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PARKS AND RECREATION COMMISSION
August 25, 2020
AGENDA
7pm
Agenda posted according to PAMC Section 2.04.070.
********BY VIRTUAL CONFERENCE ONLY*******
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Pursuant to the provisions of California Governor’s Executive Order N-29-20, issued
on March 17, 2020, to prevent the spread of Covid-19, this meeting will be held by
virtual teleconference only, with no physical location. The meeting will be broadcast
on Midpen Media Center at https://midpenmedia.org. Members of the public who
wish to participate by computer or phone can find the instructions at the end of this
agenda. To ensure participation in a particular item, we suggest calling in or
connecting online 15 minutes before the item you wish to speak on.
I. ROLL CALL
II. AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, DELETIONS
III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS
Members of the public may address the Commission on any subject not on the agenda. A reasonable time
restriction may be imposed at the discretion of the Chair. The Commission reserves the right to limit oral
communications period to 3 minutes.
IV.BUSINESS
1.Approval of Draft Minutes from the July 28, 2020 Special Parks and Recreation Commission Meeting –
Chair – Action (5 min) ATTACHMENT
2.Update on Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI) – Pam Boyle Rodriguez – Discussion (45min) –
ATTACHMENT
3.Update on Ramos Park Improvement Project – Peter Jensen – Discussion (60min) ATTACHMENT
4.Other Commission Ad Hoc and Liaison Updates – Chair – Discussion (5min) ATTACHMENT
V. DEPARTMENT REPORT
VI.TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR SEPTEMBER 22, 2020
VII.COMMENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
VIII.ADJOURNMENT
PUBLIC LETTERS
4 June 4, 2020
Public Comment Instructions
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DRAFT
Draft Minutes 1
1
2
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4
MINUTES 5
PARKS & RECREATION COMMISSION 6
SPECIAL MEETING 7
July 28, 2020 8
Palo Alto, California 9
10
Commissioners Present: Anne Cribbs, Jeff Greenfield, Jeff LaMere, David Moss, Jackie 11
Olson, and Keith Reckdahl 12
Commissioners Absent: None 13
Others Present: Council Member Kou 14
Staff Present: Kristen O'Kane, Daren Anderson, Catherine Bourquin 15
I. ROLL CALL 16
II. AGENDA CHANGES, REQUESTS, DELETIONS 17
Chair Greenfield: Do we have any Agenda Changes, Requests, or Deletions to go over? 18
III. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS 19
Chair Greenfield: Do we have any members of the public for Oral Communications? Is 20
there anyone looking to speak on a topic not related to Foothills Park this evening? 21
Thank you. We will move onto the main item for this evening, which is the panel 22
discussion on Foothills Park Access. 23
IV. BUSINESS 24
1. Panel Discussion of Foothills Park Access. 25
Vice Chair Greenfield: I'll share a few introductory words and review details of the panel 26
format. First, for members of the public, one more time, any of you who would like an 27
opportunity to speak this evening, please either click raise hand via Zoom or press *9 on 28
your phone if you're dialing in. If you have access to the online meeting agenda 29
instructions, it's page 2. Welcome everyone to this special panel discussion on Foothills 30
Park access hosted by the Parks and Recreation Commission at the request of the City 31
Manager. I first want to recognize and thank our group of five panelists who have 32
graciously joined us. As experts in disciplines related to the question of increasing access 33
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to Foothills Park and understanding potential impacts, we really look forward to your 1
insights about this complex and challenging topic. We're extremely appreciative that 2
you're here with us this evening. An overview of this evening's proceedings is now 3
displayed. I'll run through some details on this, starting with a brief background 4
summary to set the stage for our discussion this evening. The Foothills Park access issue 5
has been vexing and divisive within our community for a number of years. Last 6
November, our Commission voted to recommend a pilot program for City Council's 7
consideration after discussing the matter and hearing public comment at two earlier 8
Commission meetings. The pilot proposal is a fairly modest, one-year trial plan, which 9
would permit up to 50 nonresident vehicles or bicycles each day via an online reservation 10
system for a $6 fee and encourage nonresident student fieldtrip access. Since the 11
Commission has already forwarded this issue to City Council, we will not specifically be 12
discussing or commenting on our recommendation and will focus primarily on hosting 13
this evening's event. Next up, the City Council is scheduled to take up the 14
recommendation as an action item at their next Council meeting on August 3rd. Here are 15
some simple goals for this evening. One, gain a deeper understanding and appreciation 16
of the varied perspectives and complex issues related to Foothills Park access. Two, 17
learn new expert information on potential impacts and park management issues if 18
visitation changes significantly. Three, clarify some facts and learn new details about 19
Foothills Park. Four, I want to emphasize the necessity for civility and respect for 20
everyone this evening. Let's review the schedule. Many potential concerns about 21
Foothills Park access are most appropriately answered by City staff. We'll start things 22
with a staff presentation focused on providing facts to address some important questions. 23
This will be followed by public comment. After we see the number of speakers, we'll 24
decide if we have time for 2 or 3 minutes each or potentially less. Hopefully, we'll be 25
able to give speakers a reasonable amount of time to speak. Given the distinguished 26
panelists with us this evening, we want to make sure our discussion with them starts by 27
7:15 or so. To ensure this, we will limit the initial public comment period to about an 28
hour. If members of the public are not able to speak during this initial time block, we 29
will provide an opportunity for additional speakers after the panel discussion provided 30
they are already on the speaker list. This is important. Members of the public may 31
request to speak up until 15 minutes before the end of the initial one-hour public 32
comment period. We'll make announcements as we get close to this time, but we will not 33
accept requests to speak after this cutoff. We're looking for members of the public to 34
raise their hand to speak before that time. You'll be permitted to speak once, and staff 35
will introduce and manage the public speakers using Zoom. Again, if anyone would like 36
an opportunity to speak this evening, please either click raise hand via Zoom or press *9 37
on your phone if you're dialing in. Detailed instructions are on page 2 of the online 38
meeting agenda. Let's move on to the panel discussion format details. Panelists were 39
selected by the Commission Chair and Vice Chair and City staff to represent a balance of 40
expertise related to Foothills Park ecology, operations, and access. Each panelist will 41
introduce themselves after public comments; then we'll begin the panel discussion, which 42
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I will moderate. We have ten questions we want to get through. These were prepared by 1
the Chair and Vice Chair and staff with input from the Parks and Rec Foothills Park ad 2
hoc committee. While a broad range of questions was considered, we want to take 3
advantage of our panelists' expertise and focus on questions most appropriate for the 4
panel to answer. Potential question details were shared in advance with our panelists to 5
give them some opportunity to prepare quality responses. The first five questions will be 6
directed first to a specific panelist, one each. After that, remaining questions will be open 7
to all. Each panelist will have an opportunity to respond to each question requested via 8
the Zoom hand raise. Although, not all questions will be related to each panelist's area of 9
expertise. Ideally, panelists' responses won't exceed 2 minutes and hopefully will often 10
be less than that. I will ask follow up questions or allow follow-up responses as deemed 11
appropriate. Let's bear in mind this is a panel discussion focused on facts and expert 12
opinion, not a debate. We'll try to average no more than 10 minutes per question, 13
knowing some questions will take more time than others. After the prepared questions, 14
Commissioners and our Council Liaison, Council Member Kou, will each have 5 minutes 15
for panel follow-up questions or comments. Hopefully, this will be mostly questions to 16
take advantage of the expertise that we're fortunate to have with us this evening. This 17
round of questions will end the input from our panelists. As previously described, an 18
additional public comment period may follow for members of the public that previously 19
requested to speak but didn't have an opportunity to do so. No new speaker requests will 20
be accepted. If the extra comment period is added, afterwards Commissioners will have a 21
final opportunity to comment briefly. Finally, I ask for your patience with our online 22
Zoom platform. We'll do the best we can. Again, I want to sincerely thank our guest 23
panelists for joining us this evening. Now, the staff presentation please. 24
Daren Anderson: Good evening. I'm Daren Anderson with Community Services 25
Department. I'm going to provide you with a brief background of Foothills Park and 26
some facts that might be helpful. In 1941, Dr. Russel Lee and his wife, Dorothy Lee, 27
bought the land that's now Foothills Park. In 1958, the Lees offered the land to the City 28
at a special price of $1,000 per acre so it would be preserved as open space. In 1959, an 29
election was held on the proposed purchase. 6,542 people voted to buy the parkland, and 30
3,997 voted against it. With 62% of the voters supporting to buy the land, the City 31
purchased the property for $1.3 million, and Foothills Park was opened on June 19, 1965. 32
The public vote regarding the land purchase did not specify whether or not access to the 33
park should be limited to residents. That was a Council decision that appears to be based 34
on a couple of factors. The first is that Palo Alto fully funded the purchase. Palo Alto 35
approached other cities, Los Altos and Los Altos Hills, about sharing in the expense of 36
purchasing the property, and both cities declined. The second factor is described in the 37
article from December 10, 1980 in the Stanford Daily, which discusses the purchase of 38
the park. The article states some residents believe that the City had no business creating 39
a regional park. The group called Citizens for Good Governance formed to oppose the 40
plan. They filed a taxpayers' lawsuit alleging that Palo Alto had violated the City Charter 41
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by approving the land purchase without waiting 30 days for public examination of the 1
expenditure. The lawsuit was rejected by the California Supreme Court after a 2
referendum on park purchase was approved by Palo Alto voters. In what former Palo 3
Alto City Manager Jerome Keith termed an attempt to salvage the project and to appease 4
the regional park fears of the Citizens for Good Governance, the City Council announced 5
in 1959 that the park would be open to Palo Alto residents and their guests. In 1969, a 6
Municipal Code section was added that defined the residency requirements that limit 7
access to Foothills Park to Palo Alto residents and their accompanied guests. In 2005, in 8
exchange for a $2 million grant to help purchase 13 acres of land adjacent to Pearson-9
Arastradero Preserve, Council voted to allow nonresident hikers to enter Foothills Parks 10
via the Bay to Ridge Trail. Hikers can enter from Pearson-Arastradero Preserve and from 11
Los Trancos Open Space Preserve. The current Municipal Code ordinance makes 12
entering Foothills Park a misdemeanor for nonresidents unaccompanied. The fee for this 13
citation is $50. As a comparison, the fee for smoking on trails in Foothills Park is 14
$1,000. No misdemeanor citation has been issued in the last 20 years for violation of this 15
ordinance, and only one administrative citation, the type of citation Rangers in Foothills 16
Park issue, has been issued in the last 20 years. An administrative citation is not a notice 17
to appear or a criminal citation. An admin cite is similar to a parking ticket. The 18
Municipal Code also lists the maximum number of people who can be in Foothills Park at 19
any one time. The current cap is 1,000 visitors at any one time. However, in 1965 the 20
cap was 2,000. In 1976, it was changed to 1,600. In the late 1990s, it changed to our 21
current status, which is 1,000. That cap has not been reached in 20 years, and that 1,000-22
person cap roughly corresponds to the available parking inside Foothills Park. There are 23
approximately 375 parking spaces, and we estimate the average people per car on 24
weekends is about 2.7, which gets you to about 1,000 people. The entrance station to 25
Foothills is staffed only on weekends and holidays. We don't have a very effective way 26
to estimate exactly how many people we have in the park at any one time. We aren't 27
really able to track vehicles leaving as well as coming in. When we need to determine 28
that, it's done by a Ranger driving through the park to analyze how much of the available 29
parking has been used. In the last 20 years, visitation at Foothills Park has been fairly 30
consistent at about 152,000 people each year. Historically, there have been higher 31
numbers. In 1969, the estimate was 292,000 visitors and, in the early '70s, visitation 32
peaked at approximately 372,000 visitors each year. Visitation declined in the late '70s 33
and through the '80s and '90s. A $2 vehicle entry fee was charged in the '80s and '90s to 34
help recover costs for the Boronda Lake damn repair. The fee was removed in 2001. 35
Visitation hit its lowest in 1998 at approximately 29,000 visitors. Here's a visitation chart 36
showing 1998 to 2019. You can see that 2011 was a higher than average year with 37
approximately 202,000 visitors. We don't know exactly why this year was higher 38
visitation than others. The busiest days for Foothills Park are the holidays New Year's, 39
Mother's Day, Father's Day, Memorial Day, Thanksgiving, and July 4th. The busiest 40
months are late spring and early summer, and the slower time is the fall and winter. In 41
addition to tracking the number of visitors, the Rangers also track the number of 42
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nonresident turnaways. The 5-year average of nonresident vehicles turned away, from 1
2015 to 2019, is approximately 3,100 per year. With our estimate of 2.7 people per 2
vehicle, this is about 8,300 nonresidents turned away each year. Since the COVID-19 3
pandemic began, we have seen a significant increase in park and open space visitation. 4
Although this is a very small sample size of seven weekends, this slide shows the 5
weekend visitation starting Memorial Day weekend for 2020, 2019, 2013, and 2011 and a 6
136% increase from 2019 and a 95% increase from 2011. This is another slide for 7
weekday visitation with a very small sample size of just June as July was a half month of 8
data. This shows a 7% decrease from 2019, and a 58% decrease from 2011. Again, I 9
think we need more data, which we will collect. This concludes the staff presentation. 10
Chair Greenfield: Thank you, Daren. Now, we'll move onto public comment. Three 11
minutes will be allowed for each speaker. Do we have some speakers? 12
Lam Do: Thank you, Chair. This is Lam. We had two speakers, one of which is Robin 13
Ghosh. As I speak, one other hand has come up. It is Shani Kleinhaus. We can begin 14
with those two speakers. 15
Chair Greenfield: Before you start, just a reminder. If anyone would like to speak, 16
please click raise hand via Zoom or press *9 on your phone. Thank you, Lam. 17
Mr. Do: We will begin with Robin Ghosh. Robin, I will start the timer in a second here, 18
and you will have 3 minutes. You'll be followed by Shani Kleinhaus. Robin, are you 19
able to hear us? Robin? 20
Council Member Kou: Lam, I think it's Rohin, Rohin Ghosh. 21
Mr. Do: I apologize for the mispronunciation. I'll move onto Shani Kleinhaus, and then 22
we'll return to Rohin. It looks like there may be some technical difficulties. We'll try to 23
return to you after Shani. Shani, if you're ready, go ahead. 24
Shani Kleinhaus: Good evening. My name is Shani Kleinhaus. I speak as a resident of 25
Palo Alto who goes to Foothills Park quite often. Since the issue came up in the news, 26
there are a lot more people there, at least in my observation. I see a lot more impacts of 27
that, and I've heard people blasting music out of cars, and I've seen a lot more doggie 28
bags with poop left on the trails. I'm very worried about intensification without proper 29
mitigation and the cost to hire Rangers to make sure the resources we have there are fully 30
protected. If the City moves forward with opening the park, you need to do a real CEQA 31
analysis, probably an EIR, because an increase in public use needs to be compared not to 32
what is allowed but to the actual baseline. I don't think the baseline is a lot of visitation, 33
so you need to look at that. I don't really care and never did about who is there, but the 34
number of people makes a difference to our resources and how much impact they have 35
and what type of behaviors are there. Seeing more poop on the trails is not something we 36
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should be willing to accept. The issue of whether or not we allow people to come in with 1
dogs also needs to be address. While it's now only a few people, it can increase a lot. 2
I've seen dogs off leash as well. I'm really concerned about this process, and I think it 3
should go to the voters with an EIR if anything moves forward. Thank you. 4
