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Home My WebLink About2020-06-30 Parks & Recreation Agenda PacketPARKS AND RECREATION COMMISSION June 30, 2020 SPECIAL AGENDA 7pm Agenda posted according to PAMC Section 2.04.070. ********BY VIRTUAL CONFERENCE ONLY******* Pursuant to the provisions of California Governor’s Executive Order N-29-20, issued on March 17, 2020, to prevent the spread of Covid-19, this meeting will be held by virtual teleconference only, with no physical location. The meeting will be broadcast on Midpen Media Center at https://midpenmedia.org. Please be aware that there is another priority meeting being televised ahead of the PRC and might go past the 7pm start time. It is recommended that you join the Zoom meeting in case this happens. Once the other meeting is finished the PRC meeting will resume in progress. Members of the public who wish to participate by computer or phone can find the instructions at the end of this agenda. To ensure participation in a particular item, we suggest calling in or connecting online 15 minutes before the item you wish to speak on. https://zoom.us/join Meeting ID: 960 1960 0106 Phone: 1(669)900-6833 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 timerestriction 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 June 4, 2020 Special Parks and Recreation Commission Meeting –Chair – Action (5 min) ATTACHMENT2. 2020 Sustainability and Climate Action Plan Update – Christine Luong – Discussion (45 min)ATTACHMENT 3. Informational report on the Public Works Zero Waste Program – Wendy Hediger – Informational (30 min)4. Review of Draft design of the Cameron Park Improvement Project – Peter Jensen – Discussion (30min) ATTACHMENT5. Other Ad Hoc Committee and Liaison Updates – Chair – Discussion (15 min) ATTACHMENT VI.TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR JULY 28, 2020 MEETING VII.COMMENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS VIII.ADJOURNMENT PUBLIC LETTERS 4 June 30, 2020 Public Comment Instructions Members of the Public may provide public comments to teleconference meetings via email, teleconference, or by phone. 1.Written public comments may be submitted by email to ParkRec.Commission@cityofpaloalto.org 2.Spoken public comments using a computer will be accepted through the teleconference meeting. To address the Commission, click on the link below to access a Zoom-based meeting. Please read the following instructions carefully.A.You may download the Zoom client or connect to the meeting in- B. C. D. E. browser. If using your browser, make sure you are using a current, up-to-date browser: Chrome 30+, Firefox 27+, Microsoft Edge 12+, Safari 7+. Certain functionality may be disabled in older browsers including Internet Explorer. You may be asked to enter an email address and name. We request that you identify yourself by name as this will be visible online and will be used to notify you that it is your turn to speak. When you wish to speak on an Agenda Item, click on “raise hand.” The Staff Assistant will activate and unmute speakers in turn. Speakers will be notified shortly before they are called to speak. When called, please limit your remarks to the time limit allotted. A timer will be shown on the computer to help keep track of your comments. 3.Spoken public comments using a smart phone will be accepted through the teleconference meeting. To address the Commission, download the Zoom application onto your phone from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store and enter the Meeting ID below. Please follow the instructions B-E above. 4.Spoken public comments using a phone use the telephone number listed below. When you wish to speak on an agenda item hit *9 on your phone so we know that you wish to speak. You will be asked to provide your first and last name before addressing the Commission. You will be advised how long you have to speak. When called please limit your remarks to the agenda item and time limit allotted. https://zoom.us/join Meeting ID: 960 1960 0106 Phone:1(669)900-6833 DRAFT Draft Minutes 1 1 2 3 4 MINUTES 5 PARKS & RECREATION COMMISSION 6 SPECIAL MEETING 7 June 4, 2020 8 Virtual Meeting 9 Palo Alto, California 10 11 Commissioners Present: Anne Cribbs, Jeff Greenfield, Jeff LaMere, Ryan McCauley, David 12 Moss, and Keith Reckdahl 13 Commissioners Absent: Jackie Olson 14 Others Present: Council Member Lydia Kou 15 Staff Present: Kristen O'Kane, Lam Do, Catherine Bourquin 16 I. ROLL CALL 17 II. AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, DELETIONS 18 Chair Greenfield: Now, the next item on the agenda is changes, requests, deletions. Does 19 anyone have anything they'd like to request regarding the agenda tonight? Okay, then we'll 20 move on to Oral Communications. 21 III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS 22 Chair Greenfield: I do not see any attendees present at the moment. If there is anyone who 23 would like to speak on an item that's not on our agenda, please login and raise your hand. 24 I don't see anyone so, Lam, can you please proceed with the Department Report? 25 IV. DEPARTMENT REPORT 26 Lam Do: Thank you, Chair Greenfield. If I could start here, what we have are updates. I 27 would like to start in our open space area. The Baylands tide gate structure replacement 28 project is managed by the Water District. They have a public outreach meeting on June 24th 29 at 5:30. This is a virtual Zoom meeting. From the public outreach, they will continue 30 managing the project. Within the City to address the heat and our recent weather, the City 31 has established cooling centers, and the cooling centers will open depending on need. The 32 first cooling center that opened was the one at Mitchell Park Community Center. It will be 33 serving our community with CDC guidelines in place to maintain social distancing and 34 DRAFT Draft Minutes 2 safety, and the requirement of wearing a face covering is implemented as well. We also 1 have a secondary cooling center should it be needed. That would be the Art Center 2 auditorium. For information on cooling center hours, when they are open, when they are 3 closed, of course it depends on the heat, we ask people to go to the City's website, 4 cityofpaloalto.org/coolingcenters for operation hours, safety tips and general tips and 5 resources on how to stay cool at home. The next item is the City of Palo Alto issued a 6 curfew order, which started on June 2nd, and it was planned to go through the morning of 7 Thursday, June 11th. The curfew is set from 8:30 to 5:00 a.m. However, the curfew was 8 terminated as of 5:00 a.m. this morning, June 4th. During the time of the curfew, the curfew 9 restricted that no person shall be on the public street, road or sidewalks, alleys and plazas, 10 and rights-of-way. This also included the Palo Alto open space preserves. The termination 11 of the order was established by the City Manager as mentioned this morning. The City 12 Council's meeting this past Monday did have a community message of hope, and this 13 message was shared by our City Manager, Ed Shikada, our Police Chief, Robert Jonsen, 14 and Reverend Kaloma Smith and Pastor Paul Baines as well. This community of hope 15 message was a message calling for inclusion. Anyone interested in that, we ask that you 16 go to the City's webpage in the news section. Currently, our Planning and Community 17 Environment Department is working on a safe parking program with the County, and the 18 safe parking program they'd like to implement is at the temporary fire station adjacent to 19 the Baylands Athletic Center on Geng Road. This is a safe parking program for the 20 unhoused. Although this area is adjacent to the Baylands Athletic Center, it is not on 21 parkland. It is separated from the athletic center with fencing. The way the program looks 22 to be planned out—of course it's still in the works—is that the City would lease the land to 23 the County for the County to operate the safe parking program. The County would then 24 hire a contractor to manage the program. The City would not be expected to be involved 25 in the program, nor would the City be expected to fund the program. Our participation 26 would be just leasing the land to the County. Our understanding is that this program could 27 start within a month; however, logistically it may take a little bit longer to plan out. It may 28 take two or three months to plan it out. How long the safe parking program will be in place 29 is to be determined at this time. The number of vehicles that will be allowed to park there 30 is estimated to be between 15 and 25. Vehicles are allowed to stay all day, 24/7, and with 31 in-and-out privileges. Participants who want to enroll in the program will be screened by 32 the County. This site, where the old fire station is, was chosen over the Los Altos 33 Treatment Plant site due to the Los Altos Treatment Plant site having limited access to 34 resources such as water and power. This program is through the Planning Department, and 35 they do not at present plan on bringing this to the Parks and Rec Commission nor do they 36 plan on conducting public outreach. Correction, they do plan on conducting public 37 outreach through the Parks and Rec Commission. One of our art structures at the Art 38 Center along Embarcadero Road, which is the Patrick Dougherty sculpture called 39 Whiplash—this is the willow piece—has weakened, and part of it has come down. As a 40 result, this structure has been determined to come to the end of its life. We previously 41 thought it could last a little longer. However, due to part of it falling down, we are making 42 DRAFT Draft Minutes 3 plans to remove it. Removal of the structure is scheduled to begin next week. Later on, 1 we'll have an update for you in regards to the Cubberley plan, and I believe Kristen will be 2 updating us on that. Next, I'd like to move into review of COVID-19 impacts to our 3 programs here. We've had some … 4 Chair Greenfield: Excuse me, Lam. I think we're going to address the COVID-19 impacts 5 as part of the business item discussions. If you could hold off on that and any budget 6 impacts, that would be great. 7 Mr. Do: I will do that. 8 Chair Greenfield: Is there anything you would like to add or we can have Kristen give us 9 an update on Cubberley. 10 Mr. Do: My updates will be COVID-19, summer camps, and CIPs and budget reductions. 11 I can hold those as well. 12 Chair Greenfield: Why don't you go ahead with summer camps and CIP if that's not tied 13 directly into the budget reductions. If you think it's better to talk about it with the budget, 14 you can talk about that in the other item as well. 15 Mr. Do: I'll hold the CIPs for the budget discussion. At this time, I'll update on summer 16 camps, if I may. 17 Chair Greenfield: Please. 18 Mr. Do: Thank you. This summer the Community Services Department will be offering 19 a mixture of in-person camps and virtual camps. Our season will start June 15th. We will 20 be offering onsite, in-person summer camps. They are all modified to adhere to the County 21 guidelines. These guidelines will restrict the campers to a limit of 12 campers per camp. 22 Those camps, however, will need to run for three weeks per the County guidelines as one 23 stable group of participants and instructors. We are offering camps in a variety of 24 disciplines ranging from traditional recreation camps to sports camps to science and 25 technology camps. We also have specialty camps with the Art Center, with Children's 26 Theatre, and Junior Museum and Zoo. Our website is up and running for registration at 27 this time. In regards to safety guidelines, we're following the County guidelines. We will 28 have daily wellness checks for our participants and our staff. We'll have social distancing 29 in place. We'll have hand-washing procedures in place as well. As mentioned earlier, the 30 camps will need to run for three weeks. At our Rinconada Pool, we will be offering Camp 31 Rinconada as well, and this is through our service provider, Palo Alto Swim. In addition 32 to the summer swim camp, the pool will be open to the public this Saturday, June 6th. The 33 opening is just for lap swim. Those are the in-person programs we have. We will also be 34 offering virtual classes and camps. Our virtual classes and camps range from art classes 35 DRAFT Draft Minutes 4 for adults, and we will also have camps for youth and teens. In particular, we do have a 1 combined youth and teen program. It's a virtual camp where teens will collaborate with 2 the adults' ceramics program. In addition to that, our Teen Art Council and Teen Services 3 will resume. They have tentatively scheduled an open mic at the Art Center starting 4 tomorrow night, June 5th. In addition to the recreation camps and the arts camps, we've 5 expanded the use of our sports athletics fields as well. Now, we have field use that expands 6 beyond one household. We now permit activities for up to two households both on our 7 athletic fields and our courts, including tennis courts and pickleball courts. We will be 8 offering summer sports camps as well. That's my update on the camp programs this 9 summer. 10 Chair Greenfield: Thank you. Maybe we could see if any Commissioners have any 11 questions for you before we move on to Kristen. Any Commissioners have any questions 12 for Lam? 13 Commissioner Moss: Did you say that there's a limit to how many participants for the 14 onsite ones so that you can maintain social distancing? 15 Mr. Do: Yes. The limit is not necessary for social distancing. It's all inclusive of 16 guidelines enacted by the County. It's limited to 12 participants not including instructors. 17 Commissioner Moss: The June 24th meeting that you mentioned at the beginning, what 18 was that for? 19 Mr. Do: The tide gate in the Baylands Preserve needs replacement. It is a multiyear project 20 that is managed by the Valley Water District. 21 Commissioner Moss: If we want to get to that, Catherine will send us an update? 22 Mr. Do: Yes, we will do that. 23 Commissioner Moss: Do you want to mention that you opened the tennis courts and the 24 pickleball courts a couple of weeks ago or a week ago? 25 Mr. Do: Around the first week of May, the County order was updated to allow the court 26 use by single households. The City subsequently opened it up. Starting tomorrow, we will 27 open the courts to up to two household use. 28 Chair Greenfield: Anyone else? 29 Vice Chair Cribbs: I would like to compliment staff on this quick pivot and response to 30 the new regulations from the County. When Lam was going through the list of programs 31 for kids and adults, it's amazing you have been able to do this in such a short time. I would 32 DRAFT Draft Minutes 5 commend you, and I'm sure my fellow Commissioners feel that way to. Job well done. 1 It'll be really interesting to see how it all pans out. Thank you. 2 Mr. Do: Thank you on behalf of our recreation program and Art Center program 3 coordinators and our administrative staff, who have all been a part of this. 4 Commissioner LaMere: Lam, I appreciate the update, and I appreciate everything staff has 5 been able to do during these times, thinking of different solutions, and especially being 6 able to get recreation opportunities and camps going again. I know it's very important, 7 especially for people needing to go back to work, essential workers and so forth. Thank 8 you very much. 9 Chair Greenfield: As far as the number of camps and effectively seats at camps, how does 10 the offering this year compare to last year? I know there are complexities with requiring 11 the in-person camps to be three weeks long with 12 people. That's going to limit who's 12 going to want to sign up for camps and limit what the offerings can be. It may be difficult 13 to answer that considering the in-person camps with the virtual classes. 