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PARKS AND RECREATION COMMISSION July 28, 2929 SPECIAL AGENDA 6pm
Agenda posted according to PAMC Section 2.04.070.
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I. ROLL CALL
II.AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, DELETIONS
III.ORAL COMMUNICATIONS
Members of the public may address the Commission on any subject not on the agenda. A reasonable timerestriction may be imposed at the discretion of the Chair. The Commission reserves the right to limit oralcommunications period to 3 minutes.
IV.BUSINESS
1. Panel discussion on Foothills Park Access – Chair – Discussion (120 min)2. Approval of Draft Minutes from the June 30, 2020 Special Parks and Recreation Commission Meeting –
Chair – Action (5 min) ATTACHMENT
3.Other Commission Ad Hoc and Liaison Updates – Chair – Discussion (5min) ATTACHMENT
V. DEPARTMENT REPORT
VI. TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR AUGUST 25, 2020
VII.COMMENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
VIII.ADJOURNMENT
PUBLIC LETTERS
4 July 28, 2020
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3 4 MINUTES 5 PARKS & RECREATION COMMISSION 6 SPECIAL MEETING 7 June 30, 2020 8 Virtual Meeting 9 Palo Alto, California 10 11 Commissioners Present: Anne Cribbs, Jeff Greenfield, Jeff LaMere, David Moss, Jackie 12 Olson, and Keith Reckdahl 13
Commissioners Absent: None 14
Others Present: Council Member Kou 15
Staff Present: Daren Anderson, Catherine Bourquin 16
I. ROLL CALL 17
II. AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, DELETIONS 18
Chair Greenfield: Now, we're on to Agenda Changes and Oral Communications. Does 19
anyone have any Agenda changes, requests or deletion before we go on to Oral 20
Communications? Thank you. 21
III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS 22
Chair Greenfield: Catherine, do we have anyone who would like to speak in Oral 23
Communications? 24
Daren Anderson: Chair, I'm not seeing any public speaking requests. Wait, I'm sorry. 25
There is one public speaker. Catherine, are you seeing this in the attendees? 26
Catherine Bourquin: It's Ryan McCauley. 27
Chair Greenfield: Welcome, Ryan. You have an opportunity to speak during Oral 28 Communications. Please go ahead. 29
Ryan McCauley: Thank you. I know you must all be wondering, "What in the world is 30 he doing here?" In light of my resignation from the Commission last week, I wanted to 31 join you briefly tonight to express my gratitude and appreciation for the opportunity to 32
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serve with all of you. As I wrote to you last week, I've been uniformly impressed by the 1
commitment you have shown to our community, and I wanted to say that again tonight. 2
I've also been incredibly impressed throughout my four years of service on the 3
Commission at how each of you in a different way but a very creative way gets to the nut 4
of a problem, the core of a problem, and solves it. The PRC has been working to 5
responsively reform the Foothills Park residents only policy for a long time. I'm proud of 6
the work that the PRC has done to date including our vote last November and most 7
recently the unanimous voice of all members of the PRC standing up to support repeal of 8 the residents only ordinance. The repeal of the residents only ordinance should be the 9 easy part. It hasn't been thus far, but it should be. The harder part is the second piece of 10 the call to action here, which is to formulate a nondiscriminatory policy that prioritizes 11 equal access and resource protection. As you look forward, I encourage you to think 12 about this as an opportunity to hit the reset button on this particular policy. What I mean 13 by that is this is the time not to cobble together a smaller, incremental improvement on 14 top of a bad ordinance, but rather to think hard about the best management practices and 15 formulate a policy that our community will be proud to have on the books. I realize that 16
you might ask, "Why are you jumping ship just at the time when you might be needed in 17
this process?" The answer is multifaceted, but it comes back to, at the end of the day, my 18
own analysis of the legal issues at play here and my personal conclusion that the Foothills 19
ordinance is not just morally wrong but it's also wrong as a matter of law. Having 20
concluded that the ordinance is in deep legal trouble combined with the Council 21
majority's decision last week to postpone any discussion and perhaps mostly informed by 22
Council Members' private feedback that they don't want to touch this issue with a 10-foot 23
pole because they believe it's too politically toxic, I personally have lost confidence in 24
our political leaders' ability or interest to meaningfully tackle this issue. Because of my 25
day job as a prosecutor, while I previously felt comfortable working through the political 26 system toward a policy solution that seemed to be in sight, I don't believe that I can 27 continue serving in the City's system of governance while the Council maintains the 28 status quo. I realize that there are those who will say that the Council majority only put 29 this off temporarily to alleviate a busy schedule, and I appreciate that our Council 30 Members have been putting in long hours and our staff have been putting in even longer 31 ones. We all know that we find time for matters that are important, and this issue is not 32 presently a priority for most Council Members. I very much wish that the Council 33 Members who voted to postpone discussion will prove me wrong by acting immediately 34 in August. However, I think it's very important that this be not a negative narrative but a 35 positive one. To circle back to where I began, I offer you two final thoughts. First, I 36 have great affinity for all of you and for the CSD staff. Thank you for your service and 37
for your friendship to me. Second, I believe that there's much good work remaining to be 38
done by the PRC on this issue and many others. As it concerns Foothills Park, the 39
community needs the PRC's leadership and perspective. I know that Daren and Kristen 40
have a plan for further community engagement, and I welcome that. On this policy issue, 41
our community needs leadership. I think that leadership can only come from the PRC at 42
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this juncture and that the Council will be deferring heavily to the PRC. I am always 1
available to help, and I look forward to witnessing the great work that the PRC will 2
achieve this year and for many years into the future. Thank you, and best wishes to all of 3
you. 4
Chair Greenfield: Thank you, Ryan. As you well know, it's not appropriate for the 5
Commission members to comment on speakers during Oral Communications. I feel 6
comfortable in taking this opportunity to thank you for your service to our community, 7
for your dedication and passion. Your efforts as part of this body will be missed, and we 8 wish you well. Thank you very much, and best to you, and we'll keep in touch. I don't 9 know if it's appropriate to allow any other Commission members to make a brief 10 comment if they'd like to, without getting into substance. 11
Vice Chair Cribbs: I wasn't sure if it was appropriate at this point, but I really appreciate 12 Commissioner McCauley's service to the PRC. I learned a lot from him on a lot of issues 13 and certainly had a good time with the dog parks and the bathrooms as well. I thought he 14 brought so much to the Commission. It will be very difficult to replace him. Thanks for 15 letting me have a few words. 16
Chair Greenfield: Any other Commissioners? Thank you, Ryan. 17
Commissioner Reckdahl: I enjoyed working with you, Ryan, and good luck. I'm sure 18
we'll see you around. 19
Mr. McCauley: Indeed. Same to everyone. Have a great evening. 20
Chair Greenfield: Are there any other speakers for Oral Communications? If not, then 21
please let's move on to the Department Report. 22
IV. DEPARTMENT REPORT 23
Mr. Anderson: Thank you, Chair. Daren Anderson with the Community Services 24
Department. The first item on the Department Report was to talk about Ryan McCauley, 25
as you know, has resigned from the Commission. The Clerk's Office is checking to see if 26 they can add the vacant Commission position to their current recruitment, which has an 27 application deadline of July 21st. If not, they'll roll it into their next recruitment, which 28 will be the beginning of August. I'll let you know when I have more information. I too 29 would like to echo the sentiments to Mr. McCauley, acknowledging him and thanking 30 him for his service. It was great working with him, and I really admire his passion and 31 dedication and wish him well. Next update is about the Valley Water community 32 meeting that was held on their tide gate project. This was on June 24th. Valley Water's 33 website has the presentation materials all on the site. That's 34 valleywater.org/pafbtidegates. If you Google "Valley Water" and "tide gates," it'll come 35
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up. The website has a tremendous amount of information. I won't go over too many of 1
the details other than the core elements of their tentative project. They're going to 2
complete the planning phase that they're currently in and release a draft CEQA MND for 3
public comment in the summer of 2020. They plan on releasing the draft CEQA MND 4
also in the summer of 2020 and completing their 100% design in the spring of 2021 and 5
hope to start construction in the fall of 2021 and complete the project completely in 6
January 2025. A little update on the golf course. Generally, the golf course is doing 7
well. Most days tee times sell out or just a few tee-time slots are unbooked, which tend 8 to be the late afternoon times, which are the least popular. However, the course I would 9 not say is at capacity or truly sold out as these tee times are 12 minutes apart for social 10 distancing purposes. Regularly, tee times would be more like 8-10 minutes apart. I'm 11 going to go over just a few of the basic rules because I think it's helpful (a) for our 12 Commission to know and any of the public who may watch. All the tee times must be 13 prepaid online, so there's no walkup or in-person reservations allowed. There's no early 14 arrival, and golfers are asked to please leave once they're done playing, practicing, and 15 dining. No extended socializing, which was previously very common on the golf course. 16
As I mentioned, the tee times are 12 minutes apart for proper social distancing and to 17
reduce any bunching of groups and waiting. Golf groups will be allowed up to four 18
players per tee time arrival. There is no tournament play allowed right now. The golf 19
course pro shop and café remain closed to guests; however, onsite sales limited to food 20
to-go and essentials like golf balls, sunscreen, hats, and gloves are available. Now, there 21
is self-seating in the outdoor patio area of the café. There's no table service, and the food 22
is still packaged to go, but customers may self-serve. Again, there are no cash 23
transactions, so it's only credit cards and debit cards that'll be accepted as payment. 24
Regarding golf carts, only one person may be allowed per golf cart at a time, unless 25
you're playing with a family member of the same household. The practice facilities are 26 open. The range is open but with a limited number of hitting stalls, again, to maintain 27 social distancing. Teaching and instruction are also allowed with one-on-one instruction 28 with no more than two instructors or two students in a designated teaching area. That's 29 along Embarcadero Road. The safe parking program that my colleague, Lam Do, briefed 30 you on at the last Commission meeting is a Planning Department program where they 31 would like to implement a temporary spot for safe parking next to the fire station at the 32 Baylands Athletic Center on Geng Road. This area, as Lam mentioned before, is not on 33 parkland, and it's fenced off from the adjacent Athletic Center. I haven't received any 34 updates on the next steps or timeframe for that program, but I've got requests into the 35 project leaders from Planning. I'll let you know as soon as I have more information. 36 Kristen O'Kane gave me a brief update on Cubberley to share with you. The City 37
Council approved the lease with PAUSD for Cubberley on June 22nd, and a joint letter 38
was released to the public of the City and School District and can be found at 39
cityofpaloalto.org/news/displaynews. Kristen also noted that we're very close to finding 40
space for all the tenants that had been displaced and are hoping to have that finalized in 41
the next few days. I wanted to give you a brief update on recreation, arts, and sciences 42
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programs. Onsite, in-person summer camps with stable groups of 12 campers start next 1
week. We have a wide array of programs from the Junior Museum and Zoo, Art Center, 2
Children's Theatre, and our recreation programs, including our popular camp at Foothills 3
Park. Limited spaces are still available for camps all summer long. All the in-person 4
programs will follow strict core safety guidelines including daily wellness checks for 5
participants and staff, the physical distancing measures in place, and strict handwashing 6
procedures, increased custodial cleaning and sanitation. Our camps have been modified 7
to meet the County health orders. One of the most notable changes you may notice is that 8 this year most of our camps are going to be longer than they have been in the past. This 9 change is in response to the County's guidance that children may attend at most one 10 summer camp program every three-week period. The virtual programming is doing well. 11 We're starting virtual ceramics lessons next week, and this includes a pilot program that 12 allows some of our experienced ceramics students the opportunity to rent a potter's wheel 13 to follow along at home. The Public Art Program is overseeing the creation of a Black 14 Lives Matter mural as directed by Council and Public Art Commission. Sixteen artist 15 teams from diverse backgrounds were selected to come together today to create the Black 16
Lives mural on Hamilton Avenue in front of City Hall. On Monday, the letters were 17
stenciled in preparation for the work that began at 7:00 a.m. this morning. Each artist 18
team will paint a different letter with water-based acrylic paints. A brief update on the 19
pool. We have lap swim—this is all information you can find on the website if you want 20
more details. Lap swim is listed, the hours from June 7th to July 31st. I thought some 21
people might be interested. That's Monday through Friday, 6:00 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. and 22
Saturday 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 and 3:00 p.m. to 6:00, and on Sunday 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. 23
I thought it might be interesting also for people to note on July 4th the Rinconada Pool 24
will be open from 6:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., and that's Saturday, July 4th. However, the play 25
pool will be closed for the season. Lap swimming, the lanes are dedicated to lap 26 swimming in the performance pool seven days per week, year round, with a lifeguard on 27 duty at all times. Due to the new safety protocols, they're limiting the operations to one 28 swimmer per lane. The pool's also offering a summer camp called Camp Rinconada for 29 kids ages 7-12. A child's swim level is assessed on the first day of camp, and campers 30 with similar abilities are grouped together. I double checked the website just before we 31 came on. The camp has dates from June 8th to 26th. That's the three-week camp. That 32 section is already full; however, the June 29th to July 17th sections still have availability. 33 There are youth scholarships available from Beyond Barriers Athletic Foundation. You 34 can find more information on that on the website. A little bit of information on the 35 County health order. Our current health order that went into effect on June 5th—I should 36 note that this is going to be updated some time soon, potentially next week, so be 37
prepared for more changes to our order. This can be found on the Santa Clara County 38
webpage if you want more information. It's very simple to Google "Santa Clara County 39
COVID-19 learn what to do," and you can find all the latest guidance. The general rules 40
for sports and recreational activities is that you may now engage in outdoor, noncontact 41
sports and recreational activities with members of your own household and no more than 42
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one additional household as long as you maintain the 6-foot social distance from 1
everyone from the other household and don't share equipment other than a ball, frisbee or 2
similar item with members of the other household. There is no use of recreational areas 3
or facilities outside your home that have high-touch equipment or surfaces. What that 4
means for us is that our playgrounds, picnic tables, barbecues, drinking fountains and 5
benches remain closed. There's no use of indoor recreational facilities like gyms except 6
in your own home with members of your own household. You must strictly comply with 7
the social distancing requirements in the shelter-in-place order. Tennis, pickleball, 8 basketball and our playing fields are open with social distancing and with up to one other 9 household. All our restrooms are open. Our dog parks are open with limited capacity to 10 the number of people who can occupy it while maintaining that 6-foot social distance. 11 Foothills Toll Camp will open on July 8th, and all the open space parking lots are open. 12 Once we opened the parking lots, as I think many of you heard at the previous 13 Commission meeting and this remains true—visitation in open space is still quite high. I 14 hope to have more data on how that compares to prior years in terms of the number of 15 visitors. I don't have that at hand right now, but I'll be bringing that to you soon. I also 16
wanted to note that our one-way trails that we implemented both at Foothills and 17
Arastradero to assist with social distancing have been successful. On our website you 18
can find maps of those trails and details of where they are. The City's ordinance 19
requiring people to wear a face covering is still in effect, and the State also passed a face 20
