 Good afternoon, everyone. Are we ready to get started? Great. I just wanted to mention that Chair Kwant is unable to join us this afternoon. She had a personal matter come up late this afternoon, so I'll be chairing the meeting today. I'd like to welcome the board members and members of the public, and thank you for joining us today. My name's Terry Griffin. I'm the vice chair of the board of community services. And today I'm joined by board members, Carolina Spence, Pamela Van Helsma, Logan Pitts, Madonna Cruz, and our newest board member, Steven Spillman. Welcome to you. I'd also like to introduce our meeting hosts this afternoon, Mary Lou Nichols and Emily Ander. They will explain the coordination of comments from the public, assist during the meeting, and take any notes for follow-up needs. Panelists and presenters, please silence your cell phones and keep microphones muted if not speaking. Members of the public joining this meeting will have webcams off and microphones muted. If you're joining in to join, or excuse me, if you're phoning in to join the meeting and you choose to speak during public comment, for privacy concerns, the host will rename you to caller and only show the last four digits of your telephone number. Additionally, the city of Santa Rosa is committed to providing a safe and inclusive environment, free from disruption and will not tolerate 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, Vice Chair Griffin. 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 vice chair has called for public comment, the vice 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 written public comments were received by the deadline for this meeting. Thank you. And with that, I will call the May 26, 2021 meeting of the Board of Community Services to order at 4.03 PM. I have a brief statement before we get started. Due to the provisions of the governor's executive orders N-25-20 and N-29-20, which suspend 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 webinar. Board members and staff are participating from remote locations and or 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 please have roll call. Yes, please respond when I call your name. Chair Kwant, Vice Chair Griffin. Here. Board member Spillman. Here. Board member Pitts. Here. Board member Cruz. Present. Board member Spence. Here. Board member Van Halsema. Here. Thank you. Thank you. And before we move to public comments, I just wanted to extend a very warm welcome to our newest Board member, Steven Spillman. And Steven, I wonder if you would mind briefly telling us a little bit about yourself. Sure, I'd be happy to. Well, thank you for hosting this and it's a pleasure to finally get to see everybody. I'm looking forward to meeting all of you when we get the chance. I grew up in the Midwest and spent a lot of time in Chicago, New York and Boston. I practice architecture. Then I received an MBA in finance and investment and went into the real estate investment development and management business. Some of my civic work over the last 10 years has been with the city of Mission Viejo. I just moved to the Oakmont area of Santa Rosa last year in Mission Viejo. I was a planning and transportation commissioner for six years, chaired that twice. I chaired the investment advisory commission. I was actually on the community services commission also of a design review committee and chaired the pension fund board of trustees, the water conservation committee and a lot of other things including being a chair of the Orange County Register of Voters Committee. Some of my nonprofit work, I was a board member of the Pediatric Infectious Disease Research Foundation and the strategic planning chair. Also on the board of the Japan America Society and was a longtime member of a nonprofit land research and education organization called the Urban Land Institute. I did a bit of teaching at UC Irvine's Graduate School of Management, taught project management also. And actually I was a watercolor instructor at the Kansas City Community College. But in the last few months, I've had the opportunity to get involved with Santa Rosa by becoming a member of the advisory committee on the updating the general plan which has been very interesting. When I was in Mission Viejo, I was chairing the planning commission when we updated the general plan. So looking forward to bringing some of my skills and experiences to this board. Finally, I guess it might be interesting to know that as an architect and as a volunteer, I've designed parks. Wonderful, thank you so much. We appreciate you bringing such a wealth of experience to our board and we look forward to working with you. With that, we will move to public comments. I'd like to open the floor for public comments on non-agenda items. This is the time when any person may address the board on matters not listed on this agenda, but within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Board of Community Services. Madam host, do we have any public comments for item three? There are currently no hands raised. Okay, thank you. With that, we will move on to the approval of minutes for the meeting of April 28th, 2021. Are there any edits or corrections to the minutes of April 28th? So please raise your hand. Okay, seeing no hands raised, the minutes from April 