14 Mr. Do: I probably could not, other than to say the capacity restriction, there's also a 15 restriction of staffing being in the same camp. There's also the restriction that a participant 16 could not cross camps concurrently. Before we could offer someone to participate perhaps 17 in a half-day camp, in the morning it could be a recreation or arts camp or a theatre camps, 18 and then in the afternoon they could participate in another camp or a sports camps. With 19 the guidelines, we are not able to offer that. That drastically reduces the capacity and add 20 to that the cohorts remain together for three weeks. I don't have a better description if what 21 you are looking for is capacity-wise overall. Unfortunately, I don't have a comparison for 22 that. 23 Chair Greenfield: I certainly echo the rest of the Commission's comments that we 24 appreciate how quickly staff has been able to turnaround on this. It know it's very difficult. 25 Taking a step back, I want to thank staff for all of the efforts they've made over the past 26 few months. It's been a tremendous workload on staff. You've done it in a very thoughtful 27 manner as is always the case. 28 Commissioner Reckdahl: The pickleball courts, how much autonomy do we have in the 29 decision and how many of these decisions are being made by the County and us being told 30 what to do? 31 Mr. Do: Thank you for the question. The City overall has been following the guidelines 32 of the County. As the County eases restrictions, we've been working quickly to implement 33 them. Some of the restrictions took us a few days after the County greenlighted to prepare 34 and implement. Some of them have taken us up to a week to implement. The overall 35 guides that we follow to implement are the County guidelines. 36 DRAFT Draft Minutes 6 Commissioner Reckdahl: For example, the one household versus two households, that was 1 specifically required by the County? 2 Mr. Do: That's correct. 3 Vice Chair Cribbs: Lam, you said the pool is open for lap swimming. I'm delighted to 4 hear that. Will the residents or people coming to the pool be making a reservation in 5 advance for the lane? 6 Mr. Do: I'm not aware of an advance reservation. I can follow up and respond to you 7 separately if you'd like. 8 Vice Chair Cribbs: Thank you. 9 Kristen O'Kane: I have an answer to that, Vice Chair Cribbs. Palo Alto Swim and Sport 10 has a very specific protocol that will include how people enter the facility. They will 11 reserve a lane. They get so much time in that lane. When time is called, they get out of 12 the lane and exit the pool area. The next group comes in. It's much more detailed than 13 that, but that's the summary. 14 Vice Chair Cribbs: That's excellent. I'm really happy to hear that. That's a very good 15 protocol. 16 Commissioner Moss: Will they do a health check too? 17 Ms. O'Kane: No, they won't do a health check. That's something we've talked about within 18 the City. We do that for our essential employees when they come to work. There will be 19 signage that says if you're feeling ill or have these symptoms, please do not use the pool. 20 A lot of people can test positive for the virus and not have any symptoms so doing 21 something like temperature checks isn't necessarily a valid way to determine if someone 22 has tested positive or is carrying the virus. 23 Chair Greenfield: Regarding the open mic at the Art Center, is that a virtual event or an 24 in-person event? 25 Mr. Do: Let me see if I can get that. 26 Ms. O'Kane: It's virtual. 27 Commissioner Moss: You should mention for the record that Foothills and Arastradero 28 were opened again to cars, I think, a week ago, two weeks ago. 29 Chair Greenfield: Last weekend was the first weekend. 30 DRAFT Draft Minutes 7 Commissioner Moss: How did that go? 1 Mr. Do: I can update now, Chair Greenfield, or would you like me to hold that for COVID-2 19 impact updates? 3 Chair Greenfield: We can wait on that. Regarding the new guidelines for two households 4 in ball sports, whether it's field sports or tennis and pickleball, how is that being 5 communicated? Is that going out through the daily Palo Alto update? Are we reaching out 6 to Monica and the pickleball community? How about the soccer clubs? I guess this would 7 officially allow a coaching clinic between a soccer coach and a solo player or siblings. 8 Mr. Do: The City is communicating this information via the daily update. I know for sure 9 it was in today's announcement. I'm not sure whether it was in yesterday's announcement. 10 Our social media channels are also being used to communicate this information. 11 Chair Greenfield: This change will certainly make a lot of people happy in the manners 12 that they're trying to get out and exercise and have some outdoor recreation opportunities. 13 It opens up a lot more possibilities. If there are no more questions, we can move on to 14 Kristen's update on Cubberley. 15 Ms. O'Kane: Did Commissioner Reckdahl have a question or no? 16 Commissioner Reckdahl: I put my hand down. 17 Ms. O'Kane: Good evening, Commissioners and Council Member Kou. Kristen O'Kane, 18 Community Services Department. It's nice to see all of you. It's been way too long. Chair 19 Greenfield had asked me to provide an update on the Cubberley Community Center and 20 where we are with our—I'm assuming you are specifically referring to our lease with the 21 School District. You probably are all aware that the lease between the School District and 22 the City is likely changing quite significantly, and the Board of Education has already 23 approved a revised lease agreement. This lease limits the amount of space that the City 24 will have access to. The City will continue to lease the athletic fields, the gyms, the 25 pavilion, and the theater. We will temporarily be leasing the auditorium because that's the 26 space where the Junior Museum and Zoo currently resides, until they move into their new 27 space. There's also an additional space, which is in the S building, and that is the Children's 28 Preschool Center. The reason that's included is because half of that organization is on City 29 property, and the other half is on School District property. The easiest thing to do in this 30 short timeframe was just to include that into the City's lease. We are bringing this to City 31 Council on June 15th. If it is approved—regardless if it's approved or not, we've already 32 issued notices to all the tenants who the City had leases with on the School District property 33 as well as all of the renters who have rental permits on the School District property. We've 34 advised them that they will not have space as of July 1st on the School District property. 35 This impacted initially we thought ten long-term tenants, but we've now, due to keeping 36 DRAFT Draft Minutes 8 the Children's Preschool Center and another group that uses a room attached to the pavilion, 1 we've reduced it down to seven tenants who will be impacted. I have been working with 2 Cubberley staff to speak with those tenants. We're speaking with them nearly daily. We're 3 meeting them out at Cubberley and showing them potential locations where they could 4 move or trying to connect them with other community organizations that might have space 5 for them. As of today we have been able to offer all of those tenants or to show all of those 6 tenants an alternate space, and we're working with them to see if it is a space that they want 7 and if that will work for them and the logistics behind that. For the renters, we're in a 8 similar situation. We are having conversations with the School District, and they are now 9 contemplating that it might make sense for them to allow some of those renters to continue 10 renting on the School District property. Nothing is final, and nothing is confirmed. They're 11 just having those conversations with those renters, which is very positive news. I am 12 personally very grateful that they're taking that step because we just don't have enough 13 space on the City's 8 acres to accommodate everybody. We're doing our best. I want to 14 say how much I appreciate how all of the tenants and the renters have—this was such a 15 short timeframe for them. It came as a shock, and they have all been amazing to work with 16 and gracious and kind to us. I really appreciate that. We're doing our best to get everyone 17 situated so that they can get their programs up and running real soon. Any questions for 18 me or any additional information you'd like? 19 Chair Greenfield: Thank you, Kristen. I appreciate the—I know you've been working very 20 hard on this, and I know it's been a very consuming effort. It's not a situation any of us 21 wanted to be in. I think you've handled it with a lot of class for the City. We're all 22 appreciative of that. On behalf of the Commission, we're here and interested to help in any 23 way we can with this effort. Does anyone have any specific questions for Kristen? 24 Commissioner Moss: I'm amazed that you were able to in such a short time try to react 25 and come up with a different situation. How many of the existing City tenants had extra 26 space that they were willing to give up so that you could move some of these people over? 27 They must all have been impacted, right? 28 Ms. O'Kane: The only organization that we—when I communicated with all of the 29 Cubberley tenants, I said, "If you're on the City side, this doesn't really impact you. 30 Although, if you do have additional space and you feel like you could either share it or 31 consolidate some of your space to make room for a tenant who would otherwise be 32 displaced, we would really appreciate that." Most organizations are feeling like they either 33 need the space they have or they need more space because they want to try and do the same 34 programming they had but spread people out so there isn't as much close contact. The 35 organization that has been really working with us is the Friends of the Palo Alto Library. 36 They have quite a bit of space at Cubberley, and they do a lot for the Palo Alto Libraries 37 and provide a lot of funding for Palo Alto Libraries. They need that space for their 38 DRAFT Draft Minutes 9 donations, but they've been working with us to hopefully consolidate some of their space 1 and free up a little bit of it so that another tenant could relocate. 2 Commissioner Moss: I think they have two trailers, and they might be able to give up one, 3 but I'm not sure. Are there any plans to bring portables onto the City side, that parking lot 4 on the north side? 5 Ms. O'Kane: It's something that we've—as we were looking at every possible option, that 6 might be the viable solution. That was definitely one that we looked at. It's something we 7 still might want to look into in the future. For the short term, we're trying to get everyone 8 situated. As things become available or we have other options, we can still move people 9 to something that suits them better. For right now, that coordination we haven't moved on. 10 Commissioner Moss: When does the JMZ expect to be moving their animals to the new 11 site? 12 Ms. O'Kane: They plan to open the new facility to the public in March. That means they 13 need to have the animals there and quarantined and staff being trained on how to feed and 14 interact with the animals about 6 months in advance. They will be starting to move over 15 in the fall, but they likely will be staying to some degree at Cubberley until the end of the 16 calendar year. 17 Commissioner Reckdahl: I understand the City's in a really tough position here. This 18 seems like a draconian measure. There are such huge community impacts, I think I would 19 search other places to save the money. I don't know how much you're saving by cutting 20 this lease, but it doesn't seem to be worth the disruption that you're causing the community. 21 Ms. O'Kane: I understand where you're coming from, and thank you for raising that. This 22 really has been collaborative discussions between the School District and the City. I don't 23 want to speak for the School District, but they will be utilizing the space at Cubberley. My 24 understanding is they need additional space to allow students and staff to be at the greater 25 distance apart. This did not happen lightly by any means. There were a lot of conversations 26 between the School District and the staff. This was really a collaborative partnership to 27 resolve several issues related to funding but also just the School District needing space as 28 well. 29 Commissioner Reckdahl: My impression was this was driven by the City. Are you saying 30 that's not necessarily the case? 31 Ms. O'Kane: It was developed through conversations between the City and the School 32 District. 33 Chair Greenfield: Any other questions? 34 DRAFT Draft Minutes 10 Commissioner Moss: Doesn't the City need to do the same thing that the School District 1 is doing and expand their work spaces too? 2 Ms. O'Kane: We're in the process of developing what we call recovery plans for returning 3 to work. Each department is in the process of preparing those. It's still something that's in 4 progress right now. We're working with our Emergency Operations Center and facilities 5 and the City Manager's Office to finalize those and try to understand what we need to be 6 safe and return to work or maybe in some cases not return to the office for a while for those 7 that can continue to successfully work remotely. 8 Chair Greenfield: The tennis courts, are those part of City property or are they considered 9 part of fields on the school property? What's the status with them? 10 Ms. O'Kane: The tennis courts are on City property already. The outside edge of the tennis 11 court is where the City's property ends. 12 Chair Greenfield: Now we'll move on to the next item, which is essentially going to be a 13 continuation of the Department Report. Thank you for working in this perhaps awkward 14 skewed manner. The reason I asked that the—I'm sorry. We're going to go to the approval 15 of the draft minutes first, and then we'll continue with the staff report on COVID-19 shelter-16 in-place impacts and financial impacts. 17 V. BUSINESS 18 1. Approval of Draft Minutes from the February 25, 2020 Parks and Recreation 19 Commission Meeting 20 Approval of the draft February 25, 2020 Minutes was moved by Commissioner Reckdahl 21 and seconded by Commissioner Moss. Passed 5-0 McCauley, Olson absent 22 2. Review of COVID-19 Impacts and Financial Impacts on Community Services 23 Department 24 Chair Greenfield: The next item on the agenda is the Review of the COVID-19 Impacts 25 and the Financial Impacts on the community. Before we move onto that, Council Member 26 Kou, I want to confirm your audio is working. Is there anything you'd like to add? 27 Council Member Kou: The audio is working. Thank you so much for checking in with 28 me. I'm sorry I was a little bit tardy over there. Nothing to add. Thank you so much for 29 the updates. Nice to see all of you. 30 Chair Greenfield: And you as well. We'll move on to the continuation of the Department 31 Report. Just to let you know the reason I'd asked that this be structured in this manner is 32 so that the agenda would be a little bit more transparent in terms of what we're discussing. 