should be in 11 alignment with the community's needs. Continuing the same level of support for a sport, 12 tennis, that has flatlined if not declined locally as well as nationally over the past decade 13 is not being responsive to the community's interests. Thank you. 14 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Jerry Fan. 15 Jerry Fan: Hi. My name's Jerry Fan. I'm in Palo Alto for 10 years, paying tax for 10 16 years for sure. Thank you very much for the effort. I definitely support the court share. 17 I'm an active tennis player, playing in Mitchell Park for 10 years. This week is U.S. 18 Open; right now is playing tennis. Here tennis is not popular. You look at a TV, you 19 look everywhere, U.S. Open underway in New York, one of the four Grand Slams. In 20 recent years, all of these Grand Slams have been lack of U.S. citizens to win it, 21 (inaudible) like 10 years ago. That (inaudible) a lot of awareness in the nation. One 22 example is hosting more tournament to (inaudible) more tennis players to compete in the 23 international level. Today in the evening here, we're talking about taking a court away. 24 If there's no court, how can we get our next generation to come up to compete in the 25 world? I support the sharing; it's a great thing. Just two things. First, after you guys play 26 the pickleball, please clean up your lines if that is possible. So many lines on the court is 27 confusing. Number two, the parking seem to cause some disturbance to kids' parents, so 28 please be careful for that. Thank you. 29 Chair McDougall: Thank you. Jenny Chin [phonetic]. 30 Jenny Chin: Hi. My name's Jenny Chin; I'm a Palo Alto resident since 1994. I've been 31 playing at Mitchell Park tennis courts since 1994. Although pickleball play is getting 32 popular, it's not to say that there's no demand for tennis. I think there's still a great 33 demand for tennis. The City should really look into building permanent pickleball courts 34 rather than taking courts away from the tennis players. You start with one child, and you 35 have a meal. You have another child. Are you going to only give the first child 50 36 percent? No, you should buy a second meal for the child. This is a similarity. I have to 37 stress that the lit courts are very important for south Palo Alto because Mitchell Park is 38 DRAFT Draft Minutes 21 the only lit courts in south Palo Alto. There is instruction on the main court, so the public 1 really doesn't have that many lit courts to use if the other ones are converted to pickleball. 2 I do have to say in Rinconada, even though they are lit courts, they are very crowded at 3 nights also because people do need those lit courts from north Palo Alto. There is still a 4 lot of demand for tennis because my son competes in junior tournaments. We would go 5 in the morning; I have to help him warm up to get prepared for his tournament. We 6 would go literally to Mitchell Park, and it's all full. We go to Cubberley, all full. We go 7 to Gunn, and luckily sometimes we can find a court. Sometimes we can't. If he cannot 8 find a court, we circle back to Mitchell Park, and he just warm up against the wall. That's 9 how he gets prepared for tournament. There's another location I like to point out. My 10 son plays tournaments at the Willow Glen Middle School sometimes. The school 11 actually has nine permanent pickleball courts. They were not converted from tennis. I 12 would say a lot of time they're empty. If there are some day senior tournaments on the 13 weekend, maybe it can be hosted there because it's not being heavily used. I'm there a lot 14 for my son's tennis tournament. I can see they're not really heavily used. Thank you. 15 Chair McDougall: Thank you. I have one card from Robin Cook. I want to make sure 16 that everybody has a chance to speak who has submitted a card. I don't remember that 17 that person spoke. Thank you all very much. I would like to thank the public for their 18 candid comments. I'd like to thank everyone for being brief and civil. I would like to 19 thank everyone for tolerating my destruction of many of their names. I appreciate the 20 tolerance of my mispronunciation. To be consistent with the appropriate approach, what 21 I'd like to do is go from left to right across here with questions to Adam in the first round, 22 and then we'll go to comments, and then we'll go to a motion. Commissioner McCauley. 23 Commissioner McCauley: Thanks. Adam, you've been thanked many times tonight. It's 24 well deserved I think. I will add my thanks as well. You've been very responsive to this 25 group who said "try and come up with some interim way to accommodate pickleball." I 26 think you've done a nice job. Well done. Why are we concentrating pickleball courts 27 only at Mitchell and not more broadly across other City courts? 28 Mr. Howard: Some of those reasons have been discussed. Location in terms of 29 residences around the courts in general in terms of noise. The other one is pickleball is a 30 very big social event, so there are a lot of people there. You need a lot of parking to be 31 available. It's just general use. Those courts were used because they weren't reserved as 32 much as the other courts. There's still a lot of public drop-in, but they weren't reserved as 33 much. 34 Commissioner McCauley: Several speakers mentioned the set up and take down of the 35 pickleball courts. Would it be possible to have one court where the default setup would 36 be the equipment stays up, and would that require any further action from this 37 Commission or the City Council if you wanted to make that possible? 38 DRAFT Draft Minutes 22 Mr. Howard: Ultimately, that would be the decision, to make those dedicated pickleball 1 courts. Unless you're saying "or tennis courts could go up or tennis nets." 2 Commissioner McCauley: As I understand it, presently the pickleball nets are not 3 permanent. There would be a potential issue around maintaining the security of those 4 nets. I don't know if that would be an issue or not. If it were possible perhaps to allow 5 the nets to stay up on one court, that might be an accommodation that is appreciated 6 without making it permanent necessarily. Is that possible? 7 Chair McDougall: Commissioner McCauley, could we stick to questions? I think you 8 got an answer. 9 Mr. Howard: If you left the nets up and made it available to someone who could put up 10 tennis court nets, that would be a possibility. As they said, it's really been up to a 11 committed group of people to do it. They've purchased the box that they store those nets 12 in. Could we reverse it on some courts? I believe we could. 13 Commissioner McCauley: I wanted to get your feedback on two possible amendments to 14 what you provided us in terms of the policy. The first is on paragraph 3, a general 15 question. Would it be beneficial to the staff to have this be a little bit more general, a 16 little bit more discretion in the staff? Presently, it's worded courts are available for 17 reservation for Palo Alto Tennis Club and USTA tournament match use only. It 18 continues that Mitchell Park courts 5, 6, 7 are available for reservation by pickleball 19 organizations. Are you with me? Would it be easier on staff, particularly as trends, 20 preferences, uses of the courts may change in the future, to say simply that—rather than 21 lining out specific organizations that can reserve them, to give staff more discretion? 22 Would that be helpful or is that … 23 Mr. Howard: Something around those lines is important. Even as they said it's not even 24 the Silicon Valley Pickleball Club. Somewhere more of an organizational verbiage 25 would be a good idea, so we're not selective to one. There could be other groups down 26 the road. 27 Commissioner McCauley: My second question is about the second sentence there, 28 Mitchell Park courts 5, 6, 7 are available for reservation by pickleball organizations but 29 only for approved tournaments. When we do have tournaments for pickleball, they can 30 reserve more than just courts 5, 6, 7, correct? Is that the intended … 31 Mr. Howard: Unless it's a special event like senior games. 32 Commissioner McCauley: I understand. It might require a slight clarification then. As it 33 reads now, it suggests that only 5, 6, and 7 would be able to be reserved for pickleball. 34 DRAFT Draft Minutes 23 Mr. Howard: For a normal typical weekend tournament, that's what we would reserve. 1 Commissioner McCauley: Understood for typical play. I think one of the folks who 2 plays tennis mentioned that it would be helpful to have something along the lines of a 3 statement that players should be mindful to keep as many courts available for use as 4 possible and that pickleball should be consolidated to fewer courts rather than all three if 5 there's not demand at that time for pickleball. Do you have any thoughts on that one? 6 Mr. Howard: I think that's correct. We would want to write that in, to be neighborly. 7 You fill one court before you spill onto another one. That's a good suggestion. 8 Commissioner LaMere: Adam, thanks for all of your hard work. Do we have any data or 9 information on the tennis usage of Rinconada Park versus Mitchell Park or is it all 10 anecdotal? I'm just curious about court usage. 11 Mr. Howard: The only data we have that we could compare would be only USTA rentals 12 because those are the only ones that make formal reservations through our system. We 13 could track those numbers. Off the top of my head, I know it's basically in terms of 14 USTA reservations, Rinconada, Cubberley, then Mitchell in terms of rank of use. That 15 does not in any way take into account drop-in play. 16 Commissioner LaMere: For a little history or color for me, how was it determined that 17 Mitchell Park became the pickleball playing area? Was that a decision by the Palo Alto 18 recreation staff or did it happen organically? I'm just curious. 19 Mr. Howard: It really was an organic thing. They saw available space and started to use 20 it. 21 Commissioner Moss: Same question but for Cubberley, how many reservations are there 22 for Cubberley? I live nearby, and there are very few people playing tennis at Cubberley 23 in the afternoons and the evenings. 24 Mr. Howard: I don't have the exact numbers. It's more weekend use at Cubberley than 25 afternoon use. 26 Commissioner Moss: Even on weekends, it seems like they're empty in the afternoons 27 and evenings. 28 Mr. Howard: They are most heavily used Saturday and Sunday mornings until like noon. 29 Commissioner Moss: Since land is so, so precious and I don't want to dig up athletic 30 fields to put in pickleball courts because that would be not good, how much would it cost 31 to light a tennis court? It looked like you have not including the school district about 30-32 some-odd courts, and 16 of them are lit. If we lit all the rest of the public courts so that 33 DRAFT Draft Minutes 24 the tennis players had that many more hours especially in the non-summer hours, how 1 much would that cost? Maybe somebody here would like to help fund that. 2 Mr. Howard: Just to light Cubberley's courts was $550,000. That's just six courts. 3 Commissioner Moss: How about renting lights? 4 Mr. Howard: I don't know. 5 Vice Chair Greenfield: I want to thank Adam for all of his hard work and pile on with 6 the "embarrass Adam club" for the evening. You've done very nice work. As a member 7 of the ad hoc working on this issue with Adam, I want to thank the community for all of 8 their input. I'd like the community to know that the ad hoc and staff has done a lot of 9 work on this. We appreciate the nuance that you brought up. It is a complex issue, but it 10 is something we're working to get resolution as quickly as we can. I do have a few 11 questions, one following up on the potential policy change to the neighborly plan to fill 12 up one tennis court with pickleball before moving to the next one. I support that. We 13 should have a similar policy that tennis players should look to fill up courts 1-4 before 14 moving to courts 5-7. Would you agree with that? 15 Mr. Howard: I would agree to that. There is the caveat that 1 and 2 are typically used for 16 training classes that are run through the City. There's a little bit more limited use there. 17 I agree with the thought of filling up 1-4 first. 18 Vice Chair Greenfield: That would mean courts 1 and 2 weren't available. 19 Mr. Howard: Right, 3 and 4. 20 Vice Chair Greenfield: I'm curious what the requirements are for membership in the Palo 21 Alto Pickleball Club? Is this a sign-up thing or are dues required? Do you have an 22 understanding of that? 23 Mr. Howard: I do not have that information. 24 Chair McDougall: Monica, would you like to answer that? 25 Ms. Williams: From now until the end of the year, it's $15 total. That's it. That goes 26 towards our balls (inaudible). For a full year, it's $30. We're a nonprofit, so we keep it 27 very low. To us the joy is playing pickleball. We don't (inaudible). 28 Vice Chair Greenfield: What is the schedule or is there a schedule for resurfacing courts 29 5-7 at this point? 30 DRAFT Draft Minutes 25 Mr. Howard: Daren might have a better answer than me. Ultimately, we're ready to 1 move forward once we have a better understanding of what we're doing to do with 2 pickleball. 3 Vice Chair Greenfield: I do have some questions or concerns about the policy change as 4 written. I don't know if we want to get into that now or not, Chair. 5 Chair McDougall: I'd like to stick with questions, and then we can comment. 6 Commissioner Cribbs. 7 Commissioner Cribbs: First of all, Adam, thank you and thanks to the other folks on the 8 ad hoc committee. Thank you to both the pickleball and the tennis community for all of 9 the thought and all the patience that you are exhibiting and for the information too about 10 pickleball. It's important for the community to understand the growth of pickleball and 11 what it means to the people who play it, especially the senior community. Having said 12 that, I have two questions. Can you confirm that we really do have seven lighted courts 13 at Mitchell and there are 5, 6, and 7 that are in question? 14 Mr. Howard: Correct. 15 Mr. Fan: I can answer that. Right now, 1-4 are lit, and 5, 6, 7 no light just Magical 16 Bridge. 17 Mr. Howard: Typically, yes. Because of the Magical Bridge construction, the lights on 18 those courts don't work. I didn't know that. 19 Commissioner Cribbs: The lights don't work? 20 Mr. Howard: I guess there's something with the construction at the Magical Bridge. 21 Commissioner Cribbs: At some point … 22 Mr. Howard: Typically, yes, they are lit. 23 Commissioner Cribbs: If we all went out there after the Magical Bridge construction, 24 there would be seven lighted courts? 25 Mr. Howard: Correct. 26 Commissioner Cribbs: It's great to have this list of what's lit and what's not lit. Can we 27 go back and look again at the cost of lighting courts at some point? Not tonight 28 obviously, but at some point just in general following the Commissioner's question about 29 how much it costs. 30 DRAFT Draft Minutes 26 Mr. Howard: Certainly. The quote we have of the $550,000 is very recent, if that's what 1 you're referring to. 2 Commissioner Cribbs: Are they the cool lights that don't do a lot of extra shadows? Are 3 they LED lights? 4 Mr. Howard: I'm not sure. I don't know the details of what that quote entitled. That was 5 to light those courts at Cubberley. We can get specific. 6 Commissioner Cribbs: I'll have a comment after we get through questions. Thank you 7 very much. 8 Chair McDougall: Commissioner Reckdahl. 9 Commissioner Reckdahl: No questions right now. I'll wait for comments. 10 Chair McDougall: Let's start from the other direction. I'll give you the opportunity to 11 comment since you're ready. 12 Commissioner Reckdahl: First, I want to thank all the public. We really do want to hear 13 the feelings of the public, and we really appreciate you taking your time. I'm sure you 14 have better things to do tonight. Coming out here and expressing your opinion helps us 15 do the job better. If we don't know what the community wants, we can't make decisions. 