 standpoint of artificial turf or all-weather turf versus natural turf and setting the costs aside because I know installation of those fields is or conversion of those fields is really prohibitively expensive. But just from a maintenance standpoint, can you help me understand the benefits or even the cons of an artificial turf field? So as far as the means of artificial turf, there are still maintenance required for artificial turf. Some of those are what they call like combing where you have to basically, you know, dragging a machine kind of combing the field to keep the material in the right place because it can also move around underneath the top layer of the surface. Other things that happen as well as is going through and actually with the magnet and picking up any metal objects whatsoever. Again, that anything metal that gets into that could cause damage to it. So you want to continuing to like they have them set up as this basically big magnets that you have to drive over them to pick up any metal pieces. And so like and I mentioned the combing and the grooming again, a lot of it's just it's not probably as extensive as as you know, say a turf regular natural turf, but there are still the maintenance requirement and even the maintenance even there's irrigation sometimes required of the artificial turf because it does get hot. So there is possibly could be some irrigation required to water it down. The big thing it does as it mentioned it does save on water usage but as far as the maintenance there is still you know a maintenance requirement associated with it and again depending on the play of the field you would have to do the combing or the grooming more often or less depending on the play because again when you invest that much money you want to make sure that it lasts the longest as possible. So it probably would be more it would be more a schedule more of a priority to make sure all that happens because you don't want to damage that turf that that artificial turf and shorten its lifespan and so that would probably have to be put a priority whereas the the the natural turf would be it's more forgiving overall because you can fix that it might take a little time on these spots but you can fix those those those areas those high wet wear areas but you don't have that option if you if you make mistake or miss something or if that artificial turf gets damaged then then it's a bigger a lot bigger expense in the long run. And after a wet weather event is the artificial turf field more playable sooner than a natural turf field? Oh yeah definitely it's set up for that I mean it's set up for to be playable on on rain and wet conditions there's there's drainage associated with it that takes the water away but yeah it's it's all weather so it doesn't matter if it's rainy sunny you can play on it anytime. Okay thank you. Carolina go ahead. I want to thank you for the wonderful job that you're doing on all those fields I'm always amazed how many there are and whenever you go buy them and it's pretty easy to go buy a park or any kind of a playing field in Santa Rosa and they really look terrific and I I want to thank you I know this just doesn't happen I just want to thank you for for staying on top of it and giving us the wonderful opportunities for the kids and the families to play so you and your your guys are great. It's our pleasure everyone our whole crew is very proud of the work they do they take a lot of pride in the field. You can tell. So I will definitely pass that on to them and they'll greatly appreciate it. Thank you. Good. Any other board comments or questions? Carol go ahead. Hi Tim. Hello. Several questions go figure. Going back to the sports turf maintenance four seasons from what I can tell the fields not necessarily the baseball fields but the open fields they're in use year round. They don't really have off seasons. I know that individual fields are sometimes put fallow and marked. Sometimes those signs are respected and observed sometimes they're not. Do you regardless of the weather regardless of the use or is the third slide kind of more of an ideal than a practical reality? It's more ideal than reality. We're definitely kind of at the mercy for the most part of our field usage. You know our goal is to have fields available for everybody regardless of the time of year and we can't necessarily police you know keeping people out of them and so we we do the best we can. You know there's row groups that that play in fields that you know have that can tear them up in a weekend and it is a challenge you know because they are open to everybody for use but yeah it's more ideal situation is the slide I'm showing and you know that's our goal that's what we strive to get. Thank you. My next question had to do with perspective on how many hours a day again this would be more soccer fields how many groups can come through how often the turnover is and if any of the groups that use them ever do a bit of maintenance between events be it replacing divots. Can we ask our users to help out a challenging situation? I'm glad you brought that up. So on the soccer side of things we have not we have not had a group or you know volunteer well actually take that back once in a while we get a group that that would volunteer to do you know divot replace or we provide soil for them that they can go out and do some replacement. Generally it's the younger younger clubs that are willing to do that aspect of it not so much maybe the older teams are inclined to do that but we've had members step up and offer some help and and and give us support in