covering order on June 18th. We must follow those guidelines for face coverings, but you 21
should note that you do not need to wear a face covering when you're exercising. You do 22
need to have one with you and ready to use. Just a recap of that June 5th order as it 23
pertains to camps. You're allowed to have camps meet. They expanded the use of City 24
fields and provided the opportunity to extend sports field participation. The order allows 25
for one-on-one instruction of noncontact sports and allows children to participate in 26 sports-themed camps. Many of our City sports organizations have already begun to reach 27 out to see how they can provide sports-themed camps and one-on-one instruction using 28 City field space. These groups will provide the City a signed affidavit which outlines 29 how their camps meet the following guidelines, that is the groups of 12 stay together for a 30 minimum of three weeks; adults can only interact with one group of 12 over that three-31 week period; and kids can only participate in one group over the three-week period. 32 There is limited share of equipment and can only be used with that group of 12, and 33 they've got to have that social distancing and no physical contact. I should note that this 34 order does not allow formal sport practices or games. I want to provide a brief update on 35 the JMZ project. It's coming along well. The building is substantially complete, and 36 they're working on the punch list and have a temporary occupancy permit from the City 37
to occupy the building so that they can quarantine animals. The zoo will be completed by 38
the end of September. A very brief note on the Cameron Park community meeting. 39
You'll be hearing more about this subject from our Landscape Architect, Peter Jensen, 40
who will be presenting on it this evening. There'll be a virtual community meeting this 41
Thursday, July 2nd, at 6:30 p.m. to discuss the Cameron Park improvement project. If 42
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you would like to RSVP, you can email Jeanette Serna, that's 1
jeanette.serna@cityofpaloalto.org. There's also a project website that has all this 2
information on how you can participate. That concludes the Department Report. 3
Chair Greenfield: Thank you, Daren. Do any Commissioners have questions for Daren? 4
Commissioner Reckdahl: I have a couple. The Cubberley lease, how long is that lease, 5
the duration of that? 6
Mr. Anderson: Forgive me, I don't believe I've got that information handy, but I can pull 7
it up soon enough. 8
Commissioner Reckdahl: I'm just curious. If things change and we want to go back to 9 the status quo, can we break that lease just with an agreement? If both sides agree, we 10 can go back or is there some reason that we'll be stuck with this? 11
Mr. Anderson: Almost all the City leases have some sort of exclusion or out, and I would 12 imagine this does, but I can't speak definitely to that. 13
Commissioner Reckdahl: The second thing was the tide gate. I saw in the notes it was 14 41 weeks we're going to be closing the trail in the Baylands? 15
Mr. Anderson: No, it's 41 months. It's a four-year project. Without looking at the map, 16
which I highly recommend, if you're interested, you do because it gives the breakdown. 17
In essence, it's a .5-mile section directly where the tide gate is located that would be 18
closed for the entire duration of the project. It's the connection points of what's called 19
Adobe Loop Trail, where there are portions that would be open. 20
Commissioner Reckdahl: You no longer would be able to go from San Antonio all the 21
way around that loop to Byxbee. 22
Mr. Anderson: That's correct. You'd have to take an alternative route. 23
Commissioner Reckdahl: Part of the reason for that is they can only do construction 24
certain times of the year because of wildlife. 25
Mr. Anderson: Once they dewater and remove the existing tide gate and start 26 constructing, it's unpassable for that section until they rebuild it. Yes, the construction is 27 very, very narrow in terms of the—I think it's four months of the year that they do the 28 work. During the other parts, it bears the good question, can't we just pass through or 29 can't you put in some sort of portable trail or floating trail? They addressed that question 30 in the meeting and said they could not. 31
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Commissioner Reckdahl: I could see that that could be dangerous, putting something like 1
that in. It would be nice if we, at least during the times when we're not constructing, 2
could use it, but I can see that being very difficult. 3
Mr. Anderson: I should note during the non-construction time, you can come up to the 4
site. If you didn't, that would have closed like an additional 2 ¼ miles of trail on that 5
section of the Adobe Loop Trail. You can come up to it, which extends some of your 6
bike rides. Your point is well taken that it does stop you from making the complete loop 7
on that section. 8
Commissioner Reckdahl: It's good to see you back, Daren. 9
Mr. Anderson: Thank you, sir. 10
Commissioner Moss: One other thing. The detour around it to go all the way from San 11 Antonio to Byxbee Park is to go along East Bayshore. Now that they're doing the 12 Highway 101 overcrossing, they're never going to block that off, are they? 13
Mr. Anderson: We made sure that we've got a connection point between our project 14 leader, Megha Bansal, and Valley Water. They're going to be connecting, and they can 15 share their communications to minimize any impacts. 16
Chair Greenfield: Anyone else? On the Valley Water closure, that's very disappointing 17
news. I had met with the engineers at a preliminary meeting a number of months back 18
and voiced a considerable concern about closing the trail, a very popular trail, for such a 19
long period of time. It's very disappointing to hear that there isn't a way to structure the 20
project so that the trail could be open at least some of those periods of time. In the 21
conversations I had with the engineers, I was led to believe it might be a possibility. It's 22
disappointing. Regarding the recruitment process for a new Commissioner, certainly 23
we're hopeful that we can get someone added as soon as possible and piggyback into the 24
current open recruitment cycle. Maybe we can talk further about that. Thank you. I 25
appreciate the report, Daren. Good to have you back. 26
Mr. Anderson: Thank you very much. 27
Commissioner Moss: I am so happy that you were able to move people in the Cubberley, 28 on the PAUSD side, find homes for them. I didn't think it was possible, but it sounds like 29 you're very, very close. That's fantastic news. I really appreciate it. 30
Mr. Anderson: Lots of hard work from our Director, Kristen O'Kane. I'll be sure to pass 31 that on. 32
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Commissioner Moss: The JMZ, they said that they're going to open it to the public in 1
March, and the animals are going to start moving over in October. They need the 2
Cubberley space until probably the end of the year. Is that correct? 3
Mr. Anderson: I believe so. 4
Commissioner Moss: At that time, it reverts back to the School District? 5
Mr. Anderson: I'm not sure what the use will be but, yes, it would go back to some use 6
between PAUSD and the City for other purposes. 7
Commissioner Moss: The City might be able to use it? 8
Mr. Anderson: I don't know for sure on that one. 9
Chair Greenfield: I echo David's phrase and congratulations that we've been able to find 10 homes for all the Cubberley tenants. I know it's a subject that's been very troubling to 11 Kristen. It's great that her perseverance has paid off. Any other comments before we 12 move on in our agenda? We'll get started with our first business item. 13
V. BUSINESS 14
1. Approval of Draft Minutes from the June 4, 2020 Special Parks and 15 Recreation Commission meeting 16
Approval of the draft June 4, 2020 Minutes was moved by Commissioner Reckdahl and 17
seconded by Commissioner Moss. Passed 6-0 18
2. 2020 Sustainability and Climate Action Plan Update 19
Chair Greenfield: The update on the 2020 Sustainability and Climate Action Plan, 20
Daren, would you like to introduce our presenter please? 21
Mr. Anderson: I would like to introduce Christine Luong, who's a Management Analyst 22
for the City Manager's Office in charge of sustainability. Thanks so much for being here, 23
Christine. 24
Christine Luong: Thank you for the opportunity. Good evening, Commissioners and 25
Council Member Kou. Thank you, Chair Greenfield, for the opportunity to share our 26 work on the 2020 Sustainability and Climate Action Plan. In this presentation, we'll 27 review the 2020 Sustainability and Climate Action Plan potential goals and key actions 28 for water and natural environment. You'll be hearing from Wendy Hediger in a separate 29 presentation on zero waste. In addition, you'll be hearing from Pam Boyle Rodriguez 30 next month on green stormwater infrastructure. We hope tonight for Parks and 31
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Recreation Commission feedback on the goals and key actions before they go to AECOM 1
for analysis. Our current Sustainability and Climate Action Plan, which we sometimes 2
refer to as the S/CAP, is made up of three components. The first being a goal of 80% 3
greenhouse gas reduction by 2030 calculated utilizing our 1990 baseline, the draft S/CAP 4
framework, and the 2018-2020 Sustainability Implementation Plan. Consistent with the 5
Council's adoption of sustainability in the context of climate change as one of the top 6
three priorities for calendar year 2020, staff is developing a 2020 Sustainability and 7
Climate Action Plan to help the City meet our sustainability goals, including our goal of 8 reducing greenhouse gas emissions 80% below 1990 levels by 2030. We've solicited 9 community input on the first draft of the goals and key actions and have presented to 10 Council, the Utilities Advisory Commission and the Planning and Transportation 11 Commission, and now we're presenting to you, the Parks and Recreation Commission. 12 While all seven areas are important, in this presentation we're focusing on the water and 13 natural environment areas, which are particularly inter-connected. I'd like to note that the 14 sea level rise contract was approved by Council last week, so we'll be moving forward 15 with our seal level vulnerability assessment and related public outreach. While our 16
overarching sustainability goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2030 17
utilizing the 1900 baseline, we've several equally important goals in these following 18
seven areas. These are the team leads for the seven Sustainability and Climate Action 19
Plan areas, and the team leads for water, natural environment and zero waste are here 20
tonight to answer your questions. The main sources of Palo Alto's greenhouse gases are 21
very simple. About a third come from natural gas consumption in buildings and about 22
two-thirds from gasoline and diesel vehicles. This is a very familiar chart that we've 23
shown many times. It shows our 2018 overall greenhouse gas emissions from both Palo 24
Alto municipal operations and community-wide emissions in metric tons of carbon 25
dioxide equivalent starting with our 1990 baseline, and then 2005 is a point of 26 comparison. By the end of 2018, Palo Alto reduced our greenhouse gas emissions an 27 estimated 36% from the 1990 baseline despite a population increase of 20% during that 28 same time period. As you can see, the red bar is road transportation, and that represents 29 Palo Alto's largest remaining source of greenhouse gas emissions at about 64% of the 30 remaining total, followed by the solid blue bar, which is natural gas, at about 32% of the 31 remaining emissions. The shaded blue bar represents Palo Alto Green Gas offsets. As a 32 bridging strategy, carbon offsets are being purchased in an amount equal to the 33 greenhouse gas emissions caused by natural gas use within the City. As you can see, 34 natural gas use has not really changed in the past few years. If we include natural gas 35 offsets, greenhouse gas emissions are down about 56.5% from the 1990 baseline, and 36 then road transportation accounts for about 94% of the remaining emissions. We need 37
about 300,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent of additional reductions to meet 38
our 80 by '30 goal. Now, I'd like to turn to Walter Passmore, our Urban Forrester, who 39
has some late-breaking news to share. 40
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Walter Passmore: Thank you. We just wanted to share that this chart does not include 1
quantification of sequestration for our natural environment. We are currently in the 2
process of awarding a contract to construct a tree canopy cover analysis tool so that we 3
will be able to quantify the sequestration benefit of the urban forest throughout Palo Alto 4
across all property lines. 5
Ms. Luong: Thank you, Walter. As I mentioned previously, we solicited feedback from 6
the community on the first draft of the goals and key actions through a virtual, on-7
demand 2020 S/CAP community engagement workshop, which included participation by 8 members of the Parks and Recreation Commission—thank you for attending that—our 9 sustainability website, and the April 13th Council study session. The primary goal of our 10 2020 S/CAP is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions towards our 2030 target; however, 11 sustainability co-benefits can describe other desirable outcomes from our actions beyond 12 greenhouse gas reductions. For example, actions designed to address climate change can 13 also improve local air quality, provide regional benefits that extend beyond Palo Alto or 14 improve public health. We're currently soliciting feedback on eight potential co-benefits 15 that are listed here. Those will be used to help with the impact analysis that is 16
forthcoming. Turning to water. We incorporated the community input to update the 17
2020 S/CAP potential goals and key actions, which will be the foundation for the 18
eventual 2020 S/CAP. These are the potential goals for water: to exceed the forthcoming 19
Making Conservation a California Way of Life indoor and outdoor water use target by 20
5%. This is based on new California regulations that will establish two usage targets for 21
urban suppliers, one for residential indoor use and one for the total irrigable land within 22
an agency's service territory. The next goal is to achieve 10% of total water demand met 23
by water reuse, either recycled or stormwater capture; to improve current recycled water 24
by reducing total dissolved solids by 50% by 2024 compared to the 2019 base year; to 25
increase pervious surface, which also includes treatment of how stormwater runs off, 26 within the City 10% by 2030 compared to the 2020 baseline; to manage stormwater by 27 improving water quality to protect the San Francisco Bay and increase beneficial use of 28 captured stormwater. The Green Stormwater Infrastructure Plan goals will be updated 29 once additional quantification work is conducted over the next three years to provide 30 accurate, realistic, and publicly vetted metrics. There are six key actions for water. 31 We've numbered them to make it easier to refer to, and they're not numbered based on 32 priority. I'm not going to read them in full. To summarize the key actions, they are to 33 maximize cost-effective water conservation and efficiency, expand the use of effluent 34 from the Regional Water Quality Control Plant; increase implementation of green 35 stormwater infrastructure; design and build a salt removal facility; develop a One Water 36 portfolio. A One Water approach envisions managing all water in an integrated, 37
inclusive and sustainable manner that is more resilient to the impacts of climate change. 38
The One Water approach recognizes that water must be managed in ways that respect and 39
respond to the natural flows of watershed and the natural ecosystem, geology and 40
hydrology of an area. Projects and programs focus on achieving multiple benefits, 41
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including economic, environmental, and social. The final key action is to create 1
streamlined design guidelines and permitting process for onsite potable and non-potable 2
water reuse. These are the potential goals for natural environment. At the June Council 3
meeting, Council directed staff to come up with a metric on biodiversity. Staff intends to 4
work with stakeholders to create a biodiversity index specific to Palo Alto. We welcome 5
the Commission's thoughts on this topic. The goals are to reduce and enhance resilience 6
and biodiversity of our natural environment and to increase tree canopy to 40% Citywide 7
coverage by 2030. There are nine key actions for natural environment. These are 8 numbered, again, to make it easier to refer to and not based on any priority. The 9 summary of the nine key actions is to explore programs and policies to provide carbon 10 sequestration and other environmental benefits; maximize biodiversity and soil health; 11 coordinate implementation of various plans through the City's internal sustainability 12 leadership team; expand the requirements of the Water Efficient Landscape Ordinance; 13 implement the Green Stormwater Infrastructure Plan—again, staff will be providing a 14 more in-depth GSI presentation to you next month—ensure no net tree canopy loss for all 15 projects; identify opportunities to further reduce and eliminate the use of pesticides; 16
include native plants and pollinator-friendly plant landscaping within all park capital 17
improvement projects; and establish a baseline for carbon storage of tree canopy. For 18
next steps, AECOM is creating a Citywide greenhouse gas emission inventory for 2019, 19
including providing a more accurate methodology for calculating our transportation-20
related emissions, which will include airport emissions for the first time in accordance 21
with new reporting protocols. AECOM will also calculate a "business as usual" forecast 22
to show what emissions reductions will be achieved if we don't add any new policies or 23
actions. As I mentioned, we've sought input from the Utilities Advisory Commission and 24
Planning and Transportation Commission, and we're looking for your feedback tonight. 25
