 live stream and you may begin. Hi, I'm Carol Quant. I'm the Chair of the Board of Community Services at this point in time. I'd like to welcome you all and introduce the board, which is myself. Next I see Pamela and then Terry and Carolina and Sandra. Thank you all for being here on this way too lovely and afternoon. Also joining us today, we have Jen Santos, Deputy Director of Parks, Mary Lou Nichols who keeps us all together and is in charge of many, many things. And Emily Anders who is helping with the presentation and also helping with notes and keeping us on track. At this point, I'd like to ask the panelists and the presenters to please silence your cell phones and keep your microphones muted. If you're not speaking, members of the public who may be joining us will have their webcams and microphones muted if you're joining the meeting and you choose to speak during the public comments portion of the agenda. For privacy concerns, the host will rename you to caller and only the last four digits of your phone number will be shown. Also the City of Santa Rosa is committed to providing a safe and inclusive environment which is free from disruptions and we will not tolerate any hateful speech or actions. Everyone is expected to participate respectfully or if necessary, the meeting will end immediately. Madam host, will you please explain how public comments will be heard at today's meeting? Thank you, Chair Kwant. At each agenda item, the item will be presented. The chair will ask for board comments or questions and then at the appropriate time open the floor for public comments. The host will lower all hands until the public comments item is open. Once the chair has called for public comment, the chair will ask the public to raise their hand if they wish to speak on the specific agenda item. Those joining by phone may dial star nine to raise your hand. The host will then call on those who have raised their hands. Public comment is limited to three minutes and a courtesy timer will appear on the screen. No email comments were received by the posted deadline for this meeting. And with that, I called this meeting on February 24th, 2021 of the Board of Community Services to order at 4.04 in the afternoon. Due to the provisions of the governor's executive orders N2520 and N2920, which has spent certain requirements of the Brown Act and the order of the health officer of the County of Sonoma to shelter in place to minimize the spread of COVID-19, the Board of Community Service members will be conducting today's meeting in a virtual setting using Zoom and practicing appropriate social distancing. Members of the public may view and listen to the meeting as noted on the city's website and as noted on the agenda. Madam host, may we have a roll call please? Yes, please respond when I call your name. Chair Kwant. Here. Board member Griffin. Here. Board member Hayes. Board member Spence. Here. Board member Van Helsima. Here. Board member Wandel. Here. Thank you. And with that, I'd like to open the floor to public comments on nine agenda items. This is the time when any person may address the board on matters not listed on the agenda for today, but within the subject matter of the jurisdiction of the Board of Community Services. Madam host, do we have any public comments for item three? Hands raised. Madam chair, thank you. Thank you. So we're gonna go on to item four, which is the approval of minutes. Are there any edits or corrections to the minutes from January 27th? Seeing none, the minutes are approved. Now we're gonna go on to the upcoming events and reports of accomplished events and we're gonna turn it over to Deputy Director Santos. Hi, Jen. Thank you, Chair Kwant. I do have, you all have received the attachment of the upcoming and accomplished events, but I do have a few things to add this time. So if you'll allow me some of your time to give you some updates for upcoming events, I also would like to add to our list coming up on March 10th, 2021. The next in our series of Measure M Parks for All meetings is scheduled for Northeast Quadrant. And I believe that is happening at 5.30. Of course I did not write that part down, but all of this information for anyone listening is available on our website. And I will follow up with this board on the exact time. And you'll also all be receiving invitations to this meeting as well as council members will be receiving invitations to these meetings as well. So the other meeting that I'm talking about is another Measure M meeting for the Southwest Quadrant and it's scheduled for March 18th. And I do believe those are at 5.30. And I'm gonna take a minute and hopefully out of time ask our host, Andrew, if she could let us know what time those are because she's been helping behind the scenes making all those happen. Both meetings are scheduled at 5.30 p.m. You're correct. 5.30 p.m. Okay, thank you. I was like, I know she knows. So I really appreciate that. So again, March 10th for the Northeast Quadrant Measure M meeting and March 18th the Southwest Quadrant meeting. We are still working with potential hosts for the Southeast Quadrant Measure M meeting. So there's three more Measure M meetings. We just haven't scheduled that third one. And then we are also going to schedule an all Spanish meeting, which is super exciting. So we're working with a potential host for that meeting. The meeting on March 10th is being hosted by the Santa Rosa Parks Foundation for those of you that have met Kim Link as part of that board. She's also part of the Visit Santa Rosa downtown. So she's really connected with the city. And I'm really excited to have her as a host for that meeting. And then LAN paths will be helping us facilitate the Southwest Quadrant meeting. So lots of information looking forward to those meetings. They've been a long time coming. So really exciting news. And then a couple of things to add on the accomplished events section. On February 10th, we staff attended a meeting with the Biela Elementary School regarding Dutch floor park improvements. So Dutch floor and Biela share a boundary and they're really connected. So we wanted to reach out first to the school district to hear what they had to say about our potential updates to revise the two playgrounds there and the fitness equipment. So a really great time. And we received a lot of fantastic feedback from the students and our consultants walked the students through what we were planning to do. And we received some interest for swings and sand were really popular. And then on February 18th, we held our official first kickoff meeting for Dutch floor park virtually, of course. And we went over, our consultant did a fantastic job going over our proposal to remove and replace the two playgrounds and the fitness equipment. And those of you may know when we do something like that that means everything that attaches to those items needs to be ADA compliant. So there'll also be some pathway improvements and other picnic tables and stuff but we're also looking for, we also don't just stop there. We ask the community, is this all you would like in your park or would you like something more? So we really dig in and ask the questions and we did receive a lot of feedback. There's also gonna be a survey posted online this week on our website for those who missed that meeting so they can provide their feedback if they missed that opportunity on the recon parks website. And we were fortunate to have council member or vice mayor Natalie Rogers attend as well as three of our board members here. The Carol Cooner board chair and we also had Terry Griffin and Pamela Van Helsema. I believe we're all there. And if I miss somebody, let me know, but I appreciate that. So we wanted to make sure those got added to that section and that's the end of my report. Thank you, Jen. We're gonna come right back to you and ask you for director updates. Thank you chair Quant. And I do have a hefty amount of updates. I'm gonna try to move through them pretty quickly but I did send out a email and form you all of our new chair appointed by the mayor on February 9th and congratulate chair Quant and also thank Terry Griffin for her term as chair during COVID which was really frustrating for us all but I just wanted to thank you both. We are gonna be placing the vice chair item on the agenda for March. So be thinking of your nominations for vice chair and so we'll look for a nomination from the board and look for you to appoint or elect somebody as your vice chair going forward from our board. With that said, related to the board as an update, we are, I just wanted to let you all know we are really working closely with the clerk's office to remind council members that they still do have vacancies here. We still do need reappointments for those of us that are, those of you that are still on the board and I am hoping that we will see those soon but we are working closely with them and we are trying to keep track of all of that information that's coming from the clerk's office and keeping you all updated. So the other thing, the updates on the second of February, the staff took the Bennett Valley Golf Course study item to council and essentially that is, that was a proposal to look at a study that would include all 175 acres of both Galvin Park and the golf course to look at different potential options for utilizing that space for recreational, the same recreational uses as well as potential versions of golfing. And we placed this item on the agenda. I know there's been some questions about how did this get there so quickly but we did, we had some interest in getting to council quickly so that they could hear this information prior to their fund prioritization meeting that they had scheduled on February 9th. So we really wanted to get this information out there to them so that they could think about that. And so during that goal, during that study session, we did receive some feedback to return to council with a professional services agreement to have a consultant look at studying the 175 acres and what is possible out there. All of the studying includes some version of golf. We are also going to return to the council with options for leaving things as they are and what that would look like for us financially. So I know there's been a lot of discussion about save the golf course but I just wanted to clarify here tonight. Hopefully that does clarify some of this that we, it's a process and our study session was an open conversation about what possible things could happen out there. There's lots and lots of meetings that have to happen before we return to council with that item. So hopefully that provides a good update. And then we also had last night at council approval of the professional service agreement with Gates and Associates for installation of the play spray ground to replace the waiting pool at Finley Aquatic Center finally. We also received approval for calendar and associates to provide a study of all of our park land infrastructure and amenities as part of a previously approved initial and long-term plan for Measure M. So part of the Measure M process was council's approval of all the outreach that we're doing and this deferred maintenance study was part of the picture of moving forward. So it's taken us some time to get here but we finally did receive approval for that. The initial estimate that was presented to council during the initial and long-term priority plan was between two and 200,000 and 300,000 and calendars proposal was right in the middle of that. So just wanted to give you an update on that. So stay tuned as meetings are proposed or anything associated with those comes forward we will be including you all as well. And the Roseland master plan, I know there's probably questions about what's happening with that. And I wanted to let you know that since we now have a district and council we have been working with council member Alvarez