Mr. Do: Thank you, Shani. We will try Rohin one more time. Rohin, are you able to 5
hear us and speak? 6
Rohin Ghosh: I was able to hear you guys all along. Can you guys hear me now? 7
Mr. Do: Yes, we can. 8
Mr. Ghosh: My comment is this. Very important to the idea of public lands conservation 9
as expressed by organizations that specialize in public lands conservation and natural 10
resources conservation is that of public access. The idea of public access and 11
environmental justice in this case means that the park should not be limited to Foothills 12
Park [sic] residents. I may be wrong on this, but as far as I know the cost of buying the 13
park has already been made up. We don't turn nonresidents away from our other public 14
lands, like the Baylands and Arastradero Preserve. I don't think it should be any different 15
for the Foothills. It's an amazing piece of public land. Preserving public land means 16
allowing people to access it because once people have access to public land, they care 17
about public land and the broader issues that affect the open space ecosystems that 18
surround us. I care about the environment now largely because growing up I spent a lot 19
of time going to places like the Foothills. It's very important that we open Foothills Park 20
to people regardless of whether they're residents or not. I'm a student at Palo Alto High 21
School. Thank you. 22
Mr. Do: Thank you for your time, Rohin. Next up we have speaker AL, to be followed 23
by William G and Becky Sanders. AL, it looks like you just lowered your hand, so we'll 24
move onto William G. 25
Chair Greenfield: William, could you please give us your full name? Thank you. 26
William Giardino: This is William Giardino. I'm a 7-year resident of the City of Palo 27
Alto. I frequent all the parks and open space preserves in the mid-peninsula area 28
including Foothills. I'm absolutely in support of opening Foothills to the public, not just 29
Palo Alto residents. I've lived in several different cities, states all across the West Coast 30
and visited many parks. I've never encountered a policy similar to that of Foothills, 31
which engenders this attitude of elitist exclusivity in terms of who has access to open 32
lands. Reiterating what Rohin mentioned about having access to public land makes you 33
care about your public land and your environment. Excluding these 3,100 cars or almost 34
10,000 people per year leads to the idea that the first speaker talked about in terms of 35
complaining about people playing music, people leaving dog stuff. There's no reason to 36
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believe that nonresidents would exhibit those behaviors at any higher rate than Palo Alto 1
residents. It's completely ridiculous to think that that is any sort of concern for opening 2
the park to the public. Of course, if there are more visitors, it might require more 3
resources, more Rangers or staff at the park, but this is a natural thing that will go along 4
with having increased visitation. There's no reason why it has to be any different than 5
Arastradero or the Baylands. I just wanted to emphasize those points, that this is 6
something that's extremely rare in parks along the West Coast. I've never heard of such a 7
ridiculous policy. It's rooted in this idea of exclusivity. Given the demographics of Palo 8
Alto versus surrounding cities, it really leads to this strong discrepancy in the 9
demographic representation of who is able to access this public land. I strongly urge the 10
committee and the City Council to consider what a bad look this is and how embarrassing 11
it is for the region. Thanks. 12
Mr. Do: Thank you, William. Next up we have speaker Becky Sanders. 13
Becky Sanders: I want to take issue with what I'm hearing, this black and white, be-all-14
end-all, you're-right-I'm-wrong, you're-elitist-I'm-not. I really appreciated Roger Smith's 15
op-ed in Palo Alto Online. I've lived in the area and have been refused entry to the park 16
when I wasn't living in Palo Alto. I've lived here since 1990. There ought to be a way to 17
be more inclusive and open it for a use fee or something to underwrite all the additional 18
maintenance and things that have to be done for increased foot traffic and also just limit. 19
I'm concerned about the animals because it's a very delicate balance up there. Just to say 20
"all come" is fine, but we have to think about the animals, wildlife, plants, and increased 21
wear and tear on this beautiful place. As Mr. Smith pointed out, we have 24 parks. This 22
hysteria saying this is elitist is not justified. Thank you so much. I'll let you get back to 23
your good work. I'm so excited you put this panel on for us this evening. 24
Mr. Do: Thank you, Becky. Chair Greenfield, I'm showing no other hands raised. 25
Chair Greenfield: Thank you. Thank you to all the members of the public for your 26
comments. We appreciate them and hearing from you. We'll now move onto the panel 27
introductions. I'll ask each of the panelists to introduce themselves, talk a little bit about 28
their background, particularly their relationship to Foothills Park and experiences there. 29
Let's start with Taylor Peterson. 30
Taylor Peterson: Hello, good evening. My name is Taylor Peterson. I'm the Director of 31
Biological Analysis at MIG, which is a planning and communications and environmental 32
services firm. I have been working with Palo Alto park staff on various projects in 33
various parks for quite a long time, including Foothills Park, Arastra, and the Baylands. 34
MIG recently also helped the City with their Parks Master Plan for City parks, those more 35
in the downtown areas. My experience at Foothills Park comes from doing work on trail 36
access and the environmental impacts of trail work and the Fire Management Plan. At 37
the moment, I'm also helping with some permitting for the Buckeye Creek ongoing 38
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maintenance work. One thing I always notice about the park is you're typically bound to 1
see some pretty amazing wildlife. The last time I was out there, turkeys were on display. 2
Chair Greenfield: Thank you. Yes, the turkeys are quite prevalent these days. Professor 3
Nicole Ardoin please. 4
Nicole Ardoin: Hi. Thanks for having me. I am Nicole Ardoin. I'm a faculty member at 5
Stanford University. I have a joint appointment in the graduate school of education, and 6
I'm the Faculty Director of the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and 7
Resources in the School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences. I also have a 8
joint appointment in the Woods Institute for the Environment. I've been working in the 9
environment and conservation field for over 20 years now, primarily focusing on people-10
place relationships. I actually started my career working as a Park Ranger at the Grand 11
Canyon. Thinking about parks and protected areas is something I've done for a long 12
time. I am a huge fan of places like Foothills. I actually live on the Stanford campus. 13
My daughter, who is now 12, has gone to camp at Foothills through the Palo Alto Parks 14
and Rec Department for a number of years. We have been with friends out there to 15
birthday parties and used the group camping facilities. We've been on the back country 16
trails as well as those that are near. I'm aware of some of the wildlife you were just 17
discussing and delighted to be here tonight. Thank you. 18
Chair Greenfield: Thank you for joining us. Lester Hendrie. 19
Lester Hendrie: Good evening. I am retired after 34 years as a Park Ranger. My first 6 20
years were with the National Park Service. The past 28 years were with Palo Alto Open 21
Space. Of that 28 years, about 12 years or so were as a Senior Ranger in both the 22
Baylands and Foothills Park. As Daren said earlier. I was a Supervising Ranger for the 23
last 13 years of my career with my office in Foothills and primarily responsible for 24
Foothills Park and the Pearson-Arastradero Preserve. 25
Chair Greenfield: Thank you for joining us. 26
Mr. Hendrie: Thank you. 27
Chair Greenfield: Roger Smith. 28
Roger Smith: I moved to Palo Alto in 1964 when I got out of college and have lived here 29
ever since and enjoyed all of our parks, all 36 of them. When I retired, Judy and I 30
decided to form Friends of the Palo Alto Parks with the basic premise that the City would 31
never have enough money to support our parks. That obviously has been very true. We 32
redid Lytton Park. We're very proud of the Magical Bridge, and we raised $3.5 million 33
of private funds to do that. Those parks throughout the community are at least 50%, the 34
big parks, nonresidents. I'm not a believer of being elitist. Foothills Park is special. It is 35
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really special. I had occasion to get a call from Crystal Gamage yesterday, who turned 1
101. She was on the committee to figure out what to do with the park. I think we made a 2
great decision to have it as Foothills Park Preserve. I'm delighted to be here tonight. 3
Thank you very much. 4
Chair Greenfield: Thank you, Roger. Alex Von Feldt. 5
Alex Von Feldt: Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm with Grassroots Ecology, and 6
we're a nonprofit organization that educates and engages the public to restore local 7
ecosystems. We've been partnering with the City of Palo Alto since 2013 to get 8
volunteers out to Foothills Park to help learn about and restore the ecosystem there. A lot 9
of it is pulling weeds and planting plants. A lot of the work we do is informed by the 10
great work of the Friends of Foothills, and we work in a lot of the sites they identify. We 11
also have a native plant nursery in Foothills Park. It's tucked away in the back section of 12
part of the park that was just recently opened. At that nursery, we grow plants not only 13
for our restoration but also for other large land managers like the Mid Peninsula Regional 14
Open Space District and Valley Water. We also steward other sites within Palo Alto such 15
as Arastradero Preserve—we've been working there since 1996—and many sites along 16
the San Francisquito Creek watershed. We also provide a lot of pollution prevention 17
education for Palo Alto students. 18
Chair Greenfield: Thank you. Now, we'll move onto the interesting part that everyone's 19
waiting for, the panel discussion. Before we start, do any panelists have any questions 20
about the guidelines we've tried to setup? I will start off. The first questions I will target 21
initially to one of the panelists and then others are welcome to chime in afterwards. 22
Raise your hand via Zoom or, if that's not working, put your hand up, and we'll try and 23
see it. We'll start off with Nicole. Why or why not is it important to open Foothills Park 24
to all when access is available at other nearby parks and open space areas? 25
Ms. Ardoin: Thank you for that question. I spent a lot of time thinking about these kinds 26
of questions especially, as I mentioned, as I've had the pleasure of using almost all the 27
parks in the Palo Alto system and also having worked as a Park Ranger and collaborated 28
with a number of groups on this call. As was mentioned, Foothills is a unique park 29
within the Palo Alto system. There are many other parks in the Palo Alto system that are 30
more managed parks. We have everything from baseball fields to Magical Bridge, which 31
is one of my favorite places to go. Many places are just down the road here and provide 32
this special kind of access. As somebody who studies connection to nature and 33
opportunities for people to have these less-managed, more nature-rich experiences and 34
wilder, closer to back-country wilderness experiences, that's also really special. We 35
know this connection that comes from that is beneficial for emotional reasons and 36
physical health reasons and mental health reasons. Yet, it can be challenging for a lot of 37
people to access that. A place like Foothills, which has the access in terms of picnic 38
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tables and more accessible trails closer to a parking lot area, is a really special place even 1
within the Palo Alto system. It provides people with a nature-rich-setting experience 2
while still being accessible for those less comfortable, perhaps, with going further into 3
the back country. I also, as I mentioned, do a lot of work looking at these people-place 4
relationships and think a lot about what motivates stewardship and motivates people to 5
take place-protective behaviors. I've worked in places from the Grand Canyon to 6
Yellowstone and Yosemite to Galapagos and to city parks. Interestingly, in all those 7
places one of the things we find consistently is it's a little bit less about the place and a lot 8
more about the kinds of experiences people have with their friends and loved ones in 9
those special places. Being at a special place like Foothills with friends and family and 10
having special memorable experiences is really critical to people being willing to take 11
stewardship actions over time. One of the reasons having experiences in a place like 12
Foothills is so critical is that is how we grow the current and next generation of people 13
willing to protect these kinds of places for the future. It builds these lifelong connections 14
with place protective behaviors through having these experiences. They take 15
responsibility for them. 16
Chair Greenfield: Thank you. Would any other panelist like to answer why it's 17
important for all to have access to Foothills Park when there are other nearby parks and 18
open space areas? We'll move onto the next question. This is for Taylor. What are 19
likely ecological impacts to Foothills Park wildlife and habitat if visitation is increased? 20
What is the best way to assess environmental impacts over time, and when could we 21
expect to recognize these impacts? Let me repeat that. What are the likely ecological 22
impacts to Foothills Park wildlife and habitat if visitation is increased? What the best 23
way to assess environmental impacts over time? When could we expect to recognize 24
these impact and potentially how quickly could they be mitigated? 25
Ms. Peterson: The ecological impacts depend on the amount of human use and human 26
behavior. If you have a lot more human activity, then the wildlife is going to be more 27
secretive, and that is going to change the human experience in the park. It also can affect 28
wildlife behavior in how they forage, how they breed, where they nest. Those are 29
important considerations. As far as managing the ecological impacts, you would need to 30
have some sort of baseline information, and maybe you already have this. You would 31
need to continue to measure potential impacts. Maybe you would have camera traps or 32
something, and you would measure the number of times that turkeys are in the main field 33
or the number times mountain lions are sighted. The other potential impact is human and 34
wildlife interactions. Mid Pen is about to launch a study in Rancho San Antonio because 35
of the increased mountain lion-human connectivity there. When can we recognize 36
impacts? That's simply by studying and observing and also the Rangers keeping track. 37
They would have to patrol back trails and pick up dog bags and watch for off-trail use 38
and even alongside trail use. I know Friends of Foothills has been concerned about 39
impacts to vegetation right along the trails, especially some sensitive vegetation like 40
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ferns. It's just by observation. That's what we do. To mitigate, it depends on what the 1
impact is. It might entail re-vegetation. It might entail erosion control. It might entail 2
more trash pickup, broader education, just more conversation or some signage. These are 3
all manageable things, but you need to be very sensitive about what the potential impacts 4
are. 5
Chair Greenfield: Thank you. Alex, could I get you to comment on the habitat side of 6
this question? 7
Ms. Von Feldt: Thank you. I wanted to add a couple of items. As part of work at 8
Foothills Park, we have been doing vegetation surveys throughout the park, so at least we 9
know what vegetation is present. There are a couple of rare species. The main one is the 10
Dirca, which is the western leatherwood. We've mapped all that throughout the park. 11
Most of it is far off-trail. There's only one instance it's actually close to the trail, but at 12
least we have some of that data, so we could see if that is being impacted. We've also 13
been doing some things in the past to help mitigate the effects of some social trails, when 14
people form trails where you don't want them. We've been trying out different techniques 15
there. I did check in with our staff who's there all the time. I asked, "Where are people 16
going when you see increase in use?" We've been out there in June and July, so we have 17
some increased usage. Not surprisingly, most of it is at the lake and on the large lawn 18
area there. Those habitats are already pre-disturbed, if you will. Those aren't quite the 19
pristine areas, but there definitely are a lot of lovely areas throughout Foothills Park. 20
Chair Greenfield: Thank you. Roger, I see your hand's up. 21
Mr. Smith: One of the things that my wife, Judy, says to me is the real residents of 22
Foothills Preserve is the animals. One of my worries is some of this that would happen 23
couldn't be replaced. If we recognize it, it may be too late. That is one of my worries. It 24
is special. People I talk to say, "If you lose it, it may be gone." Thank you. 25
Chair Greenfield: Thank you. Lester. 26
Mr. Hendrie: I just wanted to echo what Tay and Alex said regarding wildlife 27
observations. Throughout my career, we would notice a huge decrease in wildlife 28
observations on the weekends and holidays. The deer aren't out; the turkeys aren't out. 29
They quickly flee in the morning when the visitation goes up. You're much more likely 30
to see them, and they have access to the lake without fear or grazing on the grass without 31
hesitation during the weekdays when it's much quieter. Of course, increased visitation 32