We'll be returning next month to present on green stormwater infrastructure. I would like 26 to note, the Parks and Recreation Commission is the only group focusing on water, 27 natural environment, sea level rise, and zero waste. We really hope for your comments 28 on those areas with a specific focus on water and natural environment right now and then 29 zero waste in the next presentation. AECOM will work on an impact analysis on the 30 draft key actions to estimate the greenhouse gas reduction of the potential actions, the 31 estimated costs, and the additional sustainability co-benefits. We're currently soliciting 32 feedback from the community on the co-benefits through a virtual public forum. We're 33 also making note of the feedback from the first 2020 S/CAP webinar to improve our 34 community engagement and webinars moving forward. The results of the AECOM 35 impact analysis will help us further refine the goals and key actions needed to get us to 36 our 80 by '30 emissions reduction target. We hope to present a package of options to 37
Council in the fall. I'd like to thank Chair Greenfield for providing very detailed 38
comments on the first draft of the 2020 S/CAP goals and key actions. We've taken those 39
comments into consideration for the updated goals and key actions, and we're hoping for 40
more feedback from the Parks and Recreation Commission. These are our suggested 41
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questions for discussion at this study session. We're available for your questions, and we 1
thank you very much for your time. 2
Chair Greenfield: Thank you very much, Christine, for the presentation. I know this is 3
just the tip of the iceberg that you're presenting in a very condensed form and represents a 4
very small snapshot into the many hours that you've dedicated to working on the overall 5
sustainability picture and plan for our community. Thank you for all of your efforts in 6
the community workshop and the outreach. Do we have any members of the public who 7
would like to speak? I'm not getting any indication of that. 8
Commissioner Reckdahl: No one has their hands up on the attendees. 9
Chair Greenfield: Before we go into any specific questions, do any Commissioners have 10 general questions about the presentation? 11
Commissioner Moss: This presentation is very near and dear to my heart. There are 12 many, many things that resonate with what the Park Commission has been talking about 13 over the past years. I don't see anything missing. We have the sea level rise project out 14 at the Baylands. We have the urban forest canopy increase. We have the purple pipes 15 and the recycling of water for irrigation for the parks. We are working very hard with the 16
green stormwater people to do with the pervious concrete in our parks and bioswales. 17
We have the Buckeye Creek project, which is a stormwater initiative. It would be nice if 18
we did it by 2030. The natural environment resilience has everything to do with taking 19
care of our open spaces and our parks to make sure that they're not overused. As far as 20
zero waste, I didn't quite realize that our Commission was the only one looking at zero 21
waste. Certainly, we're dealing with grass clippings and tree pruning, but I didn't realize 22
that we run the hazardous waste center or the recycle center. That's news to me. 23
Certainly what we do with our grass clippings and tree pruning. As far as biodiversity, 24
having all that discussion two meetings ago about the pollinator islands and the growing 25
of native plants in those islands and medians in the roads, we should definitely try to 26 come up with a metric, maybe the number of square feet of additional drought-tolerant 27 plants that we come up with. Of course, Daren has spoken many times about pesticide 28 use and about reducing the amount of water used by parks. There's a whole lot of things 29 in there that I'm very happy to see. I really can't find anything missing. That's a good 30 thing. 31
Chair Greenfield: I guess we're moving onto specific or general comments. 32
Commissioner Olson: Could we display the key actions? I think that's where we were 33 looking for the most feedback. 34
Ms. Luong: Would you like to start with water or natural environment? 35
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Commissioner Olson: Water would be great. There was another slide that had values, 1
something like that. The last one was increasing affordability. I think it was earlier on in 2
your presentation. Reduce cost of living through cost savings, how do we imagine that 3
manifesting as a co-benefit? 4
Ms. Luong: That is a great question. I should have been more clear that these are the 5
eight possible co-benefits. We might not end up with all of these, depending on the 6
feedback we get from the community on what's important to them. Right now, we're 7
envisioning that the cost of living would be related to reducing the cost of living through 8 utility cost savings, for example, or travel cost savings. If we build more houses next to 9 transit, for example, people will save time and money on their commutes and, therefore, 10 have some sort of benefits with their cost of living. Things like that are what we're 11 envisioning by what we mean for reducing cost of living through cost savings. 12
Commissioner Olson: Can we go back to the key values? There were the water goals 13 one. I don't think I have any questions on this one. I agree with Commissioner Moss. 14 This has been very inclusive and very thorough and very impressive. The only other 15 question I had was on the comment about the canopy and maybe recapturing some of the 16
benefits from the canopy that we have. Could you describe that a little bit more? Are we 17
going to be able to track that over the years or will it be like we know what it is today, but 18
we don't know what it used to be? 19
Ms. Luong: I'm going to ask Walter Passmore to answer that since he can do a better job 20
than I can. 21
Mr. Passmore: Thank you. When we construct the tool for canopy cover analysis, that 22
will be part of our GIS system. Every year when we get updated imagery, the tool will 23
automatically analyze that and be able to recalculate the benefits. We'll get an annual 24
update on the carbon benefit and the co-benefits of the urban forest. 25
Commissioner Olson: Do we have any historical data on that that we could compare to 26
what it used to be or will it be from today forward that we'll have that data? 27
Mr. Passmore: We have two points in time that have already been analyzed, 1982 and 28 2010. That analysis is already complete. I think it'll be timely to complete the analysis 29 this year because we'll be able to compare 2010 to 2020 and see how far we've come in 30 the last 10 years. 31
Commissioner Olson: On the tree canopy increasing to 40%, that means we want 40% 32 more than we have today, correct? 33
Mr. Passmore: No, 40% of the City would be covered in trees. Currently … 34
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Commissioner Olson: Oh, got it. 1
Mr. Passmore: … we're a little bit over 38%. 40% may not seem like a very optimistic 2
goal, but Palo Alto has one of the most vibrant urban forests in the state of California. 3
Even increasing it a nominal amount is a fairly optimistic task. 4
Commissioner Olson: Does that include private yards and things or only public spaces? 5
Mr. Passmore: Both because our residents get the benefit of trees wherever they are. It 6
doesn't matter if they're on public or private property. 7
Commissioner Olson: Interesting. Thank you. That's all my questions. This is a really 8
terrific plan. 9
Commissioner LaMere: I appreciate the work put into this plan and the detail and also 10 echo the sentiments of the previous Commissioner comments. As we go through this 11 plan and try to reduce our emissions and everything we're doing, are we doing this also in 12 lockstep or as a coalition with neighboring city governments? Certainly we can do 13 everything we can and should do everything we can to reduce our pollutants, but we also 14 will be affected by our neighbors. Do we have conversations with them and try to have 15 similar goals? 16
Ms. Luong: That's a great question. Yes. There are several regional efforts to coordinate 17
our work and share ideas. We don't coordinate specifically on what is going in each 18
other's climate action plans. However, I do know that, for example, Menlo Park is 19
currently updating their climate action plan. We have a lot of similarities in our plans 20
and similar goals and key actions. We're relatively aligned. There is a Climate Change 21
Task Force that Palo Alto participates in. In the issue-specific areas, there are regional 22
efforts there as well. For example, with sea level rise, there are a lot of regional efforts 23
around sea level rise because the water doesn't care about geographic boundaries. We 24
have to coordinate with our neighbors on that. 25
Commissioner LaMere: Thank you. 26
Commissioner Reckdahl: I give this a very good. This is good stuff. Thank you for your 27 time. I have a couple of questions for Walter. On slide 11, this said no net canopy loss. 28 Let's say someone is remodeling their house, and they cut down a big tree. What 29 timeframe do they have to have no loss? Do they have to have it as soon as it's done, 30 plant enough trees to get the same canopy that it had before or, say, plant the trees such 31 that in 3 or 5 years it gets back to the original canopy? 32
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Mr. Passmore: On a project basis, we allow 15 years for that restoration to occur. That 1
can be a combination of planting additional trees onsite and planting offsite or paying in-2
lieu fees. 3
Commissioner Reckdahl: You'd buy this on the secondary market? 4
Mr. Passmore: We do have an internal forestry fund that plants trees. We've been using 5
that money to plant new trees in South Palo Alto specifically where we have less tree 6
canopy. 7
Commissioner Reckdahl: If I pay the in-lieu cost, you turn around and plant that in the 8
urban part of Palo Alto? 9
Mr. Passmore: Correct. 10
Commissioner Reckdahl: That is an apples-to-apples as opposed to planting it in the 11 Foothills somewhere. 12
Mr. Passmore: No. 13
Commissioner Reckdahl: That would be a little different. On slide 9, it talks about 14 increase tree canopy to 40%. What is it right now? 15
Mr. Passmore: About 38.5 our last estimate, but we'll find out a more exact number 16
when our canopy cover analysis tool is complete, hopefully at the end of this calendar 17
year. 18
Commissioner Reckdahl: What area is considered? Is that just urban Palo Alto or is that 19
all of Palo Alto proper? 20
Mr. Passmore: Just urban Palo Alto. 21
Commissioner Reckdahl: Do you know what the canopy is in parks? Have we broken 22
that out? 23
Mr. Passmore: We have not differentiated parks. Once we construct the canopy cover 24
analysis tool, we will be able to separate specific areas. We could separate all the urban 25
parks and calculate canopy cover on each one. 26
Commissioner Reckdahl: That'd be interesting. Would we have some bogey that we 27 would have to meet? We'd want to get 40% in our parks or would we want something 28 higher in our parks? Have we talked about that at all? 29
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Mr. Passmore: I don't think we've talked about a canopy cover target for parks 1
specifically, but that might be a great subject for the Parks and Recreation Commission to 2
tackle. 3
Commissioner Reckdahl: I would imagine that it's easier to plant trees in parks than it 4
would be in a private lot just because you have a house there, and that may be difficult. 5
Whereas, in the parks, you don't have nearly as much competition for the land. I guess 6
you do have the flood field and things. What about preserves, both the open space and 7
Foothills Park, do we have any goals to increase the canopy there? 8
Mr. Passmore: Only nominally. We want to simulate as closely as possible the historic 9 ecology of those areas. Daren could probably speak to that better than I can. There are 10 only a few areas where we feel that we want to restore tree canopy where it's not 11 currently present. 12
Mr. Anderson: Just to add onto what Walter just shared. I think a good example would 13 be the re-oaking we did in Pearson-Arastradero Preserve as part of the golf course 14 project, where we tried to save and establish as many oak trees as possible. That's a good 15 example of a fairly large-scale endeavor to re-tree. The other one that jumps out at me as 16
a necessity is for us to be on top of sod losses and making sure we protect as much as 17
possible our heritage oaks throughout the Foothills region. 18
Commissioner Reckdahl: How many oaks did we plant in Arastradero Preserve? 19
Mr. Anderson: I believe it was 600 and change that were not necessarily planted but 20
protected, that is a naturally occurring oak that popped up was protected so it would make 21
it to adulthood. 22
Commissioner Reckdahl: We didn't necessarily plant those. 23
Mr. Anderson: No. Some were planted through our partnership with Grassroots 24
Ecology, but many were free-growing, and they were protected. 25
Commissioner Reckdahl: That's all for Walter. I have a question on slide 5. I notice that 26 one of the elements is landfill unrecovered recyclables. That is the greenhouse gases that 27 were used to produce the recyclables or is this … 28
Ms. Luong: No. Those are the greenhouse gases that are emitted from the recyclables 29 that can't be reused somehow. It's just the off-gassing. 30
Commissioner Reckdahl: It's off-gassing. What's the next one under that, the life cycle 31 emissions from annual waste placed in landfill? 32
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Ms. Luong: I don't know if Wendy can speak to that better than I can. That also has to 1
do with landfill-related emissions, naturally occurring emissions from the waste. 2
Commissioner Reckdahl: It's the off-gassing from all the food containers and stuff like 3
that? 4
Ms. Luong: Exactly. 5
Wendy Hediger: The life cycle emissions from the annual total waste placed in landfill is 6
the emissions that happen in the landfill from landfill waste. The landfilled, unrecovered 7
recyclables is more of an upstream emissions, so the emissions that, because we didn't 8 recycle those items, like if we throw away an aluminum can or glass and new have to be 9 made, there's a lot more emissions from making it from natural resources than it is if we 10 make it from recycled material. We were trying to capture those upstream emissions. 11
Commissioner Reckdahl: That's offsite. That's not necessarily occurring in Palo Alto. 12
Ms. Hediger: Correct. It's just occurring because of the actions that we … 13
Commissioner Reckdahl: Actions in Palo Alto. 14
Ms. Hediger: Correct. 15
Commissioner Reckdahl: If I eat a tomato in Palo Alto, do we book the greenhouse gases 16
that were used to raise that tomato or do we draw the line … 17
Ms. Hediger: We just looked at the garbage. If you threw that tomato away and didn't 18
eat it, then we were taking those numbers. 19
Commissioner Reckdahl: I see your point. It's a lost opportunity that we didn't recycle. 20
Ms. Hediger: When we looked at the unrecovered recyclables, we really were looking at 21
not organics but recyclables, aluminum and glass, plastics. I believe the County has 22
changed for this new year. I think they've taken that out. Christine can talk to that more 23
than I can. 24
Ms. Luong: Up until this year, Palo Alto Utilities has been calculating most of our 25
greenhouse gas inventories. This year, we decided we need to follow what's called the 26 GPC protocol more closely. AECOM will be doing our 2019 greenhouse gas emissions 27 inventory. We're going to review all of the changes in the GPC protocol and look at how 28 we've done the inventories in the past and make any corrections as needed. 29
Commissioner Reckdahl: The horizontal line there with the green arrow, is that for 30 everything or is that just for the road travel? 31
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Ms. Luong: No. That horizontal line is where we need to get down to for everything. 1
Commissioner Reckdahl: What timeframe do we have to get down there? 2
Ms. Luong: In ten years, by 2030. 3
Commissioner Reckdahl: That's pretty aggressive. I notice on slide 7 there's some other 4
aggressive numbers. How likely is it that we're going to hit those? 5
Ms. Luong: That's a great question. It depends on the level of intervention. Right now, 6
we've mostly focused on the low intervention, voluntary, market-driven solutions that can 7
only get you so far. We've also done some interventions in the middle column, like our 8 Energy Reach Code Ordinance, Council ordinances, things like that. One area that we 9 haven't done anything in is the higher intervention, the government-driven solutions. 10 Those will require Citywide voter-approved mandates or financing and utility-scale 11 infrastructure shift. It really depends. Our consultant, AECOM, is going to estimate the 12 greenhouse gas reduction potential costs and co-benefits, and that impact analysis will 13 give us a range of the costs per greenhouse gas reduction for each of the key actions. 14 We'll have various options along this spectrum of tools to get to our 80 by '30 goal. At 15 some point, we're going to have to decide how many high intervention strategies are we 16
going to employ to get us to 80 by '30. The question might be do we need true emissions 17
reductions to get to 80 by '30 or are we going to do a combination of true emissions 18
reductions and continue our offsets program to get to 80 by '30 and then do true 19
emissions reductions by 2040 or something like that. After the impact analysis, once we 20
return to Council, we're going to have to come up with the different scenarios and 21
different packages of options for how aggressively we want to be to get to 80 by '30 or if 22
we want to be not quite as aggressive and give ourselves more time. 23
Commissioner Reckdahl: That was a good answer. You've put a lot of thought into this. 24
Why do they call it 80 by '30? 25
Ms. Luong: It's because we need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2030. 26
The shorthand is 80 by '30. 27
Commissioner Reckdahl: The salt removal facility at the waste treatment center would 28 be onsite right now at the current location? 29
Ms. Luong: I believe so. It would be at the Regional Water Quality Control Plant. 30
Commissioner Reckdahl: We wouldn't have to have any additional land for that it. It 31 would be onsite. The reason for that is to allow more recyclable water to be used? 32