28th, 2021 are approved as submitted. That takes us to item five. Deputy Director Santos, could you please give us your report on upcoming events and accomplished events? Thank you, Chair Griffin. And wanted to also add on and welcome our new board member, Steven Spillman. We're so excited to have another new board member join and participate and we welcome you. So just wanted to add that into my section as well. And to give you all a little update, you did receive the correspondence and attachments to the agenda for accomplished events and upcoming events. But I wanted to highlight that today is the end of our long-term school of rec program that the recreation program put together. So it's ending today as we're having this meeting. It was really a successful program. And I know the rec team has been here to update the board on what has been happening with that program. And of course our Deputy Director for Recreation is here. If you have any questions about all the recreational items on the events page. And then I also wanted to highlight for upcoming events. Tomorrow we have our second in a series of meetings with the Dutch floor neighborhood park folks in the neighborhood up there. We will be presenting some redesign options to look at and reimagine the location and equipment selection for new playgrounds at the park. And that's going really well. So we'll have that for the neighborhood and hear back from them tomorrow night. And so that concludes the updates. You are muted, Derek. Thank you, I double clicked. Just one quick question on the adult aquatic programs. I read that they will continue to be by reservation. Do you have any sense of when they will go back to being dropped in? I'm going to turn that over to our Deputy Director for Recreation. I have some information, but since she's able to join us tonight, I'm going to turn it over to her. I have unmuted you Kelly. Hi everyone, Kelly Magnuson, Recreation Deputy Director. So that's a really good question. For the summer, our plans are to do lap swim and water fitness by reservation. And we're kind of waiting to see if June 15th brings any changes with the guidelines for outdoor recreation. But for now it's working well, except with that said, and there's not enough space for everybody who wants the space, but as far as COVID guidelines, working well to do it by reservation. And then we just added one more swimmer per lane. So that'll open up some more spots. So that'll be helpful. And then with the swimming lessons, that's all by reservation. But what we're going to do with recreational swim is it's going to be a first come, first serve. And then we're going to allow 100 swimmers per session. And so it'll be the old fashioned way of letting in the first hundred people that arrive because there's really no way to do that by reservation. So we have plans, but the plans could change mid-summer based on the changes with the COVID guidelines. Okay, thank you so much, Kelly. And just wanted to again, compliment you on the School of Rec program. I know it was quite an undertaking and the creativity and flexibility that staff had in pulling that program together is truly phenomenal. So congratulations on a successful program. Thank you very much. It was very rewarding to do that type of work and the staff are very tired and very deserving of a break. And we are going to celebrate their success tomorrow out in the Finley Courtyard with a big ice cream party. So that'll be fun, but thank you for that. Any other questions for staff on the events or comments? I had a question, Terry. Jen, it's great to see all these events happening this summer. That's exciting. I saw that on May 15th, the picnic reservations resumed, which is great for our residents, but not in Doyle Park. Do you have an update on when that's gonna happen? And I was there over the weekend and the bathrooms were still locked. Could you give an update on when those services are coming back? Sure, we are working as a team with the neighborhood of Doyle Park to look at options for when we can open, but that will be one of our last parks to open, probably more in line with the June 15th statewide opening, so to speak. And it's another one of those things that we're monitoring for when we can open it. We don't have a lot of huge desire right now for reserving for picnics for that park at this moment. If that changes, we'll be speeding up our process for reopening the gate in Doyle Park, where you can drive right up to a picnic area. So Doyle Park is open, you can walk in there and the Hoenn Avenue parking lot is open, so you can still access this park. You can still have a picnic there, but for a special permit reservation, we're not opening that portion of it yet. And I don't know if Kelly, if you have any additional or clarifying information to add to that. I don't have anything to add to that. I know the neighbors have petitioned the city to keep that gate locked for the time being, and so I don't know politically how that's gonna move forward, but I know for the time being, we've agreed to keep it locked, but like Jen said, the parking lots open on the home side in the picnic areas are first come first serve, so they're still available if people would like to go in there. Great, the park looks great. So thank you for that update. Yes, Pamela. I'm