33 DRAFT Draft Minutes 11 If it just said Department Report, I didn't feel like it would be as clear. I thought it was 1 worth making it a little bit more identifiable in this recap and restart meeting that we're 2 reviewing where we are and considering how to move forward. If you'd like to continue 3 on this item, please Lam. 4 Mr. Do: Thank you, Chair Greenfield. I apologize for not identifying myself earlier. Lam 5 Do, Superintendent in Open Space, Parks and Golf. Today, I'm standing in for our 6 Community Services Assistant Director Daren Anderson. To continue the Department 7 Report, we have the impact of COVID-19 to our programs. Let me start with the impact 8 in our open space areas. The additional visitation during shelter in place to all of our open 9 space preserves, we needed to ensure that social distancing was in place. As a result, we 10 along with multiple other open space jurisdictions throughout the region closed our parking 11 lots. We still kept the preserves open to those that could either walk, hike, or bike in. We 12 slowly phased reopening of the preserves as mentioned earlier. With our closures, we also 13 closed amenities in the facilities as well. When we closed down the parking lots, we also 14 closed down the park benches, water fountains, and we also closed our restrooms. These 15 were all inline with County health orders or interpretations of the County health orders to 16 ensure public safety. As we learned more and as the County advised us more, we too 17 slowly reopened our facilities in the open space areas. We started with reopening our 18 parking lots on weekdays, and we then moved to phasing in opening of our parking lots at 19 various preserves on weekends. Now, all of our preserves are open, parking lots are open 20 all days of the week. However, we still have some facilities in there that are closed. Picnic 21 areas, benches, barbecues are closed. We did reopen our restrooms. In regards to visitation 22 that we've experienced, our weekday visitation at the Baylands continues to be at pre-23 COVID levels. We're experiencing about 75-100 cars per hour on weekdays in the 24 Baylands Preserve. On weekends, we're experiencing about 150 cars per hour during the 25 peak times. Looking at this past May 31, we opened our parking lots for the first time on 26 the weekends. The Byxbee parking lot, which holds about 30 vehicles, was consistently 27 full throughout the day. We turned away at least 50 cars each hour. We redirected them 28 to the other lots within the Baylands. We were able to facilitate for the most part parking. 29 It was just through using other lots and redirecting visitors. For Foothills Park, we 30 reopened all of our parking lots. Last Saturday, we had 245 vehicles and about 580 visitors. 31 This number was achieved despite the morning being a little bit breezy and showery 32 conditions as well. We did have to turn away about 100 visitors at the front gate. Seven 33 of those 100 visitors were for having dogs. The others presumably were due to being 34 nonresidents. That is a high number for a typical weekend for us. At the Pearson-35 Arastradero Preserve, this one in general has throughout the shelter-in-place order 36 remained a high visitation area, whether the parking lot was closed or whether the parking 37 lot was open. It continues to be quite popular for those that are hiking and mountain biking. 38 Much of our operations during this time was with a full staffing level within our open space 39 staff. In addition to that, we brought in staff from our other program areas in Community 40 Services. Also we received quite a significant amount of assistance, and we want to 41 DRAFT Draft Minutes 12 acknowledge the Police Department, in particular Captain Zac Peron and all the 1 Community Service Officers in the Police Department who helped us weekdays and 2 weekends managing visitors and traffic for several weeks. A lot of that would not have 3 been possible without the assistance of the Police Department and the assistance of other 4 staff within the Community Services Department. The impact in our parks also started out 5 with closures. We closed courts, tennis, pickleball, basketball. We closed picnic areas. 6 We closed park benches. Athletic fields were closed as well. Playgrounds were closed. 7 We, however, did leave in the parks the restrooms open. Part of the reason restrooms were 8 left open is because these are parks in our urban areas. We do have unhoused. As a result, 9 it's difficult for them to find restrooms during the shelter in place because all the businesses 10 are also closed. We left the restrooms in our parks open. As the County health orders went 11 through multiple iterations, we were slowly reopening some facilities. In early to mid May, 12 we reopened our courts, being basketball, pickleball and tennis courts, and also athletic 13 fields. We opened under limited and restricted use per the County guidelines. At the time, 14 they were restricted to single household usage. That will change starting tomorrow. We 15 will go to usage by up to two households. However, playgrounds is one of the areas we 16 have not reopened, and that has not been addressed by us nor has it been addressed by the 17 County. As a result, playgrounds remain closed. In regards to our dog parks, initially dog 18 parks were open, and then one of the changes to the County order was to close the dog 19 parks. We proceeded to close them. Now, we're happy to report that our dog parks will 20 reopen tomorrow with social distancing in place. Also, we are still requiring the use of 21 face coverings for any visitors in our dog parks. All our dog parks will reopen starting 22 tomorrow, the 5th. I've mentioned previously the impact on our recreation programs and 23 our summer camps; however, there were existing spring classes. Due to the shelter-in-24 place order, we cancelled all of our spring classes. We did pivot and make a switch to 25 some virtual programming. We were not able to offer a full slate, and now we're still 26 looking towards our summer programs, continuing the virtual programming as well. We've 27 added some in-person camps as previously mentioned. COVID-19 also had an impact to 28 Rinconada Pool. That was another facility that we closed down. We are reopening it 29 starting Saturday, June 6th, to lap swim, and on Monday we'll reopen it to camps as well. 30 That's the physical impacts to our facilities and classes. The other side of that is budget 31 reductions and the impact we have throughout the City.. 32 Chair Greenfield: Excuse me, Lam. Before we move on to the financial impacts, do any 33 Commissioners have any questions about that? The items that Lam has just discussed. 34 Commissioner Reckdahl: What's the status on the golf course? 35 Mr. Do: Our golf course was another facility that closed down as soon as shelter in place 36 was put in place on March 16th or 17th. The golf course remained closed until the shelter-37 in-place order was modified by the County. We reopened it on May 17th or 13th, one of 38 DRAFT Draft Minutes 13 those two days. I apologize for not recalling exactly. We reopened it at the time to single 1 play per the County guidelines. 2 Commissioner Reckdahl: Single person or single household? 3 Mr. Do: It was opened to single, individual play. The County guidelines defaulted to the 4 State guidelines to single, individual play. 5 Commissioner Reckdahl: With the playing fields being open to two households and 6 pickleball and stuff, are we having two households for the golf courses? 7 Mr. Do: Yes, we are transitioning to that as well. 8 Commissioner Reckdahl: That starts tomorrow? 9 Mr. Do: Correct. 10 Commissioner Reckdahl: How's the play? Are we getting people out there or is it empty? 11 Mr. Do: It is not empty. Golf remains the same; it depends on the weather. We've been 12 reopened for about three weeks. The first week and a half, actually the first three days we 13 were ramping up. By the fourth or fifth day, we had a full tee sheet. Keep in mind, this is 14 the full tee sheet with single, individual play, not necessarily group play. Capacity-wise, 15 it's much more limited. About a week and a half ago we had some strong, warm days. 16 That reduced our golf course play. It has since resumed. I don't know for the past two or 17 three days how the tee sheets look. I haven't had a chance to get an update on that. 18 Commissioner Reckdahl: Just to be clear, you can have two households, and you can have 19 a full foursome or are we limited to two people? 20 Mr. Do: The County guidelines allow for up to a foursome. Technically, the County 21 guidelines do not say up to a foursome. It just says two households. Golf as a sport has 22 been grouped up to a foursome in general. 23 Commissioner Reckdahl: How does the lease work? Who is taking the hit, the loss of 24 revenue? 25 Mr. Do: The operator of the golf course unfortunately incurred the financial losses. The 26 operator is OB Sports. They leased the café. 27 Commissioner Reckdahl: They have a fixed payment that they're giving us? 28 Mr. Do: That is correct. 29 DRAFT Draft Minutes 14 Commissioner Reckdahl: And there was nothing in the contract that would allow them to 1 either cut their lease or decrease those payments for certain contingencies? 2 Mr. Do: Not contractually. 3 Commissioner Reckdahl: It all looks like they're going to keep their lease and keep on 4 operating it, and we're not going to have any interruptions? 5 Mr. Do: That's correct. 6 Commissioner Reckdahl: That would be bad to have the golf course, which we paid so 7 much money for, sitting empty and not being used if the operator pulled out. 8 Mr. Do: We have two separate agreements with the operator. As you inquired, Baylands 9 Café is lease by them and operated by them. As for the golf course and its practice 10 facilities, those are operated by them on the City's behalf. They are a contracted 11 management company for the course and the practice areas under a separate contract from 12 the lease that they have for the café. 13 Chair Greenfield: To clarify that real quickly, Lam. The operator is absorbing the loss on 14 the café. Is the City absorbing the loss on the golf course? 15 Mr. Do: That's correct. 16 Commissioner Moss: Because we spent so much time earlier this year talking about 17 opening Foothills to nonresidents in a controlled fashion, this period has been a big 18 experiment to see what kind of impact we could have if we relaxed our controls. You can 19 see with so many cars showing up and you turned away 100 visitors, 93 of which were 20 nonresidents, how valuable and how needed these open spaces are and will probably help 21 to inform us how to open the park up in that controlled fashion. I don't want to lose these 22 statistics. Every statistic that you have from this period, it would be nice to feed to the 23 subcommittee so that we don't lose it. It's really important. 24 Mr. Do: Our Ranger staff at Foothills has records of this, and we will continue to track 25 this information. 26 Chair Greenfield: Thank you. Questions from any other Commissioners? As far as face 27 coverings being required, does this only apply to the dog parks? Is there any other outdoor 28 activity where face coverings are required? 29 Mr. Do: I think it's dependent upon how activity is determined. They City's ordinance on 30 face coverings is a blanket. It's both outdoors and upon entering a business. There are 31 exceptions to recreational athletic participation. That is why the face covering is the 32 requirement for the dog parks. It's not necessarily an athletic endeavor. In particular, the 33 DRAFT Draft Minutes 15 face covering is a requirement that the County has stated as a condition of reopening dog 1 parks. Even independent of whether or not the City has its own ordinance in place, it is a 2 requirement of the County's update effective tomorrow for dog parks. 3 Chair Greenfield: That's helpful to understand. Gatherings are still not officially permitted 4 under the shelter-in-place guidelines? The people at dog parks are kind of gathering. 5 Mr. Do: That's correct. The County is allowing the dog parks to reopen. We have posted 6 signs for both face coverings, and signage of social distancing is a requirement. The 7 signage states if you are unable to maintain social distancing of 6 feet, we ask them to not 8 enter the dog park. 9 Chair Greenfield: I know you made this clear regarding the open spaces, but benches and 10 picnic areas remain closed in the parks as well as in the open spaces? 11 Mr. Do: Yes, that is correct. 12 Chair Greenfield: Barbecues and drinking fountains as well. 13 Mr. Do: Yes, along the same lines. 14 Chair Greenfield: Thank you. If there are no other questions, if you could please proceed 15 to the … 16 Commissioner Moss: I have one more. I'm also very interested in the statistics of how 17 many staff you really needed to manage the open spaces during this incredibly busy period. 18 You talked about needing police to back up the entire force of Rangers. I want to make 19 sure that we know what kind of staff is really needed to open up the park to a greater 20 audience. I take my hat off to you for being able to marshal these resources on very short 21 notice. I don't think we anticipated how much volume we were going to get. The fact that 22 you were able to pull all these people together and maintain some kind of order was really 23 amazing. 24 Mr. Do: We have that information of staffing levels. 25 Chair Greenfield: That's a good suggestion. I do appreciate how staff has been able to pull 26 this together. Part of this is the lost concept of a weekend and working a lot of hours to fill 27 the gaps. The guidelines are ever-changing. It's a perfect example of how things will 28 change again tomorrow. Every couple of weeks it's a new landscape. Staff has to then go 29 to the effort of interpreting what these changes and official policies mean with respect to 30 various recreation activities and facilities around the City. 31 Ms. O'Kane: Chair Greenfield, I'd just like to add a little bit to the staffing of open space 32 areas. Some of Community Services staff are, because of the nature of the work they do, 33 DRAFT Draft Minutes 16 unable to work remotely. We were able to redeploy many of those staff to help the Rangers 1 in the open space areas, crowd control, reminding people to stay 6 feet apart, traffic control, 2 things like that. That was a really good way to redeploy staff who otherwise may not have 3 work that they could easily do remotely. 4 Chair Greenfield: That's great to hear, that we're able to find ways to redeploy the staff in 5 areas that are certainly at a high need in these past few months. 6 Commissioner McCauley: I'm dialed in via my phone for the audio. Apologies for the 7 moment earlier. I intended to vote yes for the approval of the minutes. Sorry that I got 8 disconnected verbally. 9 Chair Greenfield: No further questions? 10 Commissioner McCauley: No, nothing further. 11 Chair Greenfield: Lam, can you go ahead with the financial impacts? 