16 Thank you for your time. Thank you, staff. There's been a lot of work on this. I do 17 appreciate that. I want to echo what Jeff was saying. Those two additions to the policy 18 would be a very good change, that you have to fill up courts 1-4 before you start going to 19 5, 6, 7 for tennis players and that pickleball players fill up one tennis court at a time. 20 That's it. 21 Female: (inaudible) 22 Chair McDougall: No. I don't think that's appropriate at this point. 23 Commissioner Cribbs: In terms of the policy and sending it to the Council tonight with 24 our recommendation, I would now be in favor of doing that. Thank you again for 25 outlining it all. I would love it if we all could find a way to shorten the time length of 26 making an assessment about where we are and how we're going to dedicate pickleball 27 courts, at least one but hopefully three. That's what I'd like to see. 28 Vice Chair Greenfield: I was going to make a similar suggestion of support for looking 29 at how we can consider moving the timeline along. I do appreciate we're stuck amidst the 30 Palo Alto process. We're working through it, but this has been going on a long time. I do 31 appreciate that the policy change as drafted now is the right change to make at this time. 32 It does address a number of primary needs for the pickleball community while also 33 DRAFT Draft Minutes 27 respecting the needs of the tennis community. It's meeting the primary request of 1 legitimizing and authorizing pickleball play on tennis courts. Secondly, there are 2 provisions added to support the tournament reservations, which are in practice anyway. 3 Third, we are now dedicating specific evening slots for pickleball. This is very important 4 and will be interesting to help the community gauge the need and the use of pickleball 5 courts in the evening. There's some question about that right now; there's not so much 6 question about pickleball usage on weekends and during the mornings. It'll be very 7 interesting to see how the evening plays out. Fourth, we should emphasize that we are 8 working to immediately dedicate two permanent pickleball courts by converting the 9 paddle tennis courts to properly configure pickleball courts. We are looking to have two 10 pickleball courts that will support walk-up play. It's a very important consideration. I do 11 appreciate the logistic difficulty and impossibility of having walk-up pickleball play if 12 you don't have a combination for the locker, if you're not a part of the club. We want to 13 be inclusive with all of our recreational opportunities within the community. I will be 14 supporting this policy change. I do have a couple of very minor changes to section 12, 15 court usage, which used to be called tennis court usage. Under section 2, the fifth … 16 Chair McDougall: Commissioner Greenfield, if we're going to get into specific changes, 17 the proper approach would be that we need a motion to adopt the recommendation, and 18 then we need motions within that to modify. Kristen, can you help me with that? 19 Ms. O'Kane: If the Commission is going to pass a motion that's different than the staff 20 recommendation, we need those specifics in the motion. Commissioner Greenfield could 21 share those for discussion. 22 Chair McDougall: If you shared those right now for a second, we could come back to 23 them within—let's see if we're going to accept the recommendation or if we're going to 24 make substantial changes to it. 25 Vice Chair Greenfield: I'm happy to share the changes I'm suggesting a little bit further 26 on. They're basically superficial, and it's taking out the word tennis in many places where 27 courts are no longer specifically tennis courts. They're multiuse courts. Thank you. 28 That's all. 29 Commissioner Moss: I have several comments. We're talking mainly about the public 30 courts. There are 24 courts in the school district. Referring to the teacher's comments 31 about students, if the parents could work with PAUSD to get some of those courts to be 32 pickleball courts, that would be outside of our jurisdiction but would get them more 33 playing time. The court usage that you have here is only for those three courts in 34 Mitchell Park because I suggest that we do the exact same thing for Cubberley but do it 35 in reverse so that you have on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the evenings you can't play 36 pickleball at Mitchell, but maybe you can play pickleball at one court in Cubberley. It 37 doesn't change this but where we implement it. We should be thinking more than just 38 DRAFT Draft Minutes 28 those 5, 6, 7 courts. That will increase the number of courts available for pickleball 1 without impacting the tennis players. I understand that this sport is growing, but I have 2 very strong feeling for the Palo Alto residents first. I want to make sure that we don't 3 have unlimited growth. As I mentioned earlier, our parks are heavily impacted by dozens 4 and dozens of stakeholders. I don't want to tear up other parts of the parks to add more 5 pickleball courts just because there are more players. I want there to be some reasonable 6 limits in the number of pickleballers that are using Palo Alto courts. I don't think we can 7 do that now; I don't think we're at that point now. It's just something to think about. Palo 8 Alto is very restricted as far as land. These rules are complicated, and we should post 9 them so that people who come up and haven't been to this meeting and aren't 10 pickleballers know what the rules are. That's all I have. Thanks. 11 Commissioner LaMere: It's obvious to recognize pickleball's growth and their impact on 12 this community. It's very important that we move as quickly as we can to figure out a 13 permanent facility and a permanent solution. We're finally getting traction and we're 14 developing court usage rules. It's very important. Adam, I'm glad this is coming to 15 fruition. Figuring out a permanent solution is going to be very important especially 16 seeing the growth of the sport. 17 Commissioner McCauley: I will very quickly echo two of David's comments. Thinking 18 about Cubberley or whatever other park where you might have a reverse schedule of this 19 schedule you have at Mitchell makes a lot of sense. Forgive me, David. Your other 20 point, I've already forgotten it, but it was a good one. 21 Chair McDougall: He made two other points. One was … 22 Commissioner Moss: (inaudible) 23 Commissioner McCauley: It's fine. That's it for me. I have a couple of amendments to 24 offer as well. I think it's on the table, so to speak. The policy's on the table, right? 25 Chair McDougall: Is it on the table for discussion and amendment or do we need a 26 motion before it's on the table? I think you need a motion before we start amending it. 27 Ms. O'Kane: Correct. 28 Chair McDougall: Can I have a motion then? 29 MOTION 30 Commissioner Reckdahl: I so move. 31 Chair McDougall: A second? 32 DRAFT Draft Minutes 29 Commissioner Moss: I second. 1 Chair McDougall: Just to make it clear, Commissioner Reckdahl is moving and 2 Commissioner Moss is seconding that we approve the staff recommendation relative to 3 the Palo Alto Field and Tennis Court Use Policy, maybe the Court Use Policy. Are there 4 any comments that either of you would like to make in defense of the motion? 5 Commissioner Reckdahl: I think everyone agrees that this is not a permanent solution. 6 This is just a first step and will give us, as Commissioner Greenfield mentioned, good 7 data. We right now do not have any evening hours for pickleball. We'll see how that 8 goes, and we may be expanding that or shrinking that. I view this as just a step in the 9 right direction, but we still have a lot more work to do. I think the right move is to accept 10 it and keep on working, pushing the other aspects. 11 Chair McDougall: Does anybody have any other comments on the motion on the floor? 12 Vice Chair Greenfield: I'd like to suggest some amendments. 13 Chair McDougall: Please. Do we need a motion or do we just need—you make your 14 amendments, and then you get to … 15 AMENDMENTS TO THE POLICY 16 Vice Chair Greenfield: The maker of the motion can accept the amendments. The first 17 amendment is in section 12 under court usage, bullet number 5, no pickleball and tennis 18 on the same court, to capitalize the "t" for tennis to be consistent with what's done 19 elsewhere in the document. In section 12 under number 4, the bottom line, to strike the 20 word tennis regarding tennis or pickleball lessons for compensation on City-owned 21 courts, just calling them courts instead of tennis courts. 22 Commissioner Reckdahl: Who's the official note-taker here because we're going to have 23 to modify this? 24 Ms. O'Kane: I'm taking notes, but we'll also have it in the transcript. 25 AMENDMENTS TO THE POLICY 26 Vice Chair Greenfield: I've got it printed out as well. The second part of the suggested 27 amendment is to change the name of the attachment B policy from the City of Palo Alto 28 Field and Tennis Court Use Policy, striking the word tennis. I don't know if we want to 29 include the word racket in the court policy to distinguish these courts from basketball 30 courts. It could become the City of Palo Alto Field and Racket Court Use Policy or 31 simply the Court Use Policy. I'd be open to suggestions from staff on that. There are six 32 uses of the word tennis before court in other sections of this policy of which section 12 33 DRAFT Draft Minutes 30 was the highlighted section to be amended. I'm suggesting that the word tennis be 1 removed. In the first instance under the purpose of the policy, the second bullet reads 2 currently to establish policies and procedures governing the use of City parks, fields, 3 tennis courts, and district playing fields managed by the City of Palo Alto. In that case, 4 we'd probably want to include the word racket in front of courts. All other uses in the 5 other five locations, just strike the word tennis. That's all I have. I'm open to questions 6 or comments. 7 Chair McDougall: Are those amendments acceptable? 8 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah, they're acceptable. 9 Chair McDougall: Does anybody else have any amendments that they would like to 10 suggest? Commissioner McCauley. 11 Commissioner McCauley: Paragraph 3—I welcome input from both staff and other 12 Commissioners on this—change it to read courts are available for reservation by racket 13 sport organizations for tournament and match play consistent with the available court 14 facilities and CSD recreation priorities. Mitchell Park courts 5, 6, and 7 have priority for 15 pickleball tournament use. Adam, I would in the first instance welcome your feedback 16 on that. 17 Mr. Howard: I appreciate the idea of what we're going for. I want it to be non-specific 18 enough to allow us flexibility but specific enough to where we're not getting a lot of 19 additional inquiries. What I'm specifically thinking about is the USTA match play. We 20 do get a lot of school requests from the private schools to come out and play on our 21 courts for their matches, which currently we can say no to because they're not USTA 22 match play. I have a little bit of concern about removing that. We're pretty specific 23 about USTA in terms of match play. Being vague in the other instances is a good idea. 24 Commissioner McCauley: How would you propose wording that? 25 Mr. Howard: I was afraid you were going to ask me that. Maybe something around the 26 lines of USTA match play and then speak about nonprofit racket sports organizations, so 27 we're a little bit inclusive of—I'm not sure that would work. Honestly, I don't have a 28 great answer right now. 29 Chair McDougall: Adam, while you think about it, Commissioner Greenfield has a 30 comment on that. 31 Vice Chair Greenfield: I'd like to comment on the amendment. I do appreciate 32 Commissioner McCauley's sentiment here. Reading Adam's response and my gut feeling 33 on this as well, I would suggest given that this policy—this is a first phase of a policy 34 DRAFT Draft Minutes 31 change. I would recommend sending this consideration back to the ad hoc for further 1 consideration in a 3-6 month timeframe when we have the next update to the policy to 2 give us an opportunity to think through potential consequences and implications of the 3 wording change here. 4 AMENDMENT TO THE POLICY 5 Commissioner McCauley: I have no issue with that idea. That's fine. It was an 6 amendment in response to Adam's thought. That's perfectly fine. The other amendment 7 in paragraph 2, where we have this series of bullets, would be to add a last bullet that has 8 wording along the lines of players should be mindful to keep as many courts available for 9 use as possible at any given time. Tennis and pickleball play should be consolidated to as 10 few courts as possible with consideration given to the use of courts 5, 6, and 7 for 11 pickleball use. Adam, again … 12 Mr. Howard: That makes sense. That echoes a lot of the concerns we had about making 13 sure we're using the courts appropriately. That's good wording to make that effective. 14 Chair McDougall: Commissioner Reckdahl, is that amendment okay with you? 15 Commissioner Reckdahl: I'm satisfied with that. I'm curious what the other members of 16 the ad hoc think about that. Do you like the wording? 17 Chair McDougall: Commissioner Moss, you're the seconder, so you should comment 18 first. 19 Commissioner Moss: I'm thinking that we should go with what we've got and in 3-6 20 months come back and finish it up. 21 Vice Chair Greenfield: This is significant enough that we should consider addressing this 22 now. It has immediate implications for how the courts will be used and how the flow of 23 people to—how mixed usage will really work in practice. We should consider adopting 24 this amendment at this time. 25 Chair McDougall: Did you say should or should not? 26 Vice Chair Greenfield: We should. I support Commissioner McCauley's amendment. 27 Chair McDougall: Do we have other comments for an amendment? Do we need to vote 28 on it then? I would call a vote on the—do we need a motion before we vote on it? 29 Ms. O'Kane: You need a motion on the amendment. 30 Chair McDougall: We need a motion on the amendment. Commissioner McCauley. 31 DRAFT Draft Minutes 32 MOTION 1 Commissioner McCauley: I move to amend (inaudible). 2 Chair McDougall: As you dictated earlier. Do I have a second? 3 Vice Chair Greenfield: Second. 4 Chair McDougall: All those in favor? 5 Vice Chair Greenfield: We haven't voted on the policy. 6 Chair McDougall: We're voting on the amendments because I thought Commissioner 7 Moss was going to object. I'm just trying to make it clear. Pardon me? 8 Commissioner McCauley: (inaudible) Vice Chair Greenfield had mentioned. I think we 9 need to take a vote on that as well. 10 Chair McDougall: No, we don't need to vote on it. We only need to vote on it if it looks 11 like there's not unanimous—we don't need to vote on the amendments as we go through. 12 My mistake was I thought we had somebody who was objecting to that particular 13 amendment. That's all that's happening. While it interrupted our flow here, I know that 14 we're taking a long time. We're trying to do this properly. I know there are people in the 15 community that are with us tonight and that would like to continue to comment, but I 16 really can't open up the conversation again. I'm trying to be consistent with everybody on 17 that. Do we have any other amendments that people would like to propose? In that case, 18 I will take the opportunity to propose an amendment myself. I would like to propose that 19 what we send to Council and without specific words actually calls out that the Council 20 support moving expeditiously with the resurfacing of courts 5, 6, and 7 and in that 21 process court 5 be dedicated to pickleball. Are there any comments on that? 22 Commissioner Reckdahl: You're asking Council to move with the … 23 Chair McDougall: I'm saying that the policy statement would dedicate court 5 at this 24 point to pickleball. 