would impact that. The other thing that wasn't mentioned, that I've seen especially 33
around more developed areas like Vista Hill, is significant erosion. When you have a lot 34
of people concentrated in one area, they go off-trail. They go onto the hillsides, which 35
are highly erosive, especially into the chaparral areas where the damage can be quite 36
immediate short-term damage but can take decades to heal. I still remember an example. 37
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This is very extreme, but when firebreaks were first created in Foothills Park, very early 1
in its history in the '70s, a bulldozer was used. It went down the hillside from the 2
ridgelines into Wildhorse Valley. Those scars are still there because it stripped enough of 3
the topsoil away that the hillsides have never recovered. We do see that in erosion areas 4
with just off-trail use. Thank you. 5
Chair Greenfield: Thank you. I'd like to follow up with Tay and ask a little bit more 6
about the assessment of environmental impacts. You mentioned you weren't sure if we 7
had a baseline. Maybe you could talk about how easy or complex it is to establish a 8
baseline and what this would entail and some idea of expense or complication to the City. 9
Ms. Peterson: It sounds like Grassroots has quite a bit of data already. It depends on 10
how many years because you would want more than one year of baseline data. Every 11
year is different weather-wise and species-wise. You may notice some years you have 12
more deer and less woodpeckers. It all depends on what's going on in the environment 13
with their food and availability and other impacts. There's a tendency … 14
Chair Greenfield: Maybe you could walk us through to help us understand what the 15
mechanics are for … 16
Ms. Peterson: Baseline? 17
Chair Greenfield: Yes. 18
Ms. Peterson: That involves going into the park and somehow measuring wildlife use. 19
Having the rare plants mapped is very valuable because that can be an education piece for 20
visitor use. The good thing about rare plants is they tend not to expand their footprint 21
very rapidly, so you can tell what's going on with them much more easily than the 22
wildlife. It's a matter of doing surveys. I mentioned camera traps before. You set out 23
wildlife cameras and collect information on wildlife use in certain areas. You would 24
probably want to do that for a full year to get all the seasons and more than one year, if 25
you could. People are typically in a hurry, and they don't want to take the time. The 26
more data the better. You could have a pilot period of increased visitor use or you could 27
compare weekends to weekdays on wildlife use of the park and wildlife behavior to get a 28
sense of where the impacts are happening, what might be causing them, and how to best 29
manage the park as a preserve. 30
Chair Greenfield: Thank you. That helps us get more of a feel for this. I want to touch 31
on something Roger said about the special nature of Foothills Park. We know that 32
Foothills Park access has been limited for many years. Is there anything significant that's 33
different to the ecology of Foothills Park as a result of that, specifically comparing it to 34
neighboring regional open space areas? 35
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Ms. Von Feldt: It does have some unusual habitats, like the blue oak woodland that's on 1
the Los Trancos Trail. That's an intact ecosystem that's very important. We've been there 2
about 7 years. Most of our work comes from invasive species coming from nearby 3
construction sites. When people redevelop their property and grade and the trucks come 4
in, we actually get a lot of what's called stink wort. We have a lot more workdays to 5
remove that than we did at the beginning. Similarly, we noticed some dead bobcats that 6
were emaciated because of rodenticide that people who live around the park put out to 7
kill rats and it went into the food chain. We worked with some Stanford students a few 8
years ago on an outreach campaign to the neighbors of Foothills Park and Arastradero 9
Preserve to try to educate them not to use rodenticide because it really affects the 10
ecosystem. 11
Ms. Peterson: That's a good point about invasive plant species. They come in on shoes 12
and tires. Those are things to consider. 13
Chair Greenfield: Let's move onto the next question, which we'll start with Alex. It's 14
kind of related. What protections or mitigations could we add to help minimize 15
environmental impacts, for example Muni Code updates, engineered solutions such as 16
boulders alongside roads to keep cars out, etc.? I'll repeat it. What protections or 17
mitigations could we add to help minimize environmental impacts, like Muni Code 18
updates or engineered solutions? 19
Ms. Von Feldt: The one that comes to mind is making the parking clearer because there 20
is a lot of unlined parking spots, so people form their own spots. Making that clear and, 21
yes, putting boulders on places where you certainly don't want people to park off the 22
road. That's an easy one. The other aspect about mitigation is some of these items that 23
we've pointed out, like some of the rare species and being able to protect them. We had 24
to do it at one point along the trail to protect the Dirca. The erosion that Lester pointed 25
out with the social trails along Vista Hill might be something that the City would have to 26
put in a few barricades or something like that to try to limit that. As far as the Municipal 27
Code goes, the third thing that pops into my mind is to have some restrictions on 28
development in the Foothills, making sure that construction vehicles are washed off when 29
they come in, that homeowners are responsible for keeping their site clear of invasive 30
species for multiple years after the project is complete and keeping up on that. 31
Chair Greenfield: Thank you. Anyone else looking to comment on this? 32
Mr. Smith: There is one thing that I wanted to mention. Keep in mind that I'm the oldest 33
person around here, 79 years old. I spend a fair amount of time down at Lytton Plaza 34
helping with the ping pong tables. What is annoying to me is we have nice trash cans, 35
and people throw things not in the trash cans but right in front of the trash cans. We 36
would hope that additional people coming in would hit the trash can, but I really worry 37
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about the effect of that on nature and the expense of trying to pick up that type of thing. 1
Thank you. 2
Ms. Ardoin: Human behavior is one of the biggest challenges and perhaps also an 3
opportunity. I love the example that you just used. People are more like sheep than 4
wolves; we want to be part of the pack. There are great opportunities here for using some 5
of the examples that Alex used earlier, whether it's natural barriers or having trails that 6
are clearly marked, and then having other people use those examples to show people 7
exactly how you want them to behave in these spaces. Rather than only shaming people 8
or telling them what you don't want them to do, turning it around to the pro-social side. 9
This goes back to my first comment around having people love a place and having people 10
feel a sense of not only connection but also stewardship and ownership of a place, then 11
they're more likely to want to do what's right for that place. We often see these trashing 12
behaviors in places that people feel like it's not my place; therefore, it doesn't matter. 13
Turning that behavior to the positive can be really helpful in these park settings. 14
Chair Greenfield: Thanks. We have a plug for modeling positive behavior. Lester, is 15
your hand up to talk on this? 16
Ms. Peterson: I would like to say education is a component as well. Education through 17
conversation and pointing out the good things, not just the bad behavior but what's there 18
to value. 19
Chair Greenfield: Again, the positive approach. Let's move on. Lester, we'll start with 20
you. What are likely infrastructure and safety impact concerns if visitation is increased? 21
Infrastructure concerns could include trails and fire roads, parking areas, restrooms, 22
picnic areas, the native plant nursery, Interpretive Center, etc. Safety concerns could be 23
visitor and hiking wellbeing, fire risks, emergency response, etc. I can repeat that if you 24
like. 25
Mr. Hendrie: I'm good. Thank you. One of the biggest concerns as infrastructure goes 26
with increased visitation is some of the things listed right here on the example. That's 27
restrooms. The restrooms have the same footprint they did when the park was developed. 28
In fact, they're actually smaller. When we had ADA upgrades to two of the four 29
restrooms in Foothills Park, I'm guessing about a decade ago, because of budgetary 30
constraints the remodels had to remain within the footprint of the building. The entrance 31
restroom went from two urinals and two stalls in the men's and two stalls in the women's 32
to one stall each, one for women, one for men. It was a drastic reduction in capacity. 33
The same with the Interpretive Center, they had to stay within the confines of the walls of 34
the building so that the number of facilities were reduced. Those restrooms are very old, 35
especially at the group picnic area, the Oak Grove restroom, which is on a septic system, 36
which is often problematic when we get high visitation. Those are the biggest 37
infrastructure impacts right off the bat, the restrooms. Increased visitation would mean 38
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much more usage and much more impact on the Rangers to try and keep up with the use 1
of the restrooms in keeping them clean and/or stocked. The other issue is also parking. 2
That's a big issue. Alex hit the nail on the head with delineated parking since there is 3
virtually no delineation in the park. Some of the original parking lots built around Vista 4
Hill have some striping. None of the main portions of the park do. They're gravel pull-5
outs, and they have no delineation. More control of parking spots would definitely 6
facilitate that. The increased traffic by virtue of more traffic on the roads breaks the 7
roads down, especially on the edges of the road since a lot of the roadside parking is on 8
slopes because the terrain is not flat. That breaks the asphalt down and causes the roads 9
to erode further. Definitely the increased vehicular traffic would have an impact. Picnic 10
areas, increased trash has been mentioned. We would have to have increased pick-up. 11
Things like barbecues, which naturally wear out, would burn through quicker and have to 12
be replaced more frequently. Picnic tables would wear out faster with increased usage. 13
That's the primary infrastructure problems that I foresee in the developed areas of the 14
park. We've already touched on trail usage. With more people comes more use of the 15
trails. As far as safety goes, I'm not sure how to explain this. We really depend upon the 16
public to notify us when there are hazards on the trails. With 40 miles of trails in the 17
Foothills, it's not possible for the Rangers to regularly patrol all 40 miles of trails. We 18
depend upon the public to let us know that there are hazards. If there is increased 19
visitation, it's a double-edged sword. You'll get more notifications of a hazard, but that 20
means more response from the Rangers, when it could be a minor hazard. A simple tree 21
down, the Rangers might not get to it right away because people can step over it. We can 22
question them and find out what the hazard is; we'll put it on the list and get to it as soon 23
as we can. If it's life or death or an immediate hazard, obviously we'll respond 24
immediately. Things like a small tree down that people just step over, more visitation 25
means they might step over or they might go around, off-trail, breaking down the hillside 26
or impacting the vegetation. Increased use of the park increases fire risk. Through the 27
Fire Management Plan, we've done a lot of work on roadside clearing, high flammability 28
areas, clearing picnic areas, clearing around facilities. Increased visitation would, of 29
course, increase the fire hazard and chances of a fire in the Foothills. Most importantly, 30
the biggest safety concern that I have with increased visitation is staff wellbeing. We 31
have very limited staff. I understand one position has been frozen because of budget 32
shortfalls. That makes it very difficult for staff to do just the daily work. When you 33
increase visitation, it makes it that much more difficult. Staff wellbeing is definitely a 34
safety concern of increased visitation. 35
Chair Greenfield: Thanks for your input. Would anyone like to comment? Roger, your 36
hand's up? 37
Mr. Smith: Yes. I was up there yesterday. I had occasion to drive through Paradise after 38
the fire up there. I got to thinking if there was a fire, Foothills could really be a zoo 39
trying to get out of the park with our one entrance, and then trying to get down Page Mill 40
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Road. That is a real concern. In my opinion, with additional visitors that increases. Will 1
there be a fire? I'm not sure, but we would have that possibility. It could be a real bad 2
thing. Lester, I agree with almost everything you said. The other thing I worry about is 3
the lack of staff. If there's an emergency there, how does one get help? Clearly, with 4
increased usage, there'll probably be more 911 calls. Thank you. 5
Chair Greenfield: Thank you, Roger. Anybody else? Nicole. 6
Ms. Ardoin: I had a comment. I appreciate these comments so much. As I mentioned, I 7
worked as a Ranger for a while at the Grand Canyon. One of my closest friends is 8
actually a Park Ranger at Yosemite. His partner works for Mariposa County in the 9
county office. One of the most challenging things about these issues, these decisions is 10
there's not one right answer, which is why we're having this discussion. There are so 11
many tradeoffs. One of the things that's really intriguing to me about an issue like 12
wildfire, for example, is that we know from decades ago in the Oakland Hills fire, for 13
example, that one of the strongest predictors of people who survived that fire and who 14
were able to thrive afterward were the communities where people were more connected. 15
I know that Palo Alto has really taken that to heart in terms of providing grants to 16
community and to encourage neighborhoods to band together. The reason I bring this is 17
up is I want to mention the work that Alex's group has done with restoration and invasive 18
species work and bringing together young people and families and engaging people in 19
restoration activities at Arastradero and Baylands. This is one of the challenges. There's 20
not one right answer, but it is interesting to think about if people feel more engaged in a 21
place like Foothills or Baylands or Arastradero or a city park and they feel more of a 22
sense of community spirit, are they more likely to be safer when we have these potential 23
challenges coming forward? I wanted to bring that forward. There are really interesting 24
and challenging tensions, and I appreciate having this space for us to grapple with all 25
these in, as my students call it, a hairball. 26
Chair Greenfield: Thank you. Let's move on. We've been talking about environmental 27
impacts and infrastructure and safety. Let's pivot to visitor impacts. Roger, how would a 28
visitation increase impact the park visitor experience and how might impacts be 29
mitigated? 30
Mr. Smith: One of the difficulties is back to budget. We truly don't have hard data 31
because we haven't had the gates manned every day from early in the morning to late at 32
night. If we wanted to do a pilot, I believe we would have to man the gates. Somebody 33
threw out that it would be like $90,000, which I can't imagine. That number seems 34
$200,000 maybe minimum. My understanding is we're minus the one Supervising 35
Ranger. With the cutbacks in the budget, it's a tough time to be doing that. More 36
visitors, as Lester said, means more staff time. A worry I have—I certainly agree with 37
the experience—is how we're going to educate people. Clearly more staff time will be 38
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taken away from things, in my mind, that are more meaningful to the preserve, the 1
Rangers helping people out and showing them things. There clearly would be additional 2
costs. In a sense, the preserve itself doesn't benefit from more people. The experience 3
for people is fine. If you step back and say 1,000 more people, what does that do for the 4
preserve? I think there could be some great impacts. 5
Chair Greenfield: Thank you. It's a question of balance. Regarding the $90,000 amount, 6
if I understand correctly—Daren can let me know if I get it wrong—is what we spend on 7
an annual basis to man the entry gate on weekends and holidays. Roughly two-thirds of 8
that is probably attributable to checking the residency of entrants. Would anyone else 9
like to comment on visitor experience impacts with increased visitation? 10
Ms. Von Feldt: This might be the right place to say it. When we have our volunteers 11
come out, we usually have several volunteer events a month. We have upwards of 500 to 12
800 volunteers that come out every year. A large part of them are not Palo Alto residents 13
because we allow the volunteer events to be open to people. 80% of who we work with 14
are under 18, so a lot of youth. I hear from my staff that works with these volunteers that 15
kids will come up to this park and they're like, "This is amazing." When they hear about 16
the restriction, it sort of takes the air out of it, and they're like, "I'm doing work to 17
improve a park that really isn't that public." That experience from our volunteers isn't as 18
positive as it could be. 19
Chair Greenfield: That is a little bit different answer, but we could pivot to ask a 20
question on that as well. What would be some benefits to the community if the park were 21
open to nonresidents? One sounds like we could attract more volunteers for the 22