12 Mr. Do: Thank you, Chair Greenfield. As I speak about the COVID-19 impacts on our 13 programs, I'm going to ask Director O'Kane and Council Member Kou to correct me if I 14 misstep or misspeak. The budget impacts for our open space areas are wide-ranging. Much 15 of this is in response to the City's estimated $20 million financial impacts Citywide in the 16 current fiscal year. The City is also looking at a projected $39 million fiscal recovery 17 impact in next fiscal year '21. As a result, Citywide all departments were asked to take a 18 look at our budgets and determine where we can make changes and reductions. The 19 Community Services Department as a whole was tasked, and we have reductions in several 20 areas. I'll start with open space. In our open space areas, we have service level reductions 21 starting with the Baylands Nature Center. We will be reducing our staffing at the Nature 22 Center by $10,000. The impact of that is the visitation hours at the Baylands Nature Center 23 will be reduced to address that and backfill some of that loss. We have worked with the 24 Environmental Volunteers, and they have generously agreed to help support us with 25 staffing at the Baylands Nature Center to still provide some visitation hours. What will 26 happen then is staff will make up for the rest. This offer with the Environmental Volunteers 27 allows us to maintain field trips and programming at the Nature Center despite having to 28 reduce the budget there. We are now looking at reduced hours and possibly reduced days. 29 We don't know the exact details of how we're going to work this out yet, but we're confident 30 we can offer at minimum Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday hours and perhaps even more 31 according to the typical high visitation needs of the area. In regards to contract expenses 32 in our open space areas and park maintenance areas, we've had reductions across the board. 33 Our largest reduction is in park landscape maintenance. This is a large reduction, 26 34 percent, of approximately $274,000. The contract is over $1 million. In looking at what 35 does that mean when we reduce a contract by over a quarter, this will be primarily a 36 reduction in the frequency of maintenance. Where parks are maintained X number of days, 37 DRAFT Draft Minutes 17 we will maintain it fewer days per week. For example, parks that were serviced three times 1 a week, we're going to be reducing that to service one time a week. This would impact 2 parks such as El Palo Alto, Mayfield Park, Sarah Wallis Park, Weisshaar Park. In addition 3 to that, Lytton Plaza and Cogswell Plaza. Some City facilities, which previously were 4 landscaped and maintained five days a week, will now be reduced to three times a week. 5 These facilities will include City Hall, Mitchell Park Community Center, and our Library 6 and Lucie Stern Center as well. Some small sites that were maintained three times a week 7 will now be reduced to twice a week. These facilities are those such as Children's Theatre 8 and the Art Center. Some sites that were maintained only once per week will be reduced 9 to once per month. These sites include our fire stations. 10 Commissioner Reckdahl: What do you mean when you say maintained? Is that sweeping 11 and leaves or is it also like garbage collection? 12 Mr. Do: This is primarily leaves and hedge maintenance and safety and pathway 13 maintenance. The litter removal we are addressing to maintain an appropriate level. We 14 may have some instances where it may overflow, but we'll address it as it comes. We will 15 do our best to reduce the overall impact and the appearance, granted that things will look a 16 little different. Our park maintenance contract also includes maintenance of our road 17 medians. This has an impact in regards to loose litter at the medians. This is a little bit 18 different from maintaining our parks and facilities. With the reduction in maintaining our 19 road medians, weed removal will not be as often and neither will litter removal. There will 20 be an aesthetic change to that. One other area that our parks maintenance contract includes 21 is our tennis courts cleaning, which would have been cleaned twice a month. Now, they're 22 going to be cleaned once a month. The cleaning of this varies from blowing to washing 23 the courts. These examples are to help us achieve the 26 percent reduction or $274,000 in 24 the maintenance contract. We also have some areas where we will no longer be funding 25 the work by the contractor, and the work will transition to staff. Byxbee has an annual 26 mowing done by the contractor. That has been completely removed from the contract. 27 Now, our Rangers will perform the mowing. They will not be able to do the mowing in 28 full scale. We'll do some minimal mowing to keep the trails clear. Some services were 29 added to the contract; however, we will now need to remove them. There was additional 30 weekend trash pickup for the Magical Bridge Playground. Unfortunately, we do need to 31 remove the additional weekend trash pickup. It will revert back to how it originally was, 32 where the trash pickup resumes on Mondays. To address this, we added trash cans. We'll 33 go back to having the full set of trash cans and resuming Monday trash pickup. Some of 34 our athletic field maintenance is also going to be impacted. We are no longer going to as 35 frequently aerate, set seed or fertilize these playing fields. We will reduce the frequency 36 of that. Right now, the playing fields are probably in the best shape that they have ever 37 been because they haven't been played on. That's a good start. Perhaps that will allow us 38 to reduce the maintenance of the playing fields as well. An area that we felt was important 39 and we did not reduce and kept whole is playground maintenance. There is no change in 40 DRAFT Draft Minutes 18 playground maintenance. Eventually playgrounds will be open, and they will be 1 maintained on a regular basis. We did have a reduction to contracted Ranger service, which 2 supplements our regular staff. We're contracted through California Land Management, and 3 they provide weekend support and evening support in our open space areas and our urban 4 parks. Unfortunately, that contract had to have a very drastic reduction. The contract is 5 going from $143,000 to $30,000 in services. That's going to have a very big impact to the 6 service we provide. That service also includes litter removal in the nature preserves. That 7 will fall to Ranger staff now. We don't know exactly how and fully all of these changes 8 will play out. We're still investigating the changes and how we can mitigate the changes 9 as much as possible. Unfortunately, this is all part of the COVID fiscal impact and fiscal 10 recovery. In recreation and the arts, we have a number of reductions. We have reductions 11 to Children's Theatre programming. We have reductions to the number of main stage 12 productions that they offer. There are also reductions to their outreach program. The 13 outreach program is a partnership with the School District. We have reductions to 14 programs for both adults and youth. We also have some reductions throughout our teen 15 programs. Some of the teen services have been reinstated, and we're looking forward to 16 making full use of reinstatement plans. Kristen, could you assist me on the recreation 17 reductions? 18 Ms. O'Kane: The recreation reductions include reducing the amount of hours that the 19 community centers are open. Each of the three community centers will be closed one day 20 per week. We will in turn rotate staff through the different community services as well as 21 the Art Center and our other museums to allow customer service to continue at each of the 22 facilities. Teen services was an initial cut, but fortunately City Council saw how important 23 our teen services and programs are. That was restored quite a bit. That includes the Think 24 Fund, which is the Bryant Street Garage Fund funding. Most of those teen programs have 25 been restored in the budget. I think that's it for recreation. 26 Mr. Do: That concludes the budget impacts of the department. I'd be more than happy to 27 take some questions should anyone have some. 28 Chair Greenfield: That's a very sobering report. Council Member Kou, would you care to 29 comment on this at all? The Council has been working many hours on very difficult budget 30 work and the decisions that nobody was envisioning and looking forward to being in a 31 position to have to make. A lot of care went into the process. 32 Council Member Kou: Firstly, I want to say Kristen and her team did a fabulous job in 33 rerouting and reconsidering a lot of the programs. In our community, Community Services 34 is one of the most valued areas. She did a great job trying to coordinate all of that. It's not 35 easy. Given what we have, I think we clawed back as much as possible for the teens. A 36 lot of them are important programs, which really help them grow. One of the areas with 37 Children's Theatre, a lot of youth came in and talked about how important it was in 38 DRAFT Draft Minutes 19 developing themselves, their self-confidence and making friends that are pretty much 1 lifelong. They come back and give back after they go to college. It's not just in the acting 2 side, it's also behind the scenes, behind the stage, doing stage management, doing sound, 3 doing lights. There's a lot that goes on there including making costumes. It's very 4 beneficial. Through this COVID crisis, we've come to learn how important outdoor space, 5 parks, etc. are for residents in order to get some reprieve from being indoors. Just to go 6 out and see some life instead of just at home, that's another area that is treasured. Based 7 on the knowledge we've gained from this, we've worked to try to save as much as possible. 8 Besides that, Lam and Kristen did a great job giving a summary. Thank you. 9 Commissioner Reckdahl: When we talk about this maintenance that we're skipping right 10 now, is this purely aesthetics or will it hurt the plants long term if we don't do this for a 11 long period of time? 12 Mr. Do: We don't intend to have long-term hurt. What we're focusing on right now is all 13 the safety maintenance is still in place. We'll still maintain plants, but the annual plants 14 that get replanted may not occur until our budget has been increased to perhaps current 15 levels or somewhere in between that will allow us to replant. The existing plants should 16 stay alive unless it's an annual. 17 Commissioner Reckdahl: Tree maintenance, there's nothing that we're skipping for trees 18 that may make them less durable? 19 Mr. Do: Tree irrigation will remain the same. Tree trimming will remain the same. That's 20 part of the City's urban forrestry. I have not heard that they have made any drastic 21 reductions to their tree maintenance. Our maintenance of trees is limited to trimming the 22 lower limbs. We don't maintain the upper limbs. 23 Commissioner Reckdahl: How about the work that the Fire Department and other parts of 24 the City do for the Foothills fire mitigation? 25 Mr. Do: The fire mitigation plan is not impacted by the budget reductions. 26 Commissioner Reckdahl: That continues? 27 Mr. Do: Yes. 28 Commissioner Reckdahl: How well has the public been obeying things like playground 29 closures and things like that? 30 Mr. Do: We've had residents and/or visitors that have observed our closure and/or caution 31 signs. We've also experienced quite the opposite. We've had caution tape torn down and 32 removed. Signage has been ripped off. We've had courts that were closed and locked, 33 DRAFT Draft Minutes 20 unlocked and played upon. We've gone back out and re-locked or re-taped or closed or re-1 signed. 2 Commissioner Reckdahl: How about things like Acterra at Foothills Park? Have they 3 been affected by this? 4 Mr. Do: I do not know that. I'd have to look into that and get back to you. 5 Chair Greenfield: That's the Grassroots Ecology nursery. I believe they have maintained 6 regular access. I've observed access there. 7 Commissioner Moss: Whenever I've been up there, they've been up there working. 8 Commissioner Reckdahl: Do you happen to know if Friends of Foothills Park is continuing 9 doing their invasive species removal? 10 Mr. Do: I do not know. I'll find out and send a message back to the Commission. 11 Commissioner Reckdahl: I assume if Grassroots had access, then the Friends of Palo Alto's 12 Parks would also have access. 13 Mr. Do: I'm not aware of us restricting access to our partner groups. 14 Commissioner Moss: I actually thought they were incorporated into Grassroots Ecology 15 and that they were doing all of the volunteer work parties for both kinds of activities. 16 Chair Greenfield: Volunteer work parties have taken a hit the past two months. 17 Mr. Do: If there aren't any further questions, Chair Greenfield, I also have another portion 18 of the COVID-19 financial impact. That is the CIPs. 19 Commissioner Moss: Before you go to CIPs, I am absolutely amazed that with the huge 20 fiscal impact that you only have to have these sets of impacts. That truly is an amazing 21 juggling act. The only one I'm really concerned about is the big reduction in contract 22 Rangers. That's a huge drop from $150,000 to $30,000. I hope that other members of staff 23 will be able to fill in or that we may have to reduce the hours of the open space or something 24 like that. 25 Mr. Do: In regards to the hours of open space, despite the reduction in the contract Ranger 26 service, we are looking at a different operating model where we will not have to reduce the 27 hours of open space. We're looking at a model of leaving and keeping the open space areas 28 open; however, perhaps there may not be staffing available. The goal of this model is to 29 retain the operating hours and open hours. In regards to us being able to come up with a 30 budget that has what would be relatively a minimum amount of budget reductions, that is 31 DRAFT Draft Minutes 21 in thanks to not only all of our recreation, arts, and open space managers and through 1 Kristen's leadership, but it's also through Council's support of our program. To get the 2 reductions, we actually had to propose much more drastic reductions. Through the series 3 of budget hearings, Council was able to reinstate some of our programs. It's a collaborative 4 effort from both staff and the Council and our community members as a whole speaking 5 and informing us what's important to them. 6 Commissioner LaMere: Chair, I have one question for Lam. In terms of summer camps, 7 what's been the fiscal impact in having to cut some of these programs and what's been our 8 communication and what do we anticipate for sign-ups with this new offering that we're 9 trying to do this summer with camps? 10 Mr. Do: That's a difficult question to answer at this time. We're still going through the 11 registration process. We only recently, because of the County, announced changes to what 12 we can and cannot offer for summer camps. We had to pivot and make a quick change to 13 our offerings. Registration has really just begun, and we don't have the numbers at this 14 time. I fret to even guestimate at this point. We're too early in the process. 15 Commissioner LaMere: I don't know what the communication has been, but I urge robust 16 communication to parents. There could be some strong interest for camps this summer. In 17 terms of middle school sports, if we do indeed have middle school sports this year, are 18 there any cuts anticipated for the middle school athletic programs? 19 Mr. Do: There are no cuts for the middle school athletics programs. However, there is an 20 increase in the fee to participate. For the Department to meet our budget reduction goals, 21 it was a combination of some program areas having reductions and some program areas 22 having fee increases to generate revenue. 23 Council Member Kou: With the litter removal from the parks, would it be possible to have 24 signs to ask people who come to take their trash home with them so that we can help with 25 some reduction in trash in the receptacles? Is that something to think about? 26 Mr. Do: Certainly we can think about that. We have several ways to address this. One of 27 the areas that's being addressed is in some of our parks, for example Rinconada Park, we 28 have actually removed all the trash cans already. Part of the City's waste reduction program 29 is to implement, where we can, a dumpster program instead of a trash can program. We're 30 asking participants to gather their litter and bring it to a central dumpster. It's not 31 implemented everywhere. We may not be able to implement it everywhere. The 32 suggestion that you have given us, we'll take that into account. 