who is really taking the reins of this project and helping us connect with the community in really unique ways. I had the pleasure of sitting in on one of his listening sessions that he scheduled and it was really amazing to watch his ability to communicate with folks that aren't used to communicating in a public forum like that. And there actually is a, he's conducting another listening session with parents of Roseland Elementary tonight right after this. So I'll be joining in and my role in that is just listening and following how things are going and we'll be working with council member Alvarez to wrap that up soon and come back to the board of community services. I really hope we can get back to you all in March at our March meeting. If that can't happen because maybe more we need to collaborate more with the community then it'll be April. We're trying to get this wrapped up as soon as possible and bring it back to the board and then subsequent to the council with that. Some exciting news is that we've received an announcement from the Sonoma County Ag and Open Space Districts matching grant program. They are recommending inclusion of our grant application for a place to play ball fields in their matching grant program. We applied for $2 million, we're receiving $1 million but it still is a fantastic news. We're super excited when we can combine funds with other resources and not use entirely our own. And so that will put us at two ball fields so that's multi-use ball fields, soccer, baseball, all the sports, all the leagues we're gonna try to get some sort of artificial turf out there as well as some restrooms. We still need to do a lot of fine tuning with them but that recommendation is going to the Ag and Open Spaces Advisory Committee tomorrow at five PM and if any of you would like to attend you can check out the web link sonomaopenspace.org and from there you can click on get involved and public meetings and their public meetings for tomorrow's meeting is listed there. So that's February 25th tomorrow, five PM the Ag and Open Space Advisory Committee and they'll be hearing our project as well as I think five or six other projects that are being recommended for inclusion in the matching grant program and then they'll be meeting the Ag and Open Space District will be meeting again with their fiscal oversight commission on Thursday, March 4th at five PM and it's the same website if you're interested in attending and following along it's www sonomaopenspace.org slash get involved slash public meetings and I went I was able to navigate they're really easy today to find it so it's pretty easy but if anybody gets lost just email me I'm happy to forward the link or also have that information on our website as needed. I will be there at both meetings to listen in and see if there's any questions for us. And just a few more things. February 11th, the train at Howard Park passed our state inspection it's always a nail buyer every year when we have to pass inspection for the train and so recreation staff are gearing up and preparing staff to work the train during COVID with all the restrictions and in the hopes that we'll get to a point where we can open that train in the near future we don't have any indication that it's gonna be able to open anytime soon but we're just getting ready for it just in case. And we also you'll hear some information from our recreation team about merit awards at our agenda item but we have received permission to hold a virtual ceremony and you all did receive invitations for September 20th at seven PM for our virtual merit awards which are really exciting and I know our record team will give you a little bit more information about that today. And last but not least we, you all did receive some notifications about ethics training if you are due for new ethics training. So just wanted to remind you to make sure that you sign up for that training if you need it if you receive from something from the clerk's office that's because you're due for new training. That concludes my director's section. That was a lot Jen. I know, I'm sorry. Thank you so much. That was a lot of information. Could I ask staff to send links and dates for the listening sessions and the open space? Put that all in one email and send that to us so that we have it at our fingertips. Thank you. Of course, yes I will do that. Perfect, thank you. In the Q&A section, because there's so much and we're going back a ways, I'd like to break it down both for the upcoming events which you talked about about 10 minutes ago and then the director updates because they both had things of some merit and I happen to have them up on my screen. So I'm just gonna quickly say the upcoming and accomplished events had permits for soccer field use, Carbingo, the virtual St. Patrick's Day 5K run, swim meets for the high schools, a spring break camp, accomplished events had some fields being opened and spring programs and spring Wattom and the aquatic classes continuing a lot going on. Does anyone have any questions or discussion on that segment of Jen's presentation? Raise a hand if you do. So I of course do and Terry, you go first. Thanks Carol. Jen, just a quick question on the swim lessons that have been booked thus far. It seems like that number is low. Is are people not aware that swim lessons are now available or is this typical for this time of year? Sorry, I am muted, sorry about that. I would very much like for Kelly Magnuson to respond to that if possible, but I don't think that this is typical for this time of year, but she might correct me. I'm wondering if she's available to respond if our staff can promote her and she can chime in here for this very reason is why we have her nearby. Don Hicks is also available. Okay, Don Hicks, that would be perfect. He is our aquatic supervisor. So I'm gonna stop talking and I'll let Don answer that. I'm not seeing Don now. Oh, I'm so sorry, shoot. I can see Don here on my list. Let's see if we're, looks like we might be having a little bit of technical difficulties, but if he's not able to answer, we can certainly get an answer back to you. I'm just afraid to comment too much without having the exact data for that. Excuse me, but I believe Don is here now. Okay, thank you. Don, are you able to hear us? Don, you're muted. Are you able to unmute? I'm sorry, he must be having some issues over there. Could we circle back around when that's resolved? Great. Did you have any other questions, Thierry? No, that was it, thank you. So while Don's coming on board, Jen, would you like to tell me about Carbingo? Carbingo. Let's see, let me make sure I can have my information here next to me for Carbingo. Let's see, I don't think I have anything more than what you have there as well. So that's another one where I would turn to our recreation deputy director if she is available because this is something that's a little bit new. So I am making sure I don't give you incorrect information. And there we go. Oh, our recreation supervisor, Jeff Tibbitt, there we go. Hello. Hey, Jeff, can you give us an update on Carbingo? So yeah, I'll give you the information I have, but it's not my program that we were discussing at this morning. We did purchase some equipment and FM transmitter so that we are able to broadcast audio through FM signal. So I believe we started with 20 cars for registration for it. I believe it starts next week, but I don't have all that information, I'm sorry. I believe this morning we had 18 or 19 people already registered for it. Our hope is that it will become bigger than that, that we're able to extend to 30 or 40, but being something we've never tried before, we thought it'd be better to start with 20 and see how that goes. So yeah, it'll be starting up. We've got all the equipment. We have staff doing a test run with it tomorrow to make sure we're doing a lunch bingo with staff to make sure that everything's ready to go for the seniors next week and we're excited to creatively try to do everything we can to bring back some programs and get people engaged as much as we can right now. Thank you. I look forward to an update on that and maybe cruising by and having a look-see. This looks like potential fund for a lot of people. Any other questions for the upcoming events and accomplished events? Then we'll move on to the second part of Jen's discussion which was the director updates. Any questions on that? So Jen, I wanted to ask you about the Bennett Valley golf course and our potential role as members of the Park and Rec Advisory Board. And if we have a role or if that's for us to decide just some input and is it appropriate for us to discuss that? So thank you. And I'm not sure if I have an exact answer to that. So for more information, for more background, the task of looking at the options for the golf course that include changing the way it operates out there are coming from our real estate team. And I'm not sure and I'm kind of looking at Jason Nutt if he wants to add anything to this but there should be time to return to this board. But I am actually, we haven't had a chance to talk about our potential next steps related to that. I know there's a lot of listening sessions going on with council members and a lot of things going on that Jason might have a better response or a better information than I do if he wants to chime in. There he is. Sorry, Jason. No worries. Good afternoon, Chair Quint and board members. Yeah, the Bennett Valley golf course has been an interesting discussion over the last few weeks. We are actively trying to determine how we're gonna proceed with a study that was requested by the city council during the study session. There's a lot of misinformation going on out in the community right now. There's just, it is pretty rampant with the amount of false statements that are being prepared. This particular study does focus specifically on trying to find a way of financially supporting the operations out there, not elimination of. And I think Jen gave you that information. We do have a couple of touch points for the council. The first one's going to be the authorization of the contract itself. And because it exceeds my authority as an assistant city manager to approve council we'll need to take action to approve the contract itself. Once we get into the process there's gonna be a series of conversations that we're gonna have with the community. And I expected the Board of Community Services will be an active participant in that as we look to make recommendations on different types of study components whether it's the study that our outside team will be doing or whether it's study that our internal team will be doing looking at how we can ensure the long-term stability of the golf course and the community recreation facility immediately adjacent to. So I hope that answers your question about kind of where we're at and what type of additional conversation we may be having with the Board and with the council. Carol, you're muted. Thank you for that, Jason. At this point, I think we are potentially interested observers, nothing more, nothing less as Board members. Do you have an approximate timeframe for when our involvement may go up when the public engagement as a whole may start up so we can put that on our potential calendars or potentially have new Board members who may need to come up to speed pretty quickly. Yeah, it'll be later this spring is the anticipation. We're expecting that we'll be sometime toward the end of March, maybe early April before we're with council just getting approval to act on the contract itself just because of the timeframes it takes us to get to council. We're about six weeks of lead time. And so then it'll be sometime after that after the different teams start getting rolling and collecting information. We're gonna be looking for community feedback and information from the Board as well. If you feel it's appropriate since I know