25 Ms. O'Kane: Chair, I don't think we can have—that wasn't part of the action. That's 26 wasn't the recommendation. 27 Chair McDougall: Can't we amend the recommendation? I know that's a big 28 amendment, but I would believe that we could amend the recommendation. Could we 29 discuss it for 2 minutes and find out if we have … 30 DRAFT Draft Minutes 33 Ms. O'Kane: We can discuss it. I'm just worried that the agenda item was not to dedicate 1 pickleball courts, which is different than amending the policy. 2 Chair McDougall: If that's the appropriate administrative case, then I'll simply call for a 3 vote on the motion to approve the staff recommendation with the amendments as dictated 4 previously. All in favor of that? Anybody opposed? 5 Vice Chair Greenfield: Commissioner Cribbs, do you have a question? 6 Commissioner Cribbs: I have a question. You were too fast for me. I would rather see 7 us send this forward the way it is right at the moment with the amendments that we voted 8 on. 9 Chair McDougall: That's what we're doing. 10 Commissioner Cribbs: As we were doing. Then, I would somehow like to be able to 11 shorten the timeframe for discussion so that we can open the whole topic, not just one but 12 three or more. Is that what we were doing? If we were, I was lost. 13 Chair McDougall: No. That's basically what we're doing. If we vote on this as it is, then 14 at the end of the meeting we'll come back with our future agenda items. At that point, 15 we'll say a future agenda item needs to be the follow-up on that. Is that not correct? 16 Ms. O'Kane: That's correct, but I think you already voted on the motion. 17 Chair McDougall: Yes. 18 Ms. O'Kane: Did you already vote? You already voted on the motion. 19 Chair McDougall: We voted on the motion with the amendments. Tell me what your 20 issue is. 21 Vice Chair Greenfield: I thought the vote started, and Commissioner Cribbs wanted to 22 speak, so the vote wasn't completed. 23 Chair McDougall: Let's start again and confirm the vote without interruptions. The 24 motion we're considering is to support the staff recommendation to submit a revised court 25 policy to Council with the revisions that we have defined tonight. The revisions basically 26 are the definition of courts, and that's basically what we've agreed to. Can I call for a 27 vote on that? All in favor? Is there anybody opposed? We pass it unanimously. 28 MOTIONS PASS UNANIMOUSLY 29 DRAFT Draft Minutes 34 Chair McDougall: Adam, thank you. With that, move on to the next item, which is an 1 update on the Baylands Golf Links. 2 3. Status Report on Baylands Golf Links Usage 3 Chair McDougall: Good evening, welcome. 4 Lam Do: Thank you, Chair McDougall and members of the Commission, for this 5 opportunity to present to you the performance of the golf course since our opening 2 1/2 6 months ago. My name's Lam … 7 Chair McDougall: You might want to move your mic a little closer while we still have 8 some noise. 9 Mr. Do: My name is Lam Do; I'm Superintendent in Open Space, Parks and Golf. I'm 10 overseeing the operations at the golf course. I'd like to supplement the staff report with a 11 presentation this evening followed by your questions and comments. By way of 12 background, in 2013 the City considered a links course design and a full course 13 renovation. Excuse me, I'm sorry. In 2012, the City considered a course redesign. This 14 coincided with the mitigation efforts for the San Francisquito Creek levee project, which 15 would have an impact on the footprint of the golf course. At the same time, the City 16 wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to rethink how the course would be laid out 17 with some design considerations improving the golf course play, improving the turf, 18 improving the drainage, irrigation system as well, which had aged out. There was also 19 consideration with this golf course renovation to segment some adjacent areas for future 20 recreation use. All this was in addition to providing some enhanced wildlife on the golf 21 course by adding more native vegetation areas and wetland areas, which had a dual 22 benefit. By adding those areas, we also reduced the amount of turf that we had to 23 manage, which reduced the consumption of potable water for irrigation purposes, which 24 was a win-win for both. After the 2012 discussions, the City explored in 2013 a links 25 course design and, after several different designs submitted by our golf course architect, 26 the City opted for a full 18-hole course renovation at the time. To accommodate that, the 27 City began modifying the existing 18-hole course to carve out some space for the impact 28 of the creek project but also mostly to allow the City to begin importing over 300,000 29 cubic yards of dirt for the future build of the links-style course, in which the dirt would be 30 used to raise the elevation of the course and also to add contours on the course. During 31 the years of 2013-2016, the City then pursued environmental regulation permits. It was a 32 long process, much longer than we anticipated, and so we weren't able to begin 33 construction until 2016. The course then closed in 2016 and reopened May 26, 2018. 34 During the closure, all 18 holes were redesigned, rebuilt. A full new irrigation 35 infrastructure system was placed for the course. We also enhanced the practice facilities 36 by rebuilding the practice areas, the putting greens, and we also bumped out the driving 37 range, which allowed for more hitting base and more access to the area. All this was 38 DRAFT Draft Minutes 35 done concurrently under the same contractor. This led then to our opening of the golf 1 course at the end of May. In discussing the golf course performance, there are two 2 perspectives of it, how is the course performing from a play perspective, player 3 experience in particular, and then how is the course performing from a financial 4 perspective. I'll start with the player experience, player perspective, and then I'll move 5 into some of the financials. To facilitate play, the City during the closure went out to 6 request golf course operators to provide management proposals. We were able to select a 7 company called OB Sports, which proposed to manage the course in all perspectives. 8 This would be course play, the practice facilities, course maintenance, merchandise sales, 9 and food and beverage service. This type of operating model, which we have now, is in 10 contrast to the operating model we had for over 30 years prior and possibly even longer 11 than that. Prior to this single operator model, the City had a golf course professional 12 lease the pro shop, manage course play. We had maintenance either provided by the City 13 or outsourced to a golf course maintenance contractor. The food and beverage was 14 provided under a lease and different lessees during that time. With the grand reopening, 15 it's one service provider, which we think provides an enhanced play experience. The play 16 experience is not just one single service provider; of course; it's also the new course itself 17 providing a different experience. There's also coordinated tournament play with food and 18 beverage service, which has been enhanced. Prior to that, it was anyone who came to 19 play dealt with two different vendors whether you were setting up a tournament or 20 individual play. We now also have the management company overseeing course 21 maintenance. There's coordination between their efforts to promote the course and 22 maintain the course to ensure that there's synergy too. In regards to the financial 23 performance of the course, the course is operated under the City's general fund. 24 However, there is an expectation that the golf course revenues will recoup the expenses. 25 The target has always been that the golf course break even at a minimum. Historically, 26 the golf course did do that. A few years before golf course closure, the course did not 27 break even. The course operated in the red. In looking at the reopening of the course, the 28 City worked with OB Sports to establish an operating budget of $3.6 million in revenues, 29 which would fund the cost of having about $2.5 million in direct expenditures and about 30 $1.1 million in indirect expenditures. Direct expenditures consist of course maintenance, 31 course management salaries, and other direct expenses whether it be merchandise and 32 also operating and managing the driving range and the practice facilities. Indirect 33 expenses range anywhere from the course's debt service, which the course is currently 34 paying two debt services, prior financing and new financing for the new course. There's 35 also administrative costs associated with that, being a City operation and a general fund 36 operation. There's some staff time in there as well. With the reopening, the course was 37 budgeted to operate at 68,000 rounds. Looking at these financial performance figures, a 38 comparison of how the course operated before its modification, which we look at in fiscal 39 year 2018, the course operated with an operating budget of $2.5 million. We're now 40 operating at a budget of $3.6 million. In 2013, we had about 58,000 rounds, and now 41 we're targeting 68,000 rounds. Now that we're open, the play experience, what we're 42 DRAFT Draft Minutes 36 finding out is where we're drawing our customers. Eighty-five percent of the players are 1 coming from both Santa Clara County and San Mateo County. We have 18 percent Palo 2 Alto residents, and another 39 percent comes from Santa Clara County—that 39 percent 3 excludes Palo Alto residents—20 percent from San Mateo County, and 15 percent from 4 other areas. A figure of interest is probably the Palo Alto residency play—keep in mind 5 this is through 2 months of play—which is at 18 percent. In comparison, our prior course 6 had about 13 percent resident play. We've been able to increase resident play by roughly 7 5 percent. Looking at revenues. We're really looking at just 2 months of revenues at this 8 point. We have figures for June and July. Those revenues place the course on pace to 9 exceed our $3.6 million budget. In looking at June and July, the revenue target was 10 $716,000, but the actual revenue earned was $799,000. This does straddle two fiscal 11 years, so just keep this in mind when looking at that. It's really just a sample look; it's not 12 even a sample look within the same fiscal year. I wanted to preface with that. Green fees 13 consist of multiple types of green fees. There's the standard green fees. There's the tiered 14 pricing, which we have. We have resident fees, and we also have Bay Area resident fees, 15 and then we have visitor fees. The other sources of revenues are the driving range, 16 merchandise sales, and cart rentals for course play. The area that we're doing the 17 strongest is within the greens fees. Having said that, the course is achieving our revenue 18 targets. The areas that we can improve are rounds of play, which are down 13 percent 19 from the projection, and merchandise sales, which has not achieved what we anticipated. 20 When I look at the figures at present, I just look at it from a sample perspective. I don't 21 look at it from a baseline perspective at all at this point. Please keep in mind that we're 22 looking at only 2 months, and in no way is this considered a baseline whether positive or 23 negative. We haven't been open long enough to have a good understanding of how the 24 golf course will perform over a longer period of time. With that. I want to thank the 25 Commission for this opportunity and turn this over to you for your questions and 26 comments. 27 Chair McDougall: Thank you very much for your time and presentation. I'll start with 28 Commissioner Reckdahl. 29 Commissioner Reckdahl: How is the speed of the play? With this new course, is it more 30 difficult and slowing down the play compared to the old course? 31 Mr. Do: With the new course, speed of play does vary on the day. We are currently 32 operating at between 65 and 67 percent capacity. The weekday versus weekend play has 33 a breakdown of 54 percent play during the weekdays and 46 percent during the 34 weekends. Where I'm going with that is pace of play is really dependent on the tee sheet 35 that day, how busy the tee sheet is. There are days when the rounds are short. At times, 36 you can plan in 4 hours. I have heard that it has taken 5 hours to play. OB Sports is 37 currently, which we didn't have on a regular basis before, having marshals on the course 38 to encourage those that are slow play to speed up and/or allow someone that's playing 39 DRAFT Draft Minutes 37 behind them to pass them. That is how we're addressing course play, but it really does 1 vary on the time of day. 2 Commissioner Reckdahl: When you said sometimes it was 4 hours, sometimes it was 5 3 hours, is that because of the weather or just because the population gets too cramped? 4 Mr. Do: The latter. 5 Commissioner Reckdahl: Most of the time when you get in the tee box, can you tee off 6 right away or is there a twiddling your thumbs waiting for the people ahead of you? 7 Mr. Do: You are able to tee off. Where you may have to wait is depending on which 8 hole you're approaching. There are par 3s and par 5s, which allows—on a par 5, it could 9 allow two groups playing concurrently on the same hole. When you're on a par 3, it 10 really only allows one group to be on there because someone can reach from tee to green 11 in one tee off. In that type of instance, you may need to wait for the group in front of you 12 to get off the par 3. 13 Commissioner Reckdahl: Do we think the speed of play will increase while people get to 14 know the course down the road, that they'll play the course better? 15 Mr. Do: Yes. That is a challenge right now. Depending on how you approach the game, 16 some people find that is a great challenge to learn and to study the course, to fight the 17 wind. Some people find that a difficulty. It just depends on what type of golfer you are 18 and how you approach the game. In general, as people play it more, they'll be more 19 accustomed to its layout, to where you don't want to play your ball. 20 Commissioner Reckdahl: Right now, tee times are spread by 15 minutes or 10 minutes? 21 What's the spacing? 22 Mr. Do: They are spread by 7 and 8-minute intervals. 23 Commissioner Reckdahl: Right now, when we're talking about 65 percent capacity, that 24 means there's a lot of empty slots along the way. 25 Mr. Do: One could say that. From an absolute number, that's right. There's about 35 26 percent of open slots. However, from a performance factor, that's not necessarily that the 27 course is underperforming or underutilizing. For comparison during our opening thus far, 28 other municipal courses are operating at 56-percent capacity. In comparison to other 29 non-municipal courses, they're operating at 53-percent capacity. Having said that, you're 30 absolutely right that 65 percent would mean there's 30-percent vacancy, I guess you 31 could say. Not necessarily every course you would want to operate at such a high level. 32 Pace of play then gets further impacted, player experience gets further impacted the 33 higher utilization you have on a course. 34 DRAFT Draft Minutes 38 Commissioner Reckdahl: Right now, are our empty slots spread out through the day or 1 just in the mornings or evenings? Is it pretty well spread? 2 Mr. Do: I don't have absolute figures in looking at that. My observation of the tee sheet 3 is that they tend to be anywhere from 11:00 to 2:00 or noon to 2:00. Part of that is 4 because a lot of golfers want to get on in the morning to be able to get off by early 5 afternoon. Also, twilight rates start at about 2:00, and so some people wait to play until 6 2:00. That midday tends to be where the vacancy is. That doesn't necessarily mean that 7 it's all there. We do see some vacancy throughout the day. 8 Commissioner Reckdahl: When we talk about 65 percent, is there an upside in that? Do 9 we think we could squeeze more in or will that cause people to stand around more and 10 actually ruin the experience? 