some ways. We get that more support probably from the softball and baseball leagues they are very good because about volunteering and helping us out maintain those fields and so I guess I want to make sure I thank them because we do get a lot from them they are they take a lot of pride in their fields and as baseball players and as younger younger age group they definitely take get involved with that so we do work with a lot of the groups more so on the the baseball softball side than the soccer again it kind of goes with with the age and and what what they're willing to do but we don't necessarily require that as far as their agreement a lot of times they just volunteer to do it but there's no requirement for them. Thank you and my last question was a soccer field how many hours a day could a field be getting hammered by youths? You know on the weekend it's probably all day from probably from eight o'clock or from sun up to sun down that a soccer field can be used that's probably probably better question probably for for Amy because of the scheduling that she does but I can definitely we can definitely tell a weekend separate from a weekday on our field to use because come Monday Tuesday when we're out there you know seeing checking out the damages you can definitely see the wear over a weekend period of time generally like during the weekday it's maybe in the evenings because that's when kids and stuff are playing so you know maybe they can get a game in there in the evening but on the weekend I'm pretty sure that they're probably sign up to sundown. Thank you. I'll add to that Carol that they are rented on the weekends every field from 9 a.m. to about 6 p.m. on the weekends and if there's sunlight hours and when they're done if the game ends early there are row groups standing on the side of the field ready to take the field as soon as a sanctioned team with the permit leaves there's other teams and row groups showing up to take the field so they are as Tim said used seven days a week from morning till night. Any other questions or comments from board members? Tim I had a few there's we got a presentation a few months ago from a consulting firm that's doing a maintenance assessment and I know that's not the right term so Jen or Tim whatever that that study we're doing so tell me the right term and then what's your interaction with that? So I mean you're correct in that the term they're doing they're assessing the park use so but so yeah and our communication with them they they provided us kind of with a outline or a survey that we took around to all our fields in evaluating those items that we that we are involved with a big one was irrigation because we're in there you know hands-on doing our irrigation repairs knowing the age of the system knowing the problems of the system we gave that input to them to put into their metrics and and seeing where everything fits that so and then along with that irrigation you know that kind of goes hand in hand with the turf usually if you see poor looking turf it's generally associated with poor irrigation so those go hand in hand but we worked you know hand in hand with them and and determining what what was wrong with certain parts and what needs to be fixed and repaired and where are we having challenges at? Okay that's great I think that's a really important effort that the public will have actually be able to see those scores and all the information and and hold us accountable and you'll keep doing a great job. I had a question too on the drought issue how about how much what percentage of the city's water use is our our acreage at parks? Do you know that on top of your head? Like if the average park size is that what you're kind of? No in the total out of 100% what percentage is used on our parks? As far as our water usage? Yeah well I mean you know like a lot of our a lot of our parks I mean they were designed with a lot of turf it's not until here recently that you know they kind of switched over and you know having smaller turf panels and so forth so as far as the water that we use um it's probably probably you know 90 95% of the water that maintenance uses is okay turf. Well I was going to say I can try and just let you know we don't usually track comparisons by department we certainly have a water a water budget for how much we use in in parks and we can get that information we can get that information to you and as a comparison but it's not something we necessarily would get from a um you know who's using water and facilities if that's what you're asking and who's using it. No that's no sorry maybe Tim that question wasn't for you that was more I I know it's not a lot is what I'm getting at I know it's like in the single digits of the city's total water use and I think to members of the public they might think it's a lot more so I think it would be helpful to to broadcast that more widely to folks that you know all these fields everything so for example single family homes were like over 80% of the city's water use so out of that 100% 80 is people's houses I'm just trying to figure out how we can communicate to the public because I hear that from folks is how much water we're using in parks and so I just want to be able to go back to them and say well actually only seven percent of the city's water waters our parks um or whatever it's doing you know flushing toilets or or anything um yeah Carol would you have a thought on that yeah I have an anecdotal comment on that at a recent park cleanup someone came by and asked staff why everything looks so green they weren't allowed to water their