this specific item wasn't agendized here if you'd like to have Jen and I come back at your next meeting just to give you kind of a similar sort of study session type of briefing, I think we'd be happy to do that just to let you know what it is we talked with council about. I mean, I'm happy to come and make that happen. I would appreciate that. I think that would be really good. And also as these dates come up just put them on an email to us so we can start marking them on our calendar in advance would be very helpful. And I'm assuming I attended the Mayor Rogers meeting with the community several weeks ago and to say that it was informative in the amount of misinformation was mind blowing but also very informative. And I feel that the more hands who the more ears that can be made available for listening the community is so engaged and so concerned that I would like us as a board to be able to offer our services as extra ears on this as active parts of the community who are concerned. Chair Kwant, I just also along that lines I will let you know that I believe the community action group that's formed around this particular issue has requested that Council Member Sawyer and myself participate in a Zoom meeting Friday evening. And so if you're interested certainly go on to the Facebook page that they've created and I'm hoping there's information about how to join that discussion. So on that note, I've already joined that Facebook group they're very, I'm one of the 3000 they're very willing to take people in. I've read a lot of comments I've read a lot of misinformation and you'll be pleased to know I have kept my mouth shut but I was planning on being there for the Friday night with you, Jason Nutt and John Sawyer. I think Jack Tibbetts may also be planning something. And I have been in conversation with my city council person Victoria Fleming just as her representative on the Board of Community Services. So I know her thoughts. And I hope everyone on the board has the opportunity and inclination to reach out to their council person to see what they would like you to potentially do on this. It's big, I'm sorry, it's bigger than I would have imagined. Thank you for that. So anything else on Director Updates? Okay, we are going to move on to our scheduled items and item 7.1 is the volunteer program, park monitors and park permits with staff members, Jeff Tibbetts and Kim Hatch. You guys have the floor. Thank you, Chair Kwant. Can everybody hear me? My name is Kim Hatch and I'm the recreation coordinator for the volunteer and park permit programs. Last March, I prepared a typical presentation for you on the accomplishments and achievements in these programs, but before I could present the presentation COVID hit and everything changed. In 2020, what we did was no longer allowed. And if we had only focused on what we have done in the past, this presentation today would already be over. Instead, we went back to the basics and asked ourselves, why do these programs matter to our community? Today's presentation will include what we accomplished in 2020, although it is less than usual. It will also include how we achieved these accomplishments despite numerous obstacles. But most importantly, it will focus on why we value these programs as the why is the lens through which we base the entire structure of these programs. It is what guides us through challenging times. In 2020, the what was less, the how more challenging, but our why has never been clearer. Next slide, please. Starting with the volunteer program, I will answer the questions, why, how and what in the year of COVID. So why is the volunteer program important to our community? It's important because we believe in building community through recreational programs. Volunteering is a recreational activity. It's an activity which people choose to do in their leisure time. And yes, most people choose this activity for fun. Our volunteer program unites members of our community from diverse backgrounds to work together for a common goal of making our city a better place to live. But what makes our volunteer program unique for other than all other volunteer programs in the community? What only the city can offer is a sense of teamwork and bonding between citizens and their local government. This is our why. This is the lens through which we develop our volunteer program. At the beginning of any volunteer event, I always start by gathering the volunteers around and I introduce myself and I tell them what we believe in Brecken Park. At every event, I ask if anyone is new to Santa Rosa and someone always is. I invite the group to welcome the new person to Santa Rosa by introducing themselves and showing them what it means to be a Santa Rosa community member. After the safety talk and project guidelines, I tell everyone that I hope they walk away from this project, not only with a sense of pride and accomplishment, but having made at least one new friend. One of the first volunteer Park and Month events I worked was at Brush Creek Park. The picture you see off to the side of the two women painting the fence is from this volunteer event. The women pictured were both not only new to Santa Rosa, but they were new to our country. One being from Japan and the other from India. They were around the same age. They had both been in the country only a few months, both lived in the neighborhood and spoke English well, but had not made many friends and came to the event interested in getting to know their community better. I don't know if they became friends after the volunteer event, but I like to think they walked away with a sense of pride and belonging to the Santa Rosa community and having made at least one new friend. Next slide please. So how did we run the volunteer program with COVID? I love the two pictures on this slide because they capture the volunteer program before and after COVID. I took the small photo at our Martin Luther King volunteer event in January of 2020. We had 120 volunteers at this event, all within six feet of each other, sharing tools, snacks and drinks. Four months later in May of 2020, you see our first post-COVID volunteer activity in the rural cemetery. A small group masked spaced well apart, bringing their own tools, snacks and drinks. As you can visually see in these two pictures, the pandemic has changed how we conduct the volunteer program dramatically. At first, while the volunteer program was closed completely, I focused on creating guidelines and procedures for COVID and specific volunteer programs, such as Scouts, Community Gardens and the Merritt Award. Part of our why is building relationships between citizens and their local government. These guidelines create clear expectations with a goal of teamwork between volunteers and the city. I've included those new guidelines and handbooks in your packet of documents that was emailed to you. Once the county lifted the stay at home health order and landscaping was deemed essential, we knew we needed to reestablish our existing volunteer groups. We started by creating a COVID safety and facial covering volunteer guidelines, which I've also included in your email packet. We wanted to roll the guidelines out slowly by starting with one group, the Rural Cemetery Preservation Committee. We chose them and they're pictured here. We chose them because they were established, organized, independent and provided essential fire abatement work to the city. In the beginning, we limited volunteers to five per shift scheduled throughout the week. We provided the group with masks, gloves, disinfectant wipes, hand sanitizer and COVID guidelines. We met with each volunteer before starting their shift and went over the COVID guidelines before issuing them a volunteer vest. Once we felt comfortable and confident in the COVID safety applied to this group, we slowly branched out to our other volunteer groups. We also decided to offer some virtual volunteer opportunities. For example, we had a photo call out where we asked the community to send photos on a particular topic such as turn your 2020 lemons into 2021 lemonade or tell us your Santa Rosa love story. You might have seen these call outs on City Connect. We had student volunteers compile the photos and create a photo slideshow for the city to post. We also came up with a virtual MLK week of service where volunteers could unite as one in cleaning up our parks, the independent on the location and time. We also tried and were unable to hold the virtual 2020 merit award ceremony on Zoom. But as Jen mentioned this year, the merit award committee was able to get city council approval to host the virtual event and you should have received the save the date information. We will be taking nominations starting April 5th. Lastly, we looked at the skills of our existing volunteers that our existing volunteers have, but weren't unable to utilize due to the COVID restrictions and asked them to use these skills in other programs that we could provide to the community. For example, the rural cemetery preservation committee puts on the dark side and the lamp side tours. Unfortunately due to COVID, these events had to be canceled, but we still had a group of volunteers that loved to act and dress up. So we asked these volunteers to participate in our COVID safe community holiday drive through events and they knocked it out of the park. They were fantastic. I have included the January issue of the cemetery newsletter in your email pocket if you would like to read more about this event from the experience of the rural cemetery volunteers. COVID undoubtedly was the biggest challenge to how the volunteer program ran in 2020 and will continue to be a challenge for 2021. As we recover from COVID, we face another challenge to the volunteer program with frozen positions in both recreation and the parks divisions. This year has been manageable due to the limitations of COVID, but as the restrictions ease, some decisions will have to be made about what recreation programs we can support. Next slide, please. My focus on the why of the volunteer program should not diminish what our volunteers accomplish and the service they provide our city. Volunteers provide the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in volunteer labor. Even in the year 2020, when we did a fraction of our standard volunteer program, the volunteer hourly value to the city was over $100,000. I'm proud of the numbers listed on this slide and what our volunteer program was able to accomplish. But above all, I am proud of our volunteers. On this slide are four of our rural cemetery volunteers before and after our Halloween at Howard the drive-through community activity. Volunteers were asked to set up a Halloween booth and then be a character in the booth, kind of like Macy's holiday window display. When we asked the rural cemetery preservation committee to set up a booth, they jumped at the chance and their one booth soon turned into five. We knew the community was looking for a safe way to celebrate the holidays, but we had no idea how popular this drive-through activity would be. We planned on the activity taking three hours, but the cars kept coming. I kept asking volunteers if they needed to leave, if they wanted a break, but they kept going and going and the cars kept coming and coming and closing in on five hours, we finally saw the last vehicle through. As you can see in the after picture, we were all exhausted in the end, but what you can't see is we were all giddy with happiness at the feeling of community we had all been desperately needing. This activity was free to the community and we could have not have done it without our fabulous volunteers. Next slide please. Moving on to park permits, a different program. We have two whys for the park permits. Like the volunteer program, we believe in building community through recreational programs such as park permits. We also believe that park permits