wondering, is the volunteer program resuming June 15 as well, or maybe it already has? I can answer that. We have a modified volunteer program taking place currently. We're putting off some of the traditional park and month programs that we're taking volunteer projects on a case by case, and we're working closely with park maintenance on those so they can give input as to whether they can support a project or not. So it is case by case. And they are still interested in hosting them. It's just right now, there's a limited staffing resources to supervise the project, so it's definitely, we still have the volunteer website. We're still working with several ongoing groups, Bennett Valley Vision, the rural cemetery group, the ball players who help with the fields, so we still are doing some volunteer projects. Yeah, Pamela? One extra question. I'm curious about with the threat of fire and already seeing three Nixle alerts within two hours this afternoon, are we going to limit the ability for people to have barbecues at our parks? We already do that. They have to use the barbecues that are authorized in the park. They're not allowed. I mean, not even allow that. I'm wondering if we're going to limit them to not use those or we're going to make it okay to make start fires in the park. I have not heard that yet. Have you heard anything, Jen? No, we haven't heard anything. And we'll definitely work with the fire department on almost a weekly basis for what's happening parks and parks wide and always in communication with them. So if they recommend something like that, we will, but the parks are still green. Around the areas where we have barbecues. Okay. Any other questions for staff before we move on? Okay, thank you. That takes us to item six, director updates. Jen, you have the floor. Thank you again, vice chair, members of the board of community services, just a few updates this evening, just a reminder that our current city manager is his last day is Friday. And so it comes up quick. It just seems like yesterday that we made the announcement that he was moving on. So we'll have an acting, I think it's either an acting or interim city manager, Jeff Cullen will be coming on starting Saturday. So there are time ends at like midnight and the other one begins at 12 or something like that, exactly. But Jeff Cullen was a former city manager for the city of Santa Rosa. And he was before my time, but I've heard wonderful things about him. So we're really excited to work with him going forward. And he's either on an acting basis for the next month, and then he'll be interim after that until we fill that position permanently. And so there's just some paperwork details to clarify the longer-term agreement with Mr. Cullen. But until then, we've got a month of an acting and then he's on an interim basis. Not sure about the exact word, but that's how I heard it this morning. We're looking forward to him joining the city team. So the other thing was that we are still reducing water by 20% in our parks. We're still under a voluntary requirement or not a requirement, a voluntary ask to reduce our watering and irrigation services by 20%. And again, those are just in areas that aren't really gonna be noticeable by folks that are using our parks or reducing irrigation in places where it's not hyper-critical. If we get any further reductions, we'll come back to this board and give you an update. But right now, there's not gonna be any huge, visible appearance of reduction except for maybe a little bit of grass turning color, turning more yellow. Grassy areas turning more yellow. We also have the, I believe the upcoming budget session is still scheduled for June 22nd. So we'll look forward to that. That's the actual budget hearing. We had a budget session a couple of weeks ago with council and we'll be doing the budget hearing on June 22nd. And I believe that the last time what the council agreed upon was sometime in mid-July to come back to have a discussion about the PG&E settlement funds. So I don't believe those will be part of the June 22nd discussion. But if I have anything to clarify after this meeting, I will definitely send it up as an update to this board. But I believe it's mid-July when they'll be looking at that. The other thing related to grants, I know you all asked for a little bit of an update on what's happening with our grant applications. And as it happens, we just submitted a grant application or we just prepared the council item, excuse me, for the grant application. For another option for improving Martin Luther King Jr. Park, it would be the same application that we put forth as part of the Senate application processes towards a federal option to fund the improvements at Martin Luther King. It's the same type of ask. We're trying everything we can here, but this is a opportunity through the State Parks and Recreation Department that is partnering with the National Park Service for a outdoor recreation legacy program application. And it's a three-part application. So the part that we're submitting tonight on June 8th for council's consideration is just, it's mostly an FYI. It's an application that does not commit us to anything. It just says we have interest in improving Martin Luther King. We would like the state to move this forward. And if