Ms. Luong: I believe so, yes. 33
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Karin North: It's to improve the water quality for existing recycled water customers since 1
our TDS is rather high. It would be dropping it about half. It would be on the existing 2
recycled plant facility. 3
Commissioner Reckdahl: That's what I wanted to know. It's because our TDS prevents 4
us from using it some places. Thank you. 5
Vice Chair Cribbs: Thank you very much. Christine, thank you. This is excellent. I 6
really appreciate all the work that you and all the other people have done. I wanted to 7
thank Commissioner LaMere for asking the question about what are we doing with our 8 neighbors. I'm glad to hear that we have some committees and some work that is going 9 on so we're sharing best practices. It'll be fun to know more about that in the future and 10 keep track of that. I'm glad you asked that question, Jeff. Community engagement is one 11 of the goals, I believe, and one of the actions. Unlike Keith, I don't have the numbers of 12 the slides. Can you talk a little bit about how you've done community engagement and 13 how you will continue to reach out to the community and if you are including the youth 14 of our community in getting feedback from them? 15
Ms. Luong: Great question. Our community engagement efforts were turned upside 16
down because of the coronavirus. We were supposed to have our first in-person 17
community engagement workshop on March 31st, which obviously couldn't happen 18
because shelter in place started on March 16th. We scrambled, and we did it as a eight-19
part virtual workshop with the first workshop being a general overview of the 2020 20
S/CAP update and the remaining seven workshops on each of the specific areas. We had 21
204 people attend that workshop. We did a really big push to try to reach a broad 22
audience. Half of the people who attended had never attended a sustainability or climate 23
change-related event run by the City of Palo Alto before. That was great. 24
Vice Chair Cribbs: That's great. 25
Ms. Luong: It was fantastic. We had a Palo Alto youth group that participated, and they 26 wrote some very, very thoughtful comments. I had originally planned on partnering with 27 the sustainability manager at Palo Alto Unified School District. Unfortunately, her 28 position was eliminated. I'm going to probably have to rethink that and continue working 29 with the Palo Alto youth group that has been engaged. I had done a presentation at 30 Stanford a while back and met with some of the students afterwards, who are all involved 31 in what's called the Sunrise Movement. I've been in communications with them as well. 32
Vice Chair Cribbs: That's really great to hear on all fronts. There are so many thoughtful 33 high school students in Palo Alto as we've been hearing as they've been talking to the 34 Council about other things and also thoughtful students who are actually making this 35 their life's work over at Stanford. We're really lucky to be in a place with so many 36 resources. It's great that you're doing all that. Thank you very much for talking about 37
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that. I'm feeling like that's maybe one of the places that the Commission could be helpful 1
to try to continue to engage the community and be encouraging about being involved 2
with this very important topic. That would be a recommendation to my fellow 3
Commissioners. On the slide—again I don't know the number—in the list that said 4
equity, I believe it was above the saving money. Would you give an example of address 5
existing inequity, a pretty simple example? 6
Ms. Luong: That would be things like disproportionate poor air quality, if certain 7
neighborhoods have poorer air quality for whatever reason, if there's an industrial center 8 there, or access to transit. Midtown, for example, has fewer access points to transit than 9 the rest of the City. Flood risk, there are certain homes that are much more at risk for sea 10 level rise and floods. Equity could also be like South Palo Alto doesn't have as many 11 trees. The tree canopy is sparser there. All sorts of things related to equity. 12
Vice Chair Cribbs: I'm really glad to see that. I congratulate you for adding that to the 13 list. Thank you for doing that. 14
Chair Greenfield: Thank you for putting all of this together. Thank you for your efforts. 15 The virtual workshop was an awesome effort. As you alluded, it was a significant 16
redirect on how to pull this off. You did a great job with that. Is the workshop still 17
available for viewing or is it still applicable? If it's not applicable, would it be 18
appropriate to update it in the future and make it accessible? 19
Ms. Luong: We used Go to Webinar to do those workshops. We had a free 3-month 20
COVID package for cities, which just expired last week. The online versions of those 21
workshops are no longer available. I did download all the workshops, so we have them. 22
That said, we are planning on doing new workshops with updated information. We are 23
currently working on our engagement strategy for the next round now that we've updated 24
the first draft of the goals and key actions and we have our second draft. Our current 25
thinking is that we want to put together some more issue-specific webinars focused on the 26 areas that had the most comments from the first round, things like what does it really 27 mean to electrify your home. Another thing that came up a lot was carbon sequestration 28 from the natural environment. We want to have some additional topic-specific webinars, 29 follow that up with more online engagement opportunities, and then culminate. We had 30 originally planned on having an in-person S/CAP summit. The way things are going, it 31 looks like we probably won't be able to have an in-person anything for a long time. 32 We're trying to figure out can we do some sort of virtual town hall to get more people 33 involved and feedback on the final packages of options. 34
Chair Greenfield: I know it must be very rewarding. In the general feedback from the 35 people who self-select to be engaged on this, their comments are really very—they get it. 36 They get the urgency, the need for effective tracking and appropriate measurement, etc. 37
The co-benefits slide and the spectrum benefits slide, those were great, helpful, and 38
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useful. It seems like the salt removal facility is a fairly high-cost solution. I'm 1
wondering what percentage of planned costs that represents versus percentage of 2
potential reduction. 3
Ms. North: Do you want to clarify that question exactly how you're trying to—the 4
majority of the cost of the facility is coming from the agreement we signed with Valley 5
Water in December. We project it's about a $20 million facility, and approximately $16 6
million is going to be coming from Valley Water. Since Mountain View receives the 7
majority of the recycled water, they'll be paying about three-quarters and Palo Alto will 8 be paying about a quarter of the $4 million. It's actually not costing us that much money. 9 The energy costs to produce recycled water is going to be higher because it is reverse 10 osmosis, and there is higher energy demand there. To produce and blend is better than 11 using potable water. 12
Chair Greenfield: It's easier to feel good about that. On the natural environment side, 13 I've never been shy about being a fan of trees and all the great work that our Urban 14 Forestry Department does. That's great work to hear that the sequestration analysis is 15 coming soon. The Commission has been looking to formalize a relationship with our 16
Urban Forestry Department. We continue to support that. I appreciate Keith's comment 17
about looking to consider the canopy coverage in parks separately. We can certainly be 18
(inaudible) of that. Walter, could you comment on the process if a Palo Alto resident 19
wants to add a tree on his private property, what the City support for that is? 20
Mr. Passmore: We do have some cooperative programs that we fund through Canopy, 21
our nonprofit. In part, those are funded through the forestry fund that I mentioned the in-22
lieu fees from development projects that can't plant replacement trees during the project. 23
In part, those come from the General Fund. We're also exploring other potential future 24
funding sources. For example, San Francisco passed a substantial bond measure to 25
increase their tree canopy cover. 26
Chair Greenfield: If people want to plant a tree, they can contact Canopy and see how 27 maybe they can get City support for that through Canopy? 28
Mr. Passmore: Correct. There is a level of assistance for some properties to plant new 29 trees. 30
Chair Greenfield: I appreciate the increase from 38.5% to 40% is not nominal. It does 31 take some effort. What you mentioned also segues well into my next question about the 32 opportunity to get support for implementation of our master plan through additional grant 33 writing. How much staff time goes into pursuing this free money that's out there? This is 34 not the first time this body has raised the question and encouraged even more of this. 35
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Ms. Luong: I remember that comment that you wrote very well. I personally don't spend 1
very much time researching grants or writing grants mostly because I don't have the 2
bandwidth. I know certain departments spend a lot of time. For example, the Office of 3
Transportation has regular meetings to review all potential funding opportunities. I'm not 4
sure what other departments do. It's really on a departmental basis. 5
Chair Greenfield: I continue to think it's an opportunity. I appreciate the budget process 6
and the pressures on staff right now, but this may even be an area where contracting 7
outside work to pursue grants could be a cost-effective solution. We've got these great 8 urban forestry and parks and open space master plans with all kinds of ideas and 9 programs waiting for implementation but lacking funding. I understand staff resources 10 are an issue as well. If we had more money, we would be in a position to decide how to 11 use it. I just want to also point out that mobility is an issue that's dear to the hearts of the 12 Parks and Rec Commission, and we're very interested in supporting the pathways 13 between parks and other areas in the community as well as schools and inviting 14 recreation throughout the community. I'm not sure you got so much direct answers to 15 your question on the biodiversity metrics that you posed. This is a difficult area. Maybe 16
you could highlight a little bit more what your current approach is working with regional 17
experts and resources like San Francisco Estuary Institute for developing metrics, and 18
maybe you could comment on the prioritization between plant and wildlife. Are those 19
equally prioritized or is there a difference based on metrics available? 20
Ms. Luong: I will turn this question over to Walter because he's been doing a lot more 21
work directly on it. 22
Mr. Passmore: We have just started researching the topic. I think we've identified a 23
good foundation to work from, which is the California Biodiversity Initiative. There's 24
been a task force of scientists that came together to identify different measures of 25
biodiversity and come up with a way to look across the entire ecosystem and establish 26 biodiversity health measures. I envision this being more of a scale or grade to ideal and 27 trying to assess where are we now and where do we want to be in the future. We've just 28 started this effort. It's potentially something we could work on for a long, long time and 29 adapt over time as we make progress. 30
Chair Greenfield: Is this applied differently to suburban areas versus Baylands areas or 31 Foothills open space areas? 32
Mr. Passmore: Obviously it's going to be nuanced. We're going to need to involve our 33 constituent groups. The Parks and Recreation Commission could be a key participant in 34 fine-tuning the biodiversity index to fit Palo Alto. 35
Chair Greenfield: I think I can speak for the Commission in saying we're looking for 36 ways that we can support the overall sustainability effort, whether it's using the body as a 37
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conduit for community input and feedback, whether it's outreach to the community for 1
specific programs they can help with. Please let us know how we can help. 2
Commissioner Moss: Are you using that imagery from 1982 and 2010 to look at areas of 3
monoculture like green grass or concrete to see are we reducing the amount of concrete 4
and green grass at a similar rate that we're increasing the canopy? Can you use those 5
same diagrams for that? 6
Mr. Passmore: That analysis was specific to trees. We did not analyze any other 7
features. With our new GIS system, we would be able to analyze additional features. 8 Our interest in analyzing the amount of impervious surface or the amount of grass as 9 compared to bushes or trees, those divisions are possible with the new enterprise GIS 10 system. 11
Commissioner Moss: I'm thinking of specifically the Cal. Ave. parking structure. Can 12 they put vines up the side of the structure instead of concrete and can they put plants and 13 trees in pots on the top layer of the parking structure to reduce the amount of concrete 14 and measure it? 15
Mr. Passmore: Some of those are being done. One of the improvements that we're 16
making with the GIS is we'll be able to track those landscape improvements on a project-17
by-project basis. That will be information that you can analyze over time. 18
Chair Greenfield: Any follow-up questions from other Commissioners? 19
Commissioner Moss: Why don't we add Buckeye Creek to this? If we're going to spend 20
$20 million to take salt out of the water and another $20 million to take solids out of the 21
water, why don't we do Buckeye Creek, which will reduce significantly the amount of 22
dirt and runoff into the creeks, which eventually run into the Bay? I would think it would 23
be just as important, and it only costs $9 million. We could do it in the next 5-10 years. 24
Mr. Anderson: I don't know what to say, Commissioner Moss, other than I support that 25
idea. I think we'll just continue those conversations. 26
Chair Greenfield: It's a funding issue and an assessment issue, where does it contribute 27 and where can we get the funding. Thank you, Christine and Walter and Karin and all of 28 your supporting staff, for this enlightening presentation. We're very supportive and want 29 to continue to work with you and the community. Sustainability as a goal doesn't go 30 away during the COVID-19 times. It continues on, and we need to continue to 31 understand it's a priority and continue actively working to address it. We will continue 32 our sustainability speaker series. Daren, would you like to introduce our next 33 presentation? 34
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3. Informational Report on the Public Works Zero Waste Program 1
Mr. Anderson: Yes, thank you. I'd like to introduce Wendy Hediger. She's an 2
Environmental Specialist with Public Works' Zero Waste. Thank you, Wendy. 3
Chair Greenfield: Before Wendy jumps in, I apologize. Council Member Kou, did you 4
have anything you wanted to add? 5
Ms. Hediger: Thank you very much, and good evening. Tonight I will be talking about 6
Zero Waste in Palo Alto, specifically our 2018 Zero Waste Plan, Zero Waste in the 7
Sustainability and Climate Action Plan, and a few of our Zero Waste efforts in parks and 8 open space. I'll hit a few different topics. To start off, in 2005 City Council adopted the 9 goal of zero waste. The goal is to achieve zero waste. However, knowing that achieving 10 zero waste is very difficult, the metric of 90% diversion of waste from landfills by 2021 11 was adopted. In 2016 as part of the Sustainability and Climate Action Plan, Council 12 adopted a more aggressive goal of 95% diversion by 2030. In addition to these goals, we 13 also need to comply with State mandates. California has a goal of 75% of the waste 14 created needs to be recycled, composted or source reduced with chains not created in the 15 first place by 2020. The State created requirements for mandatory commercial recycling 16
and composting to help attain this goal. Palo Alto also created recycling and composting 17
requirements. In 2016, Council adopted the Recycling and Composting Ordinance 18
requiring everyone in Palo Alto to recycle and compost. There's no enforcement for 19
residents. This ordinance is aimed at the commercial sector, requiring them to have 20
recycle and compost service and to sort their waste properly. It also creates a uniform 21
color-coded system throughout Palo Alto so that, if you're at home, at work, at school, or 22
at play, waste sorting is the same. Zero waste doesn't simply mean recycling and 23
composting all of our waste. We can't recycle our way to zero waste. It's certainly part 24
of the solution, but it's only one tool in the toolbox. Zero waste is a holistic approach to 25
managing materials in a closed-loop system or circular economy where there's no such 26 thing as waste. Discards are either designed out completely or fed back into the 27 production cycle as raw material. Palo Alto's 2018 diversion rate is 82%. That's our 28 most current rate. We usually have the next year's numbers by now, but things are a little 29 delayed this year. It's good to note here that diversion includes all waste prevention, not 30 making waste in the first place, reuse, recycling and composting activities. It lumps all of 31 those things together. The 2018 Zero Waste Plan updates the first such plan for Palo 32 Alto, which was adopted in 2007. The new plan contains new and revised actions 33 designed to meet the aggressive goals adopted by City Council in 2016 as part of the 34 Sustainability and Climate Action Plan, namely, 95% diversion of materials from 35 landfills by 2030 and the 80% reduction of greenhouse gases by the same year. Before 36 we could determine what new actions were necessary to attain our goals, we needed to 37
find out what was still in our garbage. This pie chart shows the total tons of waste being 38
landfilled by Palo Alto in 2016. Approximately 44% of what Palo Alto sent to the 39
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landfill came from construction and demolition projects. Although construction and 1