make life better. It is these two beliefs that have formed the why of the park permit program and guide us in every decision we make. Park permits are recreational programs organized by our community that bring people from all walks of life together strengthening their bond while establishing a strong community identity. Park permits range from small family picnics of 20 people to large open to the public community events of 5,000 people. Our larger park permits get the most attention and require the most work. Still, the small family gatherings and picnics are just as important because everyone's first community experience is with their family and friends. To us in park permits, permits of all size benefit our community equally. Yet we also believe that parks make life better which means that parks are of value to our community and the city must protect them from abuse for future generations to enjoy. Over the last 10 years, unpermitted events and gatherings in city parks has gotten out of control with people setting up larger and larger tents and jumpies. Tents and jumpies not properly staked can break irrigation systems which will go undetected until the surrounding grass or landscape dies. While nothing makes us happier than to see the community use the parks we wanna provide guidelines and direction to protect them from damage. Not every gathering requires a park permit but the gatherings that set up equipment in the park do and our community benefits from this process. Next slide please. Moving on to how we did park permits this last year. At the beginning of 2020, we were coming out of our slow park permit season and ramping up for what we anticipated as our busiest year to date. It was not. COVID hit and social gatherings of any sizes what size were prohibited. At the time 90% of park permits were social gatherings. Well, the health order did not allow social gatherings. It did allow us to issue park permits for kids camps, youth sports practices, adult fitness classes, businesses that could be done outdoors, food service and COVID testing. To make sure the park permit addressed all health order guidelines we required a site specific safety plan and created a worksheet to help them walk through the health order requirements for running a recreational program outside. I've included this document in your email packet as well. We were happy to provide local businesses a park permit as an option to continue to serve our community safely outdoors. However, we understood quite quickly that park permit fees were an additional burden to our already struggling businesses. Working with economic development, we proposed an 80% COVID-19 hardship discount on ongoing park permit fees for local businesses. City council approved this discount last year in December. The discount is good through June 30th or until we reach the yellow tier, whichever comes first. Since December, 15 park permits have applied for this discount. And as the weather improves, we looked forward to many more businesses taking advantage of it. This year, we also rolled out our new park monitors, which you can see pictured on this slide. Our park monitors staff have been essential in the running of the school of rec at the Findlay community center complex, especially while we had the social distancing shelter in the parking lot. Park monitor staff were closely with the shelter security to address any safety issues in the park. During the day, they would patrol the park, picking up trash, searching for sharps, removing graffiti, directing people away from the reserve tables, sanitizing the tables and working on small park maintenance projects. While the park monitors have been focusing on the Findlay park, they work in other parks placing A-frame reservation signs up for all of our park permits. They also have been assisting with the volunteer program when park staff is unavailable. One of the challenges we face with the park permit process is balancing space for permits with space for public use. More than ever, the public has come to appreciate our city parks and the outdoor recreational opportunities they provide. With each park permit, we are trying to save space for public use while ensuring that the park permit can operate under COVID health order safety guidelines. One of the park monitor's job duties is to resolve reservation issues with park permits as they occur in the park, and they have been doing a great job. Next slide, please. Lastly, the what of the park permits. Thank you for allowing us to return to the game we love. This is a photo collage and a thank you that was sent to us from the Empire Volleyball Club after issuing them a permit to hold their volleyball practices. This is just one of the many thanks we've received from our community this last year. The parks permits listed on this slide are not our typical park permits. We could not do what we normally do, but our why never changed and what we did do mattered to our community. Next slide, please. Thank you for inviting me to speak about the volunteer and park permit programs. I'm proud of how we were able to support our community this last year. Looking to the future, we still face the challenges and unknowns of the pandemic. The volunteer and park permit programs will be in recovery mode through the end of 2021 and possibly even longer. We are also aware that the community is desperate for social gatherings and longs to help our city heal from the damage of the pandemic through volunteer service. We can see the surge coming. It's just around the corner. We want to meet the needs of the community. However, we face staff challenges with frozen positions in both recreation and parks. How and what we do with the volunteer and park permit programs will be affected by these challenges, but the why will remain the same. We believe in building community through recreational programs. We believe that parks make life better. Thank you. Next slide, please. So I'd like to, Madam Post, if you could add Jeff Tibbets for the question part. I'm going to jump in here and ask if we can do questions first just about the volunteer program. And when we're done with that, we'll move on to the park program. Questions from the board or comments from the board on the volunteer program. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation, Kim. That's just great. What types of activities do the volunteers typically perform in the parks? I assume a lot of it revolves around landscaping, but I'm curious if there are other activities that the city allows volunteers to perform and what those might be? Yeah, it typically is landscaping. We do have an advanced volunteer program where we do allow volunteers to do some additional equipment, but they have to go through a training first. And so that will include like weed whacking and some more power tools. And what about, I was a creek steward for years and one of my responsibilities besides picking up trash was to replenish the dog wastes bag box. And I've seen on next door in my area some interest on the part of the community for having those boxes installed in city parks. Is that something that might fall within the volunteer program and is that doable? So it is a process to have anything permanently installed into a park and it has to be approved through Jen Santos. And then we have to get the approval through the park department because they will have to maintain that structure as well. So that is in the realm, but it is a longer, harder process. Okay, and then my last question is, I noticed there were seven volunteer groups on one of your slides for the parks. I assume those are all park specific? They were all parks. Yes, we are only, during this time, we're only focusing on volunteer work that can be done outside. We are not doing any volunteer work in the buildings. And those groups, are they formed sort of organically or are they formed through, outreach through by the city? I assume that somebody within the neighborhood probably expresses an interest to the city that they'd like to volunteer in a park and they form the group, is that correct? Yes, that is correct. Yeah, these are mostly people who reach out to me and then want to put together a proposal and then we work with them. These are all groups that have done an adopt a green space agreement with us, but it is usually driven by the community, not us. Great, thank you very much. Yeah, just quickly chime in on that, Jeff Tibbets, Recreation Supervisor. Something that's unique, I think with our volunteer program is a lot of time volunteer is directed by the organization saying this is what we want and volunteers sign up for it. And within recreation, there's really a good balance of it. We have programs that we put on, whether it's a special event and we get volunteers to support that special event or our park a month program where we set a schedule of parks that we're gonna go to and recruit volunteers, but we also have rural cemetery and all these other groups that have formed their interests in their projects and we're able to support those as well. So it's really a unique volunteer opportunity where it's a combination of both. Any other questions or comments from other board members about the volunteer program? I was just going to piggyback on that last note about kind of how spontaneously some people just begin helping and maybe not even are aware that there is any sort of volunteer program or what I would not like to do is discourage somebody from helping pick up trash because they haven't registered with the city. You know what I mean? So what is the delicate balance between that? I even think about Mary Traversa who has been the theme of some of our earlier meetings and how she cared for a space. And I'm not sure if she checked with the city first. Maybe she did. If she was allowed to take care of some space and doing it with goodwill and charity in her heart. So how can we strike that balance? We're like, wow, this is so cool. People really want to take care of this. Like I'll go and clean up the beach, but I don't check in with an authority first. I just like pick up plastic on the beach. Yes, no, I appreciate you bringing that up. And it's something that Kim and I have discussed a lot. I have been overseeing the program for almost three years now. Kim's been a little over a year. So we're still learning a lot too. Like you said that there's so many groups that just naturally do things. And you know, as horrible as the pandemic has been for all of us and struggling through it, everything's an opportunity. And I will commend Kim. She's done a great job of taking advantage of that opportunity. So many things she's done behind the scenes that no one in the community will ever really understand with our volunteer hub, which is our online database for volunteers, updating forms, doing different things to try to streamline that process. And we know that sometimes someone wants to do something and then they get the city involvement. It's like, oh my gosh, now I have to fill out this form. I have to do, I have to check all these boxes. And so really, I think a good job with that. And in addition to making it harder for them, one of the reasons it's important for us is there are the waivers and stuff that do need to be done. But Kim put up the stats. There's so much that we're missing and we know that we're missing so much. And we want, I mean, the volunteer is, you know, two and a half years in, I'm still finding out things. It's like, oh my gosh, we are so lucky in Santa Rosa to have everything that we have and how much our community steps up to the plate. And we are, and two and a half years in, there's still so many things that I don't know that are happening there. Or I know that they're happening, but we're not able to capture it all. And so we've done a lot of work with that where, you know, hopefully as we roll things back out, we'll be able to work with these groups