the state believes that we should move forward, then we'll come back to council with a resolution to ask council to review that and to dedicate park development impact funds for that park similar to the other applications. We are gonna try everything that comes our way to get that park funded. So it's a really interesting opportunity we had and that's gonna go to council on June 8th. Our other two grants, I've gotten a small update on them that went for, again, the same project, Martin Luther King park improvements are working their way through the state representatives that we have looking at those, but they are near the bottom I'm hearing for preferred projects as the state will put forward on a federal level. So we're gonna hang in there and see if we get one of those coming our way. That would be fantastic. The one that we're putting forward on June 8th is very, very competitive. It's a nationwide grant application and they're gonna be awarding 30 applicants out of the entire nation. So it's pretty competitive for us, but we still like to put our application in and see where it goes. And of course, we're always looking at options for funding and we'll keep you posted when there's new things, but that's what's happening right now. And that's the end of my updates. Thank you. Any questions for Jen about her director updates? Okay, seeing none, we'll move on to our scheduled items. Our first item is 7.1 in overview of Powers Park and Nicole Lowry, you have the floor. Hello, my name is Nicole Lowry and I am the Recreation Coordinator for Powers Park, the Jewel of Santa Rosa. March 2020, we were able to open the park operations for one day, but then COVID hit and shut everything down. You'll see in this presentation references to things that were done in 2019, as well as the accomplishments we had in 2020. We're also currently working on getting some things open at the park. Next slide, please. Howard Park operations run weekends March through October, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. for K-Land, which includes a train with a two passenger car and one wheelchair accessible seat, a carousel with 10 rows and each row has three ponies across. We also have two slays and one of those is newly updated with the wheelchair accessible seat. Our bounce house is about 15 by 15 feet in size and operates weekends in addition to our birthday party packages. These packages include a reservation to picnic sites near the train and carousel with four tables and a barbecue. We also provide 10 wristbands for the party's kids that allow them to use the train, carousel, animal bar and bounce house unlimited for the day and provide one lap pony rides for 10 kids, 10 trainer racers, 10 train whistles and a parks make life better drawstring bag. The staff also assists as they can with a gator to bring party supplies to and from the party sites. We usually book about 135 party packages every year. K-Land also includes a snack bar with popcorn, candy, chips, trail mix, ice cream, snow cones of course are the most popular item, nachos, pizza, corn dogs. And in order to operate the snack bar we do have to have a surf safe manager certification which is me and the staff has to have their food handler certification. We also have that county health department that visits us yearly and we have maintained our five star operation in previous years. Pony rides are contracted through a local nonprofit called Pony Express. Unfortunately, she will not be returning this year but hope to have the rides back in 2022. In the summer, June to about the first week of August we operate Sunday through Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. We have all the attractions I mentioned already but we also have an animal barn which most people refer to as our petting zoo with calves, sheep, pigs, goats, bunnies, chickens and guinea pigs. The Howard Park Recreation Staff also operates Botini Boathouse located next to Lake Rolfine weekends through September, March through September, sorry 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. And in the summer it's the same thing June to about the first week of August and that Saturday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Our boat rentals include kayaks, sailboats, stand-up paddleboards, canoes and paddleboats. Well, our paddleboats are the most popular for families during the summer and some of the weekends we do offer boating classes as well as camps to youth that actually are already sold out for the summer. The canoes are utilized by our city camps in the summertime, especially Camp Walton since they are located on site. When customers or staff are out on the lake we do require that everyone wears a life jacket and we do maintain a rescue boat and assist is needed. The staff work at the Boathouse are lifeguards certified and they also respond to emergencies in the park. Next slide please. While my focus is the attractions at Howard Park the park itself has a lot to offer. It's about 138 acres, park goers can participate in tennis, pickleball, reserve picnic locations or obtain a park permit for larger gatherings, play softball and I've also seen a lot of kids learning T-ball in the softball field this year. Lake Rolfine is open to the public in the same amount of hours that the park is from sunrise to