lawns but everything looks so green and staff said well it's winter we don't water except for the ballpark which the ball field Jen you can correct me or Tim um there was a safety issue where certain fields in use have to be watered as a safety accommodation but the parks themselves are not watered and I thought maybe some um courtesy signs along those lines that said something like note um water is not being used on word it properly um people didn't like thinking that the parks were getting to do something that they weren't and um a little bit of information could potentially go a long way yeah great point Carol and Tim by the way I was at that cleanup I think Carol's talking about too and so was Madonna at Franklin Park so I wanted to say good job your crew on that it was fun to come out and do that anyways if you want to respond to Carol go ahead all right well thank you I think Carol's I mean exactly right I mean we are not I mean we are not watering the parks and the time of the year things are green this is still winter and so um I mean we are doing some watering now currently that as far as safety wise and foreseeing some of the areas that are being dried out that we can put a little bit of water on but for the most part everything you see right now is all natural um you know morning dew and so forth the the moisture's drawn up during the night um so everything looks wet and so it's a little deceiving right now and again I understand it here you know middle of February we had you know close to 80 degree weather and so it does feel like spring but it is still winter and the plant is doing what it does during the winter time it stays green because the conditions are perfect for it yep okay thanks Tim those are my questions uh oh terry go ahead that's one quick follow-up question actually to your question Logan are we using reclaimed water on any of our parks yes we are um I can answer that so the the fields that we're able to have reclaimed water actually is just the one is at a place to play that's that's as far as the system has been designed to handle another we have a few other little parks and family park has reclaimed water on it but it's that's as far as the system has been brought to it a lot of the water of course is going up to the to the uh the board of the geysers and so as far as expanding the system um I think they talked a little bit about that at the higher levels of how much water we're giving that to that operation that we couldn't possibly make available to some of our other operations but currently the only uh say ball soccer field or sports field that we got reclaimed water actually happening is that a place to play okay yeah I remember the days where we couldn't give it away and now it's quite the commodity so thank you Carol Tim correct me if I'm wrong don't we also have well water used um specifically out at um galvan I don't know if there's any other that's on well um so well that galvan the only probably well water that is for the golf course the park itself is is domestic water that waters that field and we do have some other well um Jennings park um and um southwest park have have some wells that we're able to pull some from to water those fields so there is some out there but majority of us is domestic water all right if that is we we have a follow-up question from john if you if you have time uh yeah we can entertain another public comment that's fine all right john we'll give you one more minute great I started that raising my hand on the artificial turf maintenance thing I have been involved in artificial turf fields for I don't 17 or 18 years now and have maintained artificial turf fields for 17 or 18 years they require maintenance same-order magnitude as natural grass field if you want to maintain them at a high level FIFA recommends that you groom a artificial turf field for every 40 hours of use by 22 players so um if you're typical youth environment you're going to get between 40 and 80 hours of use per week on an artificial turf field and you know somebody was talking about usage um one of the things I would say is on a natural grass field um the field will probably sustain about 20 hours of use a week you get about 15 hours of use after school and you get about 16 hours of use on the weekends and so you're breaking down the field over time thank you john suesink and right on time um chair chair pits you're muted I am muted thank you uh thanks john for that comment just one other thing I'll add is I don't know why there's some people that really hate artificial turf and have um some conspiracy theories about it so you might get that that sort of interaction Tim if we ever go down that road but uh thank you for that presentation and um and thanks to Amy for helping out all right have a good evening thank you thanks you too all right uh thank you everyone for the great questions in the discussion uh next on the agenda is item eight our committee reports um item 8.1 is our mayor's lunch uh I attended that and uh as did carol and I don't have any major updates I think one that is not going to surprise folks it's the board of public utilities is looking at more drought related restrictions basically if the city does not get a lot more rain we're going to be entering into what's known as stage five and the the highlight of stage five there's a lot but it would put a new building moratorium new housing moratorium into effect so this is an ordinance from the 1990s that's never really been updated I think the council will definitely be updating that part of it and maybe others but um you know could be in for a