environmental support efforts within the park. Anyone? 23
Ms. Peterson: If more people are around the lake and more people are in the valley, how 24
does that affect their experience of nature and wildlife? Is it more like being in an urban 25
park or is it really truly like being in nature still, even with a lot of people around playing 26
Frisbee and having a party? 27
Chair Greenfield: That's a good question to pose. Anyone else? 28
Mr. Smith: I was very impressed at the number of younger people in the volunteers. 29
Greg Betz, I guess, started that with 35 people, and it was a bunch of young people then. 30
They were only 72. Bob told me the other day that they're down to seven that go out on 31
Sundays. He is 93. As a side note, I didn't realize that the lake was the old quarry, which 32
made great sense to me. I had no idea of that. My friend, Crystal Gamage, said they 33
were trying to figure out what to do with this land, and they met for a year. One of the 34
things was making a Hollywood Bowl-type thing. Another idea was a shooting range. 35
Another one was a motorcycle track. A couple of young people and I were at the park 36
yesterday, and we were way up at the top. All of a sudden we heard vroom, vroom, 37
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vroom, and there were two young people in a car deciding to have a quick drag race 1
down the steep hill. I thought of the motorcycle track. Thanks. 2
Chair Greenfield: Thank you. I think we can agree that we do need to work to replenish 3
our environmental support effort within the park with a bit of a youth movement. We can 4
thank Alex for getting us a good leg up on that. Let's move on. The next question has 5
been addressed a bit already. We'll see if anybody has additional input on this. Under 6
either the pilot program—I outlined that at the beginning when I was speaking. It's a 7
one-year program that would allow 50 nonresident carloads of people into the park for a 8
year. Under either the pilot program or a complete opening, what impact would a visitor 9
increase have on staff, particularly when staff and funding resources are limited? Would 10
anyone care to add something new on that subject? 11
Mr. Smith: I really admire the Commission working on that for a long period of time. It 12
seems like if we did anything to control it, we would need to man the front gate all the 13
time. In my mind, the existing program is working. We all know that people come 14
through the gate during the week. The impact of having to check it to get really good 15
data and, even if we did online reservations, we would still have to have somebody there 16
to make sure that I wasn't coming into the park on my own so to speak. I worry about the 17
cost, the time, the energy to do that. 18
Chair Greenfield: That's consideration of having someone at the entrance gate 365 days a 19
year as opposed to something closer to 100 or so right now. Anyone else care to chime in 20
on this? Lester, your hand is up. 21
Mr. Hendrie: Yes, thank you. The online reservation system is an intriguing idea as part 22
of a pilot program. I recently visited a regional park near Auburn called Hidden Falls 23
Regional Park. In a way it's very similar to Foothills. It's in the Foothills above Auburn. 24
It's a Placer County park. They do require weekend paid reservations. There's no 25
residency restriction. It's open to the public without reservation on weekdays, but on 26
weekends and holidays you have to have a reservation. There is a staff member to check 27
it. That might be a model to look at. Roger mentioned it; right now, the entrance station 28
is not staffed. Other than Rangers driving around, we don't know when a nonresident 29
drives in the entrance gate. Of course, anyone that is able to hike can hike in, as Daren 30
mentioned, on the Bay to Ridge Trail. The park is open to the public by hiking. That's 31
not an equity issue as far as obviously ADA. Somebody that isn't able to hike is not 32
legally able to enter the park, but we know people do. Perhaps one way of mitigating it 33
would be an online reservation system where you would have that number of nonresident 34
people that would have the ability to enter. Maybe it's just on the weekends and holidays. 35
Chair Greenfield: Thanks. Nicole, did you want to? 36
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Ms. Ardoin: I wanted to tie together some of the earlier comments about visitor impact 1
and perhaps even looking at some of the baseline studies as well as staffing with some 2
projects that we've been doing recently, looking at open space and linking with local 3
universities. It doesn't have to be Stanford. There are many universities around here that 4
have incredibly eager students and faculty members who are interested in thinking about 5
everything from ecological studies to visitor studies. The area of visitor studies in parks 6
has been rich and replete with research for over 100 years. I am sure there are many 7
people who would be interested in working with a park like Foothills on any of these 8
dimensions. I would put in a plug for thinking about some of the local students and 9
universities that could be great partners in some of this. 10
Chair Greenfield: Great. That gets to the issue of if you're wanting to partner with 11
people, they'd be more likely to partner with you if they have access to the park. I think 12
it's implicit. Any other comments before we move on? The pilot program includes 13
implementation of a new nonresident online visitor registration, which was just 14
referenced. What additional infrastructure, operations, and maintenance resources would 15
be important to successfully manage a pilot program or a complete opening of Foothills 16
Park? Examples could include entrance and exit visitor monitoring, car monitoring, fee 17
collection, parking management, restroom, trash, litter, maintenance, even removal of 18
some barbecues. The question is touching back on some ideas we've talked about, but 19
specifically what do we need to add to the park? Lester. 20
Mr. Hendrie: It's definitely the increased staffing that was mentioned. Otherwise, it 21
would basically be the status quo with increased visitation, which is obviously not good 22
for habitat or for staff health. If you have weekday staffing, that's something that literally 23
has not occurred, continuous weekday staffing, since the '80s. Maybe the early '90s was 24
the highest period of seasonal staffing that we had in my career. We've never had full 25
weekday staffing since that period because it's cost restrictive. 26
Chair Greenfield: Any comments on how to monitor—we'll get to the next question in a 27
bit—better count cars coming in and out and keep a handle on the number of visitors? 28
Mr. Hendrie: Daren and I have discussed this. That has been an issue for the last three 29
decades that I worked there. It's really a challenge. We have these electronic traffic 30
counters now that are petty state of the art and are probably the most accurate thing that 31
we have. They're no more accurate than obviously having a Ranger working the entrance 32
station and clicking off the number of visitors with a good, old-fashioned mechanical 33
counter, and the same with the number of cars and keeping those statistics, which are 34
invaluable. I know there were some comments expressed about the very early visitation 35
numbers, the 300,000 numbers. I remember talking with Jerry Lawrence, one of the first 36
or second Supervising Rangers for Open Space, that was my boss when I started. He said 37
those numbers were not very accurate. Why they were never changed, I don't know. 38
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That's lost to history. We did have an electronic loop system similar to a very old traffic 1
monitoring system in the roadway to count cars as they went in and out. I know that had 2
a lot of problems, which probably led to those very high numbers. 3
Chair Greenfield: Can you clarify? You think the numbers maybe weren't as high as 4
suggested? 5
Mr. Hendrie: Correct. The 300,000 numbers for earlier visitation, I don't believe those 6
were very accurate. It's really difficult to count. If the Rangers are at the entrance, can 7
they also count the cars exiting? It's just not possible. When there's only one person 8
working the entrance station, which is most of the time, you have your hands full just 9
dealing with lines of cars coming in. You can't see, not to mention count, cars and/or 10
visitors that are leaving. 11
Chair Greenfield: Anyone else care to add anything on that? 12
Ms. Von Feldt: While it's probably not directly related, about 2 years ago we opened 13
what they call the 7.7 acres, the part in the way back. We were anticipating a lot of 14
people, so we actually did changes to our nursery and made sure it was secure and things 15
like that. Our nursery director says she basically sees maybe one or two hikers a day. It's 16
nice because it's a flat site; it's not a steep trail, so you actually see people with some 17
mobility issues having a nice little circle and coming back. It wasn't in as high demand 18
as we had expected. 19
Chair Greenfield: Thanks. 20
Mr. Smith: How would I know that that's available to me? 21
Chair Greenfield: You're asking about access to the 7.7 acres? 22
Mr. Smith: Yes. 23
Ms. Von Feldt: I can't speak to how the City might have communicated it, but there's no 24
gate or fence there now. You just continue walking along the main road. We have some 25
interpretive gardens back there, like a native pollinator garden with signage and things 26
like that. It looks pretty welcoming. 27
Chair Greenfield: We did have some publicity when the area was first opened with a 28
ribbon cutting. It's not the pristine area of the park by any means. That can speak in 29
good part to why it's not so popular. It's a good place for an exercise in restoration. 30
Anyone else? Taylor. 31
Ms. Peterson: There might be a way to use a road tube for measuring visitor use, but you 32
have to use some human time with the road tube to count and figure out what the 33
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accuracy is and then adjust it. Maybe your traffic department or a traffic consultant could 1
help with that. Maybe in your baseline year, you can figure out more accurate numbers. 2
Chair Greenfield: You're suggesting a mechanical counting system that's calibrated and 3
confirmed by human observation? 4
Ms. Peterson: Right. 5
Ed Shikada: Mr. Chair, if I might? Ed Shikada, City Manager. I really hadn't intended 6
to weigh in, but I want to acknowledge that—first off, thanks to all the panelists and the 7
Commission for hosting this meeting. Just very simply at this moment in time, I am sure 8
we can figure out counting. I suspect of all the issues you've mentioned this evening, 9
counting vehicles in and out of Foothills will not be an issue. I would be more than 10
comfortable taking that on as a responsibility on behalf of the City organization. 11
Chair Greenfield: Thank you, Ed. We appreciate the opportunity to host this forum this 12
evening. Yes, Nicole. 13
Ms. Ardoin: Just to add that, if it's helpful, having been looking at visitor studies, 14
journals, and outdoor recreation journals and working with the Park Service, there are 15
entire conferences that deal with these challenges. The Park Service just closed Yosemite 16
and reopened it, and they're trying to let a certain number of visitors in. As you all know, 17
Muir Woods just made that change last year in terms of having a reservation system. 18
They were grappling with all this probably about a year and a half ago, and they've also 19
been trying to come up with some technological fixes that are not taxing on their 20
Rangers. I'm positive they would be happy to share with you some of the ideas they 21
cycled through that may be appropriate for Palo Alto. 22
Chair Greenfield: Thanks. Let's move on. Park visitor limits have gradually decreased 23
since Foothills Park first opened, and current visitation numbers are below historical 24
highs. What bearing does this have on the potential for environmental impacts if 25
visitation were substantially increased today? Should we consider reassessing the 1,000-26
person limit? That's a concurrent limit for the park. 27
Mr. Smith: I'm glad the City Manager can figure out the count. If we count somehow 28
the number of people in the car and then where they're coming from, what their licenses 29
are, to me it's a law of numbers. More people, more impact on the preserve. What that 30
number is I don't know. I feel strongly its working. I think it's a problem that doesn't 31
need solved. Thank you. 32
Chair Greenfield: The question we're trying to ask is—there are people calling for 33
opening and increasing access to the park. If we do that, what would the potential 34
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impacts be and are the numbers we're talking about the right numbers. Anybody care to 1
comment? Lester. 2
Mr. Hendrie: The 1,000 limitation, I think Daren mentioned in the opening information, 3
is a pretty good number based on the current carload and the amount of parking spaces 4
we have. Basically, the park is full. There isn't any more room to park with about 1,000 5
people in the park. As I believe I mentioned, the best way to tell that is just for the 6
Rangers to take a loop around the park and see how much parking is available. For most 7
of my career, that happened very rarely. We had one brown bag concert that was highly 8
publicized, Sista Monica, where we had people crawling out of the woodwork because it 9
was open to everyone. We had to actually close the park. Other than that, having that 10
many people is just a very rare occurrence, to have 1,000 people in the park at any one 11
time. I think that number is accurate. I don't know if changing it would really make a 12
difference unless you do have some sort of very accurate method of counting the current 13
number of cars in the park at any one time. 14
Ms. Ardoin: I have a very odd technical question. Lester may have some thoughts 15
around this based on his experience in the park. Something has been occurring to me that 16
has been a little bit of a challenge in some of these other national parks. A lot of the 17
calculations are based on, for example, the number of people in the park, as Roger 18
suggested, to number of cars, number of people per car, and then it's often done by 19
footfalls on trail. Sorry, Jeff. This may be one of your later questions. Something that's 20
been happening around the COVID situation is that we have fewer people per car. There 21
may be the same number of cars coming in, but only say one or two people per car rather 22
than four people per car or six people per car or whatever it may be. I don't know, Lester, 23
if you've dealt with that in the past in terms of footfalls or where people are having their 24
activities in the park. 25
Mr. Hendrie: Not directly. Yes, we do. We would occasionally do surveys for our 26
automated system, especially when we got these new electronic counters, because we had 27
these counters throughout Foothills, Arastradero Preserve, and the Baylands. Some were 28
designated to count vehicles that entered the park. One in Arastradero Preserve was 29
specifically calibrated to count bicycles, and other ones count visitors, footfalls. For 30
example, the Pearson-Arastradero Preserve entrance on the Bay to Ridge Trail has a 31
counter to count people as they go through. We do have that data, but it's not real-time. 32
The other point you mentioned was the number of people per car. Yes, we do the 33
surveying, and we actually have two different numbers. We have a weekday number of 34
the average number of people per car and a weekend/holiday number, and that makes up 35
for a difference. There's much more family and fuller cars on a weekend or holiday than 36
there is during the weekdays. I'd be real curious what the current numbers are with 37
COVID. 38
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Chair Greenfield: Good points. Anyone else? 1
Ms. Von Feldt: One other thing that came to mind. I'm sure you've all noticed that 2
Arastradero Preserve has been really highly utilized during this time. The City has had to 3
hire additional security to deal with the parking along Arastradero Road where there is no 4
shoulder to park. There is a thought that opening Foothills Park a bit might take off some 5
of the strain that's been on Arastradero Preserve as of late. 6
Chair Greenfield: All of these comments are presaging or following the question pretty 7
nicely. Park and open space access is valued now as much as ever, and visitation has 8
significantly increased since the onset of the pandemic. How can we balance this need 9
while managing crowds appropriately at Foothills Park to maintain COVID-19 social-10
distancing and related guidance? How about if I repeat the question? Park and open 11
space access is valued now as much as ever, and visitation has significantly increased 12
since the onset of the pandemic. How can we balance this need while managing crowds 13
appropriately at Foothills Park to maintain COVID-19 social-distancing and related 14
guidance? Any takers? 15
Mr. Smith: I might just jump in on this. We are such good neighbors with Byxbee and 16
the Baylands and Arastradero because these times are very, very unusual. Having this 17
space is very valuable. As I think of the cities up and down the Peninsula, I think we're 18
the best neighbor on the Peninsula with allowing the parks that we have. It is tough, and 19
hopefully we'll get through this because we have the yellow tape on the tables. 20
Hopefully, if we can get through this, the experience for our residents will be even 21
greater. Thanks. 22
Ms. Peterson: We've been having some of this discussion internally at MIG because 23
there are a lot of park planners in the company. They're trying to come up with creative 24
ways to manage park use. Some of them are designing benches in a certain way or just 25
moving the furniture around so that the park can be open with social distancing. Of 26
course, with COVID-19 it goes back to education, rules. 27