and streamline the process for them that they could get an email every month. You know, they're in the database. They get an email every month that they click on a link and they submit, I did 10 hours picking up trash in my park this month. And it just, you know, not a process that's burdensome for them, but a process that allows us to have them set up the right way and allows us to next time report out that it's not, you know, $140,000 value, that it's $250,000, $300,000, you know, and really start to capture that data better. I would like to add also that, like, we do have volunteers signed up in our program that do pick up trash. And when I meet with them, it's not to make their life difficult, it's actually to help and tell them what the city can do to provide them service. Like we've arranged for garbage, like for someone to pick up the trash and then leave the bags and then we'll have staff come out and take them away. We give them flags to like mark if they find a sharp. We give them pickers, we supply them with tools. So we really are trying to make it a teamwork effort and show them what the benefits they get by going through our program. But I always encourage people to pick up trash wherever they are. So people are free to do that. Anyone else? A couple of comments, number one, I do volunteer at one of the parks. It is one of the highlights of my week. And I encourage all of the board members to volunteer at a park. And if nothing else, when volunteer events come up and you see it on your Facebook page, hopefully everyone is Facebook friends with the park and rec department share, share the event. Ask, go to the event, ask your city council person to go to your event with you and not go to the event and wave, go to the event and pick up garbage. Go to the event and be part of the community. Let the citizens know that we are all in this together. And at this point, I'd like to say, hey staff, what could we as a board do to help with the volunteer program? And board members, what do you think we could do to help foster the volunteer program? Well, yeah, I think you really touched on it perfectly is, I think Kim and our presentation address the fact that it's a way for our community and our local government to come together. And so support with it, to be honest, the how we're doing is obviously still being evaluated. So the how we do it is probably hard to give you an answer of supporting how this group could support. But again, that why I think is what could be supported right now, why are we doing it? Let's get our community leaders out there. If you are, again, there's different ways to follow if you're interested in getting onto the database of volunteer hub and then there's a calendar and stuff that you can see and say, hey, this is in my council members neighborhood or something. I'm gonna make sure they're aware of it or those types of things. Please, you can reach out to Kim and she can help you get set up on volunteer hub if you're not already set up on there. And then as we continue to move forward and Kim mentioned, we do have frozen positions and stuff and so far that impact hasn't been felt much because our operations, we've shifted, we've been doing this school of rec. We haven't been doing facility rentals. We haven't been doing a lot with contract instructors. Park permits has been totally different. Youth sports and adult sports has been canceled, but those things are on the verge of coming back. And as those come back, then we have to circle back around, how do we get back to what we were doing and then, oh yeah, we've got to get back to it with less resources. And so as we get through that process, certainly if there's things that come up along the way we can certainly update this group and say, you know, different ways that this board might be able to help with those challenges as we get to the next, how are we going to do it? Carrie? Thank you. That actually brought to mind a question I have. So I guess, what is the balance in terms of your need for volunteer effort during COVID versus a normal year? Are you actively seeking more volunteers to help with city parks right now? Or would you prefer that people wait until life resumes a little bit more normally? And I just wanted to understand the balance there. Yeah, so no, we're not actively recruiting right now. We're working within the volunteers that we already have established because of COVID. Bringing in new volunteers would require a lot more face-to-face contact and communication, which we're trying to avoid. And we absolutely can't do open-to-the-public callouts for events because we can't control how many people would show up. So right now, we are not recruiting. But as soon as things open up, we definitely will be doing that. Thank you. Yeah, just to touch on that a little bit, I'm sure everyone is familiar with our purple, red, orange, yellow tier system. Essentially, as long as we're in that, the volunteer program is going not just as long as we're in purple, as long as we're in that tier system in general, the volunteer program is going to be impacted by that. Because even up to the yellow tier, there's still restrictions on how many people can gather. And so that puts us in a place where we can't do those open-to-public gatherings. Hopefully, as we get further along there, it'll be easier for groups to organize projects. And they can have pre-registration. We have this group of 10 people that want to do a project. And as we work up, hopefully, we can bring back more of those programs. But that open-to-the-general public is really going to take a while until we're at the point that we're not hand tied with the limitation of people. Because again, we're very fortunate in Santa Rosa. We do something like our MLK cleanup. And over 100 people show up. So we know the success that can happen when we put things out to the public. And unfortunately, we're still very far from being able to have those type of numbers. And what is the process for getting hooked up with the volunteer hub? So we have it on our website, our Wreck and Park website. And there's a link. And you can sign up and make an account. And it's nice to have an account because it lists out all of our events. Right now, those events don't exist. But in the future, they will. And you'll be able to see what volunteer activities we have. And we also can put a call out to our existing members if we are looking for a particular skill set. If staff would add that link to the growing list of websites and dates that they're providing in an email to the existing board members, that would be great. Moving on to the second half of the presentation, which was park permits and park monitors, I'll start by saying I didn't even know there was such a thing as park monitors. But questions and comments from the board on the park permit and park monitors during COVID. Terry? Thank you. It's probably a post-COVID question, but is it possible that the park monitor position could be filled by a volunteer? Or is that really strictly a staff role? So OK. I was going to say, it is a challenging role in that they do have to communicate the rules to the public in a way that the public can hear it, but they cannot enforce rules. So it takes a very skilled person and it takes a person who has really great customer service. And I would hate to put a volunteer in that uncomfortable position. I can see us having volunteers that maybe support the park monitors, but the park monitors really should be addressing any issues that are taking place in the park. I will also tell you that I tell my park monitors that they are the bartenders, not the bouncers of the park. So they tell the customers what the rules are. They provide excellent customer service. They try to solve any problems and make the person happy, but they do not enforce or cite or kick anyone out of the park. So I would say it would not be a volunteer position. And to expand on the position a little bit to not knowing that we had them or what exactly is the role, we haven't had them. It is something that's new, and it's something that we brought on with the intention of it doing something very different. And hopefully, in another year, we could present a little bit more on what they're doing in terms of that, and it's really tied to the park permits and Finley Park in particular, where a lot of unpermitted activities have historically taken place. And so the idea was really more eyes on the park and more support, but they're also with those large events, they're doing things like unlocking barricades when vehicles are allowed in. So there is some high liability things that they're overseeing that would certainly require a staff person as well of unlocking, allowing vehicles to drive in. And that group has submitted a vehicle plan of which vehicles are coming in, what time are they coming in, what's the path that they're driving against. So we're not breaking irrigation. We're not driving over roots of oak trees that will shorten their life and those types of things. So it is definitely a, it's one of those hows that shifted very much to supporting rec send, but there is hopefully soon a whole another plan for what that position is going to be as well to increase and provide even better customer service to our park permits and to protect our parks for everybody. Any other questions for the staff on the park monitors and park permits at this point? Real quick, one more thing I'll add is one of the problems we've always had is we know our parks are most used on the weekend and we need eyes on the park in the weekend, but we know our maintenance staff need to do maintenance and it's hard for them to do that when the parks are busy. So we've always had this struggle of our maintenance staff are in the parks when they could do maintenance, but that means we didn't have as many staff in our parks when they're being heavily used and we need eyes on the park. So that's really kind of what created this and was something that changed and the money was moved for it and created for this program in the 1920 fiscal year budget, I believe. Thank you, great presentation. I would like to invite you both back to give another presentation later in this year. We may have some new board members. This is really important stuff you're doing and possibly there will be more opportunities as we get out of the COVID situation. Thank you. Please, please hang out. Do we have any comments from the public on this item? Madam Chair, the only hand raised is from Don Hicks to answer Terry's earlier question. So no, there are no public comments on this item. Thank you so much for that. And Don, thank you for sticking around to circle back. Can you hear me? Good afternoon, Chair Quint and board members. I apologize earlier. I was on my desktop computer that did not have a camera or a microphone and I was just listening to the meeting. But to answer the question regarding swim lessons, with difficult times with the COVID pandemic, so in the design of our swim lessons, we're unsure what tier, whether we'll be out of the purple, most restrictive tier. And so we've put together our swim lessons with the caveat that a parent is gonna be in the water with their child and the instructor is gonna be on the pool deck instructing the parent and the child. And so that has resulted in limited numbers of lessons that can be offered and a limited number of space. We were unable at this time because of the restrictions to have upper levels. So we're focusing on our shallow or pool. And we have had some parents sign up their children and go, oh, so I have to get in the water. I've changed my mind. Can I cancel my lesson now? So we are getting the word out and there is quite a good number, we're pleased that are starting to sign up for swim lessons. So we will see where we are at in March 22nd when we start our spring lessons and hopefully they will fill up more. Hopefully that