11 Mr. Do: I think there is room from experience. We just have to be meticulous on how 12 we approach that and how we market the course and how we drive golf course play. If 13 we were to get more play midday through promotions of some sort, that would be the 14 right area. Trying to get more course play during the morning hours would absolutely 15 make the play experience less desirable simply because there are more players on the 16 course. 17 Commissioner Reckdahl: You talked about also selling the items. We've not been able 18 to sell the retail as much as we expected. What do we sell retail? Are we selling clubs at 19 all or is it just other things that you would use, more disposable items and balls and things 20 like that? 21 Mr. Do: We're selling both hard goods and soft goods. Hard goods consist of clubs, 22 putters as well. Soft goods are course wear, jackets, and anything that a player needs to 23 grab as soon as they get on the course from balls to tees to markers. It's a mixture of both 24 hard goods and soft goods. 25 Commissioner Reckdahl: With all the competition with the internet and other sources, do 26 we expect to sell a lot of clubs out there? 27 Mr. Do: That is the exact challenge right now. Locally, we have a PGA Superstore just 28 one exit down the street. In addition, to that we have online sales. Those provide other 29 avenues for players to buy merchandise. One of the things that the course is doing is a 30 focus on branded merchandise. The golf soft goods are branded with the Baylands Golf 31 Links logo. We also have price matching as well. Price matching is a difficult process 32 because not all the goods are exact matches. It doesn't necessarily mean that we're going 33 to be just as competitive by price matching. We do have to find the right spot. Right 34 now, the focus is on hard goods sales, clubs and putters, and on customized merchandise 35 with the Baylands logo to develop an affinity to the course so that players see that this is 36 DRAFT Draft Minutes 39 their primary course. I'm sure you've all seen players, whether on the course or off the 1 course, wearing golf gear that is logoed merchandise. That's where we're focusing as 2 well. 3 Commissioner Reckdahl: How does it work with the contract? Do we get a slice of the 4 profits or do they pay us a fixed fee and then any sales increases or decreases goes to 5 their bottom line? 6 Mr. Do: Particular to merchandise sales, all revenues from merchandise sales go to the 7 City, and the City incurs all costs of the goods sold. We also pay for the inventory as 8 well. 9 Commissioner Reckdahl: We actually are the retailer, and we're hiring them to sell our 10 stuff. 11 Mr. Do: That's correct. That's part of the management contract. They manage the golf 12 shop on behalf of the City, but it is the City's revenue and inventory. 13 Commissioner Reckdahl: Thank you. 14 Chair McDougall: Commissioner Cribbs. 15 Commissioner Cribbs: Just a couple of questions. First of all, I'm excited about the 16 course and what's going on out there. It looks great, and I have some good comments 17 from people in the USGA. They came out and played the course, and it was great, and 18 they loved it. Anecdotal information only. What kind of marketing is our vendor doing 19 right now to the Bay Area? 20 Mr. Do: There are several channels that our current golf course management company 21 uses. They operate over 55 courses nationwide. They've got their own customer 22 database. They promote our golf course through different channels, whether it be the 23 web. They also use partnerships with third-party golf reservation entities. They have 24 also a local course, which they use to cross-promote our course. There's also the Links 25 program, the Links card, which is a membership program, which allows a participant to 26 receive both discounted course fees. They also can extend their discount course fees to 27 their three guests per day. Aside form that, there's also the opportunity for discounted 28 golf merchandise and discounted food and beverage sales. That's how they're using 29 opportunities to promote golf course play. 30 Commissioner Cribbs: What about the clubs that were existing before we did the 31 renovation, the men's club, the seniors' club, the women's club? That's all still moving 32 on, right? Still doing that? 33 DRAFT Draft Minutes 40 Mr. Do: That's correct. During closure, clubs did play at other courses. We've brought 1 them back. How we brought them back is not exactly the same as before. As we work 2 out the relationships, it's not 100 percent as we have been before, but we're working 3 towards that point. We do need to make some changes. We can't necessarily offer 4 everything the same that we offered before. Obviously, course fees have to be different, 5 and time of play is being adjusted as well. 6 Commissioner Cribbs: It's probably too soon to tell, but in about a year is it possible that 7 you all would come back and talk about how that's going with the clubs and the First Tee 8 and all of that? 9 Mr. Do: Yes, absolutely we could come back to the Commission once more time has 10 evolved. In regards to specifically the First Tee, they have already returned. They 11 returned this summer with their summer program at the course. 12 Commissioner Cribbs: I saw their banner when I was out there today. My last comment 13 and question is about the restaurant, where I happened to drop in for lunch today. It was 14 really great. They have table service. If you Commissioners haven't been there, we 15 should probably go one-by-one instead of altogether in a group. It's definitely worth 16 making the trip. I just wanted to mention that there is a ton of businesses on the east side 17 of Bayshore and 101. My office is over there, and we're always looking for a place to go 18 to lunch that doesn't involve driving through traffic in Palo Alto. It would be great to 19 reach out to all those businesses to have some sort of happy hour or something to let them 20 know that the café is back in business and up and running and really, really looks nice. 21 Mr. Do: The golf course operator does have an interest in expanding the customer base 22 beyond golf players. They have a banquet business as well. With that location, as you 23 point out, it's a convenient location and a captive audience because to those on that side 24 of 101 it would be attractive. 25 Commissioner Cribbs: The other great thing is there's lots of parking. Thank you very 26 much. 27 Ms. O'Kane: Can I add something to that? I actually ran into Commissioner Cribbs 28 today. Monique and I had lunch there as well. We were talking to the general manager, 29 and he said that they're releasing a new menu this weekend. There will be some more 30 food and beverage items on the menu than there is currently. That's exciting. Also, we 31 are going to take a little more active role in promoting the space that is for rent for 32 banquets to try and get more people interested in doing meetings there or just making the 33 space promoted more just like we'd promote our rooms at Mitchell Park or Lucie Stern. 34 Vice Chair Greenfield: I'm happy to hear that the revenue has exceeded expectations. 35 I'm sure you're very happy as well. It's a testament to the hard work and the diligent 36 DRAFT Draft Minutes 41 effort that has been put in by many. I'm also glad to see that the Palo Alto resident usage 1 numbers are up. I hope this continues. A question I have about these numbers is are they 2 based on the reservation rate paid or the address of the person making the reservation? 3 Mr. Do: They are based on address because the reservation rate varies. When one makes 4 a tee-time reservation, one has to choose whether to walk or not walking and the rate that 5 you would qualify for. Upon check-in, you're asked for verification. Once again, the 6 rates are based on residency, so you're asked for residency verification. That's where we 7 track the figures. In particular, the tracking mechanism is primarily a survey because 8 tracking it based on what someone books online is not as accurate as—I shouldn't say 9 survey. They're asked when they check in. I just want to clarify that. 10 Vice Chair Greenfield: I understand there's different buckets of reservation rates. I was 11 just making sure that you were gauging residency on the address, not which rate to play 12 they were paying because there could be an issue of residents paying a higher rate to be 13 able to reserve earlier, which is a question I have. I'm still bothered in concept that the 14 reduced-rate resident reservation window opens later than the higher out-of-town guest 15 window. I'm wondering if we've received any complaints about this from the 16 community. In other words, is this a problem? 17 Mr. Do: No, I have not heard complaints about that. 18 Vice Chair Greenfield: Regarding the debt service, how long will we be serving the debt 19 for the recent renovation? Is that 30 years? 20 Mr. Do: Yes, it's 30 years. 21 Vice Chair Greenfield: I attended the open house of the golf course, and I rode my bike 22 there. There was no place to park my bike, and I wasn't the only one. I understand that 23 bikes are not the first thought at a golf course. There is a possibility for someone to meet 24 other people at the course and bike there. If we're looking to improve use of the 25 restaurant, biking to lunch is certainly a consideration. I'd really like to see some bike 26 racks be added to the facility. They would be used. Certainly we want to promote 27 alternate modes of transportation even to play golf. 28 Mr. Do: Thank you for the observation. 29 Commissioner Moss: You've had to give many long, long answers. I hope the questions 30 I ask won't require such long answers. I play with old duffers, and the price is very high. 31 The course is too hard, so they're not going to play here. They're going to play at Deep 32 Cliff or some place easier. What I'm a little concerned about is the price isn't too high, 33 but it's too high for them between 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. I was wondering if you could 34 work on your marketing so that people know—they didn't understand about the dynamic 35 DRAFT Draft Minutes 42 pricing. People need to understand that there are many different times that you could 1 play and days of the week that you could play and that there are some times when it's 2 much easier and cheaper to play. If you can just make a note of that and try to figure out 3 how to change the pricing—not change the pricing, but market the pricing especially, as 4 you said, between 11:00 and 2:00. Maybe you need a new tier in there or something like 5 that to push people to the edges of the play instead of everybody wanting to play between 6 9:00 and 11:00. 7 Mr. Do: Yes, Commissioner Moss, you're absolutely right. There are times when the 8 fees are not as high. Just this evening, I went online and looked at—I forget whether it 9 was for tomorrow, Wednesday, or for Thursday. One could play at 12:54 for $27 10 walking. 11 Commissioner Moss: That's great. 12 Mr. Do: That is even lower than the twilight rate of $30, which doesn't start until 2:00. 13 With dynamic pricing, that's one of the ways that the current operator is trying to fill that 14 gap I talked about, the lull in course play. I don't think that rate for the quality of the 15 course is beatable anywhere. On a grander scale, I've discussed with the operator how do 16 we market the course better for those that are looking for other rates or those that are rate 17 conscious. One of the things they are looking to develop is a price finder on their 18 website. Don't like the rate you see? What's the rate you're comfortable with? Let us 19 know. It'll match with the tee times that are there. That's something that's being 20 addressed. 21 Commissioner Moss: When are you going to do a survey? A lot of this is hearsay. Anne 22 had hearsay. I have hearsay. Do you plan to do a survey over the next couple of months 23 to see how we could improve and what things need to be dealt with? 24 Mr. Do: The operator currently does have a survey, but that doesn't necessarily mean that 25 the City itself wouldn't be able to start our own survey as well. We could look into that. 26 Commissioner Moss: The next question is really for Daren. It has to do with 27 maintenance. The front door I'm talking about is between the driving range and the 28 clubhouse. There's this triangle that's undeveloped, and there was a reason it's 29 undeveloped because we were pushing, pushing, pushing to get the construction done. 30 Now that the construction is done, there are a number of areas that could be improved 31 with landscaping. It's not something you can do all at once; it's something you're going 32 to have to do piecemeal as far as maintenance is concerned. Is there a plan to slowly 33 build out the landscaping, keeping in mind that it's Baylands? 34 Mr. Anderson: That's a great question and something we were cognizant of throughout 35 the project, in fact. There are different areas of focus, and it probably ties in a little bit to 36 DRAFT Draft Minutes 43 that survey question you said. Where are the priorities? What makes the place really 1 attractive? Of course, the front door. We spent $60,000 or at least staff time equivalent 2 to dress up that entryway, not necessarily the spot you're talking about, from parking lot 3 rather to pro shop. That area was all replanted; the irrigation was all redone at great 4 expense, time, and effort, but there were areas where we sacrificed. The native areas on 5 the course were one where they didn't take the way we wanted. We're also bound by the 6 project permitting process to ensure that some of those native areas, the restoration areas, 7 take. Some of that even ahead of window dressing for the course itself are mandatory, 8 that we put our time and effort into landscaping in this case native plantings. It's going to 9 be a hybrid. We're looking at our limited budget and trying to allocate where it makes 10 the most sense. It's not so targeted as this will be the first priority, let's put all our money 11 there. I think it is spread out. 12 Commissioner Moss: The next question is you said that there's only 18 percent Palo Alto 13 residents, and you said that's an increase of 5 percent over the past. 14 Mr. Do: That's correct. 15 Commissioner Moss: The only way to improve that is really to lower the price for Palo 16 Alto residents probably. It's something you'll have to think about. 17 Mr. Do: Yes. Pricing at the golf course, there's sensitivity there. There are competing 18 influences on the price. The biggest influence is the course needs to achieve its financial 19 goals. At the same time, we do want to be able to make the course available to as many 20 residents as possible. 21 Commissioner Moss: I think you already covered that in the previous one, to push people 22 to the fringes especially price-conscious people, but maybe Palo Alto residents as well to 23 improve their percentage. Now that people have been playing it, they know it's fairly 24 long. Maybe they're going to do golf carts next time. Do you think it's just people are 25 more physically active? 26 Mr. Do: I don't have a response in particular to that. I think it's the former. Once 27 someone has played it more often, they'll realize that it's a different course, not a flat 28 course like before that you could easily walk the course. This is just me, not anything 29 that's scientific or anecdotal. I concur with your former thought. 30 Commissioner LaMere: You mentioned that it's playing at 65 percent right now utility, 31 roughly. 32 Mr. Do: Yes, utilization is about 65 percent. 