33 Council Member Kou: I also wanted to ask about the Think Fund. It's been reinstated. 34 The Think Fund is usually a grant application. I understand that Magical Bridge had three 35 DRAFT Draft Minutes 22 grants that they had submitted for COVID purposes. Can you give me an idea about where 1 is this Think Fund going now? I understand their three grants were rejected. 2 Mr. Do: I'm not familiar with that. Kristen may be but, if not, we can look into that and 3 get back to you. 4 Ms. O'Kane: The Think Fund is still going to be a program. It's still going forward, and it 5 will still be the same model of teens submitting a proposal to do a project. The project is 6 typically something that benefits teens or is for teens. I can get back to you on those 7 particular grant applications that were not approved. Usually these grants are specific 8 projects that get submitted, and then staff works with the teens to refine them and get it to 9 a point where it can be something that's implemented. That model is going forward. 10 Council Member Kou: I was reading one of the emails from the community in a 11 neighborhood that said their park is looking sad. Is there any way that we might be able to 12 organize volunteers or neighborhood volunteers to help out with their neighborhood park? 13 Would the Commissioners be willing to shepherd this program if it's something you would 14 consider? 15 Chair Greenfield: Absolutely. This is the type of collaborative work that the Commission 16 can be helpful with direction from staff in engaging the community to help support our 17 community. These are important efforts that we can be helpful with, again with staff's 18 direction and support. 19 Ms. O'Kane: That's something we could look at. We'd want to make sure that whatever 20 program we were endorsing met the County's health order. We've had to modify our parks 21 maintenance model just to ensure two park staff aren't riding in the same truck together, 22 that they're able to maintain social distancing. Once we're able to get to some level of 23 normal, we can do a lot of catch-up in those parks. It's really been limited as to what we 24 can do. Lam can probably provide more information on that. We've had to adjust and 25 adapt as the shelter in place was first implemented and then as it loosens a little bit. 26 Council Member Kou: Just considering will bring out a lot of people to help out at the 27 parks. Just a suggestion here. 28 Ms. O'Kane: That's in our Parks Master Plan as well, to do more community ownership of 29 parks and get them out to do the maintenance and clean up. That would align with that 30 well. 31 Chair Greenfield: A primary focus of this meeting is to understand how the Parks and Rec 32 Commission can help with new issues, including engaging the community's support to help 33 address these. 34 DRAFT Draft Minutes 23 Commissioner Moss: In our neighborhood park, Cubberley field, it's not going to be 1 possible for us to mow the lawn. Certainly, my mother used to walk the Santa Monica 2 beach picking up trash once a week. I can certainly bring a glove and pick up trash. If she 3 could do that for 30 years, I can do it. The other thing that maintenance does is blow the 4 leaves off the new track, which is not necessary as often as they do it. 5 Chair Greenfield: Regarding the Baylands contractor reductions, were we able to maintain 6 the Baylands gate closure in the evening through contract services? That was an important 7 one. 8 Mr. Do: We are still working out the logistics of that. We have approached our contractors, 9 the park maintenance contractor and the contractor Ranger service. We haven't finalized 10 all of our service level changes and/or implementation process, but we do want to be able 11 to have at minimum park closure. We don't know for sure. We just don't know how the 12 model is going to work out yet. If we were to have reduced hours, we could get park 13 closure and gates locked. If we were to make every effort to ensure that we have full, 14 regular hours until the end of sunset, we don't know how that's going to look yet. 15 Chair Greenfield: Could you explain what the issue is here? 16 Mr. Do: Yes. Our open preserves are open essentially from sunrise all the way to 30 17 minutes past sunset. We operate our regular park Rangers—we have seven total—seven 18 days a week managing four open space preserves. I can imagine summertime where we're 19 looking at 14-hour days. We could not stretch the seven Rangers to manage both open and 20 closed parks every day. As a result, we rely on a contract Ranger service to assist us in the 21 evening. This is where they come in during the evening hours. They're there for both 22 patrol and litter removal. They also lock preserve gates for us. We're asking them to reduce 23 their compensation from $143,000 to $30,000. We're working with them to ask them what 24 type of services they can provide for that minimal amount. 25 Chair Greenfield: That sounds like a challenge. Regarding the community centers being 26 closed one day per week, will this be a rotating day through the week so that only one 27 community center would be closed on a given day or is it Fridays? What's the thinking on 28 that? 29 Ms. O'Kane: We haven't worked out the details yet. The initial thought was to do what 30 you said, rotate so there are always two community centers open on a given day. 31 Chair Greenfield: That sounds like a better form of reduction for the community. I do 32 appreciate all the reductions are difficult. There has been a lot in the rec programs, and 33 how much of those reductions are programs that would be difficult to pull given the shelter-34 in-place guidelines, things like Children's Theatre or art programs for both adults and youth 35 and teens. Was that part of the prioritization in deciding where to make cuts? 36 DRAFT Draft Minutes 24 Ms. O'Kane: That was a factor in the decision-making. Like you said, none of our 1 reductions were easy. It was really difficult, especially hearing teens talk from all our 2 different programs and the benefits that they provide to mental health, emotional well-3 being in the community. When we had to make those tough decisions, looking at theatre 4 performances and knowing it's going to be a while until there's a theatre full of attendees 5 again definitely played somewhat of a role in how we prioritized those. 6 Chair Greenfield: Any other questions before we move on? 7 Council Member Kou: Would you like some statistics from the County Health? 8 Chair Greenfield: Absolutely. 9 Council Member Kou: Santa Clara County Public Health did a survey to understand what 10 most of the people's willingness is like. It says 59 percent of residents are paying attention 11 to the COVID needs and the news, which is large because usually not that many people 12 keep up to speed on what the County is pushing out in terms of their news and so forth. 13 They said 73 percent of residents' biggest fear is the second wave of this coming back 14 again. 59 percent of the people in Santa Clara County finds public health is very important, 15 and 71 percent of the people in Santa Clara County says that the way that they went forward 16 with the shelter in place is heading in the right direction. Also, County Public Health is 17 pushing out their mobile testing. Last week, they were in Mountain View, and they're 18 looking at ways to come more here to the north county. They're also expanding the testing 19 for employers who are also requiring their employees to be tested. 20 Chair Greenfield: Thank you. That's appreciated. It helps color the picture a little bit 21 more. The next item on the agenda is—I want to thank staff very much for the presentation. 22 Commissioner Moss: Are we going to talk about CIP? 23 Chair Greenfield: Yep. My bad. Let's go to CIP please, Lam. 24 Mr. Do: The fiscal recovery due to the impressive COVID-19 extends beyond our 25 operating budget. The reductions also extend into our Capital Improvement Project budget. 26 That is not just within the Community Services Department; it is Citywide. For us in 27 Community Services, we were asked to reassess our projects, both timelines, necessity, 28 and also perhaps reduced scope of work. This is along the lines of addressing the $39 29 million budget shortfall that's projected. Within our Community Services Department, 30 most of the capital projects are within parks and open space. As a result, we needed to 31 reassess. Some of the projects we had to de-fund and cancel. Some projects we had to 32 suspend, and some projects we had to defer. We had to reduce the scope of some projects. 33 A project that we had to cancel is the turf management plan. This project was to develop 34 best practices that address the needs of sustaining healthy turf for athletic play. There is a 35 DRAFT Draft Minutes 25 heavy emphasis and a high need for athletic play throughout the year. Turf cannot handle 1 that. We were looking at developing a turf management plan. We have had to cancel that, 2 and we'll adjust that through implementing down time in our turf to keep up the health. 3 We'll continue our current practices of occasional seeding, occasional aerating, and 4 sometimes entire turf renovations. We'll do those in-house instead. Another project that 5 we have to suspend is the 10.5-acre expansion to the Baylands Athletic Center. This is 6 another plan and not necessarily a development project. It was difficult to justify against 7 all the other reductions, maintenance needs, programs needs, and service level cuts. We 8 had to suspend this one. We hope to bring this project back when the City is in better 9 financial standing. Another area where we had to make changes—we've had to push out 10 some projects beyond fiscal year 2022 and see if we can push them out to fiscal years '23, 11 '24, '25 or perhaps even further out. We pushed out several projects, for example Johnson 12 Park, Ramos Park, Werry Park. We've pushed out those dates based on an assessment and 13 talking to staff, how long can the amenities in those parks still be sustained. 14 Chair Greenfield: Excuse me, Lam. That was Johnson, Ramos, and what was the third 15 park? 16 Mr. Do: Werry. In speaking with staff who maintains these parks, we opted to invest in 17 some repair dollars to maintain the parks, to keep them open so that we could push out their 18 renovation dates. With some funding for repairs, we can achieve keeping those parks open. 19 There were some projects that we felt we could not wait on. Of interest are the ones on the 20 horizon, Cameron Park improvements are going to continue. That's scheduled for fiscal 21 year '21. Ramos Park improvement project is going to continue as well. Rinconada Park's 22 improvement project will continue; that's a multiphase project beyond fiscal year '21. We 23 are going to continue with Boulware Park improvement project, and that one is set through 24 a funding mechanism to allow us to continue to do the design in '21 and perhaps to do 25 something in fiscal year '22. There has been interest in combining this project with the 26 Birch Street project in parallel and perhaps later in conjunction. Other projects that did not 27 get impacted. The JMZ project is still set to continue without changes in funding. It's 28 actually almost complete. Towards the end of the summer it should be complete, but it 29 doesn't necessarily open right away. There's a large logistic process and quarantining 30 animals. The Highway 101 pedestrian/bike bridge project will continue. It was suspended 31 temporarily due to the shelter-in-place order. As the County eased its restrictions for 32 construction projects, we resumed that project. We also had some projects that had to be 33 reduced. These projects varied in size and scope. The largest project that had to be reduced 34 is our Byxbee Park completion project. That project had a $300,000 reduction in the scope. 35 The project remains at about $2.8 million in funding. We think despite a reduction in the 36 scope the project will not have a significant impact based on the reduction. This project 37 focuses on habitat improvements, irrigation, seating, signage, and improvements to the 38 parking lot. The majority of funding is intended for habitat improvements. 39 DRAFT Draft Minutes 26 Chair Greenfield: I seem to hear that Ramos was in the defer list and in the list that was 1 not touched. 2 Mr. Do: I apologize if I misspoke. Robles is the one that is pushed out. Ramos continues. 3 We've also had reductions in some of our ongoing CIPs. We've had reductions in our CIPs 4 for athletic court maintenance. We've had a reduction in our CIP for emergency repairs, 5 and we've had a reduction in our trail maintenance CIP. Packaged together, the various 6 reductions, deferments and eliminations were part of the reassessment of our CIPs. As 7 much as we did not want to do this, it was necessary. That concludes the changes to our 8 CIPs. 9 Chair Greenfield: Thank you for the overview, Lam. Sobering news but work that had to 10 be done. Questions or comments from Commissioners? 11 Commissioner LaMere: Can you provide a brief visibility on the decision to go ahead with 12 the pedestrian bridge after the suspension? Was it because of how the contract is written? 13 I'm just curious how that worked. It seems the money saved from that could go to a lot of 14 different programs. 15 Mr. Do: You're asking about the Highway 1010 bike/pedestrian bridge project? The 16 suspension of the project and the resumption of the project was based on the County health 17 order. The County health order has gone through multiple iterations, initially restricting 18 construction and public works projects, so the City suspended that project. A few weeks 19 ago, the County order changed and allowed public works projects to resume, and later on 20 the public health order allowed construction projects to resume. The City resumed it. As 21 for any consideration to use the funding for that project elsewhere, I'm probably not well 22 versed in it to explain how and why that project remained. I could get more information 23 for you and respond, if you'd like. 24 Council Member Kou: The City Manager and Public Works' Brad Eggleston said that it 25 was ready to go. Design work was done. Everything was in place for construction to start. 26 After the County order was released, they started to resume work on it because it was 27 shovel ready. 28 Chair Greenfield: If I recall correctly from the Council meetings and some of the dialog, 29 there was an issue of financial penalties from the contractor. Since the contractor was 30 already in place, it didn't make sense to put a hold on that due to penalties. 31 Commissioner Moss: Not only that, but they had said that most of the City money had 32 already been spent on planning. We got the grant from Santa Clara County just about three 33 or four weeks ago. We're spending other people's money now, Google and Santa Clara 34 County, and very little from the City. That's what I heard. Is that what you heard, Lydia? 35 DRAFT Draft Minutes 27 Council Member Kou: You're correct. There's a large majority of the funding that does 1 come from VTA and other sources. I'm not quite sure if the City's money is spent already 2 or not. We don't want to lose any of the money that is coming from other sources. 