Ms. Ardoin: I would also say our research group has actually been doing a lot of work in 28
this area. It gets back to that hairball of challenges. This is exactly the time that we want 29
people to be outside and connecting with the world around them. We know from the 30
science that it's safer to be out and about and distanced from people and behaving in 31
certain ways. It goes back to that earlier comment we heard around human behavior and 32
helping people have a sense of agency and making positive decisions. Especially in 33
parks, it is an opportunity for us to allow people to model that positive behavior when 34
they feel they have an opportunity to feel it's their place. Therefore, they want it to be a 35
place they can continue to visit. Especially a large park like this, there's plenty of space 36
for people to be apart from each other and to still enjoy the outdoors. It's much harder 37
when we're in these tiny, little pocket parks where there's not as much space for people to 38
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get away from each other. I live right down the street from Kite Hill, which has been 1
packed every single night. It's harder on these smaller, urban spaces. 2
Chair Greenfield: Let me pivot just a little bit, and ask you if you want to add anything 3
about studies regarding open space access and children and the benefits of that. 4
Ms. Ardoin: There are lots of children behind me right now. We know that there are so 5
many developmental benefits. There are a couple of really key times, especially early 6
childhood. We've just completed a study in early childhood education that looks at the 7
critical age from 0 to age 8 or 9 when there are so many things happening for young 8
children physically, emotionally, and mentally. That's a key time when having access to 9
nature-rich spaces is really essential, especially now when kids are not going to school. 10
These are places they can visit with their caretakers and have these positive experiences 11
that supplement other kinds of educational experiences they may have. We've been 12
looking at that a lot. It's also a time in middle childhood where kids can have some 13
autonomy. Whether it's walking down the street or it's a place like Foothills where there's 14
a managed space where they can have some more experience in spaces that aren't 15
dangerous but give them a little bit more freedom, it's really critical at that age as well. 16
When we were trying to stay closer to home with the shelter in place a little bit earlier, 17
we were trying not to go further than a couple of miles from home. Having these places 18
close enough to home where people can still get out in these nature-rich, wilderness-like 19
spaces is really important for children's developmental health. 20
Chair Greenfield: Thank you. That's interesting to hear how that impact varies today 21
with the pandemic experience. Taylor. 22
Ms. Peterson: Children being out in nature teaches them so many things that a parent 23
can't teach them, how not to trip over a tree root, what it feels like to fall down, climb a 24
tree, or drop out of a tree. You learn so much about physics and math and all these things 25
that are second nature to so many of us that grew up outdoors all day. As adults, a lot of 26
us don't realize how important it is to be outside and just experiencing being out there. 27
Ms. Von Feldt: I agree wholeheartedly. To give a real world example, we're always 28
going out to our sites with lots of youth. This year has been unlike any other, of course. 29
When it turned out in June we could bring out small cohorts of students in these pods 30
where you didn't have cross-pollination with other staff, we quickly rolled out a program 31
and called it High School Intern. A group of ten high school students at each of our sites 32
came out, worked with our staff on a weekly basis. Just hearing the stories that came 33
back from our staff that were so happy to finally be out again engaging with people, the 34
students were wearing masks, they were 6 feet apart, their buckets were all 6 feet apart, 35
and all the protocols they had to follow. When they first came out, they were so shy and 36
they couldn't quite walk that well. They were so used to being inside, and seeing that 37
change over the 8 weeks that we've been out there has been huge. It's so urgent now. 38
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Schools are asking us, "Are you going to do this more throughout the year? Could you 1
take more students?" There's such a hunger for it. 2
Chair Greenfield: That's awesome. Anyone else? 3
Ms. Ardoin: I have a comment that I wrote at the beginning. I wasn't sure where to 4
interject this. Let me just share it briefly now. As you've heard, I'm a fan of places like 5
Yellowstone and Yosemite and Galapagos, which is near and dear to my heart. I had to 6
mention this from a study that I did years ago. A student of mine, who was native 7
Hawaiian, worked with me on a beach where she grew up. She still works there. It was 8
really interesting. We were studying the difference between visitors and native 9
Hawaiians who live in that area. We were trying to look at the way people spoke about 10
this beach. Some of you may have been to it; it's Polihale on Kauai. It's a beach at the 11
end of the road. The people who visited there found it to be this beautiful beach, and they 12
talked about this idea of leave no trace. I think most of us are very familiar with the 13
"leave no trace" concept. The difference was people who were from there and who felt 14
this sense of stewardship for that place didn't talk about leave no trace. They didn't talk 15
about packing out everything they brought to the beach. They talked about leaving the 16
place better than how they found it. They talked about picking up other people's trash. 17
They talked about looking around and seeing how they can improve this place today. We 18
did that study 7 years ago, and that's always stuck with me, that difference between going 19
somewhere else versus having a place close to home that feels like your place and you 20
have responsibility not only for leaving it like you found but also for making it better than 21
how you found it. 22
Chair Greenfield: Let's move onto our final question. I'll ask each panelist to comment. 23
What are the three most important points you would emphasize to help the community 24
and City Council with their decision about Foothills Park access? Please draw upon the 25
important lessons you've learned from your personal experience from Foothills Park. I'll 26
repeat it one more time. What are the three most important points you would emphasize 27
to our community and Council as we look forward to making a decision about Foothills 28
Park, drawing upon the important lessons and personal experience that you've had at 29
Foothills Park? Does anyone volunteer to go first? 30
Mr. Hendrie: Whatever changes are implemented, I think one of the most important 31
things is to be very careful and cognizant of the actions that are taken. I can't emphasize 32
enough staff wellbeing. I assume it's still printed, but I love our open space preserve 33
map, the one overall map that shows all open space in relationship to the City. What's so 34
impressive about that is when you look at the whole map, you see the green for the open 35
space areas and the white for the rest of the city limits. What's so unique about that is the 36
open space preserves are approximately one-third of the acreage of all the land in Palo 37
Alto. You have a staff of approximately ten with seasonal, full-time staff to maintain 38
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one-third of the City. Granted, a lot of that is undeveloped remote areas of the park. 1
You're not going to have a Ranger go into the marshland of the Baylands to do much nor 2
are they going to go up on the hillside of Foothills Park, but that's a huge amount of area, 3
a huge amount of trails and resources for a small staff to maintain. Any significant 4
changes to the operation of Foothills Park does have an impact on staff. Staff wellbeing 5
is the first concern, and then just being very careful about implementing changes, very 6
methodical so that we don't have the environmental impacts that could take decades to 7
heal if you were to have damage to native habitat, rare plants, all of a sudden an increase 8
of non-native seeds brought in by traffic that is not normal. That's probably my primary 9
concern. 10
Ms. Peterson: Take care of the preserve. Spend the time and the money to do this right 11
and to take care of the preserve. Make sure you have a program of adaptive management 12
so that you can reverse issues, take care of them right away. Evolve this into a continued 13
great community asset. You could open it to non-Palo Alto residents and still keep a nice 14
preserve. I don't think where somebody comes from impacts the park. 15
Mr. Smith: I do not think additional traffic in the park helps anything. The park does not 16
benefit from that all. I agree fully with the children that can come. I think that's a great 17
asset that we're providing for our Palo Alto residents. We have to be very careful. My 18
wife says, "Tread lightly." In other words, really think about what we're going to do and 19
the effect. I had not thought about my shoes bringing in other things, or my tires. Again, 20
that comes back to the increase in people is going to increase that. Being an old banker, 21
I'm really concerned about the money. I went to visit with our friends at the Palo Alto 22
Parks to maybe start a fund for things that need to be done at Foothills Park. Money is 23
tight. We'd have to do it right, and it would be very hard to do this when we're laying off 24
people in the City. 25
Ms. Ardoin: Thank you so much for a very thoughtful and thought-provoking discussion. 26
I really appreciate all the points that have been made. As someone with a background in 27
natural resource management and a Ph.D. is in forestry and social ecology, I completely 28
agree that this is not a decision nor is any land management decision to be taken lightly. 29
We have such a great benefit in all the nonprofits around here and our incredible parks 30
team. My first point is to take full advantage of the incredible expertise we have here, to 31
think about the ways to do this responsibly and also leverage the many people who 32
clearly care about this. I'm blown away by how many people have been part of the 33
discussion, which suggests to me that many, many people care about this. Turning that 34
into an asset and thinking about engaging the community in the decision and going 35
forward is really exciting. Think about, rather than imposing decisions, engaging people 36
in decisions. My second piece of that is people, to the point Roger made earlier about 37
behavior, tend to be much more likely to follow rules that they helped set themselves. 38
Engaging people in how we think about what those rules should be and how they should 39
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follow them and helping educate them on what comes in on our shoes and how we can be 1
more responsible for that, things like erosion, etc. That leads to my third point. If we all 2
feel like we're responsible for this together, then we'll act like we're responsible for this 3
together. That comes back to the point Taylor and Alex were making around education. 4
Those are my three points, engaging the community, making use of our expertise, and 5
helping to educate people continuously. 6
Ms. Von Feldt: First, I'd like to echo what Lester said. If the City does decide to open it, 7
we would be supportive of that. We definitely would want to make sure the Rangers 8
have the support they need. We partner closely with them, and they are dedicated career 9
professionals. We wouldn't want to add a burden to their already-full work schedule. 10
They'll need some support there. My second point goes back to the first public 11
comments, when the gentleman said engaging the public is the best way for people to 12
learn about and love open space and, therefore, can vote in the future, change their 13
behavior so that they have a more positive effect on it. We believe that opening Foothills 14
Park and allowing more people to experience this will have a net positive effect on the 15
overall ecosystem. The last point is that we need our wide-open public spaces more now 16
than ever. It looks like it's going to be this way for a while. It would be a really great 17
time to do it. Thank you. 18
Chair Greenfield: Thank you, again, to all the panelists for engaging in this round of 19
questions. I really appreciate the thoughtful responses and the experience and insight 20
you've shared with us and help provide more depth to this subject. You're not done yet. 21
The next step is we're going to open the floor to the Parks and Rec Commission members 22
and our Council Liaison, Council Member Kou. They're each going to have up to 5 23
minutes to ask follow-up questions of the panelists or to make a comment. Hopefully, 24
they'll primarily ask questions to take advantage of this awesome panel. Is there a 25
Commissioner who would like to start? 26
Vice Chair Cribbs: I too would like to thank the panelists. I really learned a lot. It was 27
so interesting to hear about the wildlife to the invasive species to the environmental 28
education, everybody's very careful thoughts about the subject that we find very 29
challenging. For me, it is simple. I will be very quick. Foothills Park is such a special 30
place. We all want it to continue to be the place that it's been ever since I was a little kid 31
and went there. There are two very simple things. One is the ordinance that exists now 32
allows 1,000 people in the park, but it also dictates who those 1,000 people can be. I find 33
that, as I've said before, to be not acceptable. We need to change it and open the park to 34
our neighbors. That's first. Secondly, because it's such a special place, we need to take 35
advantage of all the resources that we have, the staff, the nonprofits, to make sure 36
everybody has amazing education so that they can continue to appreciate the park and 37
take good care of it and be responsible for it. I actually loved some of the comments that 38
were made tonight. I hope we can all take them to heart because we really are as a 39
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community and a region all one family. Thank you again for letting me have a couple of 1
minutes to speak. Again, thanks to the panel. Jeff, thanks to you. Thanks to the staff 2
who spent so much time putting this panel together. 3
Chair Greenfield: Thank you, Anne. 4
Commissioner Moss: I'm going to use the 5 minutes in a similar way to the last question 5
you asked about the three most important points because I've learned a whole lot. I really 6
appreciate the panelists. Since I won't be able to speak in front of the City Council, the 7
three things I'd like them to come away with is that—we talked over and over about 8
this—this is a unique place. It's a biological preserve versus an urban park. As Roger 9
said, we have many parks. Some of them are urban parks where you can have bouncy 10
balls and boom boxes and all kinds of things that do not belong in an open space 11
preserve. It's a place for peace and quiet. Right now, even Mid Pen doesn't allow picnic 12
areas. They don't allow group picnic areas. They don't allow parking near their trails. 13
They don't allow barbecues. They don't allow lake fishing and boating. To lump 14
Foothills into all the other open space preserves—it's a hybrid. We have to be very 15
careful. As one panelist said, mobility, being able to drive very near three or four or five 16
trails is unique. I want to make sure that we're not talking so much about diversity here. 17
We're talking more about numbers of people. When you look at that 1,000-person limit, 18
let's just look at that for a second. Let's say 500 people visit the lake that day, and 200 19
people are on the trails, and 200 people are picnicking down below, and 100 people are 20
on Vista Point. That is a tremendous impact on this park. We've never had that before. 21
You know the power of social media. I'm willing to bet you, just like Rancho San 22
Antonio has suffered and San Francisco has suffered, the minute this gets out, social 23
media is going to take it and run with it. We will have no problem spreading this word. 24
That leads me to the second point, which is budget. We've been working on this plan for 25
a year. We brought it out in November. We talked about it again in June. This idea of 26
being able to use current staff to do the following: handle barbecues, fire protection, 27
emergency protection, trail monitoring, traffic cops, outreach to underserved 28
communities, clean bathrooms, pick up trash, fix the trails, front-gate managing, the 29
reservation system. These are a big impact on budget. The plan says that we only have 30
50 cars a day from outside residents. The plan says that if there are too many, we can 31
lower that. It's a pilot program. It gives the City many options. I agree with Vice Chair 32
Cribbs that we should go ahead with the pilot, see how this goes. We need some 33
additional funding. We so appreciate Grassroots Ecology and Environmental Volunteers. 34
The importance of a preserve is education. Even with Palo Alto only, we have been 35
having summer camps where anybody can come. We have classes that come. We have 36
Grassroots Ecology leading tours. We have many guests that come in and are non-Palo 37
Altans, guests of Palo Altans. We need to continue that. We need to do a little bit more. 38
Are we going to change everything upside down? No, that would not be good. Those are 39
my points. Thank you. 40
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Chair Greenfield: Thank you, David. 1
Commissioner LaMere: Thank you, Jeff. I really want to thank the panel and Chair 2
Greenfield and really thank Daren for organizing this. It's been tremendous, very 3
educational. It's very enlightening what you guys spoke about. I'm very appreciative of 4
the information that you provided. It's important to remember for the people that may 5