answer your question. Are there any other questions related to swim lessons? Thank you, Don. If there are no other comments from the public or from the board, we're gonna move on to item 7.2, Parks Capital Improvement Project Budget Update from Director Santos. Jen. Thank you. And while staff is loading that presentation, I just wanted to say thank you to Jeff and Kim. I'm so glad you got to hear from them. They're amazing staff members and they've really taken charge of the volunteer program and promoted it and organized it, created procedures for how they work. And I really enjoy working with them and a few times that there's something that's more of a capital project related to volunteer, but they do a great job promoting that. And I will add also that having worked in a couple of different agencies, this city is amazingly lucky how wonderful this program is and how many participants and how many Santa Rosas are willing to spend time, donating their time and volunteering to do things to make their city better. So they really do a great job. It's a wonderful program. And just wanted to say a little thank you. Okay, so let's get started with capital improvements. So this is every year I bring you what we've been doing and sort of and really look at our new allocations for the capital improvements. And I sneak in all this other information about what we have been doing all year long. So we're gonna talk about things now and we're gonna talk about our allocations for the next budget season, which starts July 1st, 2021. Next slide. And so as a reminder, not that anybody could forget, but we did a complete coffee park last this fiscal year. So last year in October 28th, we opened it to the community and it's been very successful. It was a huge community effort as Pamela can probably attest. The community was very much involved through every process part of this process, which was really fun for us because we got to describe everything we're doing along the way and get their feedback and input, which is really valuable through that process. So if you haven't yet made it to coffee park, definitely stop by and check it out. Next slide, please. And so one of the lesser known projects that we have recently completed is also we did an update to those table, those benches, those picnic tables that you see in the photo near the carousel. So that was part of a ADA or those with American Disabilities Act, so building requirements related to that. This park was updated to accommodate that better. So now if there is anybody, there is a concrete platform under one reservable picnic area up there. And then we have put a few concrete pads under some tables and shifted them around so that it doesn't end up as a mud pit underneath the table when you're out there from a picnic area. So this is an area that's reserved. There's section A, B, C and D, and you can reserve this and there's a bouncy jump house that's there and the carousel, super popular outside of COVID. And so we're really excited about this project. It brings this whole area into compliance with current building codes. And that project was mostly funded out of the ADA program that has been established, as well as a little bit of funds from the Park Development Impact funds from that zone. Where are we at? We're in the southeast quadrant for that. Anyway, so that's an update for this section. The next slide, please. And I also wanted to talk about Kiwana Springs Community Park. A few years back, this board helped us approve this master plan and we had a little bit of funding left over from the landscape architecture firm. And we also had a strong desire from the community to implement the community garden portion of this master plan and we had just enough funds available to do that. And so we have been working with the community gardeners that used to garden at Taukay Street and some near a school there and they were kicked out of their space a few years back and they've been searching and trying to accommodate themselves around the city. And we're happy to bring them back here and we are still just finishing up the design phase of this park working with the gardeners that will manage this community garden. And we hope to implement that this year. But right now at least the design has been kicked off and we should be finishing that up soon. So, and that's also in the yellow area of your screen where the master plan is showing the yellow area is actually the community garden area of the master plan along Kiwana Springs Road. So next slide. And a couple of smaller projects we've done here we were able to change out the trellis at Luther Burbank home and gardens. If any of you had been there in the last couple of years you'd see the trellis was leaning and was propped up with boards and relatively unsafe when we'd been wanting to get this changed out and we were able to install through our in-house construction team this new trellis and we painted it this green color at the request of the Luther Burbank home and garden board who has selected this color for a variety of things throughout the garden. And so super happy that that's complete. Next slide. And even smaller project we also installed some new LED lights at the tennis courts at Howard Park at a couple of tennis courts at Howard Park. So if you go out there and you take a really close look you can really distinguish the new LED lights are very slim and thin. So it's actually really hard to get a good picture of that. And the other older lights that use more energy are the bigger rounder lights that out there. We do have plans to try to change out all of those tennis court lights at Howard Park. We've done something similar to with the lighting at Galvin Park for the tennis courts there in previous years and we're getting over to this park. It takes time and funds. So we're getting to them as we can but super excited if you haven't seen that yet they're very popular and the tennis and pickleball players are really excited. So go out and take a look at that. Next slide. So those were just a few highlights of some of the things we have accomplished and some of the things we're working on related to capital expenditures. And I feel like I've shown this map to you a bunch of times but essentially this is taken from the general plan and it's showing all of the parks in the city as well as any proposed and future parks in the little tree symbol, the red tree symbol. And so this is just a reminder of how our funds are collected in the city that we utilize for capital projects. This is one of the fund sources that we use. And we're looking at four quadrants there. The dark line in the middle is highway 101 from the top of your screen to the bottom and left to right is highway 12. So we've got four quadrants there and anytime a developer is coming in to develop a residential area, they have options of either building a park or park land or funding in lieu fees that are things we use for capital projects and existing parks and for acquiring and building new parks as well. So just a little reminder of where we get our information from when we plan park projects. Next slide, please. And here's a little bit better graphic to kind of help you separate what those quadrants look like. And I fully, I zoom in a little closer on the upcoming slides but essentially we've got four quadrants divided by highway 12 and highway 101 and you've got the northwest quadrant is highway, is quadrant one, quadrant two is the southwest quadrant and the northeast is quadrant three and the southeast is quadrant four. Hopefully I got all those right. And again, so that's how the funding is collected and when we receive funding in one of these quadrants the funding goes back to fund projects done within those quadrants. That's how our code is written. You can combine funds from all these districts when you have an amenity that provides a service to the entire city or something that's unique that you would only find one of maybe in the city such as a carousel. So that's, if we were gonna install something like that that's really unique. So those are places where you could look at combining funds for the greater good of the city but generally the funds stay in these quadrants are used in these quadrants. So next slide. And so we're gonna focus in on the northwest quadrant here and we tried to put it mapped together to kind of isolates that quadrant just as a reminder why we're talking through them the physical location is in that northwest quadrant. And so what we want to bring to you is actually near the bottom of the slide the proposed allocations for the coming budget season for fiscal year 21-22. We receive from the finance department an amount of funds that can be allocated to projects in this quadrant. And so that number is down there 1,054,192 dollars. So that is the amount we have received for this quadrant. And how we look at allocating that is based on what we're already doing there and their future needs, the council's priorities and other interests that we have received from this board, from council members from the city manager's office from a variety of places as well as we look at what is potentially needing replacement in this area. So that's how we look at it. So one of the things we're doing here in quadrant one is dedicating some of the funds to Fremont Park as well as Dutch floor park. And so that's where those allocations are living. And up above there, you'll see existing budget ongoing zone one proposed allocations. And so this is a snapshot of funding when we put the slide together. So you can see a place to play community park has about a million five available for combining with hopefully grant funds we received from the Ag and Open Space to install our play fields we have up there. We also are looking at collapsing some of the existing keys like Bicentennial Park and looking at moving those to our collector key for that and I'll explain that. So each of these quadrants we have a key that holds funds and we can also spend funds out of that right now. If you look down at the very top list you see Dutch floor park Northeast improvements. And I'm sorry, it looks like we have a little typo there but it's supposed to be Northwest improvements. And so that key will hold funds that we get so that we can allocate it when we actually have a park. And the past practices of the parks section was to go ahead and allocate to keys in the hopes that we could get to a project like Bicentennial Park. And so the thought process is to at this point go forward and start to collapse some of these projects that are hopeful and hold the funds in that quadrant and allocate as we actually have projects moving forward. So it's really clear what funds we have available and what funds are still held up in the current projects. So the other thing is that as we work through these projects we do make changes. We move funds from one project to another in order to fund the priorities that are ongoing and our priorities are changing just as our parks are being utilized and things become in need of replacement such as at Dutch floor we have equipment that's ready for change. So we have move funds into that project. And so altogether including all the funds we already have including the new allocations we have about a little over $6 million, $6.7 million in this quadrant to spend on these projects as well as future upcoming projects. So we'll go to the next quadrant, next slide please. And so just looking at the Southwest quadrant I spent a little bit more time on the last slide because we're going through and explaining so it's the same kind of thing. If you look down towards the bottom section where it says proposed allocation for fiscal year 21-22 in zone two, we did receive a little over $465,000. And as I mentioned before we had decided to go ahead and place that entire allocation into the holding key the Southwest play zone equipment key so that