sunset. The community members have enjoyed fishing, teaching children how to fish. The lake is stocked by fish and wildlife with rainbow trout and bass about once a month. Community members are also allowed to put their own boats on the lake as long as it's under 20 feet in size and does not have a gas motor. The lake is also home to many forms of wildlife. We have recently gotten a blue herring that's decided to call it home. And you may have heard of Aflac who is a resident goose that got a hook stuck in his foot and had to have some treatment done by the bird sanctuary and he's back on the lake though. Ducks, swans, snapping turtles, river otters and many more. We also have a bald eagle that's going back and forth between Spring Lake and Lake Rolfine at the moment. Howarth Park also does connect to the city's Spring Lake which is daily education to the public about city versus county since we do not allow swimming in Lake Rolfine. However, the county does at their lagoon over at Spring Lake. There are also about five miles of trails, the land of imagination playground with an old Western storefront, a climbing wall playground with swings and we also have a large lawn that's good for large group gatherings. Next slide please. Staffing at Howarth Park is unique from other parks and that it does need attention from recreation staff, park staff, the city's garage staff and facility maintenance staff in order to operate at an optimum level. Staff for the park includes one full-time recreation coordinator and 54 temporary employees that oversee the operations of the attractions. To help maintain the park, there is a dedicated park staff of one full-time senior maintenance worker, two full-time maintenance workers and one park aide that does work on the weekends. In 2019, there has, or it was a little before 2018, there was a division between the Recreation of Parks Department. Recreation now resides with the community engagement and programs and park resides under transportation and public works. And the last year, Howarth Park has also lost one of the maintenance worker positions. Next slide please. As you can see in 2019, there were many people who visited Howarth Park and even the one day we opened in 2020 before COVID hit, the park sold 63 Kailin tickets for the train. Operations at Howarth Park have an annual revenue budget of about $445,000, which we expect it'll be about two years before we can get back to. Next slide please. We provide a few different recreation events at Howarth Park. As you can see from the photos, the upper left is actually our fishing in the city, where the city collaborates with the fishing, or the city's fire department, but it's their union, and we teach the Santa Rosa's youth how to fish. We also have an event the next day where the kids can participate in a fishing derby and we are given about four hours to catch fish and the largest catch wins. They're up a right-hand corner, you'll see our movie nights, which is usually done in August and September, and it's six different nights on a Friday night. These events are sponsored by local businesses, such as Mary's Pizza, and they help provide funding for the movie licensing. We also have a couple of vendors that'll sell popcorn or food, such as hot dogs, before the movie starts, to make it a full experience for all of the people that are coming to the movie. All of our movies are family-friendly, and we do show them on a large blow-up screen, and it's about like a bounce house, but a little bit bigger. The other photos you see in this slide are our Halloween at Howard's, where we usually serve 500 children in the community who participate in a trick-or-treat tutorial, a kids' sensory play area, and we do have some local businesses that provide different activities, such as fencing, and then they also have candy toys, face painting. And of course, our registrants for this event also receive a train ticket. Of course, last month you heard, in 2020, we did the event as a drive-through, where the kids got to see different Halloween-related scenes from local volunteers, and then we also handed out goody bags. Next slide, please. So I've gone up a little bit about what we did in 2020. One of the biggest things we did in 2020 was reopen the boat house. And in order to get that open, we did have a large number of barcodes that had to be input into our registration software system. We all, in order to do contract tracing and keep everyone socially distanced, the barcodes that were set up had arrival times to stagger the customers from not all showing up at one time. Everyone was wearing a face covering and we did have markings on the ground to identify where they each needed to stand in order to social distance properly. The staff also had to sanitize the boats before and after use and every life jacket that was used before someone could reuse it. We were also able to provide new time to the city camps that operated last summer and offered a limited number of our boating camps to local children in Santa Rosa. Each year the recreation division is involved in helping provide an activity during the violence prevention week. And this year we offered our paddle boat rides with boating safety to the community since it was an outdoor activity and they could do it per household. We did have