33 DRAFT Draft Minutes 44 Commissioner LaMere: What's the break even that we're shooting for? You mentioned 1 other courses are at 53 or 55. I realize there are other revenue streams. In general, what's 2 the utility percentage that they're shooting for that would be break even? 3 Mr. Do: Not speaking on behalf of the operator, I would say that it's not necessarily 4 viewed by utilization. It's viewed by hitting targets that the operator works with the City 5 to achieve. The profile of this course is different from other courses. We have two debt 6 services currently, and we'll retire one of the debt services soon. The second debt service 7 has to be taken into consideration. In addition to that, there's always been an expectation 8 for the golf course to financially recoup its costs. It's not necessarily a utilization factor. 9 I think it's more first and foremost we want to make sure that financial obligations of the 10 golf course are met from a perspective of how is the golf course performing. That doesn't 11 necessarily mean that there can't be other key factors that influence it. One area that we 12 do want to work on is rounds of play. Rounds of play could be beneficial for multiple 13 reasons, and it's also additional revenue, merchandise sales, and food and beverage sales. 14 I wouldn't say that a certain percentage of utilization is a target. I'm not necessarily 15 trying to dissuade from your thoughts of utilization is what we should be looking at, but I 16 don't think that's where the key factors are. 17 Commissioner LaMere: You mentioned that we're on the hook for the inventory of the 18 merchandise. Is that correct? 19 Mr. Do: Yes, we are. 20 Commissioner LaMere: Are there incentives within that contract with the merchant for 21 them to move that product? How are they selecting that product? Are we putting our full 22 trust into them that they're getting it right or is there an incentive for them to really move 23 this product? 24 Mr. Do: There is an incentive. The contract with them is both a—there's a flat base 25 management fee, which covers all aspects, managing course play, managing the golf 26 shop, managing the practice areas and driving range, and also course maintenance. 27 There's a management fee there. There are incentives added onto the base fee. The 28 incentives are not necessarily based on solely merchandise; it's based on overall revenues. 29 The operator at minimum has to achieve what's budgeted, and then there is an incentive 30 for a share of revenue that is beyond budgeted revenue. 31 Commissioner McCauley: Forgive me for perhaps not understanding this particular 32 metric. Our rounds of play are down or not where we want them to be at the moment; 33 yet, our green fees are up. Does that mean that we're collecting more on average for each 34 round of play than we expected? How does that disconnect get tied down? 35 DRAFT Draft Minutes 45 Mr. Do: This ties into the dynamic pricing and the tiered pricing of the golf course. The 1 tiered pricing is based on residency, so there is the resident rate, the Bay Area rate, and 2 the visitor rate. Within that is a sliding scale through dynamic pricing. At present we are 3 experiencing the highest demand during the morning hours. With that, there seems to be 4 a willingness to play at higher rates. Because of that, the dynamic pricing has been able 5 to carry the fewer rounds. 6 Commissioner McCauley: It sounds as though you have a number of plans to try and 7 increase the number of rounds of play, which is great. I know that there was a lot of 8 thought put into carefully curating the image in connection with the launch and the 9 opening. How successful was that from your perspective? Do you have the right 10 reputation that you were aiming for in the marketplace at the moment? 11 Mr. Do: Just to clarify, you're referring not necessarily to the theming of the golf course. 12 Are you referring to the perception of the golf course? 13 Commissioner McCauley: Perception. 14 Mr. Do: With the redesign and the offering of a links course that is unique to the area, 15 we're there. The renovations, the maintenance factor, the customer service, and the play 16 experience we aimed for in working with the operator to be more than just a municipal 17 course, even though we are a municipal course, we aimed to find the spot that's between 18 us and premium courses in the region. I use the word value relatively. We're a value for 19 the price point that we're at, not necessarily an overall value because it wasn't the goal to 20 be an overall value. We're a value for the price point we're at and for the course play 21 experience that we're at. 22 Commissioner McCauley: Do you happen to have or keep metrics around unique 23 number of Palo Alto golfers as opposed to repeat players? When you talk about rounds, 24 obviously it might be one person playing 20 rounds a week or something like that. That 25 would be a lot of golf, but no less. Have you been keeping metrics around how many 26 actual Palo Alto golfers are utilizing the course? 27 Mr. Do: I do not believe we have been. 28 Commissioner McCauley: Thanks again for the presentation. 29 Chair McDougall: Thank you for the presentation. I just have two comments. I looked 30 at what I thought your current rounds of golf would be and then what it might be in the 31 fall and in the winter and so on and what that translated to in terms of dollars. Like you, 32 I'm convinced that you're going to be 10-15 percent over your revenue goal. That may be 33 10-15 percent under your number of rounds goal. On a first-year forecast like that, I 34 would commend you. I think that's spectacular performance and is very good. I do think 35 DRAFT Draft Minutes 46 you should listen to Commissioner Moss' recommendation relative to older players. He 1 said that you should try and make it less expensive and easier. If you could just figure 2 out a way to make the course easier on the days that us old people would like to play, that 3 would be really good. 4 Mr. Do: If I could control the winds, I would. 5 Chair McDougall: Just flatten it a little bit or widen the fairways on those days. Your 6 presentation is well received and very detailed. The questions and comments were 7 representative of the good job you're doing. Thank you very much. 8 Mr. Do: Thank you, Commission. 9 Chair McDougall: We're now at 9:45. Do we want to make an effort at this point—can 10 we go faster, can we eliminate something from the agenda? We have a couple of things 11 we'd like to do. Daren, would you like to comment on that? 12 Mr. Anderson: I was just going to say for my next item, the Foothills trails, I think I can 13 go really quick. 14 Chair McDougall: I'm counting. 15 4. Foothills Park Trail Reroute Project 16 Mr. Anderson: Daren Anderson, Open Space, Parks, and Golf. I've discussed this 17 project with you for a while, so you're familiar with a lot of it. I've got some interesting 18 new information on the timeframes that I think is the most important thing you want to 19 hear. I'll gloss over a lot of the stuff you've seen before. You know there was a big storm 20 in 2017. It shut down these trails, and they couldn't be repaired. We had hired a 21 geologist who confirmed our findings that using those same routes is impossible. You 22 really need to go to more stable soil platforms that are away from the creek, and that's 23 what we did. We followed all the recommendations to hire the appropriate people. 24 Biologists from AECOM came out twice to do cultural and biological assessments. 25 Ultimately, there was one plant that wasn't in bloom when we did the assessments, so we 26 hired another biologist to come out and check for chaparral ragwort. Here are some of 27 those photos real quick that you've seen. I'd just point out that I hiked this with the ad 28 hoc committee, and it just reaffirmed that the schism here, this break and slide on the 29 trail, has grown. I think it's dropped another foot at least. It just reaffirmed the idea of 30 replacing that in kind was not going to work. This map, although the scale is not very 31 helpful, shows the two spots, one at the Costanoan where this reroute is. This is the slide 32 area, and the reroute happens within that little spot. The Los Trancos, this is where we've 33 got the reroute happening. This is the close-up shot of Los Trancos with the—I realize I 34 made a mistake here. The red is the existing creek. The blue is the existing trail. This 35 DRAFT Draft Minutes 47 red polygon is the washout or one of the more significant ones. This is the reroute going 1 around. Connected to that is the same thing for Costanoan. The blue is the existing 2 pathway. We had this significant washout here of the trail, and here's your reroute going 3 around. One of the findings of that biological survey that I mentioned is woodrat 4 middens, which are nests, along this trail. We rerouted the trail to avoid those. Likewise, 5 I did the same thing with the City arborist, to walk through and say "how can we best 6 avoid these trees." It was a back-and-forth between our trail builder and the arborist to 7 avoid as much as we can. There are some impacts. There's one tree on each of those 8 trails that has to be removed, and there's about five, five or four, that have impacts. What 9 that means is there would be some downward cut as the trail is placed in there, that could 10 affect the roots in there. There are mitigations that we can take. The first mitigation is 11 for the trees that we take we'll do a two-for-one replacement. We've actually already 12 done so; we planted four new 24-inch box oak trees in Las Trampas Valley just last 13 week. We're taking action already. For the impacted trees, there are mitigations of 14 adding supplemental water prior to the cut and post-cut and mulching the root area to 15 give it its best chance to recover from any impacts that come. We're doing our due 16 diligence to try to make this as least impactful both on the trees and the wildlife as 17 possible. I guess the most important thing is we've gotten tentative approval from the 18 Planning Department and expecting final approval on the 7th of September, which would 19 allow us to start construction on Monday, the 10th. The trail contractor would begin on 20 that day, and we believe 45 days approximately to get both trails redone and opened. 21 That concludes my presentation. 22 Chair McDougall: Thank you. 23 Commissioner Moss: One comment. With the subcommittee, you mentioned that one of 24 the most important things is you have to stay now 100 feet from a creek. When it was 25 first designed, it was much closer to a creek and much more prone to this happening in 26 the future. 27 Mr. Anderson: Right. A big element of the project from Planning's perspective was they 28 wanted to know "are you moving further away from the creek," which we definitely are. 29 The setback requirement, which you're talking about, is development along creek edges. 30 That setback is 100 feet. In some situations, it may even be more. In both cases for 31 Costanoan and Los Trancos, we are moving further away from the creek to further stable 32 soils than what we would have had if we'd stayed there. 33 Chair McDougall: Are there any other ad hoc members who would like to comment? 34 Vice Chair Greenfield: It's a tremendous effort. I personally can't wait until the trails 35 open. The community's definitely looking forward to it. I applaud your efforts. It's 36 unfortunate it's taken so long. I appreciate that we are doing it the right way. I just have 37 one question. How much longer is Los Trancos Trail now? 38 DRAFT Draft Minutes 48 Mr. Anderson: We've gained mileage; I'll have to adjust the maps. 1 Vice Chair Greenfield: We added 0.1 to the loop. 2 Chair McDougall: The question is, is that the good news or the bad news. Commissioner 3 Reckdahl. 4 Commissioner Reckdahl: The only thing I wanted to notice is that slide 3 had a nice 5 Freudian slip. Apart from that, I look forward—did you see that on slide 3? Anyway, I 6 also look forward to it. I miss the trails. 7 Commissioner McCauley: Daren, thank you again for your very diligent work on this. 8 I'm going to make one quick comment. Daren and I discussed this briefly yesterday. 9 California Highway 1 washed out around the same time that these trails washed out. We 10 are now getting these trails repaired less quickly than they repaired a very significant 11 section of California Highway 1. It is not at all because of Daren. Daren has been trying 12 to move literally heaven and earth to get this done. That said, there is probably—Daren, 13 after you have a chance to reflect on this more, I think it would benefit us and perhaps the 14 City more generally to have a bit of a conversation about how can we at a policy level 15 help to streamline some of these processes where appropriate. It's not always 16 appropriate, but in some cases it really is. I'd like to return to that conversation when we 17 have an opportunity. 18 Chair McDougall: That's a really interesting comment. 19 Commissioner Moss: This is an incredibly fast construction, a month and a half to do 20 both trails. I thought it was going to take all winter to do one of the trails. I'm absolutely 21 amazed at how fast it's going to go. 22 Chair McDougall: I applaud the fact that you've already moved forward with replacing 23 the trees that you're taking out. That's an incredibly good example for the City and needs 24 to be remarked on. Thank you. Thank you for the quickness of the discussion. 25 5. Other Ad Hoc Committee and Liaison Updates 26 Chair McDougall: The next thing on the agenda is other ad hoc committee and liaison 27 updates. I'll start at Commissioner McCauley's end. Do you have any updates? 28 Commissioner McCauley: The new ad hoc concerning park rules and regulations met 29 yesterday. I expect we'll have something for the group to consider and provide feedback 30 on in the next month or two. 31 Commissioner Moss: Because of the Cubberley Master Plan work that Kristen has been 32 driving, I've been actively recruiting people for the—they call them super delegates or 33 DRAFT Draft Minutes 49 whatever they are, from both Greenmeadow and Greendell. I'm hoping you're going to 1 get some people in that. I encourage everybody else to get some super delegates. 2 Ms. O'Kane: We have 12 people already, and so we're maxed out. We call them 3 community fellows. The bigger role is to come to the meetings and participate in the 4 process. I encourage people to come. 5 Commissioner Moss: Make sure you get your neighborhood person to spread the word. 6 One important thing is they had the Shockley Lab birthplace of Silicon Valley 7 presentation plaques and sculptures at the corner of San Antonio and California Street 8 near the Milk Pail. It was a fantastic event. Four hundred people came. It's all IEEE. I 9 see that happening when we do the ITT plaques and signage. We need to publicize it, 10 and hopefully we'll get a nice crowd. I wish they weren't tearing down the Ampex sign; I 11 wish they had something going for the Blue Cube that's gone. We need to be able to do 12 something like that when the time comes. For those trail improvements, I'm lax in that I 13 don't know the Friends of Foothills Park, and I'm supposed to be the liaison. I'm going to 14 ask you for the contact. When you open those trails, we should get the Friends of 15 Foothills Park to be there. That's all I have. 16 Vice Chair Greenfield: I have a number of updates. In the interest of time, I'll try to get 17 through these quickly. On the park dedication ad hoc, David, Don, and I met with 18 Kristen and Daren to talk about how to potentially move forward with dedicating 19 identified City-owned and operated parks and also how to move forward with potentially 20 dedicating park-like spaces such as Gamble Gardens and Winter Lodge. The next step 21 will be to schedule an ad hoc meeting with the City Attorney to consider dedication 22 guidelines and constraints for properties in three buckets: one, leased by the City, for 23 example, Stanford soccer complex and El Camino Park and understanding are we 24 allowed to dedicate these as parks for a property that we could have an expiring lease on 25 it at some point; two, properties that are leased from the City, for example, Gamble 26 Gardens and Winter Lodge; and three, planned community, PC, benefit spaces, the small 27 parcels such as at Alma Village and Café Riace. Ryan mentioned the park rules and 28 regulation policy review. On community gardens, I met with the—reviewed potential 29 policy updates with staff and community garden liaisons. At least one follow-up meeting 30 will be needed before policy change recommendations can be forwarded to the 31 Commission for review. Discussions are ongoing—they're pretty far along—regarding 32 adding a new community garden at the former location of the Common Ground Nursery. 