as projects come up we have funds available to utilize towards projects that have a priority in them. And so it's actually a pretty small amount compared to last year's funding in this quadrant. So it makes sense to put it in this holding key so that we can make sure we're utilizing it for the best and highest use. And some of our existing projects we have here we have a little bit of funds left over from Bear Neighborhood Park that we'd like to utilize for a small project. And we did have some ideas previously about updating Pear Blossom Neighborhood Park and going out for that but it's one of those projects that was on those past hopeful project keys and it's not anything we're able to engage in immediately so we'll probably reallocate those funds back to our holding key so that they can be brought out of that holding key and utilize for actual projects when they're coming forward. And so the South Davis Neighborhood Park we would like to apply for a grant with that and combine those funds. So that's a project we definitely wanna do that will replace the play equipment at South Davis Park and install some new equipment. So we're looking at combining those funds we have there with future funds from a future grant application we're hopeful for. So again, all together total for existing funds and our new allocation is 3.5 million a little over 3.5 million that we have there for spending. And so we'll go to the next slide please. So this is moving into zone three the Northeast quadrant and we do have down at the bottom there you'll see an actually pretty small amount, $157,000. I mean, small is relative to me that's an enormous amount of money from a project standpoint it's a bit smaller. So we are once again looking at placing that in our Northeast zone play equipment it's maybe the best way to describe it is not holding key because it's certainly not being held we want to utilize these funds for the priority projects we have but we also don't want to make a snap decision about something we can't move forward with. So we place that there and can utilize those funds for any project needed in this zone. So it is a lower amount than last year this just means there was less development in this zone than is typical. And so we receive less in lieu fees for this. So we do have the Doyle Park renovations project that was a project that was another hopeful project it's a little farther down on the priority list but it is something we want to get to as well as Franklin Park and Julia Park and Luther Burbank Home and Gardens has a little bit of extra funding available for it that was part of the roofing project. And I'll just remind this board that there was also some general fund monies dedicated to the Luther Burbank Home and Garden Re-Roof project that council took back to the general fund last year to stabilize the general fund. So this is the remainder and it's not quite enough to fund that roof project. So that roof project did stall and is on hold until we can look at how we can move forward with that in the future. And if the council might be willing to refund that if not, we'll regroup and look at what our options are moving forward. There is an emphasis to look at things downtown from a council priority perspective. So we are looking at Julia Park, Luther Burbank and Doyle Park renovations as things we would like to get to sooner than later and they are on our list to get done it's gonna take a little bit longer to get to them but we do have those as priority. So we'd like to leave these keys as they are right now. And so all told again things, the funds we have existing as well as the new allocation we're looking for on July 1st, 2021 is about a million five in this zone for future projects. Next slide, please. And so same thing with our zone four, quadrant four Southeast quadrant. This quadrant actually received quite a bit of funding I was really pleasantly surprised. It's always nice when we can get a good allocation and combine our funds and do something really fantastic for this area out here. And so similarly, we are holding those funds in the Southeast play equipment. I say key, it's a location where the funds live in this quadrant so that they can be distributed for priority projects as they come up. And then if you look at the ongoing zone for proposed allocations as of February, 2021, Galvin Community Park has borrowed most of the funds that is in that key from zone three. So this is part of an effort, an ongoing effort to kind of clean up some of these keys where for whatever reason I actually have no exact data on why this money was transferred over there but we will be trying to get those funds back to zone three and leave this Galvin Community Park key available should we need it. And the Kiwana Toke Park, the $99,000 is for our community garden that we have going on up there. Oh, I'm sorry. That was leftover from a allocation for that park and we will be combining it with our Kiwana Springs Community Park key where we have about a million dollars to do some future implementation at that park. And Peter Springs Park was a park we were hopeful to try to do some new park planning out there and it's a little bit lower on the priority because it's not in one of those priority sections where we have a lot of unsafe equipment and it's not necessarily, it's not a downtown priority project. So it's one of those we cannot wait to get to these projects but it's a little bit farther down on the priority list. So we might return that to the main holding key so that we can be more strategic with how the funds are being represented. And that's really all it is. It's just a representation of all those funds are there for whatever the city's needs are related to parks, park improvements. But this is just how we are trying to hold them in those keys. And so those are the ongoing and the new allocation is quite a bit. So we have a 4.6 in the southeast quadrant of the city which is fantastic. And we'll be looking at prioritizing projects in that zone as well. So the next slide please. And so we also have like to do a little bit of other non-development fee sources. And what that means is these are funds that we have been allotted to use that are not from our park development impact fees. So for the Northwest quadrant we have an allocation of about $37,000. We have been working with the Railroad Square business owners as well as the benefit district that was established in this area to look at potential small improvements to the existing park, Railroad Square Park with these funds such as improvements to having new trees and lighting and things like that as well as support of an art project that's planned for down there. So we're working with that community to look at although it's a small amount it can have a huge impact on such a small park. And so for the Southeast quadrant we still have holding and available about $500,000 in the Howard Park fishing peer floating dock available from the ADA fund. And so those are those funds that council appropriates each year should they choose to do so. And last year they did not choose to appropriate any funding for this. And so this project's a little bit on hold as we try to focus on is council going to fund this ADA fund going forward or should we look at strategizing with the funds we have now? So it's holding there and available for that was the next project on our list of things to do. If you have seen the peer and the floating dockway they definitely need some improvement at Howard Park. So we're hopeful that we can move forward with that if council does allocate or maybe a portion of that project may be able to be completed. We also have about $150,000 for the Colgan Creek playground equipment. A few years back an errant vehicle drove through some of the play equipment out there. And so we're in the process right now and I'm hopeful to be posting the play equipment on our website soon that the community selected to be installed as a replacement. So this is a little bit different is just a complete take the existing out and replace what's there we're not expanding the play area. We're just replacing. So we're going to use a portion of the general funds we've received for replacement of that. And in the Northeast quadrant we had the Rincon Valley dog park updates. We were hopeful to get rolling. And so that was to if you go to the Rincon Valley dog park there is an ADA or American with Disabilities that compliant pathway to the main dog park but not to the small dog park. And so this actually requires some changing of fencing and some installation of some concrete paving. And so we're really hopeful to move forward with that project this year, but those funds that's why I put 2019-20 we were hopeful to actually do the project in that fiscal year. And then we do have six fire damaged parks designed that's just a holdover from the FEMA and FEMA funding we had that I probably should have updated a little bit more but essentially that is a park that a project that is ongoing that we will receive FEMA funds for. And it's for the last remaining parks that were fire damaged from the Tubbs Nones fire. So that's Rincon Valley, Rincon Ridge Park, Rincon Ridge Open Space for Ridge Park, Nagasawa Park, Francis Nielsen Park and Parker Hill Trail. So those projects are combined into one project so that we can have a good solid project for bidding purposes. And we do have a little bit of funding there available for that. And then the Luther Burbank Home and Garden Funding Source 95,000, I left that in there we actually were able to update the previous slide in this show. So it's a little bit more than 95,000 we have, I'm sorry, 95,000 was from the General Fund, I'm on my wrong page here, I'm sorry about that. And so these were the funds that were actually removed from council and then we have $110,000 from the Park Development Impact fees available for the project. But that project was removed and we're looking at ways to strategize on how to look at funding for that or look at alternatives for other things we could do at Luther Burbank Home and Gardens with those funds. And then the citywide fire damage roadway landscapes, that is all our 13 acres of roadway landscaping funding we have from FEMA allocation. Those funding numbers will definitely go up once we complete the project because then we'll have actual numbers. Right now those are estimates. And so when we have actual numbers, FEMA does pay for the actual cost of the project. So hopefully that gives you a good idea of some of the other funding sources. And the next slide, please. And so the main point for today was just to kind of give you an overview. It's definitely not a deep dive into every project that's going on out there. It'll be a much longer presentation. This is a summary of the funding source for our park development impact fees just as a quick reference for you. So if you look at the zone one allocation, 6.7 million is definitely the most amount of funds we have as well as the zone two allocation proposed is almost $4.6 million for the Southwest zone for zone two and the proposed allocation. And these numbers are for combined allocation as well as existing project funds. For Northeast is 1.5, 7 million. And then for the Southeast, it's 4.606. Just as a reminder, it's kind of nice to see it in a summary format. And then the total allocations as well as the existing allocations from previous years are about 16, a little about 16 and a half million dollars we have. And we are moving as quickly as possible to actually allocate these two projects that can have traction and move forward and be constructed and work in the community and match the council's priorities as well as our safety needs in the parks for updates as well as looking at strategies for acquiring new land if that's something that's needed like in the Southwest potentially. And so it's just essentially an overview. Our long-term strategy is to