a few families participate who had a lot of fun and they've actually come back since then. While all of the parks attractions were not open in 2020, we definitely had a lot of park goers and people were fishing, hiking, running, playing, going to the playground, playing tennis, playing pickleball. We had many families come out for pickpicks. Next slide please. Right now we're working to get the train up and running for this coming Saturday, May 29th. I was actually out there all day, so it's looking good. We also expect the carousel to be up and running by June 12th and the animal barn to return June 14th. We're also doing pre-reservation and barcodes at this time. We'll see what happens when everything changes with June 15th, but at the moment, we're just trying to make sure that we maintain that social distancing and mask wearing. I'm also working on getting a new program up and running called Reading Railroad, which actually sold out at 9 a.m. the first day of registration. This program will have children go through a story time under the tree setting on our picnic site and then they'll have the opportunity to ride the train, carousel and go into the animal barn all before the park opens. This will be going on every Wednesday morning during the summer from 10.15 a.m. to 11 a.m. It'll be a new VIP experience for Howard Park. Next slide, please. In 2021, we do have a few things that'll remain on hold such as birthday party packages, the bounce house, plenty rides, large community events such as movies in the park and large park permits such as community runs like the turkey drawn. Next slide, please. So in the last year, we did get some work done out of the park. One of the biggest things we did was the facility maintenance came out to work on the exterior of the boat house which was starting to experience some rot. So you'll see in the photo, they did some fresh paint and put on some new boards and the window counters got all new coverings on them. We also are currently ordering four new paddle boats to put out on the lake for the customers to use. And we also purchased a sanitizing fogger which helps us clean the numerous number of life jackets that we use every day for operations. It's great because it's fast, easy and keeps people safe. From some exciting news we got from Boathouse this year is we did receive a grant that will allow me to purchase an electric motor to use for our rescue boat and be more environmentally friendly. And we also got money to provide scholarships for our voting classes. Next slide, please. The carousel also saw many updates in the last two years. We actually lowered the operation of the carousel into the ground and giving it the access so that the platform is easy to step onto instead of step up on. So you can walk our wheel right onto the ride. As seen in the picture, we also changed one of the slays and converted it into a wheelchair accessible seat so that people can either sit on it or we can raise the seat and allow a wheelchair to roll right into it. We do have an inspection tomorrow with an engineer and then if all goes well, we have a state inspection for the ride on June 10th and hope to open at June 12th. Some of the background training carousel, they are classified as amusement rides and as such, a state inspection and certification are required to operate them. Each year along with a paperwork review and staff training checklist, the state sends an inspector to check on the maintenance of the rides and on all of our operating procedures. Next slide, please. Howard Park has won many awards in its history and I'm excited to inform you that in 2020, we actually won best place to take kids. I'm proud of the customer service that the staff provides every year to the community at Howard Park. And I look forward to the upcoming summer, even if it may be a little different than previous years. We will continue to build the community through recreation programs and show why parks make life better. Next slide, please. Do you have any questions? Thank you, Nicole. Do board members have questions for staff? I had one question on the carousel with the ADA new seat. Is that wheelchair removable for someone who is in their own? Oh, of course. I was just, we were using that to take the photos. Okay, that's awesome. Thank you. Any other questions for staff? I have one quick question. Nicole, you mentioned that Howard Park lost a maintenance worker this past year. Is there any plan to restore that position or fill that position in the coming year? Not that I'm aware of, but I probably would refer to Kelly or Jen for this one. Okay. And if Kelly's still here, can we promote Kelly before I speak at a turn to answer that question? Should be unmuted. Kelly, are you able to? Am I unmuted now? I think yes, you are. I think that there are two groundskeepers positions being cut from the budget. And then they're going to have to regroup and decide who's going to be assigned to Howard Park. I don't know exactly what level of staff will be out there. We've required, recreations requested to have coverage the entire summer, seven days a week. But I don't know exactly what the outcome of that's going to be. We know that park is extremely busy on the weekends with the nine picnic sites booked. And the train is going to in carousel are