33 This is across the street from Gunn High School at the Palo Alto Christian Reform 34 Church. This is a great development. On the turf management front, I met with the 35 soccer stakeholders group, and a request for temporary seasonal lighting again at 36 Cubberley football field will be forthcoming from Palo Alto Soccer Club. Significant 37 news is that staff has scheduled Cubberley football turf for replacement in July of next 38 year, so the field reservations are blocked out now. The community is very happy to hear 39 DRAFT Draft Minutes 50 this news. The field is in very poor shape I can report from firsthand experience. This 1 will include a project study beforehand to assess what type of turf to install because it's a 2 constantly evolving field and also assess whether we have the funding for adding an 3 artificial track at Cubberley. 4 Commissioner Moss: This summer? Next summer? 5 Vice Chair Greenfield: Next July. Finally on the Safe Routes to School front, I attended 6 the annual Safe Routes to School report to City Council yesterday here in Chambers. 7 Safe Routes to School and the biking infrastructure within our community is really 8 lauded throughout the state and the nation. The proof is in the pudding. If you bike 9 around town, you can really appreciate how great it is. This is a great community effort. 10 An interesting discussion later on with Josh Mello, the Chief Transportation Official for 11 the City, considering how the Parks and Rec Commission may be able to help with 12 community engagement and socialization of future traffic-calming projects. Obviously 13 the Ross Road rollout didn't go as smoothly as many people had hoped, as anyone had 14 hoped. Like to consider how the Parks and Rec Commission may be able to assist in a 15 smoother process next time. That's all. 16 Chair McDougall: That was a lot. Thank you. Commissioner Cribbs. 17 Commissioner Cribbs: I just wanted to ask on that soccer field replacement, there are 18 grants available. Do you know about that from US Soccer Foundation? This one may 19 apply. I'll send you the link for that. 20 Mr. Anderson: That'd be very helpful. 21 Commissioner Cribbs: It's not a ton of money, but it's a little bit. 22 Mr. Anderson: Every little bit helps. We're doing it for sure. 23 Commissioner Cribbs: The timing is appropriate right now. Commissioner McCauley, 24 Daren, and I had a meeting early in August about park enhancements. Did you mention 25 that? 26 Commissioner McCauley: (inaudible) 27 Commissioner Cribbs: The purpose was to look at what the process will be in identifying 28 potential parks for restrooms. Daren has a little homework that he was going to reach out 29 and do. We felt like it was a very productive meeting. More on that later. 30 Commissioner Reckdahl: During the meeting—do you want to talk about the ad hoc for 31 the court usage and what's going forward on that, a path forward on that or will the ad 32 hoc work themselves and report back next month? 33 DRAFT Draft Minutes 51 Chair McDougall: It would seem to me that if the ad hoc took the first step and then 1 came back, that would be the right step. 2 Commissioner Reckdahl: I agree with that. Twelve days ago, I was at the City 3 Council/PAUSD combined meeting. I gave my little rant about … 4 Chair McDougall: My word, not his. 5 Commissioner Reckdahl: … the fact that the solar panels take up so much space at JLS. 6 I complained that there are other spots that they could have been on, rooftops, 7 breezeways, in parking lots. There are lot of spots where they could have done that and 8 not taken so much space. They took a half acre, which is a huge amount of land. Now 9 that I've been digging through the numbers, they're getting very little money out of this. 10 Effectively, if you look at the profits systemwide over the whole PAUSD, it's going to be 11 $600,000. That sounds like a lot, but that's over 25 years. A lot of those dollars are out 12 25 years where a dollar is going to be worth a lot less. It really is not a very good return 13 on the money. Effectively, if you look at what they're earning on JLS, they're earning 14 $5,000 a year in today's dollars. That $5,000 is fixed over 25 years for a half acre of 15 prime Silicon Valley land. It's just ridiculous to the point where, if it would be 100 times 16 more, it would be still a questionable deal. 17 Chair McDougall: Commissioner Reckdahl, we're going to discuss that in just a minute. 18 Commissioner Reckdahl: I just want to set the table before we talk about the letter. 19 From our complaint as a Commission, that's outside our purview. They're wasting their 20 money; they're tying up their land. What really bothered us is there was no outreach. If 21 there had been outreach, we would have told them that this is a bad deal. The reason that 22 they thought this was a good deal was because they valued land as being free. For them, 23 it was not an asset that had to be protected. That attitude of not protecting land is very 24 dangerous, and we have to really work with the school district to ensure that they 25 understand that land is valuable. We have such a scarcity of land that we just can't give it 26 away. That's exactly what they did. There are very large penalties if they pull these out. 27 They are stuck with these panels for 25 years. It's a very sad thing. That dovetails into—28 Don, do you want to talk about the letter that softened my rant a little bit? 29 Chair McDougall: What I'd like to do is one more comment on ad hoc committee and 30 liaisons. I continue to spend time with Friends of the Palo Alto Parks trying to encourage 31 them and coordinate what they're doing. I've actually talked to Kristen and Monique 32 about some effort that the City would make to provide training and education and support 33 for those organizations and will continue with that. 34 DRAFT Draft Minutes 52 5A. Letter to City Council and PAUSD re: Solar Panels at JLS Middle School 1 Chair McDougall: With that, the next item, 5A, is to talk about the letter. Kristen has put 2 the letter up on the screen. There is one small change, basically a grammatical change, if 3 I can find it, where it says all solar panel installations. It says the locations chosen … is 4 an example. It should either say the locations chosen are an example or it should say the 5 location is an example. I'm proposing we simply change it to the locations chosen are an 6 example. Just make the grammar right. I guess what we need is a motion on this. It's an 7 action item. I would like to see this. I'd like to see if I could get a motion to … 8 Vice Chair Greenfield: (inaudible) 9 Chair McDougall: Do we want to discuss it before we create a motion or do we want to 10 create a motion and then discuss the motion? 11 Commissioner McCauley: I think the discussion (inaudible). 12 Chair McDougall: Let's proceed with discussion. That's fine. 13 Commissioner McCauley: I'm not opposed to the sentiment, but I have a couple of 14 concerns. One is the timing; this was only added to the agenda yesterday. One of my 15 concerns is that I appreciate staff's perspective. I appreciate folks on the Commission's 16 perspective. I have no idea what PAUSD's perspective is on this. Whether or not they 17 think they actually did reach out or something like that, that they had other processes in 18 mind, etc. That's number one. I'm a little bit concerned about the timing and the fact that 19 we're not actually hearing from PAUSD before we send this missive. Second, I certainly 20 would want to make sure that anything we send out emphasizes that we support 21 opportunities to install renewable energy platforms and that we want to support 22 sustainability. While we may not like where they placed these solar panels, we have an 23 overarching comment that we support the idea to make our government resources more 24 sustainable than they are presently. That's the second thought. The third is also timing 25 related. Keith was at the joint City/PAUSD meeting; that got covered by the Palo Alto 26 Weekly. It caught a little bit of press and probably caught some notice. In light of that, is 27 this something that's necessary at the moment in order to make a further point? I imagine 28 this will also be picked up probably by one of our local newspapers and will probably be 29 depicted as governmental infighting, which perhaps that's appropriate. Perhaps this is 30 something that merits us sending a missive to PAUSD in this form. I'm just not sure 31 whether that's a necessary step at this point. 32 Chair McDougall: Would anybody else like to comment? 33 Vice Chair Greenfield: I feel it is appropriate for the Commission to go on the record 34 with a statement. Keith did have an opportunity to speak in oral communications at the 35 DRAFT Draft Minutes 53 joint meeting. There was one school board trustee at the meeting, if I understand 1 correctly. I've spoken with the trustee who was at the meeting and the other trustee who 2 wasn't at the meeting. I've talked about this issue. There is appreciation for our point of 3 view. Commissioner Reckdahl has also received email correspondence from someone 4 within the PAUSD staff. Based on that correspondence, if I interpreted it correctly, 5 clarifying our position in this statement would be appropriate. Do you have any further 6 comment on that? 7 Commissioner Reckdahl: The one thing that made me uncomfortable is I was standing 8 up there as a Commission member expressing my opinion. It was my opinion. I did state 9 that some of the people on the Commission had similar opinions, but it was not a 10 Commission statement. If we are of one mind, it would be more appropriate for us to 11 have a statement to clarify that we are of one mind. If we're not of one mind, then that's 12 another story. We should clarify that one way or the other. We should make it clear that 13 recreation space is important, and they need to value that because there are other schools 14 in the pipeline right now. It may be not too late to modify those or slow roll those and 15 not necessarily lose that space. That's what seems to be the urgency, the fact that this is 16 not just a JLS issue. This is multiple schools, and they are looking at adding more of 17 these big solar panels. 18 Commissioner Moss: Is this a legal issue? Does staff have normal working relationships 19 with PAUSD especially considering the utilities where we are required to give input? It 20 seems like we should have been. It seems like it should have been a normal City utilities 21 thing to give input to the school district. Do they basically just have carte blanche to do 22 whatever they want? 23 Ms. O'Kane: The City has a strong relationship with the school district. We work with 24 them on numerous programs, initiatives. It's a constant collaboration and partnership 25 with the school district to operate our City. With respect to the solar panels, the Utilities 26 Department was—this is my understanding. The Utilities Department was involved for 27 the—I don't know if it's a purchase agreement—connections from the panels to the 28 utilities. That's their involvement. I also understand—this is not by any sense a legal 29 opinion at all—that the school district does operate under different laws than say a 30 developer would because they're run by the State as opposed to the local jurisdiction, if 31 that makes sense. They can override the—this is my understanding again—32 Comprehensive Plan and zoning restrictions. It's my understanding that's a State law. 33 Commissioner Cribbs: That's right. 34 Vice Chair Greenfield: I appreciate that the school district does have jurisdiction, and 35 they can make decisions to do what they want to do. The question at hand is should they 36 make these decisions without a more public due process. The issue that I feel strongly 37 about—the question is, is there a consensus among the Commission that the role of the 38 DRAFT Draft Minutes 54 elected and appointed officials and the City and school district employees, their civic 1 obligation, to serve as stewards for the community and as stewards over community 2 resources in a shared manner. I feel this is worth emphasizing. 3 Commissioner Cribbs: I would second that. One of the roles of the Commission is to 4 protect recreational land and sports opportunities. This seems to be taking away a big 5 chunk of that. It's our role to make that statement to the community. Maybe people 6 didn't think about the fact that the playing fields would be gone, so it's our opportunity to 7 say in the future we should think about these things. If we don't stand up for the kids and 8 the sports, there's not anybody else who's going to do it necessarily. 9 Commissioner LaMere: I just have a quick question. The utility commission knew that 10 this was happening. What would be our method of finding out about certain activities 11 within the school district that could have impact with our interests, that are aligned with 12 our interests? Is it just through having someone who is a liaison or is it something that 13 staff takes on? What would be a process of us gathering information about that? 14 Ms. O'Kane: That's a good question. I wasn't sure at the beginning if you said if the 15 utilities commission. 16 Commissioner LaMere: It's my understanding that the utilities commission knew this 17 was happening, correct, or that they gave input. 18 Ms. O'Kane: I don't know that. 19 Commissioner Reckdahl: The Utilities Department did, not necessarily the commission. 20 Commissioner LaMere: Sorry, the Utilities Department. The City … 21 Ms. O'Kane: I'm not sure how—if they're involved. I don't think they're involved in the 22 placement of the solar panels. They're just involved in the connection, the Utilities staff. 23 Commissioner Cribbs: Kristen, you have a City/school liaison committee that meets 24 every month? 25 Ms. O'Kane: Correct. It's two Council Members and two Board Members, and they meet 26 once a month. 27 Commissioner Cribbs: There's City staff that meets? 28 Ms. O'Kane: City staff attends and school district staff. 29 Commissioner Cribbs: This, as I understand it, didn't come up at that meeting, those 30 meetings. 31 DRAFT Draft Minutes 55 Ms. O'Kane: Not that I'm aware of, until the last meeting. 1 Commissioner Cribbs: After the placement was done. That's kind of the point. This has 2 to do with the City taking care of the school district fields and doing the maintenance on 3 them, but not having a conversation about what's going to happen on the fields seems odd 4 to me. 5 Vice Chair Greenfield: My understanding is that the school district did communicate the 6 plan to the Community Services Department in, I believe, May and received negative 7 feedback about the concept from the Community Services Department. The soccer 8 community was vaguely aware of plans. It seemed like wacky plans at the time to put 9 solar panels on the field at JLS. The general impression, as I understand it, is the 10 Community Services Department did not believe the school district was going to be 11 moving forward with the plan. There was also some consideration that—there were plans 12 to put solar panels at Paly as well, which were pushed out due to community complaints. 