have watched this and may have listened that what we are doing with this is trying to get 6
information for a pilot program. We're not talking about opening the park and trying to 7
reach limits of 1,000 people. We understand the impact that people have on the park and 8
are in favor of people having the educational opportunities that the park provides, a lot of 9
the social, emotional parts that are important. One question I have is for Lester. You 10
have a very long history with the park. If you can talk about changes you saw within the 11
park in your 25-plus years or 30 years there with habitat, with biodiversity, things that 12
you may have seen as well as, perhaps, change in usage in the park. Have there been 13
changes in the way that people chose to use the park that you saw later on versus how the 14
park was used 30 years ago? 15
Mr. Hendrie: Those are actually very good questions. There have been significant 16
changes in use patterns over my 30 years, primarily in families. Early on, even before 17
my time, Boronda Lake was heavily used by the small sailboats. Think about early on, 18
30 years ago, there weren't computers, there weren't video games, there weren't a lot of 19
external recreational activities. Mountain bikes, when I was a Ranger at Redwood 20
National Park, were just starting to be hand put together. There weren't mountain bikes, 21
so there weren't mountain bike trails. Visitor use patterns have changed dramatically. It 22
used to be that Foothills Park would close on Easter Sunday because it was so heavily 23
visited. That's when we'd reach maximum capacity and would have to close for a period 24
of time. That never happened in my career because the patterns had changed. We have a 25
lot more family groups coming up to picnic, and they're concentrated in the lower valley 26
of the park, around the lake, primarily Orchard Glen and Oak Grove group picnic areas, 27
and out on the lawn. The hillside picnic areas are less desirable. We've actually reduced 28
those picnic areas over the years because the Fire Management Plan reduced the number 29
of picnic tables and barbecues against the woodland. Yeah, visitation has changed. Of 30
course, we get newer activities, not that mountain bikes are an issue in Foothills Park, but 31
they are an issue in the Pearson-Arastradero Preserve. There was always a concern that 32
they would spillover into Foothills Park, the same for Los Trancos Open Space Preserve. 33
There will be new recreational activities, I'm sure. I had asked Daren to make sure that 34
off-road Segways didn't become a thing in the Bay Area because that was a concern 35
before I left. They were just starting to come out with the big, knobby tires. Yes, I 36
would say there are more family groups that concentrate on picnicking in the lower half 37
of the area, and there are more hikers. We definitely have increased visitation in hikers. 38
Luckily because of the work of our environmental groups, the habitat has improved over 39
time. We as Rangers have become much more knowledgeable as time has gone on. We 40
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have improved the habitat. The Fire Management Plan is much more careful than early 1
fire clearing. Tay Peterson and her group have been involved in many projects that we 2
do to make sure we do it right because we're not experts in all areas. Those are definitely 3
improvements that have occurred over time. 4
Commissioner LaMere: Thank you very much. I don't know if I have any more time. 5
This would be more for Nicole. What changes have you seen in recreational patterns 6
over time or what concerns you have about what might happen with changes in 7
recreational patterns for Foothills Park? 8
Ms. Ardoin: That's a great question. Lester can speak to the recreational pattern changes 9
specifically for Foothills. It is interesting to think about overall national patterns and 10
what changes have occurred. Certainly, they're different for different parks, and there are 11
trends. I'm happy to share papers with you afterward if anybody is interested in this kind 12
of stuff. I on weekends read these journals. There are changes that look at whether 13
they're heavy adventure uses versus things like bird watching or walking or light hiking 14
on trails, for example. That is different in different parks. What we heard Lester talk 15
about with picnicking, we see that in the national park system. The size of family groups 16
picnicking in different areas has changed over time. As some of you may have seen in 17
Yosemite, for example, there have been substantial changes in how they've dealt with 18
rock climbers and rock climbing in certain areas and trying to keep that in certain areas. 19
There are also changes in how that impacts certain parts of parks. Parks have tried to 20
separate the usages to keep certain areas more for restoration and other areas more for 21
this intensive recreational usage. 22
Commissioner LaMere: Thank you so much. 23
Commissioner Olson: I want to thank everyone for their time. We're so fortunate to have 24
each and every one of you. I also want to thank Lester for longtime service with parks. 25
That's a wonderful career. It's so helpful to have your lengthy background. I've learned a 26
lot, as all the other Commissioners have said. The thing that I've heard fairly consistently 27
from everyone is a focus on the number of people in the park and what they're doing in 28
the park as opposed to where those people come from. In my view, it's very important to 29
separate those two things. Conservation is very different from who is able to conserve. I 30
don't think that's based on anyone's ZIP Code and where they're from. I do think it's an 31
equity issue. I appreciate all the views that when you open the park to more people, you 32
will have more people. I do think we need a careful focus on even the existing number. 33
Is 1,000 too many? I thought Lester's comment about the mental health of the staff is a 34
really important one. I believe the pilot project that we have proposed is very narrowly 35
tailored to test out some of these theories and to learn, and then we can expand from 36
there. I would also be very comfortable if the Council decided to separate the two things 37
and say, "Let's take away the ZIP Code requirement and focus on how many should 38
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really be in the park and what they should be doing." I don't have any particular follow-1
up questions for folks. I appreciate your time, and thank you so much for contributing all 2
your expertise and educating all of us today. 3
Commissioner Reckdahl: Thank you again. You've done a very good job. I am 4
concerned about the additional visitors. I am more concerned about the number of the 5
visitors than whether they're from Palo Alto or not. To me, this is an environmental 6
issue. We have to be really worried about the impacts that these additional visitors will 7
have on the park. Lester, I have a question for you. With your experience at the park, 8
can you judge how a person impacts wildlife, whether they're on the lake or in the middle 9
or on the trails? Do they have roughly the same impact on the environment or is one 10
more impactful than the other? 11
Mr. Hendrie: That's a good question. 12
Commissioner Reckdahl: Is it apples and oranges? 13
Mr. Hendrie: I think it more of an apples and oranges issue. For example, dogs are 14
allowed on leash on weekdays but are prohibited on weekends and holidays. Dogs have a 15
huge impact on wildlife. Just the presence of a dog, being the natural predator for deer, 16
will cause deer to flee or leave an area or not come into an area. Certainly, more people 17
in one particular area is going to keep wildlife away, disrupt wildlife patterns from a 18
quieter location, for example. Without analysis as Tay is talking about, I can only go by 19
my observations. 20
Ms. Peterson: One reason it's apples and oranges, Keith, is that the trails are a very 21
different environment than the open valley. You find different wildlife there, and you 22
find the startle factor much greater. As you come around a bend, there's the deer that 23
may bolt in the wrong direction, towards the mountain lion or something like that. That's 24
why they're apples and oranges. 25
Commissioner Reckdahl: Bottom line, when we're evaluating the impact of these people, 26
we should be counting how many people are at the lake and how many people are in the 27
valley and how many people on the trails or do we just count the total visitors? 28
Ms. Ardoin: This is a really interesting place for a potential study, not to be the one 29
who's promoting research. Maybe Lester said this earlier, and Jackie mentioned this too. 30
It may also be the activity. For example, a small group of people who are respectfully 31
and quietly moving along a trail may be less disruptive than one or two people who are 32
acting disruptively in an open area by a picnic table. It's a combination of numbers and 33
activities and whether the behavior is wildlife-appropriate in that particular setting. 34
Mr. Hendrie: That is a very valid point. 35
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Ms. Peterson: I agree. 1
Commissioner Reckdahl: This is so hard to quantify. 2
Ms. Peterson: It is. 3
Commissioner Reckdahl: Ideally we would be able to quantify this and say this is the 4
impact these people have, and we're going to count the numbers and estimate the impact. 5
It's so qualitative. 6
Ms. Peterson: It is. 7
Commissioner Reckdahl: Taylor, did you have a comment? 8
Ms. Peterson: I would agree it is qualitative. You can try to quantify it. Animal 9
behaviorists will sit and watch a behavior forever day after day to see what the patterns 10
are. I guess you could do that with the humans rather than the wildlife. It's going to take 11
a little thought, but I'm sure there's a way that you could measure it. 12
Commissioner Reckdahl: Right now, our visitation is very lumpy. We have this huge 13
number of people on the weekends and not that much on the weekdays. It will get even 14
more lumpy with additional people because most of the new people that we're attracting 15
will be on the weekends. How does the wildlife respond when you have this lumpy 16
visitation? Lester, you talked about how it's quieter during the week, and they come out. 17
When we're trying to look at the impacts on the park, is it the average over the whole 18
week? If you're looking at the long-term effects on the wildlife, is it average over the 19
week or is it the peak day over the week or is it the peak hour? What would you look at 20
to try and estimate the impacts that this would have on the wildlife? 21
Mr. Hendrie: My guess would be it would be the length of time that an area is occupied 22
by whatever disruptive activity. Whether it'd be sheer numbers of people or people out 23
on the lawn, for example, spread out, doing their social distancing, but then that prevents 24
the deer from wandering through the meadow; or larger groups on a trail or a group 25
picnic-area activity that's quite boisterous just because of the sheer number of people and 26
the number of people talking would have more of an impact. I think it would be sheer 27
numbers and activity-specific. 28
Ms. Peterson: Maybe also time of day. 29
Mr. Hendrie: Yes, of course. We have more peaks in the afternoon, less people in the 30
morning. 31
Commissioner Reckdahl: Alex, from a plant standpoint, if people are hiking on the trails, 32
I assume that would just be the number of people that would pass a certain point. Is it 33
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linear or is there some point where you get such heavy traffic that you do more damage 1
than if you have a smaller number? 2
Ms. Von Feldt: When you were asking these questions, I was thinking about that. From 3
a plant perspective, having more people on the lawn or at the lake doesn't impact the 4
native plants as much because most of the treasures are in the trails. Where it could be an 5
issue as people are distancing 6 feet is some of these trails are one-lane trails. People will 6
have to step off, and then they can do some damage there. There are some 7
considerations. As we suspect and what we've been observing with this increase is 8
they're primarily more on the lawn and the lake area, so not as big of an impact on the 9
plants. 10
Commissioner Reckdahl: Thanks, Jeff, for organizing this, and Daren for organizing it. 11
You did a lot of work. There was a lot of prep. We appreciate that. 12
Chair Greenfield: Council Member Kou, do you have any questions for our panelists? 13
Council Member Kou: No, I don't. It's a very interesting discussion. Thank you to all 14
the panelists. Thank you so much to Mr. Hendrie for all your years of service. 15
Everything you said in your observations has been very valuable to me today. Again, 16
thank you, and happy retirement. 17
Mr. Hendrie: You're quite welcome. It has been my honor. 18
Chair Greenfield: I think everyone's heard enough from me this evening already, so I'm 19
going to pass on the opportunity to speak further other than to thank this wonderful panel 20
that we've been able to assemble this evening. It's been really important and insightful 21
guidance from each of you in a lot of frankly unanticipated areas, which is exactly what 22
we were looking for. I have to thank staff as well for all of the work they've put into this. 23
For every hour I've put into this, staff has put in many more. Thank you very much for 24
helping pull this off, and thank you to Ed and Kristen for your support of this event. It's 25
been very productive and useful. I look forward to more opportunities like this and 26
appreciate the time I've been able to spend with all of our panelists this evening. Thank 27
you to the members of the public who commented. We'll see where we go from here. 28
Mr. Do: Chair, we do have two attendees with their hands raised. 29
Chair Greenfield: We had an opportunity for the public to speak earlier. I don't think it 30
would be appropriate to hear from the public further at this point. Ed, did you have a 31
comment? 32
Mr. Shikada: Yes, Mr. Chair, if I could. Perhaps independent of your decision with 33
respect to the other commenters, I would like to offer an observation based on tonight. 34
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I'll, once again, reiterate everyone's appreciation for the panel and the Commission 1
holding this. I want to go back and perhaps put a, as I'll call it, staff context on the 2
conversation tonight. To reiterate a point that Professor Ardoin made regarding the 3
"leave it better than you found it" perspective, that's a tremendously insightful comment, 4
especially as we're talking about this issue. I really believe it is a shared motivation for 5
everyone involved in this conversation, whether it be from an environmental perspective, 6
an environmental stewardship perspective and, as has been mentioned a couple of times 7
this evening, from a social perspective. The question that ultimately the City Council 8
will be wrestling with is how best to leave it better than we each found it. To a certain 9
extent, it could be seen as a binary choice of whether it's to limit access to Foothills or to 10
share access to Foothills, and the real question of how best to manage either of those, and 11
perhaps there is a middle as has been suggested by the Parks and Rec Commission. 12
That's a really helpful perspective for thinking about both the question ultimately before 13
the Council and the information that this panel and discussion has brought forward for us 14
as a community to consider. Thank you each and in particular for that comment to help 15
us put this in context as we move this conversation to the next phase. Chair, I thought 16
that might be an important comment to share. 17
Chair Greenfield: Very helpful and appropriate. Thank you for chiming in. 18
Council Member Kou: I would like to follow up with what the City Manager said. This 19
has been an insightful discussion. At the same time, while it opens for Council to have 20
further discussion, there is also the aspect of ensuring that we do have the funding in 21
order to support all the infrastructure, the staffing that will be needed, to ensure that the 22
tradeoffs in terms of mitigation and so forth will be there in order to ensure our 23
environment is intact and in addition to all of that, nature, the natural aspect of this whole 24
endeavor. While I appreciate the conversation, you have to have the conversation also in 25
regards to funding, especially after our $40 million, $39 million budget reduction. I want 26
to put that as a point to consider as well. 27
Chair Greenfield: Thank you. I'm going to go back on what I said before. We do have 28
time for public comment. There are a couple of people—now we're getting a number of 29
hands raised. 30
Mr. Shikada: The nature of an issue which people care passionately about. Thank you 31
for your time. 32
Chair Greenfield: Let's allow public comments for the four people who have their hands 33
up now. We'll give you 3 minutes. If you can keep it to less, all the better. Thank you. 34
Mr. Do: We have requesting to speak the following, and then we'll close the speaking 35
period. It will be Winter Dellenbach, to be followed by Rabbi Amy Eilberg, to be 36
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followed by Carlin Otto, and the last speaker will be Jill Onan. Winter, if you could 1
begin your public comment please. 2
Winter Dellenbach: We just heard a litany of mitigations that would need to be made in 3
order to protect the wildlife, the habitat, the rare plants, etc., to protect this park and 4
preserve. We also heard and know that in Palo Alto we have about a $40 million budget 5
shortfall and cut back services, libraries, Children's Theatre, all kinds of very serious 6
cutbacks. I don't see how we are even having this conversation in terms of simply 7
opening the park in the broadest sense without strict controls on number of people. I am 8
not tonight speaking to whether the park should be open to people living in other 9
locations. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about keeping regulation of 10