demolition projects have a high diversion rate, in 2016 it was 72% overall. The 28% they 2
do send to landfill accounts for 44% of the total amount of waste landfilled by Palo Alto. 3
Construction and demolition waste would obviously need to be addressed in the new 4
Zero Waste Plan. We conducted a Waste Characterization Study in 2017 for the non-5
construction-related waste, the gray side of the previous chart. The chart here shows 6
what was thrown in the garbage by residents and businesses. It does not include what 7
was placed in the recycle or compost carts. Approximately 67% of what is being thrown 8 away in the garbage in Palo Alto can be recycled or composted. The 2017 Waste 9 Characterization Study determined not only what we were throwing out but also who was 10 throwing it out and in what quantity. This level of detail is important when developing a 11 plan. For example, here's a list of the top six materials found in the garbage from both 12 residents and businesses. Edible food scraps top the list. That's food that could have 13 been eaten. It's a slice of pizza, a whole apple, a chunk of cheese, etc., but it was thrown 14 away for some reason. Perhaps it got lost in the back of the fridge and spoiled or 15 someone didn't want to eat leftovers or a cook burnt it and it couldn't be sold. These are 16
what we call edible food waste. It may not be edible when it was thrown away, but it 17
could have been eaten. Food waste prevention efforts would need to be included in the 18
new plan for these items. We want to reduce this waste from happening to save not only 19
food from being wasted but also all the resources that went into creating the food, the 20
water, the energy, etc. We want people to eat the food that they purchase. The second 21
item on the list is inedible food scraps. These are pits, peels, cores, shells, things you 22
wouldn't traditionally eat. These are items that should have been composted. The plan 23
would need to also address improved sorting. The 2017 Waste Characterization Study is 24
available on our website at zerowastepaloalto.org if you'd like to dive into all the details. 25
Using the waste characterization data and information gathered from community 26 engagement efforts, we developed the 2018 Zero Waste Plan. It includes 48 initiatives or 27 actions to be taken to achieve zero waste and the 95% diversion goal. The plan includes 28 refinement of existing programs, the adoption of new policies and programs, working 29 with manufacturers to redesign products, and working with businesses and residents that 30 are purchasing products that will eventually become waste. The plan is divided into 31 short-term, medium-term, and long-term actions. If you would like to read the plan, 32 please go to cityofpaloalto.org/zwplan. Shifting to the Sustainability and Climate Action 33 Plan. Zero waste is an integral component of climate protection. Approximately 42% of 34 greenhouse gas emissions in the United States are associated with the flow of materials 35 through the economy, from the extraction or harvesting of materials and food, production 36 and transport of goods, provision of services, reuse of materials, recycling, composting 37
and to disposal. The flow of these resources contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, 38
which is why reducing waste is an important strategy for both greenhouse gas reductions 39
and overall sustainability. The goals in the Zero Waste chapter of the Sustainability and 40
Climate Action Plan are no surprise. They mirror our Zero Waste goal and how we will 41
achieve it. That's implementing the Zero Waste plan. We pulled out these high priority 42
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actions from the 2018 Zero Waste Plan for inclusion as key actions in the Sustainability 1
and Climate Action Plan. Starting July 1st, tomorrow, demolition will no longer be 2
allowed. Instead, projects that wish to remove a whole structure will need to carefully 3
disassemble the building's components to maximize reuse and recycling. This current 4
requirement only covers a small percentage of projects. To achieve zero waste, the 5
ordinance will need to be expanded to include more projects. The next key action 6
focuses on single-use disposable foodware. Using reusables conserves natural resources, 7
decreases our carbon footprint, and reduces pollution. Palo Alto already prohibits the use 8 of plastic straws, utensils, stirrer sticks, drink plugs, produce bags, and other disposable 9 plastic items. To achieve zero waste, the ordinance will need to be expanded to single-10 use disposable cups and containers. Edible food is the biggest single material type 11 disposed in our garbage. This next key action focuses on the commercial sector, 12 requiring them to practice waste prevention by not creating excess edible food in the first 13 place. It also focuses on recovering the excess edible food that they do generate for 14 human consumption. The fourth key action listed is about residential food waste 15 reduction. 26% of the residential garbage, what's thrown in the garbage can, is composed 16
of food that could have been eaten but went bad and was thrown away. This initiative is 17
to have the City learn why Palo Alto residents waste food and then create outreach and 18
programs to help them reduce that amount. The next key action addresses diapers, which 19
comprise 16% of all residential discards or 7% of Citywide discards. It ranked as one of 20
the top six material types in our waste stream. For the last key action listed, some 21
examples of ways to champion waste prevention are provide waste prevention technical 22
assistance for businesses, provide waste reduction grants, promote the adoption of a zero 23
waste lifestyle, and promote access to goods over ownership, for example, a rental or 24
sharing of items in the community. Those are our key actions for zero waste. Changing 25
gears to zero waste parks. I want to share this with you. For the past year and a half, 26 zero waste in parks and open space have been collaborating on several projects to create 27 an environment easier for parkgoers to practice zero waste, to get them in alignment with 28 our recycling and composting ordinance as well. The goals of these projects are to create 29 easily identifiable, color-coded, three-sort waste stations with signs to indicate what goes 30 where and remove unneeded waste receptacles to increase efficiency. Previously Hoover 31 Park had many unlabeled bins that only provided parkgoers the choice to throw away 32 materials into the landfill or recycle containers. What were people to do with their 33 compostable material? Another issue was illegal dumping in carts located at the front of 34 the park. In order to rectify the issue, we reorganized the bins into waste stations and 35 placed them in the locations that generated the most waste. The stations are color coded 36 and include signage to guide the user on how to separate their waste properly. The carts 37
at the front area of the park were removed to deter illegal dumping. This effort was 38
successful, so it was replicated in other parks as well, Ramos Park, Mitchell Park, Bol 39
Park—this park was just completed a couple of weeks ago—and Rinconada Park. At 40
Rinconada, we decided to run a one-year pilot to test more efficient ways to achieve zero 41
waste in parks. The pilot consisted of removing 44 waste receptacles from the park and 42
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creating four large waste stations, which were centrally located, accessible to park users 1
and maintenance staff, and easily serviceable by GreenWaste, our contracted hauler. 2
During the pilot, we evaluated the waste to see what kind of change would occur. Here 3
are some pre-pilot photos. The photos depicted on the top of the slide were from the 4
compost, and the photos from the bottom of the slide were from the recycle. You can see 5
that the material doesn't look different. People were throwing whatever they had in their 6
hand into the nearest bin. It was not well sorted. Here are some photos from the pilot. 7
The two photos from the top are from the compost container, and the bottom two are 8 from the recycling. Now, you can see better sorting. There are food scraps and soiled 9 paper in the compost. There are bottles and cans and recyclable paper in the recycling. 10 Sorting isn't perfect but is definitely improved. Please note here, pizza boxes belong in 11 the compost. That's a mis-sort. The pilot is now over and was deemed successful. 12 There's been a decrease in illegal dumping, litter and contamination. Additionally, parks 13 contractor has been freed up to perform other duties since they no longer need to service 14 the 44 individual waste cans. Parks is currently considering having a similar setup at 15 some of the other parks where it makes sense. Our current project, which is almost 16
finished now, is one we're working on with open space in the Baylands. The Park 17
Rangers removed 43 old concrete landfill containers and replaced them with 15 pet waste 18
receptacles and ten waste stations. All the pet waste receptacles have been installed and 19
are currently in use. Most of the waste stations were recently installed. I believe we have 20
one more that is still on its way. It's my understanding that Cameron Park is the next on 21
the list to be upgraded, and that will happen as part of its CIP project. That concludes my 22
presentation. I want to thank you all for your time and open it up for questions. 23
Chair Greenfield: Wendy, thank you very much for joining us and bringing us this great 24
information and for all the successful efforts. It's really inspiring. Do any 25
Commissioners have any clarifying questions first? I don't see any hands up. Are there 26 any members of the public who wish to speak? No. Let's go onto Commissioner 27 comments and questions. 28
Commissioner Reckdahl: You talked about the sorting of waste. The Smart Station 29 down in Sunnyvale, can you talk about the sorting they do down there? 30
Ms. Hediger: Sure. Our garbage goes down to the Sunnyvale Smart Station where it 31 does go over a sorting line so they can pull out recyclables that get into the garbage. 32 They also pull out some of the organic materials. However, we want to sort out as much 33 as possible on the front end so that Smart can pull out everything else. If you look at our 34 Waste Characterization Study, we sort the residuals that are coming from Smart. There's 35 still quite a bit of recyclables left in what goes to landfill just because it's a lot for them to 36 deal with. The more we can pull out on the front end, the more they can deal with the 37
oops and get as much as possible out. 38
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Commissioner Reckdahl: I imagine if they had to sort out 50%, they wouldn't do a very 1
good job. If they have to sort out 1%, they can … 2
Ms. Hediger: Correct. 3
Commissioner Reckdahl: The conveyor belt's going down. They can only go so fast. 4
We have three bins, compost and recycling and landfill. Do all of those go down the 5
conveyor belt at Smart Station or just the … 6
Ms. Hediger: No. Just our garbage goes to the Smart Station. They sort our garbage. 7
Our recyclables go to the GreenWaste recycling facility in San Jose on Charles Street. It 8 gets separated by commodity type. They sort all the different recyclables. Our compost 9 goes to the ZWED, the Zero Waste Energy Development Company, which is the 10 anaerobic digester in San Jose. They anaerobically digest that, capture the methane, 11 create renewable energy from that. The digestate, what's left over after that, is shipped 12 down to ZBEST in Gilroy where it is then further composted and cured and sold as a 13 landscaping soil amendment. 14
Commissioner Reckdahl: What happens if someone puts a pizza box in the recycling? 15
Ms. Hediger: Hopefully, GreenWaste will pull it out, and it won't go in with the paper. 16
The problem with pizza in general is it's a little bit greasy. Grease can contaminate the 17
paper load. As you know, with everything going on in the recycling markets, they want 18
cleaner and cleaner recyclables. GreenWaste is spending a lot more time on the line 19
pulling stuff out that doesn't belong in there. If we could get our recyclables as clean as 20
possible to them, they could really make sure it's right for market and make sure our stuff 21
actually gets recycled. 22
Commissioner Reckdahl: Does the pizza box get composted or into the landfill? 23
Ms. Hediger: I don't know. That's a really good question. I'd have to look into that. 24
GreenWaste is really good about trying to do everything they can. Stuff's coming down 25
the line, and they're pulling out stuff that's not supposed to be there and throwing it in 26
bins. 27
Commissioner Reckdahl: They might just have one bin. 28
Ms. Hediger: It's probably going to get landfilled. I can double check if you … They're 29 not going to be sorting it like—Smart Station's pulling stuff out for recycling, and they're 30 also trying to get some of the compostable, although it's more food waste and things that 31 fall down and are heavy. The GreenWaste facility is really dealing with recyclables, so 32 we don't want to put things like pizza boxes in there because that slows them down from 33 getting our recyclables sorted into commodity types to get to the market. 34
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Commissioner Reckdahl: In sorting those recyclables, back in the olden days when I first 1
moved to Palo Alto, we had three bins. We had the cans, the paper, and plastics. We 2
sorted them ourselves. People obviously mis-sorted that too. Can you talk about the 3
single bin versus the three bins? 4
Ms. Hediger: When I started in Palo Alto, we had just added the mixed-paper crate. We 5
had the stacking crates, and they were different colors, the yellow, green, the blue and the 6
dark green. In 2005, we switched over to single stream. We used to do a survey—I don't 7
know if it was every year, but quite often—asking people how they liked the program, 8 how things were going. We got a lot of feedback about wanting to simplify the program. 9 There was a lot of pushback about having the different crates. If you source separate it at 10 home and have your glass separated from aluminum and metals separated from paper, 11 you do have a much cleaner stream. The tradeoff is that it's less convenient. When we 12 moved to single stream, the community was very happy, and our recycling numbers 13 really shot up. Making it more convenient had the detriment of some quality to the 14 stream, but it still wasn't bad. Today, if we recycle right, if we have our stuff recycle 15 ready, it's still very marketable material. 16
Commissioner Reckdahl: The single bin overall is still a good thing. One of the 17
problems is that you have more by-waste. The glass breaks and gets through and 18
contaminates a bunch of stuff. 19
Ms. Hediger: The glass breaking is less of a problem than it was in the beginning. When 20
we first went to single stream, they were really worried about glass and the paper. I think 21
they've done a lot and created these new machines to figure it out and get the glass out. 22
Now they break the glass when it goes to sorting. It falls down, and then it goes to a 23
special recycler who can separate the little bits of glass by color type. They have optical 24
sorters that can figure out if it's clear or brown or green. Even some places can tell if it's 25
window glass or not. We don't have that in our area. That's why we want bottle and jar 26 glass only because there's different properties to all the different glass types. The sorting 27 is getting much more sophisticated. Our biggest issue is people that put jars in with food 28 in it or with liquid left in it. It's as simple as pour it out. You don't have to rinse it. You 29 don't have to let it sit upside down overnight to make sure every last drop is out, but you 30 need to pour out your liquid so you don't have water or juice or whatever in there. You 31 need to make sure you scrape it out. I don't think residential is as much of a problem, but 32 restaurants have a lot of goop left in there. Some of the multifamily complexes have 33 issues with that. We've been doing a lot of outreach to encourage people to make sure 34 they don't put food and liquids in the recycling. That's our biggest issue for marketability 35 at this point. 36
Commissioner Reckdahl: Is that because of ignorance or is that because of indifference? 37
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Ms. Hediger: I do a lot of outreach about it, so I hope it's not because they don't know. 1
With so many things thrown at us today, there's so much information, if it's not 2
something you're really thinking about, the information can fly by you, which is why we 3
spend a lot of time saying the same thing over and over. Every year, I have what I call 4
my maintenance outreach to keep people up to date on the really simple what goes where 5
and these type of things. Some of it might be indifference too. For a while, GreenWaste 6
was taking it and dealing with it at their facility. China was taking it; they didn't mind. 7
They wanted the material bad enough they would deal with it. Finally, they don't need 8 the material that bad anymore. They're trying to clean up their stream. They have an 9 extreme contamination rate. It's like ½% is allowed, which is very difficult for the items 10 they do take. It's making us clean up the stream. I think it's a good thing. By recycling, 11 we are trying to make a raw material for a manufacturer to use. It's not somebody who is 12 taking our garbage somewhere else other than the landfill. If we think of it as a 13 commodity that we're making at home, it's a much better way to think about our recycling 14 system. 15
Commissioner Reckdahl: Are we having any problems finding buyers for our plastic? 16
Ms. Hediger: We haven't. GreenWaste has found buyers. Obviously, it's a market 17
system that goes up and down. We've worked a lot with GreenWaste. They've done a lot 18
to clean up the stream. They've added more people on the line and fixed their line to 19
improve it. We've done the outreach to get it cleaner. We've also asked them to 20
prioritize domestic markets so that we have a bit more control and we have a better 21
feeling of where things are going in that there are better environmental controls and 22
social controls. All of our materials are marketed domestically. We're not changing what 23