long long hot summer um the other update was from uh the charter review committee the chair patty sisco shared some of our work I'm also on that and we're definitely looking at some interesting stuff we've gotten through pay uh increasing council member pay um that's going to go to the city council to possibly place on the ballot uh we debated an at-large elected mayor that was more mixed kind of a basic almost a split vote um so the council can take that up or not and ask the voters to approve that um and these for these changes are going to november 2022 ballot to change the charter and then the other one was about rank choice voting so we have nine more topics the city council assigned us so I'm sure I'll have more to update folks and uh that's some interesting stuff if you want some some hardcore political science stuff go watch those meetings it's uh I love it so um and item 8.2 any questions on that any comments all right um item 8.2 uh carol do you have a report from the waterways committee I do um last month we were presented with uh uh proposal from the Hyatt down on the uh Santa Rosa creek um wanting to rather drastically update their fencing um because of problems with the homeless issue and the um presentation um it wasn't as fleshed out as the board had wanted so it's been revised and is coming back to the waterways committee tomorrow morning at 9 a.m um as a result of this 800 foot long fence on the prince memorial greenway I've had even more cause to go down I uh visit it regularly on my bicycle but I am pleased to report that currently the uh the path is amazingly clean to the point where last Saturday's um river cleanup the river community cleans it up I wanted to go couldn't uh email to friend afterwards and said sorry too cold for me and she reported back that's okay it was a huge turnout and very little to do now I have never heard anything so wonderful as there was very little to do on the uh on the creek so we'll see what happens um tomorrow we'll see what happens moving forward with this project and many things are starting to pop uh on the downtown section of the Santa Rosa creek more on that at a later day thanks carol I rode my bike down there on saturday and it was looking good um um thanks for that report uh okay we are moving on any questions or comments from the board no uh director santos we are moving on to agenda item nine do we have any written or electronic communications so the the board received two electronic communications one from Adolfo Mendoza regarding uh park and field maintenance uh specifically uh regarding soccer and another one from kasey olemberger from uh regarding doile baseball field thank you all right we are on to agenda item 10 um this is our future agenda items um normally I would go at the end but I want to um I want to kick this one off uh with something that's important to me uh I would like us to discuss in the future um a plaque at flat rock park and for those that aren't familiar with this plaque it's pretty old it was put there in 1936 and uh by today's standards it's basically it's it's very offensive and uh basically racist uh it uses uh it glorifies a myth about how Santa Rosa was named um and just putting that aside whether that happened or not it uses the term indian made to the to describe the event um anyways I what I've done is I've directed staff to look at how we can possibly remove this plaque um it definitely does not fit our modern standards it does not fit the city's commitment to diversity equity and inclusion um and I think it should it should be taken down um what happens after that I think is is a broader discussion and I want to get folks' thoughts on this one now or when we talk about it in the future um but I also want to broaden this conversation to other park sites that that could use an addition or a subtraction to recognize um some of our marginalized communities um for example we have Comstock Mall downtown where there used to be a historic Chinatown and there's no recognition of that right now so I want folks to use your imagination use your heart and try to figure out how we can do better as the city um so I've spoken with uh board member Cruz about this and with staff so we'll be talking about Flat Rock Park in the future um it's it's near and dear to my heart I grew up nearby playing there a lot um and I'll just tell you I've had city residents bring this up with me too this isn't just my own issue um they've they're deeply offended by it um and that's not how folks should feel when they visit our park so we'll see that in the future um and Madonna uh go ahead do you have some thoughts? Thank you yes I want it torn down as soon as possible but um in a respectful and professional way um the the research and um you know once from the from the native community um is where I would want to go who would I give that um information or suggestions to would that be to Jen or would that be to you Mr. Pitts? Jen go ahead I would say please feel free to send me any information you have or if anybody else on the board has comments or questions um please feel free to send those to me thank you thank you so much yeah and most you know and to me it's reaching out to the um the the natives that were here you know the Miwok so and I am not Miwok but my my relatives are so um I know who I need to talk with thank you. Thanks Madonna Carol go ahead uh yeah I'm wondering if there are any protocols in place for um this kind of thing um we would be usually in my long history we would usually be at the end of this process reviewing it um good for good on you for spearheading