numbers of people using the park on a daily basis. It seems like a no brainer to me, and it 11
seems like a really foundational regulation to keep in place. At this point, it's 1,000. It's 12
worked for years. Whether that could be adjusted a little bit, time will tell, but I'm not 13
sure we have the money to test that in a rational way that really makes sense. With time, 14
there will be more and more people wanting to use this park as population increases. At 15
this point, the 1,000 people a day should stay in place, no matter what other decisions are 16
made about this park. I think it's vital. The wildlife and vegetation come first before 17
human beings do there, frankly. If some decision gets made and sometimes Palo Altans 18
can't get in, that might be just how it is. The 1,000-person top stays in place for now. I 19
want to make one last point. I have for years fought to keep as much diversity in Palo 20
Alto as possible. I heard some commenters say something about Palo Alto that is not 21
true. We are a surprisingly diverse community. We are about 55% white Anglo and 22
about 36% broad Asian, about 4.1% Latinx, and about 1.6% African-American. Yes, we 23
could be more diverse, but we're a lot more diverse than a lot of local communities right 24
around us. I'm proud of my community. I love my community, and I love Foothills Park, 25
and I want to preserve it and make sure it is intact and we're taking care of it. We're in 26
hard economic times in Palo Alto, so we can't be spending all of this money to mitigate 27
all of this stuff. Keep the controls in place. Thank you. 28
Mr. Do: Thank you, Winter. Next we have Rabbi Amy Eilberg. 29
Amy Eilberg: I'm actually a resident of Los Altos, but I for 30 years have been a very 30
active member, teacher, and service leader at Kol Emeth Congregation in Palo Alto. 31
First, I want to echo what's been said about what an extraordinary learning opportunity it 32
was. In these areas, I'm a layperson, so I learned a tremendous amount about land 33
management on a whole host of issues. Thank you for the opportunity for learning. I 34
heartily agree with everything that's been said about the profound need to protect the 35
park. I do want to speak for the people. This park does not exist in a vacuum. This park 36
exists in a town. I appreciate the number that the previous speaker articulated, but we all 37
know that there are good historical reasons why Palo Alto is less diverse than 38
surrounding towns. At this point in the 21st century, we're in the middle of a civil rights 39
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uprising, racial justice uprising in the Bay Area and around the community. It's really a 1
stain on Palo Alto to have a policy that has disparate impact. Nobody who's studied the 2
history at all thinks the original decision was made to exclude people of color, but the 3
current policy without the proposed changes does have disparate racial impact because of 4
the demographics of Palo Alto. I'm all for preserving this gem of the park, but we also 5
must preserve the gem of the values and the people and the community of Palo Alto. To 6
continue to have a policy that has racially disparate impact is simply unconscionable and 7
reflects badly on us as a community. Thank you so much. 8
Mr. Do: Thank you, Rabbi. Looks like we did lose one speaker, so our final speaker will 9
be Jill Onan. 10
Jill Onan: Thank you so much for hearing me tonight. I want to speak about my 11
experience as a regular hiker in Foothills Park. It's a really magical place for me. Back 12
in the day, I was a fit and able-bodied person, so I hiked there regularly on long trails. 13
Unfortunately, I became disabled through inflammatory arthritis, so I'm now only able to 14
do short trails with trek poles. On a daily basis, I am confronted with unsafe situations as 15
a disabled person at that park. There is no handicapped parking at the entrance to the 16
park, which are the only trails that I can use. I can't use the steeper ones in the back. 17
There are people feeding the wildlife even though there are signs everywhere saying not 18
to feed the wildlife. There are people picnicking right over the caution tape that's on the 19
picnic tables. There are people barbecuing when barbecues are not allowed because of 20
fire danger. There are people smoking and throwing their cigarette butts out. For me 21
personally, the most terrifying experience for this whole summer has been a number of 22
bicyclists who came barreling down the trail on their bicycles and forced me to either 23
jump into the poison oak to one side or risk falling into the ravine on the other side. 24
There are no Rangers there. I can't emphasize this enough. There is no one there 25
protecting or enforcing anything. That park is rapidly deteriorating. I know that this 26
discussion was more visionary, and you're thinking about the future of the park. I want 27
you to understand, though, from a practical perspective what it's like day to day for a 28
handicapped person trying to access this place, which is so special and important to me 29
because I cannot walk well on pavement. The dirt trails we have at that park are really 30
my last refuge in this COVID crisis to get outdoors and walk. There are other people, 31
stroke survivors, people rehabbing from various injuries, who do the same thing I do. 32
They take the easier trails at the entrance to the park. All of us are feeling very forced out 33
right now. Whether or not we open the park, I have no problem with that. We need to 34
address the lack of infrastructure because someone is going to get hurt at some point soon 35
if things are not addressed the way they are now. Thank you very much for letting me 36
share my experience with you. 37
Mr. Do: Thank you, Jill. Chair, that concludes the final speaker. 38
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Chair Greenfield: Thank you, again, to all of the superb panelists we've had and to the 1
staff for your support and to the Commission members as well. I started out saying I 2
hoped we'd gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of varied perspectives and 3
complex issues, and we can definitely check that box. Thank you, again, everyone. 4
2. Approval of Draft Minutes from the June 30, 2020 Special Parks and 5
Recreation Commission meeting 6
Approval of the draft Minutes was moved by Vice Chair Cribbs and seconded by 7
Commissioner Moss. Passed 6-0 8
3. Other Commission Ad Hoc and Liaison Updates 9
Chair Greenfield: Next order of business is the Commission Ad Hoc and Liaison 10
Updates. I thank everyone for going through the panel discussion. I think this is worth 11
talking about for a couple of minutes. I would like to recommend the creation of a new 12
ad hoc group to support the Baylands tide gate project. This is a matter that Keith, David 13
and I have been participating on and meeting with the Valley Water folks in discussion of 14
the plan, which would potentially shut down the Baylands Loop Trail for over 3½ years. 15
We're working with them to see if we can find a mitigation that would reduce the 16
shutdown. It's a maintenance project that absolutely needs to be done, but we're engaging 17
with them about how to minimize the impacts to our community. I'm recommending that 18
Keith, David and I form a Parks and Rec ad hoc to continue a dialog with this group. If 19
no one has any comments about that, we'll move forward with that. Are there any other 20
comments or updates from the ad hocs? 21
Vice Chair Cribbs: It's really important to reiterate some of the work that's been done 22
this summer while we've been working on ad hocs. I know they're on the list, but it's 23
important for the Commission to take a couple of minutes, if we don't mind, to talk about 24
what's been done. 25
Chair Greenfield: Catherine, can you display the ad hoc reports? 26
Vice Chair Cribbs: If I may, let me start with the Cubberley ad hoc. We did have a 27
couple of meetings, and Kristen brought us up to date with the lease so that we all 28
understand the City's responsibilities and Palo Alto School District's responsibilities. We 29
first thought it would be wonderful to have some sort of workday to spruce up Cubberley, 30
and there are some discussions going on about that. There are a lot of restrictions, but I 31
have no doubt we can continue to pursue that whole matter. Kristen also asked if we 32
would take a look at the rental policies and the criteria for renters, who is renting 33
Cubberley, who wants to rent Cubberley, and that kind of thing. That will be quite a 34
project and pretty useful to think about Cubberley and what's going on with Cubberley. 35
Finally, the ad hoc doesn't want to lose the idea that perhaps we could brainstorm about 36
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how to get a gym that Palo Alto desperately needs on the Cubberley land that we own. 1
As a reminder, we don't have a gym; we just use the School District gyms. Those were 2
the three issues that we talked about at our meeting. All three of them are pretty 3
important, so I wanted to mention them. 4
Chair Greenfield: I agree. Sometimes the work of the ad hoc groups does get buried 5
without getting proper attention and mention. 6
Vice Chair Cribbs: I'd like to mention one other thing about the dog owners who we 7
have had several communications with. We've stalled due to COVID and staff 8
responsibilities, but there is a request that we look again as quickly as possible at the off-9
leash pilot program for a park in north Palo Alto and a park in south Palo Alto. We're 10
hoping that we can work on that in August and keep that at the forefront, especially 11
during the time of COVID when people want to be out with their dogs. 12
Chair Greenfield: Thank you. Any other comments and updates? 13
Vice Chair Cribbs: Can I add the one about our community funding? We put together a 14
couple of meetings for the ad hoc committee with specific goals about fund development, 15
which is something we've been talking about since the Master Plan. The first goal was to 16
create a comprehensive summary of opportunities for Palo Alto residents and businesses 17
to provide funding, just to make sure we had the list. The second one was to investigate 18
funding opportunities from local foundations, specifically for larger projects, to 19
encourage the community to support different opportunities, especially when we're at 20
public meetings and people say, "I'd like to contribute to the park" or "I'd like to 21
contribute to this dog park, but how do I do that?" It's really important for everybody to 22
know about that because there are people who would like to do that. We have a 23
wonderful community who still have many resources even during this time. 24
Chair Greenfield: Thank you. Anyone else? 25
V. DEPARTMENT REPORT 26
Chair Greenfield: Normally we have the Department Report early in the meeting. Given 27
the nature of this evening's meeting, Daren sent out his Department Report in advance for 28
review. Does anyone have any questions for Daren about the report? 29
Commissioner Moss: I had two questions. You mentioned something about a safe 30
parking program. I want to know what a safe parking program is. 31
Mr. Anderson: Thanks, Commissioner Moss. This was brought up at one of the previous 32
Commission meetings. It's a planning endeavor looking at a lease with the County to run 33
a safe parking program where vehicles could be parked 24/7 in this area. The area that 34
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they're looking at and working with is in the Geng Road site, near the Baylands Athletic 1
Center and closest to the temporary Fire Station. This is a fenced-off area separated from 2
the Baylands Athletic Center. They're working right now with the County on the lease 3
and the details on what that might look like. 4
Commissioner Moss: Who would use that? 5
Mr. Anderson: Program participants, people who sign up that don't have homes and live 6
out of their vehicles. 7
Commissioner Moss: You made very clear the two requirements for camps that have 8
sprung up this summer, many camps, many participants. Adults must wear masks, and 9
participants must stay 6 feet apart. From personal observation, staying 6 feet apart is 10
very difficult for children. I want to know how we're monitoring that. Is there some top-11
down directive that you're giving to, say, Palo Alto Soccer or some of those other camps? 12
Mr. Anderson: There's a mix of different ways that we try to inform the leagues and 13
coaches about the updates on County guidelines, which evolve frequently. Our recreation 14
staff pushes out the latest as reminders to those coaches and leagues. To your point, not 15
everyone is following that. I don't know necessarily if it's the leagues we're reaching out 16
to; it could be other users of the park. I hear plenty from park users that there are issues 17
with people on closed playgrounds or not wearing masks when they think they should be. 18
What we've done is share problem sites with PD, asking for their help, and then inform 19
people who are reporting these concerns to call the non-emergency police line if they are 20
seeing something that they think needs to be addressed. 21
Chair Greenfield: Anyone else? 22
Commissioner LaMere: Thank you to staff for working with the tenants at Cubberley. It 23
looked like the tenants that needed space were able to get space. That's great to see with 24
some of the changes in the lease with the District. It's nice that those that needed space 25
seemed to have been able to retain space. 26
Chair Greenfield: I agree. I know Kristen's worked hard on this and has done a great job 27
in finding a home for everyone who needs a home as far as our Cubberley tenants go. I 28
think this was sprung on her without a lot of warning. It sounds like a great success. 29
Kristen O'Kane: Thanks for that. I wanted to say thank you also to the School District 30
because they did initially state they weren't interested or didn't have the capability to rent 31
space or lease space to some of the tenants that were on their property. They realized that 32
it was quite a hardship for these tenants and for the City to find space for them. They 33
actually ended up leasing some space to tenants, and they're also renting space to some of 34
the hourly tenants. That has been a huge help for us. 35
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Chair Greenfield: It's great to see the partnership working. Anyone else? Thank you, 1
Daren. Appreciate the detailed report. 2
Mr. Anderson: If you don't mind, I want to acknowledge the Chair and Vice Chair. We 3
spent a lot of hours planning and talking together. They did so much, so I just wanted to 4
thank you both as well as the ad hoc and all the other staff. 5
VI. TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR AUGUST 25, 2020 MEETING 6
Chair Greenfield: Next up is our Tentative Agenda for our next meeting, which will be 7
August 25th. Daren, we have some prospective items on the agenda. Would you like to 8
review those? 9
Mr. Anderson: Thanks, Chair. I know we'd like to have the GIS and Ramos Park items 10
come and potentially Cameron. 11
Commissioner Moss: GSI. 12
Mr. Anderson: GSI, pardon me. The two park ones I referenced are CIP improvement 13
projects. 14
Chair Greenfield: In addition to that, we're looking to have a presentation from the 15
funding ad hoc on the items that Anne was talking about in terms of putting together a 16
first pass information sheet for opportunities for funding for the community. Would you 17
like to add anything on that, Anne? 18
Vice Chair Cribbs: No. 19
Chair Greenfield: We have plenty on tap for a very full meeting next month. 20
VII. COMMENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS 21
Chair Greenfield: Moving onto Comments and Announcements. Does anyone have 22
anything they would like to share this evening? Lydia. 23
Council Member Kou: I just wanted to mention to the Commission that I've been hearing 24
from residents in Ventura that Boulware Park needs to be observed. It's slightly 25
unsanitary. If you guys could keep an eye on that and maybe reach out to some of the 26
community leaders in Ventura and see what their concerns are, that would be great. 27
Chair Greenfield: Thank you. 28
Commissioner Moss: Because of the budget cuts, the maintenance in all of the parks has 29
had to be reduced. We have to make sure that we make the best use of that funding even 30
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though there will be reduced trash collection and weed suppression and things like that. 1
It's worth noting that we have that condition. 2
Council Member Kou: I appreciate that. All I'm suggesting is for the Commission to be 3
reaching out to the residents that utilize the park and find out more information from 4
them. 5
Chair Greenfield: Thanks. We'll work with staff to decide the best approach on that. 6
Vice Chair Cribbs: Chair, maybe we could adopt the wonderful comment we heard 7
tonight, "leave things better than we found it," as a community-wide effort for the parks. 8
Commissioner Olson: I like that. 9
Vice Chair Cribbs: And mount a quick public relations campaign maybe in response to 10
the Ventura residents but to other people as well because we did hear some things about 11
Foothills Park tonight that need to be addressed right away. Staff is already 12
overburdened and absolutely stretched. As a community, it's important to figure out how 13
to fix it using the slogan, of course. 14
Chair Greenfield: Modeling positive behavior, we can take a page out of the positive 15
coaching manual. Anyone else? 16
Commissioner Olson: I have a minor comment. I really do like the earlier start time. 17
Chair Greenfield: Something to consider. 18
Vice Chair Cribbs: Good point. 19
Chair Greenfield: Thank you, everyone, the Commissioners, staff, and members of the 20
public who are with us still. We appreciate and enjoy having an audience. Let's all go 21
into the community and leave it better than we found it. 22
VIII. ADJOURNMENT 23
Chair Greenfield adjourned the meeting at 8:53 p.m. 24
Implementation
Update
Pam Boyle Rodriguez
Stormwater Compliance Mgr.