13 There was some understanding that if that plan didn't go forward, then the rest of the plan 14 wouldn't go forward as well. The City staff received information very late in the process 15 after contracts were already signed that this was happening. There was essentially a 16 breakdown in process, and that's really what we're trying to make a statement about. 17 Daren, please feel free to comment further. 18 Mr. Anderson: I think you nailed it. That's exactly right. 19 Commissioner LaMere: I would in some ways echo what Ryan began with. It seems we 20 should have complete information before we send something of this magnitude, whether 21 it's understanding the processes of who the PAUSD did reach out to. That's important. 22 Chair McDougall: Commissioner Reckdahl, do you want to comment on that based on 23 the letter that you received? 24 Commissioner Cribbs: Can we see the letter? 25 Chair McDougall: The letter simply expressed their appreciation of your concern. 26 Commissioner Reckdahl: And wanted to know details. I basically summarized what I'd 27 said at the committee meeting back to the PAUSD officers. If you read the letter, though, 28 I don't think we're saying anything—if you look at, for example, the takeaway, the final 29 paragraph down there. Elected officials, appointed commissioners, and City and school 30 district employees have a civic responsibility for stewardship of community resources. 31 This is in some ways motherhood and apple pie stuff, but it's motherhood and apple pie 32 that was not listened to a month ago or 6 months ago. It says the City of Palo Alto and 33 the PAUSD need to be active, progressive stewards of our park, open spaces, and 34 recreation facilities. To do this there must be robust community outreach, transparent 35 DRAFT Draft Minutes 56 and open communication, and appropriate decision processes. We're not pointing 1 fingers. We're just saying going forward these are very important topics, very important 2 principles, and we really have to work hard to stay with them. I don't think it's anything 3 controversial. We're not blaming them. We're just saying going forward we really need 4 to be stewards. We don't think they were stewards. 5 Commissioner McCauley: Two thoughts, having listened now to the conversation. I'm a 6 little bit murkier frankly on what the outreach was, if any at all. It seems as though there 7 was some indication, some people had word or something like that. I'm a little bit murky 8 frankly on where that stands. I appreciate, Keith, your take on the letter. I don't expect 9 that this is going to be particularly well received. When this lands on someone's desk at 10 PAUSD, I imagine they're going to view this as something which is largely saying that 11 they're not being stewards of public resources. 12 Commissioner Reckdahl: I think they pretty much admit that. In retrospect, they say that 13 things could have been done better. They certainly think they were not as complete with 14 the outreach as they should have. 15 Commissioner McCauley: That also brings me back to the other question. Has the point 16 been made? 17 Commissioner Reckdahl: Has what? 18 Commissioner Moss: Do you need to send a letter? Have you woken them up and gotten 19 a contact within the PAUSD front office, reporting directly to the Superintendent, that 20 you can work with over the next month to make sure this never happens again? That way 21 you're getting to the solution. The letter does not give you a solution, does not tell you 22 who was to blame, or where the breakdown was. You need to get to that point, but do 23 you have to do it in public? Have you woken them up enough that we can find a contact, 24 not necessarily you but somebody on staff—maybe we should be there too—to move this 25 forward over the next month? Have you gotten their attention? 26 Commissioner Reckdahl: I think we've gotten their attention. I still don't think they 27 completely get it. Like Ryan said, people love green energy. We do not want to come 28 off as being opposed to green energy, but at what cost? They've taken a half acre of 29 playing fields. Try to buy a half acre of prime land right next to a park; that's really 30 expensive land. They've put solar panels on it for almost no return. 31 Commissioner Moss: It sounds like the anaerobic digester, where we had 32 environmentalist against environmentalist, and nobody wins. We lose the parkland and 33 we didn't get the anabolic [sic] digester. Can we do it a different way? 34 DRAFT Draft Minutes 57 Vice Chair Greenfield: A closer parallel is the tree massacre on California Avenue in 1 terms of process run amok. I agree with Keith that a statement has been heard, but I don't 2 think it's been fully assimilated. It's important to go on the record with this. There was 3 communication between the school district and the City on this. If the communication 4 had been done in a more public venue on the record, there may have been a different 5 result. Beating around the bush, particularly given the timeliness of this in that future 6 solar expansion is under consideration right now, we have an obligation to make this 7 statement. 8 Chair McDougall: Kristen, do you have any comments that you would like to make? 9 Ms. O'Kane: I will say it's a difficult decision to make. As I sit here, I understand the 10 need to make a formal statement from the Commission, but I also understand 11 Commissioner McCauley's point that maybe it's sitting down with them and trying to 12 have a collaborative discussion now that the point has been made. I am a little bit torn. I 13 do recall at the City/School meeting one of the Board Members—I think Board Member 14 Dauber, I think—said he would look into it and investigate it a little bit more. I don't 15 know if it's worth giving them an opportunity to do that. It's a fine line, and I see both 16 sides. It's the Commission's decision on what you want to do. I tend to think of a face-17 to-face discussion and trying to come up with solutions on moving forward. 18 Vice Chair Greenfield: I'm not sure it furthers the cause or not, but I will relate that I did 19 have a conversation with Trustee Dauber this weekend. He's actually out of town right 20 now. He said that he would have been interested to attend our meeting to hear what we 21 had to say. He was interested in the Parks and Rec Commission's feedback on the 22 subject. 23 Commissioner Moss: Could you send him the letter alone? Could you say this is the 24 kind of letter we were thinking of sending you, but we don't want to send it, but could 25 you work with us? 26 Commissioner Reckdahl: Number one, this is a public meeting. He knows the letter 27 already. Anyone who is watching knows the letter. Anyone at the meeting heard 28 basically the same thing. I think this is important because we're saying—this is a very 29 constructive letter. We're saying that some mistakes were made, but the important thing 30 is that everyone, Commission, Council, school district has to be stewards of our 31 recreation resources. That's a very positive statement. I don't think we're throwing 32 grenades here. We're making a very positive statement, saying this is a challenge 33 especially in Silicon Valley, and we have to work together to maintain this. 34 Commissioner LaMere: I agree it's a positive statement. How confident are we in, for 35 example, lack of community outreach? Is that something that we can clearly state that 36 there was a lack of or do we have evidence of that or did they put things out and we 37 DRAFT Draft Minutes 58 missed it? There are things that we put out ourselves as a Commission that isn't 1 commented on. 2 Commissioner Reckdahl: They did have a couple of community meetings that were not 3 well publicized and only had one or two people. They did not publicize it to the 4 neighbors near Nixon. They didn't publicize it to the Commission; they did not publicize 5 it to the City apart from that discussion they had. If we had known that this was a real 6 proposal, Community Services would have acted differently as opposed to "we're 7 thinking about doing this, what do you think." 8 Chair McDougall: Could I interrupt for just a second? I agree with what Kristen said 9 that this is very difficult. I would like to suggest, based on what I've heard, that 10 underneath where it says solar panel installations, there should be a sentence added 11 consistent with what Commissioner McCauley was suggesting. It says something about 12 the Commission is really interested in making sure that we do take advantage of solar 13 energy wherever possible or some statement like that. I would suggest taking out the two 14 all capital headings to lessen the tone of it. Where it says local residents under lack of 15 community outreach, number one, it doesn't say lack of community outreach. That may 16 soften it a bit. Maybe we say instead of we're not informed or had no opportunity—I 17 don't think anybody can argue that there was not sufficient opportunity. If we change 18 that to sufficient opportunity, you're back to something that's a pretty reasonable 19 communication that says "we're interested in solar, we don't think this went as well as it 20 could have, there wasn't sufficient." Now, we're not guessing whether there was or 21 wasn't. We're pretty confident that there wasn't sufficient. Any other research into what 22 did they really do, I don't know how we would collect that information, and then we don't 23 get the opportunity to speak out. 24 Commissioner Reckdahl: I don't think it's necessary to go back and regurgitate who 25 exactly was at fault, especially at JLS. The solar panels are up. Whether they were at 26 fault or we were at fault, they're up. We're just rehashing history then. 27 Chair McDougall: If I could ask the people at that end … 28 Commissioner LaMere: Why would we not have heard about this from the Community 29 Services Department? We need to ask questions amongst our own channel of 30 communications. 31 Commissioner Reckdahl: I think what Jeff said is we thought—the Community Services 32 Department thought it would not happen. They were asked, "What do you think of this 33 plan?" Community Services said, "It's terrible." There was no indication that the plan 34 was going forward. 35 DRAFT Draft Minutes 59 Chair McDougall: I don't think the letter says anything other than the City and the school 1 district should both do a better job. It addresses what you're saying. 2 Commissioner Moss: This is the beginning of the process, not the end. This letter is 3 going to start a process of coming up with better communication. 4 Commissioner Reckdahl: That's our hope. 5 Chair McDougall: Commissioner McCauley, please. 6 Commissioner McCauley: Do you have a sense for when other solar installations will be 7 done? Is this something that really needs to be sent tomorrow or is this something that 8 we can think about and return to the topic next month? 9 Commissioner Reckdahl: My understanding is that the solar panels at the other schools 10 that have not been done are scheduled shortly. Whether they are put on hold or not is 11 another story. In the next month or two is when the next installations are coming. 12 Commissioner McCauley: Forgive me again. It sounds as though there were some 13 community meetings. They're weren't well attended, but they were actually … 14 Commissioner Reckdahl: In the newspapers, they've said that there were two community 15 meetings. One had one person, and one had three people or something like that. The 16 neighbors did not hear about it. I did not hear about it. My kids did not hear about it. It 17 was very poorly publicized. 18 Commissioner McCauley: I appreciate that. Personally, I would like to have a little bit 19 better sense for what was done before we say it was not done or even that it was 20 insufficient. That said, I appreciate the sentiment. I'm not disagreeing with the sentiment 21 that everybody should work well together, that they should have a good process around 22 this. I do come back to the point that it seems as though you've gotten folks' attention, 23 which is good, which is the right thing. I'm a little bit concerned about the collaborative 24 environment that Kristen and others in the City will have going forward when someone 25 may not be too happy to receive this particular letter. With that said, I don't want to 26 prolong the discussion. I'm not comfortable supporting this. If we vote on it, I'll vote 27 against it with the reservation that I would like to take time to think about how best to 28 express this sentiment and return to it next month. 29 Chair McDougall: In that case, can I table this item rather than voting on it? 30 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. You're never obliged to have—if it's an action item. 31 You'd have to … My opinion is that we, regardless of whether it's unanimous or not, 32 should at least address it. 33 DRAFT Draft Minutes 60 Chair McDougall: Can we go with a round of comment where I would ask people to 1 comment on whether they would support this including the modifications that I've 2 suggested? The removal of all caps, the change that there may not have been sufficient 3 communication. 4 Commissioner Reckdahl: I like the changes, and I think we should vote on it. I will 5 support it. 6 Commissioner Cribbs: I like the changes, and I will support it. 7 Vice Chair Greenfield: I like the changes. I feel a sense of immediacy, to answer your 8 question, that we should act on this. I will support this. 9 Commissioner Moss: I'd support it also. 10 Commissioner LaMere: I'm concerned about the lack of community outreach and the 11 talk about communication when it seems that there was communication. At this point, I 12 would not support sending it. 13 Commissioner Reckdahl: Don's change would get rid of the word lack and say 14 insufficient. It's clearer that there was insufficient. 15 Vice Chair Greenfield: I agree it's clear there was insufficient communication. The 16 soccer and other field stakeholders had no knowledge of this whatsoever and certainly 17 should have had an opportunity to comment as well as the residents backing up on the 18 solar panels at Nixon, for example. 19 Commissioner Reckdahl: How many times have we talked about pickleball? Ad 20 nauseum. How many times have we reached out to the pickleball people? Something of 21 this magnitude, they should have reached out multiple times to all the stakeholders and 22 made sure that they were in the loop. They didn't. It was insufficient outreach. 23 Chair McDougall: Jeff, does my change about not sufficient communication help you at 24 all? 25 Commissioner LaMere: I would still want to look at the communication issues. Some of 26 it for me is concerning that our Community Services Department didn't know about it. 27 What's our communication patterns? Some of this is on our area right here, 28 understanding that and addressing that. I don't know if there are better ways to word 29 some of the outreach. Certainly, I support the sentiment that we don't … 30 Commissioner Moss: If you took off the first sentence … 31 DRAFT Draft Minutes 61 Commissioner LaMere: … want to lose recreation space. We do agree with green 1 energy, but there are better ways to do this solar panel installation. There are perhaps 2 different ways to write this to get our point across without being as—I don't know if it's 3 accusatory or confrontational. 4 Commissioner Moss: What if you took the first sentence of that paragraph off, the lack 5 of community outreach? Took that first sentence off. 6 Chair McDougall: Commissioner McCauley, is there anything else you want to say? 7 Commissioner McCauley: I support the sentiment. I do think it would be appropriate to 8 table this for a month and come back to it. 9 Chair McDougall: I haven't commented. There's an urgency. The item will not have the 10 same impact later. We need to change the tone and make sure that we're not claiming 11 things that are absolute when we're not sure of them. I'm going to ask if somebody would 12 like to make a motion. 