we accept. We've found a market for all the items on our accepted list. The only two 24
exceptions are mixed paper that's going overseas and film plastic. All the other plastics, 25
glass, metal and cardboard have good domestic markets. 26
Commissioner Reckdahl: You talked about demolition versus disassembly for house 27 construction. How feasible is that? Does that allow cost or is it just a technique and, 28 once people learn the technique, it'll be no problem? 29
Ms. Hediger: It starts tomorrow, so it's quite new. We did do a lot of outreach and 30 engagement with the construction community to figure it out. That's why we're starting 31 small. It's a small amount of projects that have a full demolition, like they take a whole 32 structure down. We did a couple of pilots as well to test it and see how it went, so we 33 would have some information. It does take more time, and it does take more money to do 34 deconstruction, which is a very systematic unbuilding of a building, usually in the reverse 35 order that you built it. There'll also be a salvage survey. A salvage group will come in 36 before anything happens and say they'll take this wood or those fixtures or the brick. 37
Those items have to be set aside and taken to the salvage facility. The rest has to be 38
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taken apart component by component so that you have clean wood together, and you 1
have gypsum board together. We can increase the recycling rate to over 90% for most of 2
these items, so we'll get a much better recycling rate. It takes longer, and it's more labor 3
intensive, so there is more cost. If you think about the whole construction project costs 4
and then the demolition costs, it's not like the whole thing will increase, it's just that 5
section. 6
Commissioner Reckdahl: A very small segment is increasing most of it. 7
Ms. Hediger: Some lessons learned from it that we'll need to figure out especially as we 8 start talking about expanding the ordinance are that there will have to be a lot of 9 community engagement to figure out what makes sense. 10
Commissioner Reckdahl: You talked about the disposable cups. Can you talk about the 11 tradeoff between having the bag fee—you can still get a bag, but you have to pay a fee as 12 opposed to some of those things like non-compostable stuff that we're banning. What's 13 the tradeoff of banning versus taxing? 14
Ms. Hediger: We banned the plastic bag, but we had the fee for the paper bag? 15
Commissioner Reckdahl: Yeah. Compostable, right now you can't get non-compostable 16
silverware at all in Palo Alto. We've banned some things, but other things we've decided 17
to tax with a bag fee, for example. 18
Ms. Hediger: It's a good question, and I don't have a great answer for you. When you 19
think about some items are banned because we really don't want them. Styrofoam is 20
really bad. It's a litter issue. It's not very easy to recyclable—it's technically recyclable, 21
but it's really cost prohibitive to recycle. It has all kinds of problems. There are toxins 22
associated with it, so it was better to ban that. Plastic bags were those really thin, to-go 23
bags at the grocery stores. Those are really bad items. We recycle them. They were 24
accepted in our program, but the amount of bags we would get—when we used to have 25
the recycling center, we would have a bin that people could fill up and bring their bags 26 there. That thing would fill up and overflow. It was amazing how much it was being 27 used. Those were only a portion. There was a lot of them being littered. It was just a 28 bad item we didn't want to have. There are tradeoffs because paper bags have their own 29 issues. You don't want to have no option for people at the store when they get their 30 groceries if you did forget your reusable bag. I've worked for the City for 20 years, and I 31 remember when I first came I did outreach about bring your own bag to the grocery store. 32 Only so many people were bringing their reusable bag. We got to a certain amount. We 33 were doing checks at the grocery stores to see how many people were bringing their own 34 bag. Outreach would increase it by a little bit but not the majority. Adding the fee 35 helped change the behavior so people would bring their reusable bag. It was an incentive 36 to bring your own bag if you didn't want to pay the fee for the paper bag. If you forgot 37
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your bag or you need a paper bag for your compostable collection that you want to put in 1
your green cart, then you could pay the fee. The fee allows you to have that item but 2
make different behavioral choices. Whereas, the ban takes it away. I think it just 3
depends on how bad the item is if we want to ban it and whether there is a good option. 4
Our current move towards compostable utensils and straws and stuff, compostables are 5
good. Recycling is good. What I hope to tell you when I explain what zero waste is, 6
recycling and composting aren't going to get us there. There's a lot of emissions from 7
compostable items. You have to grow corn, the potato, whatever that utensil (inaudible), 8 and there's emissions from that, and the transportation of those. These single-use items, 9 whether they're compostable, recyclable or garbage are things we want to move away 10 from. Banning the plastic utensils and straws was because they were bad and we were 11 having serious problems with them. With compostables, at least people will know it's 12 easier for them. If everything's compostable, they just put it in the compost bin. We can 13 compost it down. Also, it's a bridge to get us to reusables. We haven't really figured out 14 what does that mean, how would you have reusable to-go containers and utensils, and 15 what's the system for that. We've piloted go boxes in Palo Alto for a few years, and we're 16
talking with some other places. Things have kind of come to a halt with COVID, but 17
we're trying to figure that out. Before we move to that phase, we need to test some 18
things, but that's our trajectory, going towards reuse. It's a lot better. 19
Commissioner Reckdahl: Thank you. I appreciate your work. 20
Commissioner LaMere: I appreciate the presentation and what Commissioner Reckdahl 21
clarified. 22
Commissioner Olson: Wendy, thank you so much. This has been really intriguing, 23
interesting. I appreciate all of the information and all of our very ambitious goals. I hope 24
we can meet all of those. Rinconada Park and moving everything to the very large, 25
industrial-looking bins, has that resulted at all in more trash scattered throughout the park 26 for folks who maybe aren't able to locate a trash bin or have you not had any problems 27 with that? 28
Ms. Hediger: No, we haven't. In fact, illegal dumping and litter reduced during the pilot. 29 We did have some people out on a few weekends handing out—we made little packets 30 that were "what goes where" guides. It had a sorting guide on one side, and it also 31 contained three different bags, a clear bag for garbage, a blue-tinted bag for recyclables, 32 and a green-tinted compostable bag for compost and explained the program to the 33 parkgoers. They liked it; it was very helpful. I think we had it available in some places 34 for people to pick up too if they had reserved a picnic area. 35
Commissioner Olson: On the waste percentages, I was very surprised at what came in 36 high. We hear frequently, at least I do, through different feeds about the fashion industry 37
generating so much waste, but that didn't even make the list. Is that misinformation or is 38
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it that maybe in Palo Alto we give clothes away as opposed to throwing them in the 1
waste? 2
Ms. Hediger: We do have textiles on there, and I'm not sure what that number is. I know 3
it was something we looked at also wanting to address in the Zero Waste Plan. Our first 4
thrust at that is adding it to the cleanup day, to now you have the textiles that are 5
collected with the cleanup day collections and make that easier for people. I think a lot of 6
textiles go to the Good Will or Salvation Army or Hope. We donate them. Where does it 7
go from there? If they don't get resold, if people aren't buying that, if they're ripped or 8 torn, they can be made into rags. Some of the stuff gets sent to other countries to use. 9 We don't really see where it goes. Palo Alto counts that as something that was reused. It 10 was donated. Once it goes to Good Will or the Salvation Army, they separate out what 11 they think they can sell and what our market just won't handle, but some other market 12 would find it acceptable. Like China came up to here with the dirty recyclables from us, 13 we're hitting those limits in other countries with clothing. I went on vacation a couple of 14 years ago to Uganda, and they said they had just shut down accepting that kind of stuff 15 from outside countries because they were just getting loads of stuff they couldn't deal 16
with. Some of the loads of reusable stuff there—how many popcorn machines can they 17
absorb from us? It's interesting to think about donation is really great, but how many 18
people really use what you're donating? We do need to think about clothing as—maybe 19
look at Thread Up or something where we can sell it to someone or start purchasing 20
reused. I don't think those things about the fashion industry are off. I think it's definitely 21
something we need to worry about, think about. 22
Commissioner Olson: On the demolition, you said it's just a small segment, and it's only 23
total demolitions. Does it apply starting tomorrow with residential housing or is it more 24
commercial projects? 25
Ms. Hediger: It's both. It's residential or commercial, but it's only projects—any project 26 that applies starting tomorrow. Anybody who's already started the process isn't going to 27 apply. If they apply for their permit starting tomorrow and they want to take down a 28 whole structure, then they will fall under this ordinance whether it's residential or 29 commercial. 30
Commissioner Olson: You mentioned it was a small percentage. Is it less than 5% of 31 projects? 32
Ms. Hediger: I don't have that number. It's just a few, handful a year. 33
Commissioner Olson: Thank you again for the thoughtful presentation, Wendy. 34
Commissioner Moss: This has been an amazing presentation. I had no idea. I'm pretty 35 savvy, but there's a lot of stuff here that I didn't know. I don't have any specific questions 36
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that need more clarification. I'm just amazed that 7% of our garbage is diapers. That is 1
just absolutely amazing to me. 2
Vice Chair Cribbs: David, I'm laughing about the diapers because I remember the olden 3
days with diapers when you used to wash them. I think I have all my questions answered 4
from fellow Commissioners who were very thoughtful. Wendy, I thought it was a great 5
presentation. Lots to think about and lots to have things done about. I wanted to mention 6
that I love the Rinconada Park pilot project with the great big bins. I was so happy to 7
hear you say that they were working out well and that you had even provided residents 8 and park permitholders with various kinds of bags that they were happy to participate in 9 picking up stuff. My hope is that some day we'll be able to extend a culture of taking 10 care of our parks to everybody who comes to the parks and let people pick up their own 11 stuff and put it into those multicolored bins that you showed. Thank you very much for 12 all your work on that. It was great. 13
Chair Greenfield: I want to echo all the other Commissioners' general thanks for this 14 great presentation and enlightening us to ways to better preserve our environment. Most 15 all of us get the message and want to do our part, but there's always so much more to 16
learn. The clarifications on the food containers and how much waste you get there is 17
helpful. We always have questions about which plastic bags can be recycled. Is any kind 18
of plastic allowed or are there some plastics that aren't? What's the best way to get 19
questions like this, more subtle questions that aren't covered on the signage that's put on 20
the bins? 21
Ms. Hediger: Just give us a call or email us. We're always happy to answer questions 22
because there are these subtleties. We always run this balance of giving enough 23
information and giving too much information. Some people just want the basics, and 24
other people want to know exactly where this little thing goes. We have a detailed list 25
that's available on zerowastepaloalto.org/wgwtools. There's a short list, a detailed list. 26 There are videos that may be very helpful for you. If that information doesn't answer 27 your question, I love to answer questions. Give me a call, send us an email. It's 28 zerowaste@cityofpaloalto.org. If you have a particular item, if you want to take a picture 29 of it and email it to us and say, "What do I do with this," we get a lot of that. 30
Chair Greenfield: You will hear from me because I'll save a bag of stuff. It's like, "I 31 don't know about this stuff." That's great to hear and get that clarified. 32
Ms. Hediger: We do have Zero Waste block leaders, residents that are really interested. 33 They've been trained to be experts in Zero Waste. They may be able to answer your 34 question too. If we're not available, if it's on the weekend and you really want to know or 35 you want to get rid of it, you could look up on our website and find the Zero Waste block 36 leader and contact them. They've volunteered to answer these types of questions. If it's a 37
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fine detail, they may not know themselves, but they know how to get a hold of me to 1
answer questions. 2
Chair Greenfield: Could you talk a little bit about what you're doing with the School 3
District in developing young ambassadors for the program? 4
Ms. Hediger: I work with the School District. We have a Zero Waste Champion 5
program. It's a stipend position. We would like to have one at every school; we don't 6
quite have a Champion at every school. They're the expert at the school to answer zero 7
waste questions and try to facilitate and foster zero waste efforts. They do outreach and 8 education. They'll do it differently because every school site is different but try to 9 educate not only the students on what goes where and get them involved in projects. The 10 most important thing, which was really exciting, was the School District switched over to 11 reusable lunchware at the beginning of last school year for the elementary schools. They 12 got the kids onboard. While it was an increase in labor to get the dishes picked up, 13 washed, and back out, it actually turned into a cost savings. With COVID, that's all come 14 to a halt. They did projects like that. They were very important in helping that happen. 15 That creates the atmosphere of "this is how we do things in Palo Alto." They also 16
worked with administrative staff. The Zero Waste Champion needs to be a District 17
employee at that school location so they're able to work with the admin, they're able to 18
work with custodial stuff, they're able to work with the other teachers and the students. 19
We've been doing a lot of work with that program in the last few years. 20
Chair Greenfield: I know it's very successful. I see the fruits of it at my home with my 21
kids. They're well educated in the process and helping us all learn. How does our 82% 22
diversion rate compare with other neighboring communities and on a regional basis as 23
well? 24
Ms. Hediger: I haven't looked at that in a while I've been so caught up with the Zero 25
Waste Plan and our Waste Characterization Study. We're definitely at the forefront in 26 terms of California. California itself is at 60% in diversion. We're one of the leading 27 cities. That said, we have a ways to go if we want to reach our 95%, which is going to be 28 very difficult. That's definitely a stretch goal. You can see how it's plateaued. It was 29 interesting when Christine talked about her spectrum of tools to achieve sustainability or 30 the climate protection. It's the same thing for Zero Waste. I think we're further along that 31 spectrum. Since I can remember, we've done all kinds of voluntary stuff and tried to give 32 incentives and encourage people to do certain things. We're now moving more into 33 ordinances like the construction demolition ordinance, the recycling and composting 34 ordinance, the ban on foodware. We need to move and create a higher level of change so 35 that we can attain our goals. 36
Chair Greenfield: Are single-use water bottles used for any Palo Alto events still? 37
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Ms. Hediger: They're not supposed to be. Right now, we don't have any events, so I 1
don't have to think about it. They can be used at events that are not sponsored by the 2
City. The Chili cookoff doesn't use single-use water bottles. The Art Festival is allowed 3
to sell the single-use water bottles. A lot of events have worked with us to not have 4
single-use water bottles and have the different hydration stations set up. It's a work in 5
progress of getting it all. That's part of our disposable foodware ordinance that we'll 6
hopefully be doing community engagement on at some point. We thought we would be 7
doing it in April, but COVID came up. That'll be one of the other phases. We have a 8 multiphase plan, and one is to maybe extend the ban on single-use water bottles across 9 the board. 10
Chair Greenfield: I appreciate that that is a challenge. It can be a bit of a scourge hitting 11 our parks. After a busy weekend, trash cans or recycling bins hopefully overflowing with 12 a bunch of plastic, single-use water bottles. Could you clarify the different options for 13 Palo Alto residents to drive to different locations to drop off different types of recyclable 14 or hazardous material? I know some stuff goes to the Sunnyvale Smart Station. We have 15 the hazardous waste exchange program. 16
Ms. Hediger: We have the hazardous waste station located near the Water Quality 17
Control Plant. That just reopened June 20th. You can take your hazardous waste there for 18
drop off. It's every Saturday 9 to 11 and then the first Friday of the month from 3 to 5. 19
There are some places that will take fluorescent bulbs or batteries, some of the hardware 20