starting soon and the snack bar is going to be open. So we're really reliant on park maintenance to help us through a busy summer. But I don't know exactly how many staff will be stationed in that park at this point in time. OK, thank you. Yeah, Pamela. How does that compare with contracted services for maintenance or operations that we're using in that park in particular? Oh, to my knowledge, we do not have contracted maintenance in that park unless it's for a special service. I know one year we had the goats do some some weed removal. But as to my knowledge, all the maintenance and services are done with city staff. Any other questions for staff before we move to public comment? Seeing none, Madam Host, do we have any public comments for this item? Vice Chair Griffin, I see no hands. Thank you. That will move us on to our next report item. Item seven point two, Creekside Open Space renaming and Emily Andrew, you have the floor. Good afternoon, Board of Community Services and Emily Andrew, Park Planner Assistant and also Mary Lou's co-host for these meetings. Thank you for having me back to finish our discussion on the proposed renaming request for Creekside Open Space. Mary Lou was working on the presentation. Thank you, Mary Lou. Next slide, please. I'm going to begin by reviewing the history of the project since we do have three new Board members since we last discussed this in December. So on April 25th, 2018, Travis Burding, the son-in-law of Mary Traverso, came forward to the Board on behalf of his family to request renaming Creekside Open Space to Mary Traverso Park. At your May 2018 meeting, you discussed the request and asked that staff look at two different scenarios, one to just rename the open space from Creekside to Mary Traverso and then also what it would entail to change the park type classification for it from open space to neighborhood park. Staff was going to bring that back in September of 2018, but the Paradise Fire canceled that meeting and then the staff member who was working on the project retired. So it wasn't until late 2019 that two Park Planner assistants were able to be hired and we had enough staff to resume working on the project. So in January 2020, staff reported to the Board and you told us to look at moving Creekside forward to the renamed Mary Traverso Open Space and decided against trying to change the park type classification and in keeping with the park naming policy and procedure, the Board requested community input before making a recommendation to council. So we had a meeting, a public meeting scheduled for April 2020, but obviously with the pandemic, we weren't able to have that. So it was rescheduled for November 5th, 2020. There were 33 attendees and the meeting included for Zoom polls and public comment and Q&A. Following the meeting, there was an online survey that was available from November 5th to the 21st for the community to weigh in on the renaming. We had 98 responses to that survey. The survey data and the Zoom poll data from the community meeting were combined and analyzed and presented to the Board on December 9th, 2020. The data was not overwhelmingly in favor or against the renaming. And the responses were distributed fairly evenly across the city rather than the majority of responses coming from the Southeast Quadrant where the park is located. And so the Board asked for additional community input, specifically from the Southeast Quadrant and the neighborhood surrounding Creekside. So the survey was reopened for a month from January 3rd to February 2nd and available to the city website. 127 responses were received from that survey with about 52% of the respondents reporting that they lived in the Southeast Quadrant. So tonight we'll be reporting on all the data that's been collected and also giving a little bit more background for the new members. Next slide, please. So to orient you to the location of Creekside, this is a map of the Santa Rosa park system. The city is divided into quadrants by intersection of highways 101 and 12, which are shown in yellow. All the parks, parcels are shown in green and Creekside is shown by the blue star and it's located in the Southeast Quadrant. Next slide, please. This is an aerial map of the open space park. It is located along Creekside Road, which is where it gets its name from. Matanzas Creek flows beside it and through it. It's about four acres and about one acre of that is suitable for development. And Mary Traverso lived about five or five parcels away from the park. Next slide, please. So a little history on the park naming policy and procedure. It's a very brief policy two and a half pages with about 90% of it focusing on the naming of new parks and recreational facilities and the remaining 10% focusing on the renaming of park and recreational facilities, which is what this presentation is about. It was adopted by city council in 1989. If it's had three minor amendments since 1989. Next slide, please. The major objectives of the policy are that the name of the park enhance the city's values and heritage and be compatible with the community interest or the name should easily identify the park by geographic location or function. Or it's also used to encourage land and monetary donations and provide recognition for the donation. Next slide, please. So