3 Chair Greenfield: That brings up a good point. Anyone else? 4 Vice Chair Cribbs: Would it be possible, Lam, to see a really simple list of the projects 5 that you ran through? I was writing it down, but I don't think I got them all. It would be 6 really helpful for us to see what stopped, what's been pushed off, what's been delayed, what 7 you're going to proceed on, just a summary in writing sometime in the future so we could 8 know what the costs are as we proceed with some of the ad hoc committees and gathering 9 other information. Is that possible? 10 Mr. Do: Absolutely possible. We will do that. 11 Commissioner Reckdahl: Some of these like Cameron Park and Ramos Park don't seem 12 to be a high priority to me. I'm not quite sure why we're going forward with that and not 13 saving that money for other things that have more immediate impact on the community. 14 Mr. Do: Part of those two projects have to do with the design is in place, they've started 15 initial public outreach, and they are small-value projects. The renovation of Cameron Park 16 is mostly playground and play structures. We felt that one could not wait. It's a wood-17 structure playground, and it has termite damage. If we did not proceed with it, in the near 18 future we would need to reassess and consider closing it. We recommended that it proceed. 19 The Ramos Park project is another small-value project. The design is ready as well, and 20 public outreach has already occurred. That one's condition is better and possibly could 21 continue as it is. We could consider swapping it out with a different project. The value of 22 that project is difficult to swap out with another project because most other projects are 23 larger in size. 24 Commissioner Reckdahl: What about Boulware? 25 Mr. Do: The bulk of the funding for Boulware is development impact fees. Proceeding 26 with that project does not impact the City's bottom line. It's almost like a third-party 27 dedicated fund. 28 Commissioner Reckdahl: That money can't be moved over to recreation programs or 29 anything like that? 30 Mr. Do: How we use the money is restricted by several factors. The money has to be spent 31 within a certain proximity of where the development occurred that paid the fees, and it 32 needs to be used in a way that increases capacity and usage. It cannot be used for 33 maintenance. It cannot be used for renovation. It may not be used for replacement, unless 34 DRAFT Draft Minutes 28 the replacement increases capacity. With the various restrictions of these development 1 impact fees, we're not able to apply it to our other projects. Most of our CIP projects in 2 Community Services have to do with replacement and renovation of our park amenities, so 3 that is not eligible for use of the development impact fees. 4 Vice Chair Cribbs: I wanted to comment on the 10.5 out at the Baylands. I'm really sorry 5 that we can't continue to look at that because I thought we had good community input and 6 engagement. I'm worried that we're going to lose that if we push it out too far. 7 Chair Greenfield: On the turf management budget going away, it makes sense in that the 8 money was allocated to do a study to research and gain information on how to properly 9 maintain the park fields, but there was no money to follow up with the actual work required 10 to do the field maintenance, which was going to be on the order of $0.5-$1 million per 11 field. Any other comments before we move along? Thank you to staff for all of the diligent 12 and detailed work. I know this has been a tine-consuming effort and a difficult effort on a 13 number of different levels, not to mention the shelter-in-place restrictions that have 14 impacted your daily work lives. Thank you very much for your dedication to our 15 community. 16 3.Review and Update Parks and Recreation Commission Priorities17 Chair Greenfield: Now, we move on to discussing the priorities for the Parks and Rec 18 Commission, which we established in our retreat in January. This is an exercise to see how 19 these still apply. Catherine, could you put the priorities on the screen for us to review? 20 Those are a little small to see, so I'll read through the priorities that we ended up with. 21 They were rather generic priorities as we discussed in our retreat with the idea they would 22 be fairly encompassing. That may be doing us a favor now as we look to reconsider the 23 priorities and see how they're still applicable. The priorities are environmental and fiscal 24 sustainability; preserve and enhance parks and open space; and expand recreational 25 opportunities. If you recall when we were in our retreat, we ended up putting together 26 some check boxes for which projects each of these priorities … We can do one of two 27 things. We can discuss these priorities and decide if we want to adjust these. If we do 28 decide we're going to adjust these priorities, this item is an action. If we make a change, 29 we'll need a motion and a vote to officially change these. If we decide to leave them as 30 they are, then no action will be required, which makes intuitive sense. Anne and I have 31 had a number of discussions with Daren about our Commission priorities that were set 32 earlier this year and discussions on the specific ad hoc groups and liaison assignments that 33 we have right now. Given the considerable shifts in the landscape that have occurred, it 34 seems appropriate to review these and consider changes. The overall discussion was take 35 a look at the ad hoc and liaison roles and consider which of these should remain active, 36 which of these we might want to put on hold. As we discuss things further, rather than on 37 hold, we thought on call was a better way of phrasing it in that the groups would be 38 DRAFT Draft Minutes 29 available to serve staff on an as-needed basis. That's what is thought of by on call. There 1 may be an ad hoc or liaison role that we need to delete at this point. We can do one of two 2 things. We can either decide on the priorities without covering the ad hoc and liaison roles 3 in detail or we can jump to the ad hoc and liaison roles and talk about them, decide how 4 they inform our decision on the priorities and then make an action or not on the priorities 5 and then make an action or not on the ad hoc and liaison roles. I'm open to your thoughts 6 on this. Personally, I think the priorities fit pretty well in an umbrella encompassing the 7 redirection we're going to have in that we're still focusing absolutely on fiscal 8 sustainability, and including environmental sustainability with that in conjunction with the 9 Council priority makes sense. As far as open spaces and parks go, we're looking to preserve 10 what we have. We're looking to support them both through efforts with staff and 11 potentially with engagement with the community. On recreation opportunities, it's kind of 12 similar. There may be less emphasis on expanding recreation opportunities. Although 13 that's certainly within our view, we're looking to maintain and continue to support direct 14 opportunities. Would anybody like to comment on that? 15 Vice Chair Cribbs: I was pleasantly surprised, when we looked back at these a couple of 16 weeks ago, at how well we all did in February or whenever it was we had our meeting to 17 discuss this. This gives us a lot of flexibility, but it also outlines what we were about back 18 then. There are some words here that I'm really glad we have right now. Given the current 19 situation and the difficulties, the challenges and the sadness and broken hearts in our 20 country right now, I would love to see the word equity be really reinforced and also the 21 words that Jeff used at the beginning, the words access and opportunity and inclusion. It 22 feels like for me, if we could look at our Commission and the words we have here and see 23 how we could include that kind of attention to the things that we do in the future, that it 24 would be, from my perspective, a real benefit for our community and our region. 25 Chair Greenfield: That's a great suggestion. I support that. Comments from others? 26 Commissioner Moss: Foothills, because of the tremendous demand that's been shown over 27 this past month or two, we have to maintain our focus on that and Arastradero Preserve just 28 to, as you said, preserve what we have and environmental sustainability. I don't think we 29 can not focus on that as opposed to say the 10 1/2 acres, which we don't have yet. 30 Commissioner Reckdahl: Our highest priority right now should be looking at how COVID 31 is going to change the parks. Between opening things and having a prompt schedule of 32 opening while keeping safety in mind, that's a fulltime job right there. Some of these other 33 things, I look at and say these are second and third priorities. 34 Commissioner McCauley: I was going to echo the comments that Anne made and that Jeff 35 echoed. I think it would be great if we add a bullet after expand recreation opportunities 36 that reflects the moment we're living through right now. Anne phrased it really well. 37 DRAFT Draft Minutes 30 Chair Greenfield: Anne, you want to repeat it? It was something about equity, access and 1 inclusion. 2 Vice Chair Cribbs: Those were the three words, equity, access and inclusion. 3 Commissioner McCauley: I would add a verb at the beginning, which is promote equity, 4 access and inclusion. 5 Vice Chair Cribbs: I like that. 6 Commissioner Moss: Because the Cubberley Master Plan is in flux, I would like there to 7 remain significant focus on that to support staff during this very difficult juggling act that 8 they're going through at least for the next couple of months. 9 Chair Greenfield: I feel like that's still—you meant that these priorities are fairly general 10 and not specific. For me, it's covered under expand recreational opportunities and preserve 11 and enhance parks and even under fiscal sustainability. I'm open to others' comments on 12 that. 13 Vice Chair Cribbs: I don't think any of us will forget about Cubberley, David, in the very 14 near future. We have so many Commissioners who are so interested in it. I think this is 15 okay standing the way it is. 16 Commissioner LaMere: I agree with what's been said, especially adding that fourth point. 17 Chair Greenfield: I think we're at the point where a motion would be appropriate. 18 MOTION 19 Commissioner McCauley: I move to adopt our 2020 priorities. 20 Chair Greenfield: Thank you, Ryan. This is a motion to adopt the change to our priorities 21 by adding the fourth priority. 22 Vice Chair Cribbs: Second 23 Chair Greenfield: We have a second from Vice Chair Cribbs. Does anybody care to 24 comment? Let's proceed with a vote on this. 25 Vice Chair Cribbs: Yes. 26 Chair Greenfield: I am a yes. 27 Commissioner McCauley: Yes. 28 DRAFT Draft Minutes 31 Commissioner LaMere: Yes. 1 Commissioner Moss: Yes. 2 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yes. 3 Motion passes 6-0, Olson absent 4 Chair Greenfield: The motion passes 6-0. We have amended our 2020 priorities. Now, 5 we'll move on to the next item, which is the review of our ad hoc and liaison roles. 6 4.Review and Update Parks and Recreation Commission Ad Hoc and Liaison7 Roles Status8 Chair Greenfield: Anne and I had discussions with Daren on this. It was interesting to 9 review these in that many of these roles seem more important than ever. It would be useful 10 to go through the ad hocs individually and talk about them and talk about how a new focus 11 may be appropriate. Interested in any feedback. This could be more of an active 12 discussion. If you have comments as we're going through each of the ad hocs, please feel 13 free to raise your hand or chime in. 14 Commissioner Moss: The list of ad hoc committees doesn't necessarily match the list of 15 projects that we just approved. The one that's out of sync is park safety and sustainability 16 as opposed to Park and Facility Use Policy. All the others are sort of in lock step. Was 17 that on purpose? Park safety and sustainability projects are not represented by a single ad 18 hoc committee. Everything else is represented by a single ad hoc committee. 19 Chair Greenfield: Let's consider that as we go through this list. First is Baylands 10.5 20 acres development, and we just heard from staff that the budget is being put on hold for 21 this, if I understand correctly. Lam, could you clarify that again for us? 22 Mr. Do: The project has been suspended. Along the same lines, the project has also been 23 defunded. Staff does have a desire to bring this project back when the City's financial 24 status is in better standing. In addition, Commissioner McCauley has expressed finding 25 alternative ways to see if we can keep traction on this project. I think Vice Chair Cribbs 26 expressed that desire as well. 27 Chair Greenfield: There has been some community engagement on this. In order to 28 minimize the burden on staff on this, maybe it would be appropriate to have this ad hoc 29 move from active to on call. It's worth taking a step back on our ad hocs and setting 30 expectations. When we started out ambitiously in January, we were hoping for action from 31 each ad hoc on a monthly basis or every other month, depending on what's going on. I 32 think we need to scale back our expectations on actions now that staff is taxed very heavily 33 with just getting by right now. As we talk about ad hocs being active or on call, active is 34 Revised PRC 2020 Priorities DRAFT Draft Minutes 32 a status that is generally moving forward. On call might be in a holding pattern, depending 1 on staff. It sounds like Commissioners may be interested in meeting offline a bit 2 independent of staff to try to keep this active. I'm interested in feedback whether active or 3 on call makes more sense for this one. 4 Commissioner Reckdahl: We should reach out to the community. One of the things that 5 is attractive to this is there was at least potential for community funding. If that's gone 6 away, then we put it on call because it will be a while before the City can finance it entirely 7 itself. 8 Chair Greenfield: What I'm hearing from that is temporarily active would be appropriate, 9 but revisit it in the short term, and it may move to on call. Is that accurate? 10 Commissioner Moss: You mentioned if they can do it without staff help, if they can do 11 some things offline without staff help for a while, that would be the best way to preserve 12 staff time. 13 Commissioner McCauley: I don't think it matters how we distinguish it exactly. The 14 bottom line is it's going to have maybe one meeting. I imagine it makes sense for Lam to 15 join us for that one teleconference. Obviously, he's the person most in the know and most 16 connected to all these things, bring us up to speed, and we'll figure out if there is anything 17 else we have to do for the rest of the year. 18 Mr. Do: I would concur with Commissioner McCauley. Staff is not opposed to continued 19 participation in this project even though it's been defunded. If the focus is seeing 20 alternative ways to continue outreach or continue finding sources of funding, we're open 21 to being a part of that as well. 22 Chair Greenfield: I think we have consensus. We'll keep this active for the time being. 23 Vice Chair Cribbs: I'm a little confused because I thought I was on that ad hoc committee, 24 but maybe I was dismissed. 25 Chair Greenfield: I'm thinking you must have been on it last year. 26 Vice Chair Cribbs: And then I changed. Okay. No worries. 27 Chair Greenfield: What we're looking at is what came from the minutes from our retreat. 