stores. We have on our website the "recycle where" search tool. If you put in what you 21
have, it'll show you where you can take your material. Some places take batteries and 22
bulbs. I think PAMF takes medications. Some of the Walgreens, I believe, take 23
medications. Depending on what item you're looking for, there are different places to 24
take it. We've tried to get that all into the "recycle where" search tool so you can figure 25
that out. If you want to take your recyclables to a recycling center, we don't have one in 26 Palo Alto anymore, but there is the Smart Station recycling center that you could go to. 27 There's also a recycling center in Mountain View. I would double check on that, though, 28 because they were having some issues because of COVID. They might have closed, but I 29 don't know where they are in reopening. A lot of the buy-back redemption centers closed 30 throughout the state. We're having some problems having enough of those. Smart 31 Station does have a buy back, and that is open. I believe they're doing it by appointment 32 at this time to maintain the social distancing. That's on their website. Did that answer 33 your question? 34
Chair Greenfield: That's great. I did use the "recycle where" search tool before and 35 ended up going to the Smart Station to recycle something. It works; it's very good. 36
Ms. Hediger: I'm glad you like it. 37
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Chair Greenfield: Thank you very much. Do any Commissioners have any final 1
comments? Council Member Kou? Thank you very much, Wendy. Appreciate your 2
presentation and all of your efforts for our community. Next is the review of the draft 3
design of the Cameron Park improvement project. 4
4. Review of Draft Design of the Cameron Park Improvement Project 5
Chair Greenfield: Peter Jensen, you're up. 6
Peter Jensen: Commissioners, good evening. Good to be with you again under different 7
circumstances than normal, of course. We continue as the landscape continues to age and 8 need maintenance, even during the age of COVID. Our next project that we're going to 9 talk about is Cameron Park. It's the next one up on our renovation. Cameron Park is 10 located in College Terrace. It's one of the four parks in that neighborhood. It's the one 11 with the larger turf space. We're going to talk about what was proposed, what was 12 discussed at the community meeting and community meeting feedback, what we're 13 planning on proposing now and, of course, taking some feedback and input from the 14 Commission. I'm going to go through the presentation. If you'd like to ask questions as 15 we go along, please feel free to do so. Our presentation is not too long. It should be 16
fairly straightforward. I would like to point out that the image on the screen, the planting 17
around the sign is quite fantastic. That's a Beschorneria, which is a very rare plant from 18
Mexico, that puts off a beautiful flower. You don't see it that size very often. I just 19
wanted to point that out, that it is a cool feature to the park. We're talking about Capital 20
Improvement Project PE14002. There's a funding amount for $200,000 for it. Not a big 21
budget for a park but good enough to do what we have to do to maintain the park and 22
make the playground nicer than it is. That money is earmarked for this year, so we will 23
be planning on doing the design and outreach process and then moving into the 24
construction drawings and then doing the actual construction this year. Hopefully, we'll 25
be moving towards construction. We'll see if we can get there in the fall or winter of this 26 year. The major aspect of the park renovation is the playground. The playground has 27 reached its life expectancy, which is somewhere between 15 and 20 years. That's usually 28 when they get replaced. That does take up the majority of the budget. We'll talk about 29 what we're going to propose out there because we are going to propose a couple of 30 different things for the playground. Right now it is a tot lot playground, which means it's 31 for ages 2-5. It is a sand playground. Those are things we are going to address as we go 32 along. There are some accessibility issues in the park. There is not an accessible 33 pathway to get you through the park and over to the playground from this part of the 34 street. The pathway dead ends under these trees and doesn't get you over there. We're 35 going to talk about some accessibility improvements, a connection to the path and then 36 replacing some site furnishings as far as the picnic tables, benches, trash receptacles, and 37
drinking fountain. Most of our work is going to be concentrated towards this end of the 38
park. We want to maintain that turf area as far as open, outdoor space. Here are some 39
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existing images of the park. You can see the existing tot lot playground. Here is the sole 1
picnic table that's at the dead end of the pathway. This is an image of mostly the turf area 2
that takes up the majority of the park. This plan shows the proposed renovations that 3
were taken to the community. We held the first community meeting online for this 4
project. It kicked off a normal process. What we proposed was changing out the 5
playground equipment, which is number one. Number two was connecting the pathway 6
through the park to get you over to the playground. Number three was reusing one of the 7
tables in this location and providing more than one picnic table and clustering that closer 8 to the playground. There's also some very nice shade trees in that location where we can 9 put the picnic tables. There are some old benches around the playground that we want to 10 replace. The drinking fountain hasn't worked in quite a while; we want to fix that. There 11 are some old trash receptacles onsite, and we're looking at using one of the new divided 12 receptacles. We are going to propose planting some trees along this line to provide more 13 shade to the playground. When we start to reconfigure the turf area, we have to deal with 14 the irrigation and reconfigure that to make sure it works with the new layout. We did 15 have two bid alternates for the community to consider. A1 was adding concrete 16
walkways here. Currently, if you're walking down this sidewalk, you dead end into the 17
park on the grass. There is no accessible walkway on either side that connects to the 18
other side of the street. We did propose that and a 42-inch fence around the playground. 19
I believe that's more in response to what's happening with COVID. When the playground 20
needs to be closed, it is possible to close it with a gate and not tie caution tape around it 21
as we're doing now. This is the plan that was presented to the community for their 22
feedback. We did hold two separate meetings. They were on the same day but different 23
times to allow more people to participate. I can't say the turnout was high. I believe we 24
had 14-18 community members overall involved. We did try really hard to get people 25
involved. We sent out postcards to all the College Terrace neighborhood, every 26 household. We also did a mass email to their College Terrace group. Here are some 27 images of what the proposed playground will look like. The other major change, other 28 than the playground becoming a little bit larger, is mixing the age groups. Besides it 29 having age 2-5 equipment with the playhouse and the strapped seat and the spring toy, 30 we're going to bring in some regular swings. The climbing structure is also built for older 31 kids and the slide. This equipment has an umbrella over the top to provide shade, which 32 was really liked by the community members that participated in the meeting. Along with 33 the community meeting, we did an online survey. We dispersed that for a period of three 34 weeks right after the meeting. We got better turnout on that, 44 participants. Some of the 35 questions all 44 people didn't answer, but we got a lot more feedback about the amenities 36 and what the community wanted to see in the park. I can't say the community was a big 37
fan of the fencing around the playground. They didn't see a need for it since the 38
playground is off the main street and tucked in the corner. They did request us to conduct 39
an online survey to get more community input. There were some comments about 40
repairing the site drainage, which was an issue. A neighbor's water leak was making an 41
area of the turf not usable and wet. That has been resolved, so I think we have helped the 42
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turf area to be more usable. There was a need to add more shade to the playground, to 1
plant more trees in the park. There was a need to provide other uses. A community 2
garden, horseshoes, bocce court came up. We'll show you some opportunities where that 3
can happen. Due to the restricted budget, we're going to have to develop those things in 4
the future. If the community would like to either fund or work on them, that is a 5
possibility. They liked the idea of providing play equipment for older children. They 6
liked more swings. There were some responses about keeping some sand. The proposed 7
plan replaces the rubberized surfacing with rubberized surfacing that allows all the 8 equipment and the playground to be fully accessible. Sand is difficult in that it is not an 9 accessible surface and does a lot of damage to the rubberized surface. This time, we've 10 left it out. Fixing the drinking fountain is something everyone wanted. Apparently it's 11 been broken for a while. That's the feedback from the community meetings. Our 12 community survey went through seven questions. The first question was about allowing 13 people to provide input about what they felt the park should have. That is enclosed in an 14 attachment in the package if you want to read individual responses for the renovation of 15 the playground, shade, drainage, and the pathways. When the survey was released, we 16
were in the beginning of COVID, so there's a lot of folks that didn't feel we should be 17
spending any money on the park. We've kind of resolved that issue. There were some 18
yes or no questions. Are you in favor of adding the concrete walkway? I was surprised 19
by the community survey feedback. It was close. There seemed to be a lot of support for 20
it in the community meeting. You can see 19 yes and 21 no. There was support for 21
eliminating sand with 22 yes and 14 no. There was not any support for fencing around 22
the playground with 12 yes and 27 no. There was thin support for adding a barbecue to 23
the picnic area. There is support for adding other amenities to the park to provide other 24
things to do, 24 to 11 no for that. The seventh question was about prioritization. If we 25
had limited funding to spend, which we do, what things should we focus on? The shade 26 structure and community garden came out as the highest for new amenities, and then it 27 went down from there. That was the results from the online survey. From that feedback, 28 we revised our plan. We've maintained the playground like it is. It still has rubberized 29 surfacing; it does not have sand. It does have an added shade structure over the swing. 30 We've maintained the accessible pathway even though the majority by one doesn't feel it 31 should be there. For accessibility purposes and access to the playground, we should have 32 it. The way the pathway system is laid out now, it's a no-brainer and an easy thing to do. 33 We've kept the picnic area in the plan with two tables under the tree. Number four is the 34 barbecue at the picnic area. Site amenities include a new drinking fountain and the trash 35 receptacles next to the drinking fountain. I have some images of these things we can look 36 at. Planting another tree closer to the playground. There are three very nice red oaks 37
planted next to the playground. They're probably about 15-20 years old. This tree grows 38
extremely fast. I think we're going to add one to the grove and let them grow together. 39
Within 10 or 15 years, they will shade the entire playground. That's how big and broad 40
and fast they grow. It's not a street tree, but it works quite well in a park. The bid 41
alternatives that we're showing here. A is showing a bocce ball court that could be added 42
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to the park. The smaller rectangle inside that is a horseshoe pit. Those two things could 1
be added at that location. B is converting that turf area and some of the ad hoc planting 2
area into a community garden. Each one of those rectangles represents a 6x10 garden 3
plot. That piece of turf, when it's divided away from the main part of the turf, becomes a 4
prime candidate for reducing or eliminating turf for maintenance. Over time, if the 5
community is really active and wants to work on the community garden, they could work 6
with City staff to create a garden. It wouldn't be difficult to get some hose bibs out there 7
off the existing irrigation system. Most of the work is labor, removal of the turf and 8 building the plots. I see that actively taking place at all of our community gardens where 9 there's a spot that hasn't been used. We don't have any funding for these two alternatives. 10 I'm going to bring them up in a community meeting to see if we can spark some interest. 11 This is a new image of the playground equipment. It's the same equipment as before 12 except the swing post supports a shade structure. These are some proposed site 13 amenities, the recycle receptacle, a new drinking fountain, a table that matches the 14 existing one, and the bench that we've been using for park renovations. We're showing a 15 drinking fountain that does not have a bottle filler because of cost. We like to use a high-16
end water fountain because it can stand up over a longer period of time. We've found this 17
one where the buttons don't break, and it doesn't clog as easy. If you get two drinking 18
fountains and a bottle filler, you're talking about $11,000. We can look at proposing that. 19
The other ideas for the drinking fountain are the one in the picture or eliminating a 20
drinking fountain and having a water bottle filler. In this day of COVID, that would not 21
be a bad idea. Eventually it would probably be nice to have a drinking fountain. We're 22
working on the design and community outreach aspects now. We'll be going to the 23
community again Thursday night to review the new proposed plan. We will bring back 24
the final plan to the Parks and Rec Commission sometime over the next couple of months 25
to finalize. We'll be working on the construction drawings and going out to bid sometime 26 hopefully in the fall. Sometime in the winter, more like November or December, 27 hopefully we'll start to do the construction. Construction shouldn't last too long, probably 28 a 30-day contract to do the work. The project has a webpage. The presentation from the 29 first community meeting, the project summary, and the survey information can be found 30 there. With that, I'll turn it over to the Commission for any questions or comments. 31
Chair Greenfield: Thank you, Peter, for a very thorough and clear and concise 32 presentation as usual. Do any Commissioners have any clarifying questions for Peter? 33 Looks like there are no members of the public who are looking to speak. We can move 34 onto Commissioner comments. 35
Commissioner Moss: Could you make a playing field out of the field for little kids or 36 whether anybody asked for a dog park anywhere in College Terrace in any of the parks? 37
Mr. Jensen: A dog park did not come up in College Terrace during the community 38
meeting. The majority of the parks in College Terrace are not very big. The size of the 39
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park is the size that we like for dog parks. You wouldn't want to use the whole park for a 1
dog park, but we can find out more about that. I don't know much about the 2
programming of the field. Daren, do you have any feedback on that? I don't think the 3
field is programmed for any type of use. The only thing that would be limiting is the 4
existing trees that are growing out in the middle of it. For soccer practice, it would 5
probably be okay. 6
Mr. Anderson: That's the most. It's been a tiny bit of soccer practice. It's too small for 7
any sort of games or athletic competitions. 8
Commissioner Olson: Are we not considering a bathroom here because most people 9 probably live close enough that they can run home to use the bathroom? 10
Mr. Jensen: We determined where to move forward with restrooms during the Parks 11 master planning process a couple of years ago. It was based upon park size and 12 amenities. This park's size does not meet the requirement even though there is a 13 playground there. The playground is used mostly by the local community. Not a lot of 14 people drive to it. 15
Commissioner Olson: Do we have a sense of whether there is still a lot of demand for 16
community gardens, particularly in this area? 17
Mr. Jensen: It was brought up in the community meeting and the community survey. 18
There is support for a community garden. If we build it, people would come. 19
Unfortunately, I don't have the funding to build it. We wouldn't be opposed if people 20
wanted to work on a community garden. 21
Mr. Anderson: Commissioner Olson, if I could add a little bit of detail to your question 22
about how we gauge interest in community gardens for projects like this. Catherine 23
Bourquin could elaborate, but when we had the church property that we recently 24
transitioned into a community garden, she did outreach to see if people wanted a 25
community garden here. If the community outreach process indicates there is some 26 interest, we'd probably do a little bit more to make sure there is enough. Otherwise, you 27 could start it and have them lie fallow, especially with a site like this where there's no 28 parking lot. 29
Commissioner Olson: Thank you for that. The one at the church is fabulous by the way. 30 The question about the water bottle filler, I would advocate for a water bottle filler so that 31 people use reusable bottles, Even when COVID is gone, I think a number of people are 32 still going to be creeped out by touching things. To have a hands-free way to get water is 33 going to be important for a long time. I would reinforce or advocate for an accessible 34 pathway. I'm glad you pushed forward on that. 35
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Vice Chair Cribbs: I stopped by the park today, and it is just really a lovely little park. 1