this but I'm wondering if there are um city um protocols or um steps in place um that we should acknowledge and the other thing um unrelated is in looking at the um presentation schedule that Shelley presented at the beginning of the year uh today was scheduled for park planning 2022 I'm wondering if that has been moved to a different um month and I would move that on my calendar if if um that's been decided thank you. Thanks Carol yeah on the first point that's a great question um so Jen is looking into that and I'll let her speak to that and and working with the city attorney's office on uh how we would do that um it's also sort of adjacent to our our update to our naming policy on parks um so those are good questions Carol and we need to probably make better procedures if we don't have them um but they are looking into that and then also on the scheduling I'll I'll let Jen answer that one too on the uh scheduled items go ahead Jen. Sure and you know one of the things we're looking at is there doesn't appear to be any particular policy relating to something like this so uh one of the reasons we'll be bringing this back at a future date is that it's it's more than a discussion for this board it's a discussion for city and city council members and city attorney's office so it's it's going to be a much bigger um endeavor and so we want to make sure we're having that um discussion with our elected officials and our executive team at the city and we'll be bringing back updates here to the board when we have them for discussion at the board level and then yes we often do move things around on our schedule depending on different things that are happening and uh the budget uh team was a little bit behind in getting us the numbers for our capital update so we're moving it to march it'll give you a capital update in march yes yeah and i'm fully aware this is a process that will probably get political and controversial um it will definitely have to be handled by the city council but i've spoken with mayor rogers he's fully in support of removing the plaque also is deeply offended um so he's got our back on this and i i know it's also not going to be quick but it's it's the right thing to do so um yeah those were my future agenda items does anyone want to add anything else for a future agenda item um steve i thought you might have an idea what idea might that be uh i was told you had a good idea and i wanted to give you credit for it um about us giving our own updates oh well thank you it's just something that's uh done in most board meetings commissions and city councils around the state around the country and um it's i think it's uh going to work out quite nicely you know you have an opportunity to share things that they're thinking about in addition to putting things on future agendas uh many times things don't make it to the agenda and i think it's good for the public to also hear that their board members commissioners and city council folks are you know thinking beyond the agenda that's in front of them i agree 100 great idea um and you deserve credit uh the city council does that so we can model after them and uh already spoken with staff about that so i hope that'll start next month let's try to get that that going pretty soon um terry go ahead not a future agenda item specifically but i'm just curious um for jen has there been any discussion at the city about resuming in-person meetings um in the near future um not in particular i know that there's been some guidance for us that we may start attending in-person meetings but for the board itself uh we are still um working on the technology to make a hybrid meeting happen so that's where we're the discussions have been around hybrid because this model works so well for members of the public that cannot physically be in attendance they can attend this it also gets recorded so if they couldn't make the meeting they can come back and look at it so uh we're looking at options for us to use technology in the location where we used to have our in-person meetings at fendley that is on schedule to be updated so that we can conduct hybrid meetings it's not moving as quickly as we had anticipated we thought it would be a little bit easier than it has been but it's it's moving forward but staff and others at the city are allowed to now attend meetings in person or meet people at sites etc so we're starting to do that again and we're all back in the office okay great thank you yeah terry i i i asked about that too and i would love to see you all in person i think it'll make our discussions better and more robust i also want to make sure that we still have a virtual format so like jen said people really gotten used to this in the last two years i think engagements increased and gotten better personally um and so i'm committed to us doing a hybrid format um we can't do it in the council chambers there's there's more pressing business probably but uh maybe someday um but finley would be great and thank you gen for for keeping the the pedal to the metal on that one any other future agenda items that anyone would like to see okay well um i hope i didn't mess up my first chair meeting too much uh thank you everyone the next regularly scheduled meeting of the board will be held on wednesday march 23rd uh at 4 p.m still at 4 p.m for now um stay tuned for that change and i'm going to pick up my gavel again uh so i can actually bang the meeting out and with that i adjourn this meeting of the board of community services at 6 10 p.m thank you everyone thank you thank you staff have a good evening thank you chair bids