13 MOTION 14 Vice Chair Greenfield: I'll make a motion that we adopt this letter with the suggested 15 changes. I don't know if we need to clarify what these changes are in more detail before 16 we vote on the motion. 17 Ms. O'Kane: It would be helpful to know what the changes are. 18 Chair McDougall: The changes explicitly are the simple change where we changed "are 19 an example" earlier. We would take out the—we would add a sentence under solar panel 20 installations that says PRC is actively interested in any installation of green energy. If we 21 just simply said that. 22 Commissioner Reckdahl: Do you still want to say maybe more generically that PRC 23 encourages the use of renewable energy? 24 Chair McDougall: How about PRC actively encourages and supports any installation of 25 green energy? The locations chosen, take out the two headings. I would simply change it 26 to say local residents, school parents, users of the rec space, and the PRC were not 27 sufficiently informed and did not have sufficient opportunity for comment. 28 Commissioner Reckdahl: Kristen's editing here. Let's go back. Kristen, the loss of 29 valuable recreation space, take that line out. 30 Vice Chair Greenfield: Take out all … 31 DRAFT Draft Minutes 62 Ms. O'Kane: My keyboard is slow; I don't know why. I'm trying to catch up. 1 Commissioner Reckdahl: Delete that and also the loss of value. 2 Ms. O'Kane: This one as well? Solar panel installations, do you want to delete that? 3 Vice Chair Greenfield: I think so. 4 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. 5 Vice Chair Greenfield: We should reformat those indented paragraphs so they're similar 6 to the other paragraphs at some point. 7 Chair McDougall: I would also change where it says the district should consider 8 recommendations from the City's Community Services Department to the district; it 9 could suggest that they didn't listen. Let's simply suggest that they should ask. Are we 10 clear now on what the modifications are? 11 Vice Chair Greenfield: I think we wanted one more edit in the line that has sufficiently 12 to say "and had insufficient opportunity for comment" rather than no opportunity. 13 Replace no with insufficient. 14 Chair McDougall: Right. If we have a motion, do we have a seconder? 15 Commissioner Reckdahl: I second. 16 MOTION PASSED 5-2 17 Chair McDougall: All in favor raise your hand so we can make sure we are counting 18 properly. We have five. Those against? Two. I would like to thank all of the 19 Commissioners for a positive and candid conversation. What we have is improved from 20 what we had. I thank you for that. The next item is the comments. We're into comments 21 and announcements. 22 Vice Chair Greenfield: Excuse me. Before we move on, should we clarify and 23 understand what happens to this letter from this point on? It gets read into City Council 24 and how is it delivered to the school board? Is it something that we should deliver in 25 person or in another manner? 26 Chair McDougall: Kristen, I'm looking at you because I know you've talked to other 27 people. 28 Ms. O'Kane: It would be—we would deliver it to City Council through our channels. 29 How it gets delivered to the school board, I would need to look into that. 30 DRAFT Draft Minutes 63 Chair McDougall: I would suggest, if possible, we should deliver it personally with 1 somebody actually speaking at the school board meeting in some appropriate fashion. 2 Vice Chair Greenfield: Perhaps read into oral communications at a school board 3 meeting. 4 Chair McDougall: I'll work with Kristen to investigate that and report back to make sure 5 we're doing it properly. 6 VI. COMMENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS 7 1. Hiking from Palo Alto to the Sea 8 Chair McDougall: The last thing that we want to do that's on the agenda here—I hate to 9 do this to David, to ask him if he would be interested in making his presentation at this 10 time of night. 11 Commissioner Moss: I can keep it to 4 minutes. 12 Chair McDougall: This is not a timely issue. I would favor putting it off. I know you're 13 away for the next meeting. You'll be back the meeting after that. I would rather do this 14 at a time when we can pay attention, put it early on the agenda. We can possibly 15 (inaudible) have other people have the opportunity to view it. I know you prepared it, but 16 I really think we should give it its due rather than rushing through it now. 17 Commissioner Reckdahl: I don't feel that I would have the bandwidth to enjoy it as much 18 as I should. 19 VII. TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR SEPTEMBER 25, 2018 MEETING 20 Chair McDougall: The last item then is agenda topics for a September meeting. If 21 anybody has anything they would like to add or maybe I'll start with Kristen. 22 Ms. O'Kane: We're expecting to have a report on what we accomplished in the Parks, 23 Open Space, Recreation … 24 Chair McDougall: Relative to the Master Plan. 25 Ms. O'Kane: … Master Plan from fiscal year '18 and what we intend to accomplish in 26 fiscal year '19. We anticipate doing an annual report every year that talks about what 27 we've accomplished and what we'd like to accomplish. That's all we have so far. 28 Chair McDougall: We want Jazmin to come back with the discussion that we had. 29 Ms. O'Kane: That's correct. 30 DRAFT Draft Minutes 64 Vice Chair Greenfield: Daren, do you think we'll be ready to come to the Commission 1 with recommendations based on the new policy ad hoc? 2 Mr. Anderson: On the park rules and regs? The only thing I had a question about was—I 3 imagine there are some changes coming for the garden rules as well, which are part of the 4 park rules and regs. It seems to make sense to bring all the park rules and regs at once. 5 I'm open to what you think is best. Ultimately, both would have to go to Council 6 independently. It seems to make sense that they'd go in one bundle. 7 Vice Chair Greenfield: I'm not sure we should wait for the garden rules. That could be 8 multiple months out still. Also I do have concerns that there are changes I'd like to get 9 into the tennis courts to address the pickleball changes that have been addressed today to 10 be consistent. As it stands, in that rules and regulation document, there are some 11 inconsistencies from what we were just recommending change for today. 12 Chair McDougall: We'll add the park rules amendments in some fashion. 13 Mr. Anderson: It might be an update. 14 Chair McDougall: If we can get action, we should get action. Are there any other 15 suggestions? 16 Commissioner Cribbs: Yes, I have one. 17 Commissioner Moss: The 7.7 acres are going to open. Do you want to talk about that 18 next time? 19 Mr. Anderson: Yeah. It actually was in my ad hoc updates, but we were running rather 20 late. The long and short of it is that the fence work is happening right now. The 21 additional staff work to clean up around the entrance where the maintenance shop is, is 22 also underway. I would anticipate in approximately 4 weeks we'll be ready to open. We 23 would do the outreach that the ad hoc had talked about and the soft outreach, ribbon 24 cutting, comparable and in keeping with what we did for the dog park at Peers. 25 Commissioner Cribbs: Is it time yet to hear a report on the aquatics situation? There was 26 going to be a report coming back. Is it too early? 27 Chair McDougall: Can we just make note of it and then answer the question? 28 Ms. O'Kane: I'll look into it. 29 Chair McDougall: Keith, did you have something you wanted to suggest? 30 Commissioner Reckdahl: No. Adjournment. 31 DRAFT Draft Minutes 65 Vice Chair Greenfield: One more quick question. I was wondering if there was any 1 expectation that we would have a joint session with City Council this year? 2 Ms. O'Kane: That's likely. It's standard that we like to do that just to report on 3 accomplishments and hear what Council's priorities might be and the Commission's 4 priorities. I don't know when, but I'll look into scheduling that. 5 Vice Chair Greenfield: We're running out of months. 6 Commissioner Reckdahl: Last year we did have that two-on-two where we had the Chair 7 and the Vice Chair meet with the Mayor and Vice Mayor. That's something if we don't 8 push doesn't happen because it quite often slips through their crack. I found that useful. 9 If you guys think it's going to be useful, we should push for it. 10 VIII. ADJOURNMENT 11 Meeting adjourned on motion by Commissioner Reckdahl and second by Commissioner 12 Cribbs at 10:45 p.m. 13 1 TO: PARKS AND RECREATION COMMISSION FROM: DAREN ANDERSON DEPARTMENT: COMMUNITY SERVICES DATE: SEPTEMBER 25, 2018 SUBJECT: BAYLANDS COMPREHENSIVE CONSERVATION PLAN: FORMER ITT/RENZEL WETLANDS CONCEPTS RECOMMENDATION Staff recommends that the Parks and Recreation Commission (Commission) discuss and provide feedback on the various conceptual options developed for the former ITT/Renzel Wetlands area (Attachment A). The feedback from the Commission will guide the development of a preferred alternative conceptual plan for the former ITT/Renzel Wetlands site. BACKGROUND The purpose of the Baylands Comprehensive Conservation Plan (BCCP) is to develop goals, policies, prioritized action steps, and best management practices to holistically manage the Baylands Nature Preserve over the next 15 years and beyond. The BCCP will provide staff, the Parks and Recreation Commission, and the City Council will with clear direction on how to manage the Baylands using an ecosystem-based approach that will help guide the protection of the preserve’s habitat, wildlife, and natural resources; ensure that stewardship and access to nature-friendly recreational opportunities are available for park visitors to enjoy the Baylands now and in the future; and help the City manage the Baylands in a way that allows the preserve to thrive in the face of challenges such as sea level rise and climate change. The former ITT property/Renzel Wetlands is a muted tidal seasonal wetland. In 1992, hydrology to the areas was reconnected through a pipe from the former yacht harbor and the diked marshland was partially restored, allowing some limited tidal flow to occur. In the western portion of the site, a freshwater pond was created by pumping reclaimed water from the Regional Water Quality Control Plant. This area, except for the easement where the former ITT antenna field exists, was dedicated as parkland on May 3, 1982. It was named the Emily Renzel Wetlands on September 29, 1992. On June 6, 2017, City Council dedicated the 36. 5 acre former ITT site as park land (Attachment C) DISCUSSION The consultant used feedback from the stakeholder group to create four conceptual plan options for the former ITT/Renzel Wetlands area. Each of the four plans had a theme: Option 1: Habitat Restoration Option 2: A Balanced System Option 3: ITT Park Option 4: Return to Nature 2 The plans were sent to the stakeholder group for review. Attachment B is a summary of stakeholder feedback received to date. Although there are four options, stakeholders were told to feel free to mix and match features that they liked from any of the options. Below is a summary of the themes that emerged from stakeholder feedback for Summary of the Concept Designs for the ITT Building Footprint and the Freshwater Pond & Marsh and Emily Renzel Wetland. Support for Options 1 and 4 The majority of stakeholders expressed support for a combination of concept designs reflected in Options 1 and 4. These include the following: 1. Complete Habitat Restoration: Many stakeholders prioritized the restoration of the freshwater pond and marsh, and the Emily Renzel wetland habitat to the full extent possible with the removal of the ITT building, antennas and other related structures and the restoration of the ITT footprint to wetland/marsh habitat. Additional considerations expressed by stakeholders for the ITT footprint included providing upland refugia for salt marsh harvest mouse within the footprint and salvaging wood materials from the ITT building during removal. 2. Hydrological Connectivity: A few stakeholders commented on the importance of hydrological connectivity from the Emily Renzel wetlands to the remnant marsh and flood basin, including adding dendritic pattern drainage features and managing tidal flow to preserve the features of the saltwater marshes for mitigation requirements. Other stakeholders supported maintaining the current footprint of the freshwater marsh and pond. 3. Proposed Pedestrian Trails: The majority of stakeholders indicated support for the proposed pedestrian trail (yellow-dotted path) along the northern perimeter of the Emily Renzel wetlands. A concern was expressed regarding the impact to a historical wildlife corridor between the wetlands and the Regional Water Quality Control Plant. Feedback received on the proposed pedestrian trails (purple-dotted path) included concerns about the potential impacts to the interior marsh and wetland habitat. Specifically, some stakeholders expressed a preference to eliminate the proposed pedestrian trail along the existing maintenance road (maintenance access only) and to change the placement of, or removal of the overlook platforms and interpretative signage within these areas to preserve the integrity of the habitat. There was one suggestion for this proposed trail to operate seasonally to reduce disturbance in the area. Overall, there was mixed opinion on whether to provide a pedestrian trail and viewing platforms (overlooks) along the perimeter of the freshwater pond and marsh. Support for Retaining the ITT Building (Option 3) A small number of stakeholders were in favor of retaining the existing ITT building, antennas, and other related infrastructure for historic preservation and interpretive purposes. A suggestion for interpretive design of this area included opening one wall of the ITT building for interior viewing by the public, installation of sculptures with historical relevance to the area (i.e. Silicon Valley themed), and signage providing information on the historical significance of the ITT 3 equipment. The cost for renovating the ITT building for historical preservation and public access purposes was brought into consideration by stakeholders supporting this option. It is also important to note that the City’s Historic Resources Board has expressed an interest in protecting the ITT building. Other Considerations Comments received by stakeholders related to concept designs which were not reflected in Options 1 through 4 included the following: 1. Proposal for the restoration of the Duck Pond to salt marsh habitat; 2.Establishing a connecting Baylands perimeter trail away from East Bayshore Road and potentially around the perimeter of Egret Pond; 3. Suggested plantings along Bayshore which may be equivalent to plantings along Mayfield Creek. NEXT STEPS AND TIMELINE •Host two community/stakeholder meetings-- Dates to be determined •Develop Final ITT Concepts – October 2018 •Stakeholder review of the Draft Opportunities, Limitations, and Best Management Practices report and Draft Sea Level Rise and Climate Change Analysis – October 2018 •Final Opportunities, Limitations, and Best Management Practices report and Final Sea LevelRise and Climate Change Analysis – October 2018 •Develop Draft Action Plan, and Byxbee Park Conceptual Design Plan – October 2018 •Stakeholder review of Action Plan, and Byxbee Park Conceptual Design Plan – November2018 •Final Action Plan, and Byxbee Park Conceptual Design Plan – December 2018 •Develop Draft Baylands Comprehensive Conservation Plan and Presentations – December-January 2018 •Produce Final Baylands Comprehensive Conservation Plan and Presentations – February- March 2018 ATTACHMENTS Attachment A: Former ITT/Renzel Wetlands Conceptual Plan Options Attachment B: Stakeholder Feedback on Conceptual Plan Options Attachment C: City Council Staff Report - June 5, 2017 Adoption of an Ordinance Dedicating 36.5 Acres of Land at the Former ITT Property Antenna Field to Become Park of the Baylands Nature Preserve