PW Watershed Protection
GSI Plan Vision
GRAY –
traditional
approach
Transform Storm
Drain System
GREEN –veg,
soils, natural
processes
GSI
Benefits
Flow
Reduction
Pollutant
Load
Reduction
Climate
Resiliency
Community
Value
Improved
Air and
Water
Quality
Traffic
Calming
Safer
Pedestrian &
Bicycle
Facilities
GS
I
a
t
P
a
r
k
s
Suspended Pavement Systems
Public Safety Building Pilot
Sherman Avenue
Pa
r
k
B
l
v
d
Onsite Impervious Area Treated: 49,812 sq. ft.
Offsite Impervious Area Treated: 21,483 sq. ft.
GSI Plan Implementation Update
●Implementation support contract
●Impervious surface analysis
●Outreach efforts
●Rinconada project
●Rebate Program
●Southgate pilot
Item Details FY19-20 FY20-21
est.
Plan
Implementation
•Engineering Specifications
•Maintenance Monitoring Manual
•Performance metrics & baseline
$130k
Year 1
$130k
Year 2
Funding
Strategy
Analysis
•Determine feasible funding
opportunities
$58k --
Outreach Plan
and Education
•Create an outreach strategy and plan
•Promote Rebate Program
•Develop outreach materials
$70k
Year 1 -2
$20k
Bioretention
Area
Maintenance
•Support City Parks Department
•Begin to develop a trained workforce
--$80k
Year 1
Rebate
Program
•Partner with Valley Water to issue
rebates (except pervious pavement)
$3k $25k
GSI Funding
Hopkins Ave GSI @ Rinconada Park
Budget = $250K; Captures 31,323 sq. ft.
Hopkins Ave GSI
Stormwater Rebate Program
●Valley Water (as of 7/1)
●Phone interviews
●Online survey
●Website reboot
●Signage
Southgate Neighborhood GSI Project (2014)
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=17WuP8XAk71KndgvLDxeRmQDz_ydhrPZg&ll=37.43236779883761%2
C-122.15058955304107&z=18
Installed
2014
•Settling of
material
•Lack of plants
and ecological
value
•Broken
irrigation
system
City/Grassroots Ecology
Partnership Pilot Objectives
●Increase community
awareness and engagement
●Improve function of
bioretention measures
●Reduce demand on City
maintenance crews
●Support standardization
●Increase pollinator species
●Beautify the neighborhood
Pilot Location: Sept. 2019
Phase 1 (GrE & City)
●Site rejuvenation (end of October)
●Monitoring
●Adaptive management
●Limited public engagement
●Signage
Phase II (TBD)
●Next sites (~ late spring)
●Integrate San Jose Conservation Corps (GrE
grant from Valley Water)
●Train and educate
●Increase community engagement
●Pilot stewardship program
Coming Up
●Coastal Cleanup Day (Month)
●Green Streets Symposium (3 webinars):
9/10, 9/25 and 10/8
●Stormwater Permit Draft
●S/CAP webinars
●Social media ads
●GSI website reboot (~ Jan. 2021)
TO: Parks and Recreation Commission
FROM: Public Works
DATE: 8/25/20
SUBJECT: Ramos Park Renovation Project
RECOMMENDATION
Staff will present a draft park renovation plan and results of the community input meeting to
the Parks and Recreation Commission. No action will be taken.
BACKGROUND
Capital improvement Project (PG-14000) with funding of $271,000 was approved by City
Council in 2017 to address park maintenance and renovation needs in Fiscal Year 2019.
The renovation includes replacement of the playground equipment, replacement of
benches, trash receptacles and drinking fountain as well as accessibility improvements and
possible renovations to the large paved area.
As part of the City’s continued effort to provide restroom facilities in parks, Ramos Park was
identified by criteria in the Parks Master Plan (2017) as a park in need of a restroom.
Capital Improvement Project (PG-19000) with funding of $350,000 will be used to install a
new restroom facility in the park and will be included in the renovation project’s scope.
The first community meeting was held on January 29, 2020 at the Cubberley Community
Center. A total of 32 community members attended the meeting. The meeting goal was to
obtain community input on the project scope of work and to determine a location for the
proposed restroom. The community was asked to provide input using a series of sticker
boards. Stickers were used to identify a restroom location in the park and to answer
questions regarding the desire to have a restroom, use of the playground and striping
improvements to the large concrete paved area. The results are included in Attachment
‘B’.
Upon completion of the first community meeting, an online version of the community survey
was released for those who could not attend. As a result of the community meeting, four
additional questions were added to the survey. These included questions about security
lighting, the extension of the concrete pathway to East Meadow Rd., the addition of
native/habitat planting in the park and if a defined dog park should be added to the park.
These topics were brought up by the community in the first community meeting and were
added to the survey for further input.
The online community survey was open on February 3, 2020 to February 28, 2020. A total
of 167 community members responded to the on-line survey. The online survey results are
included in Attachment ‘B’.
The Parks and Recreation Commission reviewed the project on February 25, 2020. The
Commission was supportive of the restroom location, the idea to include playground
equipment for children (6-12) as well as children (2-5), the addition of native planting along
the East Meadow street frontage and discussed the addition of a dog park to the scope of
work. The dog park discussion explored the idea of providing an off-leash dog area
(unfenced) at the open grass area along the eastern edge of the park as a pilot program.
The off-leash area would include: Signage (rules, times of operation and map of area), a
waste bin, a 42” tall black clad chain link fence running parallel with East Meadow Drive
placed in a 25’ wide native planting area replacing the turf along the street frontage.
A second community meeting was held via webcast on August 13 at 6:30pm. A total of 12
community members attended. A revised proposed plan was reviewed showing the
following proposed park renovations items per Attachment ‘A’.
New playground equipment with (2-5) and (6-12) equipment
Stripping the existing paved area with a basketball court
Native planting along the East Meadow street frontage and the park entry off
Ross Rd.
Extension of the concrete pathway to E. Meadow Drive
Restroom location (location B from first community meeting)
A defined off leash dog area
New site amenities
ADA Improvements
The majority of community members were supportive of the proposed renovations scope
for the project. A request was made for more benches to be added to the park, which can
be considered based on funding as well as making the restroom one stall instead of two,
which is still being explored, and discussed.
DISCUSSION
Staff requests input from the Commission per the proposed park renovation items and
further discussion concerning the off-leash dog park area use times and process of review
and parameters for determining if it is to continue after the pilot is complete. Staff suggests
the Dog Park Ad Hoc continue the discussion to finalize the off-leash rules, times and
process of evaluation of the pilot plan.
NEXT STEPS
• Architecture Review Board Restroom Review: August 2020
• Community Meeting #3 (if necessary): September 2020
• PRC Meeting #3 – Adoption of Park Improvement Ordinance (PIO): Fall 2020
• Bid Document Preparation: Fall/Winter 2020
• Council to Adopt (PIO) and Approve Contract: Winter 2020
• Project Bidding: Winter/Spring 2021
• Construction Begins: Spring 2021
POLICY IMPLICATIONS
The proposed recommendations are consistent with Policy C-26 of the Community
Services element of the Comprehensive Plan that encourages maintaining park facilities as
safe and healthy community assets; and Policy C-22 that encourages new community
facilities to have flexible functions to ensure adaptability to the changing needs of the
community.
ATTACHMENTS
Attachment A: Proposed Renovation Plan
Attachment B: Community Meeting #1 input and on-line survey results
Attachment C: Presentation
PREPARED BY
Peter Jensen
Landscape Architect
City of Palo Alto
PALO ALTO PARKS AND RECREATION COMMISSION
AD HOC COMMITTEE MEMBERS STAFF LIAISON Update August 2020 Meeting
date
Baylands 10.5 Acres LaMere Reckdahl Olson Daren Anderson
Cubberley Cribbs Greenfield Olson Kristen O'Kane
Projects & Fund
Development
Cribbs Greenfield Moss Daren Anderson Funding ad hoc met and are working on a report to
present to the commission in September for
discussion. Report will summarize all community
groups who support CSD, the opportunities to
support small, medium and large needed projects as
aligned with the parks master plan.
Foothills Park LaMere Olson Cribbs Daren Anderson Foothills Park Ad Hoc met with Daren to discuss next
steps and brainstorm revenue neutral opportunities.
Park & Facility Use Policy Greenfield Moss Reckdahl Adam Howard
Park Improvements Cribbs Moss Daren Anderson Peter Jensen conducted the second and final
community meeting regarding Ramos Park
improvements. Issues discussed included
playground structures, restroom features and
placement, as well as off leash dog park
area. Cameron Park plans have also been
distributed, as it is next up.
Recreation Opportunities LaMere Olson Reckdahl Kristen O'Kane
Baylands Tide Gate Greenfield Moss Reckdahl Daren Anderson
LIAISON MEMBER(S) STAFF / CONTACT
Aquatics Cribbs Jazmin LeBlanc
BCCP Moss Daren Anderson Aug 6th, a meeting was hosted by Jr Museum and
Zoo and Environmental Volunteers to discuss new
interpretive signs to be installed along a newly
named Friendship Trail following the Bay Trail
roughly from Cooley Landing Park south thru East
Palo Alto to Lucy Evans Center and Boardwalk to the
EV Center. Mid Pen and Grassroots Ecology and
Lisa Myers from city staff attended. There will be
roughly 20 stations along the route with dozens of
signs covering topics as diverse as marsh flora and
fauna, climate change, flood control, sloughs and
tides, Ohlone Indian presence, salt making, cities
and counties, and other history since 1850.
Community Gardens Olson Catherine Bourquin
GSI Moss Pam Boyle Rodriguez Met with GSI staff who will report to PRC
tonight. GSI sent out their first community survey
Aug 19th to raise awareness of the initiative.
PAUSD / City Reckdahl Kristen O'Kane
Safe Routes Greenfield Rosie Mesterhazy
Sustainability Olson Christine Luong
Field Users Greenfield Daren Anderson
Urban Forestry Greenfield Reckdahl Daren Anderson
Ventura Coordinated Area
Plan
Reckdahl n/a
Youth Council Cribbs n/a
Golf Reckdahl La Mere Lam Do Met with Lam Do to discuss Baylands Golf. Course is
doing well. Currently in the third year of a three year
contract.