create a five-year capital improvement plan. That is a long-time goal we've had in this section and we're very anxious to hear back from the community after the Measure M meetings that we're conducting that are upcoming to give us some sort of information back from the community on what the community's priorities are. And we'll combine that with what the council's priorities are as well as combine it with our look at the parks deferred maintenance or safety issues. So all those factors contribute to how each project gets allocated, but the funds live there ready to be allocated for future projects. And I know that's a ton of information. I'm always trying to find a better way to provide this information to you all because it is confusing and it's a lot of information but we'll move to the next slide and that is the conclusion of the presentation. And I'm happy to answer any questions you might have about our capital projects. Thank you, Jen. I think I speak for the entire board when I say tremendous job and an awful lot of information. What I request and with the board's permission what I would like to ask you to do is go back to slide one and we'll do a lightning round. And if anyone has questions on a particular slide raise your hand. Jen, if you pause like five or 10 seconds and see if there's any hands raised and I think we can probably get through this on an item by item basis. Jen, if you just stand in control at the helm as it were until we get to the last slide, thank you. Of course. So we have our meeting hosts slowly rolling through the slides at the beginning but certainly if there's anything particular I know it's a lot of information and I welcome any feedback you have to for future years presentations on how we can reduce the amount of information you're getting at once so that it's more easily digestible. I had a question. I had a question about the zone one allocation chart that you had up there. And I was trying to figure out why Fremont Park is in zone one. I probably heard that once but. Yeah, you know, I actually was looking at that myself and I think that it was just an error in where this information ended up that your right Fremont Park should be, I think, zone. It's easy to find zone three. Yeah, I know, I just realized that too. I was like, wait a minute, though we don't actually have Fremont Park in. So I think it's, it was probably just a slide error on where. I was in another meeting earlier this week where there was a city council member who said sometimes the park's monies are shared between quadrants and I was trying to figure out, wait, is that what's happening here? But I don't think so. No, I appreciate that clarification. Yeah, we'll update that information. The Fremont Park project will be in zone three. I believe I'm trying to think about this in the maps. One, two in my maps, but yeah. So I think we just got that backwards there on that slide. Okay. So yeah, I thanks for pointing that out. We aren't anticipating sharing funds. It does happen. We do often share if there's gonna be a need, which is why you saw in zone four some of those funds need to be returned to zone three. But in this case, yeah, it looks like there was an error in that slide, right? Because as we get closer down into downtown, those quadrants get really tight. Yeah, yeah. There's probably just an error in where that ended up. So my apologies, we'll adjust that and resend out the information so you have the correct information. I had a question about the downtown area and maybe this is not under your jurisdiction, but Prince Memorial Greenway, is that an area that your funds would cover? I know that there's some issues with repair needed in the artwork center there, the public art and the general maintenance of that area. Yes, well, what could happen there is, so actually that's a really great question because I think I forgot to cover that is that maintenance is not something that's covered with these funds, but repair equipment, replacement, that kind of stuff, replacing things that are unsafe is like a capital project fund, something like anything that's considered a capital project, no matter how small it is, these funds can be used for that, they can be used for studies and things like that related to capital projects. But so if we did something like replacing the plants or something like that or replacing trash cans or doing some other big improvement at Prince, the Greenway, that's something these funds could be used for and allocated for. But for the maintenance part of it, that would be great, but yeah. So if there's damage to the fish mosaic, for instance, would that be an insurance issue or would we need to get a grant to restore it? How would that work? You, it can be combined forces. We, you know, the Art and Public Places Committee does have funds every year that they can allocate. It's a smaller amount, but they can allocate for things like that, like repair of art projects. And that's where we would look to first, if it's something like new art. So for instance, at Railroad Square, I mentioned there is an existing art project that was done there. And there was a lot of changes here at the city. So the project kind of went on hold. So the parks will probably have to put in a little bit more than what we had originally allocated for that fund, but it's supporting the art. So it's not funding the art itself, but it's supporting the pathways will need to, that park looks very flat as a pancake, but it's actually has a little bit of slope just enough. And it's such a small park that even the littlest slope creates these ramp situations. So what we were looking at is changing some of the slopes out there just enough so that we could have flat, a flat pathway up to the proposed new art that was being installed there. So that's how these funds support art. But we'd first look to the Art and Public Places Committee for those funds. Thank you. Yeah. I have a question about zone three. Jen does Courthouse Square fall within this CIP allocation plan or is it completely separate? No, it actually is not completely separated. That is another type of park. We have all these, you know, we've open space and all these different types of parks. So Courthouse Square is another type of park where these funds could be spent. So absolutely. You're muted Carol. I wanted to ask about the zone for Railroad Park, Railroad Square, that's also listed in the Northwest. On the last slide, I think, when you talk about the funding for it, it's in the Northwest zone, excuse me, Railroad Square, which zone is that in? Oh. It's also listed in Northwest at this point? Right, it is. Is that right there in the? I think that's one of those things where it should be in zone, I'm getting all mixed up here, but I think it should be in zone one, yeah, which is the Northwest quadrant, that's right. So that is downtown is considered Northwest. So. That segment of downtown. I know, right? So as we get closer downtown, it gets really, I have to like actually get zoom into the map, but yeah, so Railroad Square is West of Highway 101. So that is in the Northwest quadrant. Yes. Yeah, I know. I do the same thing. So it is hard to when you get really zoomed in and with all of our focus, you know, with a lot of our focus for downtown and what we can do there, we'll definitely be making sure that we, you know, we do have a list of parks per quadrant too, that helps the staff make sure we're getting the, getting it right, but we often make mistakes too. So yeah, it's the Northwest quadrant because it's West, just West of 101. Thank you. Any other questions or comments from the board? We are kind of running up against the clock. Terry, thank you just very quickly. Jen, once these allocations are approved by council, I assume that's done as part of the budget process. Is that correct? That's correct. And then once you start getting information from the major M community meetings and from the calendar study, I assume that we'll have some impact on allocations going forward. Is this dynamic? In other words, do you have to wait until the next fiscal year to make changes to the allocations based on that information or can you do it prior to the 22-23 fiscal year? Actually, that's a really great question and I'm gonna try to be quick. Yes, we can make those allocations anytime during the year. This is a snapshot in February, 2021. So this, if I came back to every month, you'd see something just maybe a bit different every two or three months depending on what comes up. So we are thankful that we have the ability to allocate from at a staff level. We do look for recommendations from this board. If you, or if you have any comments and then we look to counsel to essentially approve the new appropriation in zone one, in each zone. So they're approving that those new allocations already to be placed into those keys. And then the spending from there comes back to them in forms of capital projects for their approval. Thank you, Jen. Any other comments from the board or questions? Seeing none, we'll move on to the public comment section. Oh, excuse me. I had a quick question. Is it possible when we do this kind of presentation, we could do it earlier on the agenda? Because I like, I really like to look at the stuff and I realized that, you know, it is a little difficult with the time constraint. So if that would be possible, I would love it. Thank you. I appreciate that feedback. Thank you. Any other comments from the board? Can we move on to public comments on this agenda item? Madam Chair, there are no hands raised for this item. Thank you. Thank you so much. We are going to move on quickly to committee reports. I can tell you at the mayor's lunch, which was Mayor Rogers first meeting, there was discussion of COVID challenges, board seats to fill and the need for the various boards to really step up to the plate because there's staff shortage, financial shortages turn into staff shortages. And that's where the various volunteer boards can help fill in. There was discussion about the various boards interacting more, parks interacting with the bike and pedestrian, parks interacting with art in public places, parks interacting with the waterways committee. Pamela, the waterways committee is highly invested in Prince Memorial Greenway. So if that is one of your concerns, Steve Rabinowitz, who's the chair of the waterways committee is your guy. There was no waterways meeting last month. You may have called that the waterways meetings are specific to projects that come before the board and there were no projects brought before the board last month. So that concludes the project reports, the mayor's lunch and the waterways. Do we have any electronic or written communications? Deputy Santos. We do not have any. Thank you. Perfect. Future agenda items. We mentioned having the Benne Valley Golf Course information or a future item. Anyone else? So we had talked about having a committee reduce our quorum number perhaps, and that would be something to revisit next month when we see where we stand as far as filling the board out. Also, I think it might be appropriate to talk about leash loss in the parks since we're having issues again and the parks are very highly used. Also, I would like to have a discussion amongst the board about the purpose of the board, especially now that we have more districts and new blood coming in. Comments? I would say I support that. And I just don't know if everyone realizes that I'm sticking with the board until the new city council members have appointed people. I was appointed by Julie Combs, who's no longer on the city council. And so, but I'm happy to serve until those vacancies are filled. Likewise. And we are so grateful to you for that. Thank you. Anything else? Well, I am very pleased to announce that at 5.59, we get to call this meeting adjourned. So we did it. Thank you. Thank you, ladies. Thanks, Carol. Bye-bye. Bye.