28 Cubberley Master Plan seems very appropriate to keep active. I have reached out to Kristen 29 and made clear we're very interested in helping with the transition process in whatever 30 manner is helpful to staff. This one makes sense to keep on the list. 31 Commissioner Reckdahl: Is this more Cubberley operations as opposed to the Master Plan 32 itself? 33 DRAFT Draft Minutes 33 Commissioner Moss: I was going to say the same thing. Are we putting the Master Plan 1 on hold and dealing just with the day-to-day? 2 Chair Greenfield: That's a question for Kristen. Do you expect any activity on the Master 3 Plan this year or would we be better just renaming this the Cubberley ad hoc committee or 4 should we try to be more specific? 5 Ms. O'Kane: My recommendation would be to have this be more general related to 6 Cubberley so that it covers both. The one piece of the Master Plan that still needs to come 7 to the Commission and Council is the CEQA document. There are a variety of reasons 8 why that's been delayed. One is related to a change in CEQA law related to how traffic 9 impacts are assessed. We have to go back and do some additional traffic studies. That will 10 not happen until the next fiscal year. That's still coming, but anything related to Cubberley 11 is relevant right now. I would make it a more general ad hoc. 12 Chair Greenfield: Let's just call the ad hoc Cubberley and get rid of Master Plan. That 13 will be part of our proposed motion. The next one is projects and fundevelopment, which 14 covers CIP projects and funding outreach. It seemed like a fun, silly name at the time. I'm 15 having second and third thoughts on that one. This is an appropriate ad hoc to keep, but 16 I'd like to see the name changed so that it can be referred to in a functional manner. 17 Vice Chair Cribbs: Can we change the name by adding another "d" to fund and a space for 18 development? 19 Chair Greenfield: Sure. I like that idea. Anybody else have comments? 20 Commissioner Moss: It's critical because we're going to have to deal not only—the fallout 21 from this is going to go on for several years. We really need to look out at least two, three, 22 four years. 23 Chair Greenfield: Projects and fund development will be a name change as part of an 24 action. Foothills Park pilot project looks like will be going to the Council later this month. 25 Is that confirmed, Kristen? 26 Ms. O'Kane: It's tentatively scheduled for June 22nd. It's not completely confirmed, but 27 that's the tentative date. 28 Chair Greenfield: The other aspect of the Foothills Park ad hoc was development of the 29 7.7 acres. I don't know to what extent that is being put on hold. I'm not sure if Lam directly 30 addressed that. 31 Mr. Do: The 7.7-acre project is not on hold; it's proceeding. There was discussion about 32 what years it would be funded because it was a three-year phased project. I don't have the 33 exact details with me, but it is not being suspended and pushed out. It was suspended in a 34 DRAFT Draft Minutes 34 way. It was only going to be pushed out one year because this was a small-ticket item. I 1 can verify the severity of the change, but I don't recall it being anything that was majorly 2 impacting. 3 Chair Greenfield: It seems to make clear sense that we need to keep this ad hoc for now. 4 If Council comes back and is positive on moving forward with the pilot project, then the 5 ad hoc is going to be very busy. As far as the 7.7 acres, that would be more of a holding 6 pattern waiting for staff to have specific needs to discuss this with the Commission based 7 on what's happening with the funding cycle. Does that make sense? We need to keep 8 Foothills Park for now. 9 Commissioner McCauley: Agreed. 10 Chair Greenfield: Park and Facility Use Policy. I had a discussion with Daren about this 11 in terms of there's a lot of potential use right now for discussing the use of parks and how 12 park policy may be changed or impacted by the shelter-in-place guidelines and the COVID-13 19 impacts, which will extend for a period of time. I asked Daren what he thought about 14 it, and he agreed with that. In the name it says parks and facilities. I asked him if he 15 thought it was appropriate to create a different ad hoc to have the same apply to open space 16 policy. His opinion was that it would make sense for this single Park and Facility Use 17 Policy ad hoc to have the latitude to rethink implementing protocols across parks and open 18 spaces. It makes a lot of sense to keep that active. That may answer David's question in 19 terms of park safety and sustainability. This comes under the umbrella of this ad hoc. 20 Commissioner Moss: That's fine. 21 Chair Greenfield: In general, for park amenities this has been looking at things like dog 22 parks and restrooms. In discussions with Daren, it seems like it might be appropriate for 23 this ad hoc to do at least on occasion a preview of CIPs or park improvement plans before 24 they came to the Commission. This ad hoc could be used to run a preliminary presentation 25 and any questions by an ad hoc. If there's agreement that that makes sense, it seems like it 26 might be more appropriate to rename this the park improvements ad hoc, and then it would 27 more directly be looking at park improvement plans as well as all the amenities which 28 could be considered improvements, such as dog parks and restrooms. 29 Commissioner Moss: Are you renaming this pre-CIP? In other words, you're doing the 30 legwork ahead of a CIP? 31 Chair Greenfield: No, it would be post-CIP. It would be park improvement plan. Park 32 improvement plans come to the Commission for approval, and this group could work with 33 staff as necessary on the specifics of park improvement plans either before they go to the 34 Commission for consideration or after they go to Commission for initial consideration and 35 before approval. 36 DRAFT Draft Minutes 35 Commissioner McCauley: That seems fine. Park improvements, park amenities, it doesn't 1 make much of a difference from my perspective. The other thing that committee has been 2 working on for some time is dog parks and restrooms, which obviously are park 3 improvements. 4 Chair Greenfield: Dog parks and restrooms have been the primary focus. Expanding the 5 focus to include the PIPs makes sense. 6 Mr. Do: I'm in concurrence. 7 Chair Greenfield: Rec opportunities seem as important as ever to be considering right now. 8 The whole structure of rec programs has hit a curve and needs some reconsideration. 9 Hopefully, the Commission will be in a position to help staff in this effort. In short, all of 10 the ad hocs seem to have a role at least in the nearer term. There are three name changes 11 that we're suggesting. The name changes would be—the second one would become 12 Cubberley. The third one becomes project and fund development. Park amenities changes 13 to park improvements. Does anyone have any comments on the ad hocs or questions about 14 their roles in the near term before we move on to the liaison assignments? Does anyone 15 feel like we need to add a new ad hoc? Let's move on to liaison roles. 16 Commissioner McCauley: I don't have anything particular in mind, but in light of the new 17 goal that we added, a priority promoting equity, access and inclusion, is there anything 18 we'd want to do on that topic or do we think it fits within the existing ad hoc committees? 19 Chair Greenfield: I don't have any specific ideas on how to further flesh that out. We can 20 always add new ad hocs or remove or change ad hocs. Unless someone has a concise idea 21 on how to move forward on this quickly, I suggest we stay with what we have and consider 22 something at a later date. 23 Vice Chair Cribbs: What about if we were to keep the ad hocs as they are, and at our next 24 meeting we all could do some thinking about what we're trying to achieve and come up 25 with some specific ways. I saw that as being overarching, so that every ad hoc would have 26 that charge to consider this as part of the work we do. Perhaps if we all were thoughtful 27 about it, we could come up with some ways to make it more than words. Does that make 28 sense? 29 Chair Greenfield: That does make sense. That's a good role for the Commission to take 30 on without burdening staff. Let's try to move through the ad hocs real quickly. I'll just go 31 through with quick summaries of what Daren and Anne and I discussed. Aquatics, it 32 certainly seems to make sense to keep active. BCCP, it makes sense to keep active in the 33 short term, but as soon as the plan is formalized, the liaison role would end. Community 34 gardens, that makes sense to keep active. GSI as well. Commissioner Moss has been 35 attending the stormwater committee meetings. 36 DRAFT Draft Minutes 36 Commissioner Moss: They have guaranteed funding as opposed to the City. It's taxed to 1 each household. They can continue to do projects for us or with us even if we don't have 2 funding. 3 Chair Greenfield: Park dedication, the thought was to put it on call. I've always considered 4 it a priority. Given the load on staff right now, we could resume it when staff is in a position 5 to consider that. I'm recommending we put it on hold/on call. Anyone care to comment 6 on that? PAUSD/City liaison is a role that Keith continues to be active with. It makes 7 sense to continue monitoring those meetings. The safe routes can be continued with 8 minimal burden and makes sense, especially with the increased use of safe routes in the 9 community these days by means of transportation other than cars. Stanford is another one 10 Daren recommended could go on call. It's in a holding pattern anyway. Are you okay with 11 that, Commissioner LaMere, or any comments? 12 Commissioner LaMere: I would agree with that. 13 Commissioner Moss: Since our last meeting, the Master Plan was rejected or whatever. 14 Does any of that have anything to do with us? Do we have to react in any way to that or is 15 it basically not related? 16 Commissioner Reckdahl: Are you talking about the GUP? 17 Commissioner Moss: Yeah. 18 Commissioner Reckdahl: I think we just wait. The ball's in Stanford's court. If they post 19 something new, then we can evaluate it. 20 Commissioner Moss: Does it affect our use of the Dish or the paths around Stanford or 21 anything like that? 22 Commissioner Reckdahl: I don't think it has any effect on anything. 23 Chair Greenfield: Sustainability makes sense. We'll be looking to have a presentation 24 from Christine Luong at one of our upcoming meetings on the Sustainability and Climate 25 Action Plan status, which is going to Council later this month. Turf management is a role 26 that I have managed with Daren for a while. I feel like field users' liaison would be a better 27 name for that. It makes sense to continue it as a field users' liaison. Turf management is 28 going to be taking a secondary role anyway. I'm proposing that we rename this field users. 29 That's really liaising to the soccer organizations, baseball and softball organizations, etc. 30 Commissioner Moss: Is there any overlap between that and the Parks and Facility Use 31 Policy ad hoc? 32 DRAFT Draft Minutes 37 Chair Greenfield: Not really. This is more outreach with these community groups as 1 opposed to a policy discussion and position and consideration. Urban forestry is a new 2 role that we were looking at taking on for the Commission. This is still in the discussion 3 and clarification phase with Kristen as Director of Community Services and Brad 4 Eggleston as Director of Public Works. There is an active role for the liaisons as we look 5 to clarify the role of the Commission with respect to urban forestry. 6 Ms. O'Kane: I don't have any updates on that. I think there was a meeting scheduled with 7 Public Works Director Brad Eggleston around March 19th. The meeting got canceled and 8 never got rescheduled. When the time is right, we'll circle back with him and get clarity 9 on that. 10 Chair Greenfield: The Ventura Coordinated Area Plan, it makes sense for someone to 11 continue monitoring that. Youth Council is another example of something that's more 12 important now than ever. There was one other liaison role that we discussed and that would 13 make sense to add, and that is a golf liaison. Given the changes at the golf course, Daren 14 thought it would be helpful to have a Commissioner involved with that. That's a role I'd 15 recommend adding. We'll be looking for someone to fill that role. Does anyone have any 16 comments about any of the liaison roles including potentially adding golf? Any thoughts 17 on adding a golf liaison or is there anybody who would be interested in taking on that role? 18 Commissioner Reckdahl: I'm willing to do it. If anyone else has a desire, they get first 19 shot. 20 Chair Greenfield: I don't know if Commissioner Olson is a golf enthusiast or not. She's 21 not here. She will be down one liaison role. Jeff LaMere, I don't know if you're interested 22 in golf with Stanford going to on call. Why don't we hold off on adding a golf liaison until 23 we can have some further discussion within the Commission to see if someone's interested 24 in filling this role and confirm with Daren. Lam, if you want to comment that this is 25 something we should add as an open role now and look to fill it? 26 Mr. Do: We can create a liaison. The golf course operator has welcomed City input in 27 how we operate. I think they would be open to it. I'm certainly open to it. Should the 28 Commission want to create this liaison, we can facilitate that. 29 Chair Greenfield: Keith, do you want to slide into the role for the time being with the 30 thought that you may end up getting replaced? 31 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah, put me down. If someone else has a desire to do it, they 32 can take it over. If something comes up in the next month, we'll have someone to cover it. 33 Chair Greenfield: Thank you. Does anyone have any further discussion on this or are we 34 ready for a motion? 35 DRAFT Draft Minutes 38 MOTION 1 Commissioner Reckdahl: I move we approve the updated ad hoc list. 2 Chair Greenfield: Do we have a second? 3 Vice Chair Cribbs: Second. 4 Chair Greenfield: Commissioner Reckdahl with a motion, and Vice Chair Cribbs 5 seconding the motion. Does anyone have any comments on the motion before we vote? 6 Let's go to a roll call vote. 7 Vice Chair Cribbs: Yes. 8 Chair Greenfield: I'm a yes. 9 Commissioner McCauley: Yes. 10 Commissioner Moss: Yes. 11 Commissioner Reckdahl: Yes. 12 Motion passes 5-0, Olson, LaMere absent 13 Chair Greenfield: Commissioner LaMere looks to have dropped off. That motion passes 14 on a 5-0 vote. Thank you very much for working through that with me. 15 5. Other Ad Hoc Committee and Liaison Updates16 Chair Greenfield: The next item is Ad Hoc Committee and Liaison Updates. We spent 17 quite a while talking about that. Does anyone have any updates they'd like to share? 18 Commissioner Reckdahl: Ventura's still going on. Nothing noteworthy from a park 19 standpoint. If people are interested, it's on the website. If they have questions, certainly 20 contact me. 21 Commissioner McCauley: You and Kristen had mentioned that the Foothills Park 22 discussion is going to happen with Council June 22nd. It's possible there's going to be 23 discussion of it sooner. Just a heads up for everyone. I'm quite proud of the work the 24 Commission did last year to be ahead of the moment we're in as it concerns Foothills Park. 25 I'm optimistic that there's going to be some progress made on that front. I'm not sure 26 whether it will be exactly what the Commission recommended last year because we're 27 cycling in a different spot than we were when we made that recommendation. Nonetheless, 28 the discussion is happening and moving forward. 