The things you found through the community outreach look like it'll make nice additions. 2
I was really glad to see that. Daren, thanks for answering the question about parking 3
because I didn't see any parking. I would worry about the community gardens because 4
people would have to bring stuff in. I didn't see how that would work. If there is a need 5
for a community garden, maybe we should pursue it. Peter, do you have an idea of how 6
much a garden plot costs? Can you put a dollar figure on that? 7
Mr. Jensen: I haven't costed it. It's mostly the labor of removing the turf. It's not very 8 much. You can probably start getting it going pretty well for $10,000-$15,000. It's not a 9 big investment. Mostly it relies on the community to make the investment of time to care 10 for it and maintain it and all that kind of stuff. 11
Vice Chair Cribbs: I suspect there's more work to be done to figure out whether people 12 really want that. I like the fact that you have pointed out that there was not money for 13 some things, but it might be a place where the community could participate in some 14 fundraising. It's good to have that included. A great presentation; thank you very much. 15 It is a lovely, lovely park. It just had a great feel to it. 16
Chair Greenfield: The walkway makes sense. It's probably required for ADA 17
compliance, I would guess. I would support that as Jackie has mentioned. It's great to 18
see the updated recycling receptacles as we would expect after the previous presentation. 19
Those are great. On the community garden, I'm very supportive of the idea. I was very 20
happy to see that in it. I was wondering if it would be a possibility for private partnership 21
funding to assist with it. As it turns out, we don't have any funding, so yes, we would 22
need something like that. Would there be City budget to supply hose bibs if the 23
neighborhood community was interested in moving forward with that? 24
Mr. Jensen: Yes. The walkway is going to require some reconfiguration of the irrigation, 25
and we have money set aside for that. In this area, if that valve gets abandoned, it's fairly 26
close to the same price to adding some hose bibs there to provide water. 27
Chair Greenfield: Maybe I should have started off with my next question. While I'm 28 very heartened to see the idea of a community garden, I'm concerned about the location 29 and the proximity to trees and shade. Gardens like sun, and it does seem to be a pretty 30 shady corner that's only going to increase with time. I was wondering if the opposite 31 corner would be a potential location, if there are issues with running water or trying to 32 maintain contiguous field space, although it's cut off by those big trees anyway. 33
Mr. Jensen: We can bring that up in the meeting Thursday to see if there are other 34 locations. This location was more optimal because we are dividing and creating a tiny 35 turf space that's not usable for anything. The trees are fairly upright; they don't have very 36 large canopies. The canopy is off the ground a good amount. They will produce some 37
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shade for the garden, but their impact would be fairly minimal. You're still going to get 1
full sun on the garden. 2
Chair Greenfield: Number 5 will be a new red oak? 3
Mr. Jensen: Exactly. 4
Chair Greenfield: That's going to be covering that part of the area eventually. It's just 5
something to consider depending on how big they're looking to grow. It sounds like 6
construction would take place towards the end of this year. I'm not in favor of losing 7
funding allocated for a park improvement. I'm concerned about the construction taking 8 place if shelter in place and social distancing guidelines are still going on. We're going to 9 have this shiny new park, playground and picnic area that people aren't allowed to use. 10 In conjunction with sensitivity, does it make sense to spend the money on this right now? 11 Is there some sort of a short-term swap that would make sense? 12
Mr. Jensen: I'm not sure about the short-term swap. We should be sensitive to whatever 13 is happening at the time that this comes to bidding and doing the construction. I agree 14 that because of the size of the project and the speed that they can be built, it could 15 behoove us to wait a few months or 9 months. That's something we should consider. I 16
don't know what that is until we get to that point. That is something staff will discuss. 17
The playground design will come back to the Commission for final review. Hopefully, in 18
a couple of months from now we'll have a bit more clarity, and we can talk about that 19
more. As long as we continue to move the money out, then the money stays there. The 20
longer it goes on, the money is less valuable than it is right now. Those are all factors 21
that should be determined. We should keep an open dialog about the building of it. 22
Chair Greenfield: I appreciate that. I am all in favor of moving forward with the project. 23
I just think we need to consider the timing. Does anyone else have any follow ups? 24
Commissioner Reckdahl: Peter, you talked about if you had two drinking fountains and 25
also the bottle filler, they'd be really expensive. If we went to one drinking fountain and 26
a bottle filler, is that more reasonable? 27
Mr. Jensen: I would love if we could do that. A lot of times the manufacturers try to 28 specify that. Unfortunately, in California if we have one drinking fountain, we have to 29 have two. We have to have both heights. That's where the expense comes from. They 30 have to put another arm on their drinking fountain. It's for the bottle filler. It's not in the 31 top; it's on one of the side arms. It's more costly to build. 32
Commissioner Reckdahl: Nothing's easy. The shade structure, I love that. As a red head 33 growing up, I wish I'd had that over my swings. The sand is another thing. As a kid, I 34
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spent a lot of time making huge sandcastles, but that's a neighborhood call. If they want 1
the sand, then … 2
Mr. Jensen: We'll flesh that out on Thursday night. We'll see how people feel. There's 3
room there to put a sand play area separate from the playground. If that is a need, we can 4
add that. 5
Commissioner Reckdahl: If you have sand, you need some water. Would it be possible 6
to put a dog spout on the drinking fountain so the kids can fill up the water and run it 7
across? 8
Mr. Jensen: That's another drinking fountain thing. The drinking fountain company does 9 not make a two-drinking-fountain, one-bottle-filler, and a dog bowl. You can have two 10 drinking fountains and a dog bowl or a bottle filler and a dog bowl, but you can't have all 11 four. 12
Commissioner Reckdahl: How about if you had just three, two drinking fountains and a 13 doggie? Is that possible? 14
Mr. Jensen: You can have that, yes. 15
Commissioner Reckdahl: About the demand, in College Terrace the lots are so small that 16
most people don't have room for a garden. If we put a community garden here, we'd get a 17
lot of action just because they can't plant it in their backyard. 18
Mr. Jensen: I was surprised on the prioritization that it ranked as high as it did. 19
Chair Greenfield: That's partly why I'm thinking big about the opposite corner. 20
Commissioner Reckdahl: I agree with that. 21
Chair Greenfield: Thank you very much, Peter. Now, we're ready to move onto the next 22
item, which is Other Ad Hoc Committee and Liaison Updates. 23
5. Other Ad Hoc Committee and Liaison Updates 24
Chair Greenfield: Do any Commissioners have any ad hoc updates to offer that weren't 25
included in the packet or would like to further comment on anything? 26
Commissioner LaMere: The Foothills Park ad hoc had a call with Daren and Kristen 27 yesterday and will meet again next week to discuss different options and path forward in 28 light of what happened with the pilot proposal at the City Council meeting. We also are 29 (inaudible) one more person. 30
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Chair Greenfield: That's coming up next on my list. If Park and Recs were to act to 1
support an updated recommendation on Foothills Park access program to City Council, it 2
seems like this would further delay when this item could be agendized by City Council 3
due to the needs for an updated CSD staff report and departmental review. Is that 4
accurate? 5
Mr. Anderson: Thank you for that question, Chair. Yes, it's slightly dependent on the 6
nature of the recommendation and whether more thoughtful staff research needs to go 7
into it to determine viability, cost, budget implications, things like that. It might depend a 8 little bit on that, on how long it takes. Of course, a new staff report does go through a 9 review process that takes a little bit of time. It's difficult for me to say how long that 10 process would be, but we would do our best to expedite it. 11
Chair Greenfield: This is hypothetical, of course, but it's good to understand that, 12 particularly with sensitivities within the community wanting to have City Council take up 13 this subject at some point. Next, I want to talk about assignments on the ad hocs just to 14 follow up from our previous meeting. I wanted to confirm that Jeff LaMere has agreed to 15 serve as the golf liaison for the Commission. Thank you for doing so. As Ryan 16
McCauley has left the Commission, there are roles vacated and available for assignment 17
on ad hocs and as the community garden liaison. We currently have two members of the 18
Commission sitting on the three ad hocs that Ryan was on. We can leave these as two-19
member ad hocs or we can add a third person if people are interested. These include the 20
Baylands 10.5 acres ad hoc, which currently includes Commissioners LaMere and 21
Reckdahl; the Foothills Park ad hoc, which is Commissioners LaMere and Olson; and the 22
park improvements ad hoc, which is Commissioners Cribbs and Moss. There's also the 23
liaison role for community gardens. I'd like to know if anyone is interested in joining any 24
of these ad hocs or taking on the community gardens liaison role. 25
Vice Chair Cribbs: I would like to join the Foothill Park ad hoc committee. 26
Chair Greenfield: Thank you. Why don't we let all the Commissioners comment on 27 what they would be interested in, and then we can work as a body to make decisions on 28 that? Anyone else? 29
Commissioner Moss: I had mentioned that I'd do Foothills access too, but I'd rather have 30 Anne do it. 31
Chair Greenfield: You'd defer to Anne on that. Are you interested in anything else, the 32 Baylands 10.5 or community gardens and park improvements, which you're already on? 33 Anybody else? 34
Commissioner Olson: I'm interested in the Baylands. 35
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Chair Greenfield: Jeff, you're already on two of these. Park improvements would be the 1
only one for you. Anne, we don't need to add someone else to that necessarily. 2
Vice Chair Cribbs: To which, the park improvements? 3
Chair Greenfield: The park improvements, which is currently you and David. 4
Vice Chair Cribbs: We're okay with that, unless anybody wants to join us, of course. 5
Chair Greenfield: Anybody up for taking on community gardens? Jackie? 6
Commissioner Olson: Sure. 7
Chair Greenfield: Thank you. What I'm hearing is that Jackie would be interested in 8 joining the Baylands 10.5 acres ad hoc and willing to take on the community gardens 9 liaison role. Vice Chair Cribbs would like to join the Foothills Park ad hoc. If no one 10 has any further comments on this, we can make this happen. Since this is not an action 11 on the agenda, we're not going to vote on this. We'll work to put this in place. That 12 covers this agenda item. Next up is the agenda for our next meeting, which is coming up 13 on July 28th. 14
Commissioner Moss: There are rumblings that the pickleball people would like maybe to 15 create a 501(c)(3) for maintenance. I don't know if anybody's heard anything about it. 16
I'm going to send it over to Adam. 17
Chair Greenfield: We can take this up on the appropriate ad hoc, the park and facility use 18
policy, which works with the pickleball groups. Anything else before we move on? 19
VI. TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR JULY 28, 2020 MEETING 20
Chair Greenfield: It's important for the Commission to start focusing our efforts on some 21
significant issues of the day. To that end, Vice Chair Cribbs and I will be meeting with 22
staff later this week to talk about how Parks and Rec can help get involved with some of 23
the issues going on with City programs and other things of that nature. Next month, we 24
do have GSI Plan implementation on the calendar, continuing with our sustainability 25
speaker series, which was very informative and useful this evening. The programs and 26 fund development ad hocs are hoping to put something on the agenda regarding ideas for 27 community funding of recreation programs. Did I get that right, Anne? Is there anything 28 you'd like to add? 29
Vice Chair Cribbs: No. You did get that right about community funding. That's perfect. 30 I don't know whether this is an agenda item for next time or not. I would like to suggest 31 that we all reread the staff report that went to the City Council or maybe it was the City 32 Council's report about equity and access and reviewing programs to see if we're really 33
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complying. Daren provided the report to me. It was in a presentation. It's really, really 1
good. At the end of our meeting last time, we talked a little bit about looking at all of our 2
programs in terms of inclusion and access and fairness and was it right. Rather than us 3
re-inventing the wheel, it would be good to read that staff report. Maybe, Daren, you 4
could send it around to all the Commissioners. Is that appropriate? 5
Mr. Anderson: I'd be glad to. This is a Council staff report. 6
Vice Chair Cribbs: Yeah, it's the Council staff report. Thank you. It's getting late. 7
There's a particular part at the end about Community Services, to everybody in 8 Community Services programs. It gives us the opportunity to look at things like 9 scholarships for swimming lessons and middle school athletic programs and a number of 10 other programs that we want to make sure people have the opportunity to be part of. 11
Chair Greenfield: Thank you. Our Vice Chair has been very busy on these endeavors. I 12 appreciate it and am fully supportive. It's a great idea to forward to that. Daren, other 13 thoughts on next month's agenda? 14
Mr. Anderson: I don't know if Peter is still with us. I wanted to double check with Peter 15 if he had any presentation information he needed to run by the Commission on Ramos or 16
any of our other projects. If not, I'll check with him shortly and get back to you on this 17
one. 18
Mr. Jensen: I am here. 19
Mr. Anderson: Anything on your list for agenda items for July 28th? 20
Mr. Jensen: The only one that I'm hoping can make it would be Ramos Park. I'll 21
probably know better in the next week. We should be able to. 22
Vice Chair Cribbs: Chair, we may or may not discuss Foothill Park depending upon what 23
the ad hoc committee says next week and how other things develop. We don't have to 24
decide tonight. We have some time about whether or not to put it on the agenda or wait 25
until we see what other things are going to transpire. 26
Chair Greenfield: If the ad hoc has something to bring to the Commission, that could 27 potentially be on the agenda next month. We're talking about potentially four items here. 28 That's probably too much. We probably need to go down to three items so we can make 29 sure we're out of here next month no later than this month, which is a little later than I'm 30 aiming for. Anything else? 31
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VII. COMMENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS 1
Chair Greenfield: Does anyone have anything else to add? Council Member Kou, thank 2
you for sitting in with us. Is there anything you'd like to say? We appreciate your 3
presence here. 4
VIII. ADJOURNMENT 5
Meeting adjourned on motion by Vice Chair Cribbs and second by Commissioner Moss 6
at 10:18 p.m. Passed 6-07
PALO ALTO PARKS AND RECREATION COMMISSION
AD HOC COMMITTEE MEMBERS STAFF LIAISON Update Meeting
date
Baylands 10.5 Acres LaMere Reckdahl Olson Daren Anderson
Cubberley Cribbs Greenfield Olson Kristen O'Kane Ad Hoc receive update on lease and available space. Topics
included:
a) Community clean up - work days - and rules, conflicts and
policies,
b) Ad Hoc will review rental policies and criteria for renters
c) Ad Hoc will keep potential gym (much needed in Palo Alto)
alive for discussion.
Projects & Fund
Development
Cribbs Greenfield Moss Daren Anderson Ad Hoc meetings held to gather information on existing 501 c3
organizations who support Community Services and
recommendations for small medium and large projects which
need funding in light of the CPA budget crisis due to COVID19.
Discussion and presentation with all PRC at the August PRC
meeting. Goals:
a. To create a comprehensive summary of giving/funding
opportunities.
b. To make opportunities well publicized and easy to
contribute to CSD programs and facilities
c. To investigate funding opportunities from local
foundations, specifically for larger projects.
d. To encourage community support and involvement in
activities and programs.
Foothills Park LaMere Olson Cribbs Daren Anderson Several meetings held to discuss FP recommendations, a panel
discussion at 7/28 PRC about environmental and economic
sustainability, history and equity. Plans for meeting with
Council on August 3.
Park & Facility Use Policy Greenfield Moss Reckdahl Adam Howard
Park Improvements Cribbs Moss Daren Anderson Questions from Dog Owners regarding the off lease pilot
program progress, during Covid 19, possible two pilots, one in
N. Palo Alto and one in S. Palo Alto.
Recreation Opportunities LaMere Olson Reckdahl Kristen O'Kane
LIAISON MEMBER(S) STAFF / CONTACT
Aquatics Cribbs Jazmin LeBlanc Discussion about community access during Covid and
scholarship programs available from Beyond Barriers/Palo Alto
Swim & Sport. Requested info about other pools in PAUSD that
could be used for lap swimming during the time of COVID.
BCCP Moss Daren Anderson
Community Gardens Olson 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 Cribbs - nothing to report
Golf Reckdahl La Mere Lam Do