29 PRC Revised Ad Hoc Assignment list DRAFT Draft Minutes 39 Chair Greenfield: I was under the understanding it might be on the 23rd, which is a 1 Tuesday, which would be an extra meeting for Council. Kristen said the 22nd. I'm not sure 2 if Kristen has a clarification on that or we're going to wait and see what happens. 3 Ms. O'Kane: I don't have clarification on the exact date. Council Member Kou, is there a 4 Council meeting on the 23rd for sure? 5 Council Member Kou: Let me check my calendar. 6 Commissioner Moss: I just got a notice from Don that it's the 23rd. If you could check 7 that, that would be great. 8 Council Member Kou: There is a 23rd meeting. That might be filled with budget. If I 9 understood correctly, they're coming back to us with the final budget numbers either the 10 22nd or the 23rd. 11 Ms. O'Kane: We'll let you know the exact date that's coming forward as well as the final 12 budget adoption. 13 Commissioner Moss: That was going to be our next PRC meeting, the 23rd. We've 14 cancelled that, and the next one is July 22nd or something? 15 Chair Greenfield: Actually we've proactively changed our next meeting to June 30th with 16 the notion that Council may be preempting us on June 23rd with a meeting. This will space 17 out an interval of four weeks between meetings. 18 VI. TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR JUNE 30, 2020 MEETING 19 Chair Greenfield: We'll move on to the tentative agenda for the June 30th meeting. 20 Confirming that we will be meeting via Zoom on June 30th. There are a few items that 21 have been discussed with Daren for a potential agenda. Those include the sustainability 22 discussion. In conjunction with that, we may get a presentation on recycling from the 23 Public Works Department. Everything's in a state of flux. In the interest of time, I'm happy 24 with deferring this to further discussion with Daren unless anybody has specific input on 25 agendas for the next couple of months. 26 VII. COMMENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS 27 Chair Greenfield: We'll move on to Comments and Announcements. Anyone have 28 anything to add? Thank you everyone for joining this meeting. I'm excited to get the 29 Commission restarted. I value each of the contributions that each of the Commissioners 30 bring in different areas and look forward to working with staff and Council to the benefit 31 of our community. 32 DRAFT Draft Minutes 40 Vice Chair Cribbs: If I could echo that and thank staff for working with us to help us 1 through the first Zoom initiation. I'm really proud to be part of this Commission as we 2 look forward to the future. We can really work together to bring some definite and positive, 3 exciting changes given what we're finding ourselves in right now. Thank you all very much 4 for all the work you do. Certainly thank the staff for the work that you guys do. I'm very 5 grateful that I live in Palo Alto and we have a staff like you guys. 6 Commissioner LaMere: I'm appreciative of being able to have our Commission going and 7 try to help out where we can during this time. Thank you everyone for their time, and 8 thank you staff for everything that you do. 9 Chair Greenfield: A special thank you to Catherine for her role in helping make this all 10 happen and hanging with us. And to everyone else as well. 11 Ms. O'Kane: As staff goes through some of these challenges, sometimes we forget—forget 12 is not the right word. It's not on the forefront of our brains that we have Commissions who 13 are here to help us because we're so busy trying to get each task done. Thank you for 14 reminding us and supporting us and lending a helping hand to us as we navigate these 15 challenges moving forward. We do really appreciate it. We sometimes need someone to 16 say, "We're here to help." 17 VIII. ADJOURNMENT 18 Meeting adjourned on motion by Commissioner Moss and second by Commissioner 19 Reckdahl at 10:06 p.m. 20 TO: PARKS AND RECREATION COMMISSION FROM: PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT—ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES DATE: JUNE 30, 2020 SUBJECT: 2020 SUSTAINABILITY AND CLIMATE ACTION PLAN UPDATE RECOMMENDATION Staff Recommends that the Parks and Recreation Commission (PRC) discuss and provide feedback on the 2020 Sustainability Climate Action Plan (S/CAP) Goals and Key Actions related to Water and Natural Environment. BACKGROUND On April 13, 2020, City Council discussed the progress made on the seven Sustainability and Climate Action Plan (S/CAP) topic areas.1 Council also discussed the process for developing goals and key actions for achieving a reduction in Palo Alto’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 80% by 2030 (Annual Earth Day Report, #11168; Sustainability Work Plan 2020-21 , #11201). At the meeting, Council directed staff to return to Council in June 2020 before the City’s consultants begin analysis and modeling the draft list of S/CAP Goals and Key Actions for effectiveness in GHG emissions reduction, cost/benefits, and identification of sustainability co- benefits. Staff returned to Council on June 16, 2020, with the 2020 S/CAP Potential Major Goals and Key Actions. The staff report was well received.2 The report provided additional emphasis on potential levels of intervention necessary to achieve the target GHG emissions reductions and other S/CAP goals. Council discussed the possibility that higher levels of intervention might be needed to reach the City’s goals and directed staff to continue work on the S/CAP and analyze the identified strategies for cost, effectiveness, and co-benefits. After this analysis, staff will present Council with multiple scenarios to meet the 80 x 30 goal, giving Council choices amongst the scenarios. The video of the June 16, 2020 Council meeting is viewable at the link below3. While the focus of the staff report was on the Energy, Mobility, and Electric Vehicles areas, Council noted the importance of the Water and Natural Environment areas and directed staff to explore a Key Indicator for Biodiversity for the Natural Environment area. 1 The S/CAP areas are: Energy, Mobility, Electric Vehicles, Water, Sea Level Rise, Natural Environment, Zero Waste. 2 Council June 16, 2020 City Manager Report link: https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx?t=59513.75&BlobID=77028 3 Council Item 1 on Midpenmedia video at this link: https://youtu.be/vXjbUZ6cRFY DISCUSSION Staff requests PRC consideration and comment on the 2020 Sustainability Climate Action Plan (S/CAP) Goals and Key Actions related to Water and Natural Environment. This document contains the June 16th S/CAP Staff Report, #11404. The full list of potential S/CAP Goals and Key Actions that have been updated to incorporate feedback from community can be found in the Draft 2020 S/CAP Potential Goals and Key Actions with Feedback Incorporated. PRC has broad purview and would likely be most interested in the Water, Sea Level Rise, Natural Environment, and Zero Waste sections of the S/CAP. However, Sea Level Rise has already been presented at a previous PRC meeting, and the Goals and Key Actions related to Zero Waste will be discussed separately. Staff welcomes PRC feedback on all Potential Goals and Key Actions but is particularly interested in feedback on the Water and Natural Environment sections. This feedback would further inform the Key Actions that will be modeled by the City’s consultant, AECOM. Next steps in the S/CAP Update process include: • Staff dissemination of the S/CAP Goals and Key Actions to AECOM for modeling of potential GHG emissions reductions that could be achieved, cost/benefit analysis, and sustainability co-benefits • Council review of the 2019 GHG inventory, Business as Usual Forecast, Impact Analysis, and updated package of Proposed Goals and Key Actions Policy Implications The S/CAP Goals and Key Actions align with two of the top three Council Priorities for CY 2020: “Sustainability, in the context of climate change” and “Improving mobility for all.” Resource Impacts Appropriate resources are already in place to develop the 2020 S/CAP Update. Contract Number C20176783 With AECOM Technical Services, Inc., for Professional Services Related to the 2020 Sustainability and Climate Action Plan Update and SB743 Implementation was approved on February 24, 2020 (CMR 11112). Funding is included in the operating budgets from the Office of Sustainability and the Office of Transportation. Any additional appropriation of necessary funding is subject to City Council approval. Environmental Review Discussion of S/CAP Goals and Key Actions does not constitute a project under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The scope of work does include environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act for the S/CAP, which would occur at a later stage after AECOM completes their modeling. TO: Parks and Recreation Commission FROM: Public Works DATE: 6/30/20 SUBJECT: Cameron Park Renovation Project RECOMMENDATION Staff recommends that the Parks and Recreation Commission (Commission) discuss and provide feedback on the draft design for Cameron Park Improvement Project. BACKGROUND Capital improvement funding of $200,000 was approved by City Council to address park maintenance needs. The renovation includes infrastructure, accessibility, and maintenance improvements. The renovation of the existing playground is the main park amenity to be replaced along with the removal of the sand surface. The connection of the concrete pathway from one side of the park to the other and the replacement of site amenities compose the remaining scope of work. Park improvements are anticipated to begin in fall 2020, with community outreach, bid plan development, bidding, and permitting process currently underway. Proposed Renovation Items for Cameron Park: (Refer to Attachment ‘A’) • Playground Renovation/Replacement – upgrade from tot lot to children 5 and above • Connect concrete pathway to the other side of the park, creating an accessible path to the playground • The creation of a small two table picnic area adjacent to the playground • New site furnishing: picnic table, benches, water fountain, trash receptacles • Additional trees around the playground area The first community meeting, conducted online, was held at 11am and 4:30pm on May 5, 2020 that reviewed the proposed renovation items with input provided by the community members in attendance. A subsequent online community survey was also conducted after the community meeting to capture further input. The community response to the proposed renovations was positive and supportive with an agreement to remove the proposed fencing around the playground and to add additional shading for the playground. There was also interest in adding other amenities to the park including: a community garden, horseshoes or bocce ball, and several comments regarding the park drainage. A request was also made to conduct an on-line survey to generate more community feedback about the renovation options. As a result, a total of forty-four participants responded to the on-line survey. The responses to the on-line survey questions are as follows: Question #1: Describe what the biggest renovation need is for the park. Response: This question received 33 individual responses, which can be reviewed in Attachment ‘B’. Question #2: Are you in favor of adding a connective concrete walkway through the park? Response: 19 Yes. 21 No Question #3: Do you support eliminating the sand play area? Response: 22 Yes. 14 No. 5 Other response (refer to Attachment ‘B’) Question #4: Do you support having a 42” tall safety fence around the playground? Response: 12 Yes. 27 No. Question #5: Do you support adding a BBQ to the picnic area? Response: 21 Yes. 18 No. Question #6: Do you support adding a horseshoe or bocce court adjacent to the playground as an added park amenity? Response: 24 Yes. 11 No. Question #7: Please prioritize the proposed park amenities. With limited funding which park amenity would you rather have? High Priority: Shade structure, Community Garden Mid Priority: Bocce Court, BBQ at Picnic Area, Sand Play Area Low Priority: Horseshoes, Fencing around playground DISCUSSION Staff will present the proposed park renovation plan and community feed back to the Commission for discussion and input. NEXT STEPS • Community Meeting #2: 7.2.20 • Community Meeting #3: July/August 2020 (if necessary) • Parks & Recreation Commission (PRC) Meeting #2: July/August 2020 • Bid Document Preparation & Project Bidding: Summer/Fall 2020 • Council to Approve Contract: Fall 2020 • Construction Begins: Fall/Winter 2020 POLICY IMPLICATIONS The proposed recommendations are consistent with Policy C-26 of the Community Services element of the Comprehensive Plan that encourages maintaining park facilities as safe and healthy community assets; and Policy C-22 that encourages new community facilities to have flexible functions to ensure adaptability to the changing needs of the community. ATTACHMENTS Attachment A: Proposed Renovation Review Plan Attachment B: On-line Community Survey Results Attachment C: Parks and Recreation Commission Presentation PREPARED BY Peter Jensen Landscape Architect City of Palo Alto PRC 2020 Ad Hoc Liaison Assignments AD HOC COMMITTEE MEMBERS STAFF LIAISON June 30 Update Meeting Date Baylands 10.5 Acres LaMere Reckdahl McCauley Daren Anderson Cubberley Cribbs Greenfield Olson Kristen O'Kane Projects & Fund Development Cribbs Greenfield Moss Daren Anderson Gathering info on Friends non profits which work and provide help- both volunteer and cash - in Palo Alto.Reviewing budget reductions to discuss how PRC and community can help. Reviewing CPA reduced fee program as applies to various recreation programs, including aquatics. Potential plan for community, including user groups to help with trash pick up in various parks. 17-Jun Lam Do presented the list of CIP projects affected by Covid Cuts in the budget. There will still be some funding coming from Park dedication fees, but none from Stormwater initiative or Charleston/Arastradero Impact fees. The nine recurring projects continute to be funded. Plus non recurring projects: Hwy 1010 bridge and completion of Byxbee Park, improvements to 5 urban parks, Golf Course Driving Range, and Baylands Comprehensive Plan. Foothills Park LaMere McCauley Olson Daren Anderson Park & Facility Use Policy Greenfield Moss Reckdahl Adam Howard PRC 2020 Ad Hoc Liaison Assignments Park Improvements Cribbs Moss McCauley Daren Anderson Community requests to move forward with pilot program in one park - dogs off leash during certain times of day. Recreation Opportunities LaMere Olson Reckdahl Kristen O'Kane LIAISON MEMBER(S)STAFF / CONTACT Aquatics Cribbs Jazmin LeBlanc BCCP Moss Daren Anderson In a meeting on June 24th, Valley Water presented their plans for replacing the major tide gate in the Baylands which will effectively close off the outer trail for 41 months, starting in September. In 2018 they were unable to repair the 60 year old structure, thus requiring this replacement. They can only work from Sept thru January to not disturb endangered species. The outer trail remains open for a mile out to the site, but you can't go through to Byxbee. There are 2 alternate paths around it, along East Bayshore, but that is subject to change early in the 41 months due to the completion of the Hwy 101 Bike bridge construction. Community Gardens McCauley Catherine Bourquin GSI Moss Pam Boyle Rodriguez? PAUSD / City Reckdahl Kristen O'Kane Safe Routes Greenfield Rosie Mesterhazy Sustainability Olson Christine Luong Field Users Greenfield Daren Anderson Urban Forestry Greenfield Reckdahl Daren Anderson Ventura Coordinated Area Plan Reckdahl n/a Youth Council Cribbs n/a Golf Reckdahl Lam