this is the entirety of the text in the policy related to renaming of parks. So I'm going to read it aloud. A park or recreation facility name may be changed if the following conditions are met. A an occurrence or event of national local significance, awaiting period of no less than two years between the event and the actual naming of the park is required or if the name becomes inappropriate. The name Creekside is appropriate. So we are going to evaluate this request, but based on a Mr. Verso has been gone for over two years. So she does meet the second portion of a so what we are looking at and what we've been asking the community to look at is whether or not her contributions to the community are an occurrence or event of national or local significance. Next slide, please. So marriage for so is a co-founder of Bennett Valley vision, which was mentioned earlier in the presentation regarding balance. I'm going to ask a question about volunteer groups and if they're volunteering is resuming. They've been around since 2005 and they hold two annual work days a year. And Creekside is one of the one of the city properties that they take care of. Their mission is to make Bennett Valley an even more lovely place to live. Mary Traverso also, as I mentioned, lived very close to the park. She and her husband Bill helped maintain it for many, many years. She was a fixture at Traverso's market, which was a community institution for 80 years. And also her family donated a bench in her name in 2016. Next slide, please. So staff lines that Mary Traverso was active in the community inspired volunteerism. She's loved by her family and then in the community from Traverso's market. Next slide, please. So we reached out to the community to find out what their thoughts were regarding renaming the park from Creekside open space to Mary Traverso open space. There were three opportunities for the public to be involved. The first was the virtual community meeting held in November. And as I said, there were 33 attendees and 28 of those attendees participated in the four zoom polls that were had during, that we had during the meeting. There was, and I want to talk about also the public outreach for each one of these opportunities. Postcards were sent to a half mile radius around the park for the virtual community meeting. There was an article in the press Democrat. City connections. E newsletter went to 95,000 subscribers. It was posted on next door and Facebook. There were signs in the park. There were signs in nearby parks. There was word of mouth. It was on the city website and the Traverso family distributed postcards and email. Outreach for that. The second opportunity was an online survey which received 98 respondents and was available on the city website. The outreach that we did for that included. Sharing that it was going to be available during the virtual community meeting. It went out by the city connections and newsletter and it was shared by word of mouth in the community and by the Traverso family. The third opportunity was online survey number two. That was available on the city website for a month. January 3rd through February 2nd. And it received 127 responses. I said it was available on the city website, but most of the outreach was mostly done by the Traverso family. They posted to Facebook and they posted to next door a couple of times and shared it with the neighborhood by word of mouth. So now we will go over some of the feedback that was collected. And it is not all of it because I just wanted to be able to provide the information that would really help you to make a decision regarding the renaming request. Next slide, please. So there are three questions where we are going to go over the data from a couple of different perspectives. The first question is where do you live within the city of Santa Rosa? This table compares the three different opportunities for community feedback. And as you can see for the zoom poll, the majority of people lived outside the city of Santa Rosa who participated in that. At 36%. And then followed by, closely by the Southeast quadrant at 32%. For the survey number one, it was, the highest percentage was 43% within the Northeast quadrant followed by the Southeast quadrant at 34%. And then for survey number two, you see 52% came from the Southeast quadrant. Next slide, please. And this match asked, I mean, it says the same question, but this data does not include anybody who lived outside the city or anyone who did not respond to the question. So the distribution is the Southeast quadrant is 51% with, and the Northeast quadrant at 36%. Next slide, please. What is your age group? For both. So most of the questions are now going to look at it from the perspective of the Southeast quadrant versus the entire city. And they don't include again, the people who live outside of the city or the people who didn't respond to the specific question. So for both the Southeast quadrant and city-wide, the majority of respondents are over the age of 45. Next slide, please. How did you hear about the survey? Word amount, next door, social media, city connections and signs of the park were the most important methods. Next slide, please. Have you visited Creek side of the space? Southeast quadrant, 88% have city-wide, 74%. Next slide, please. How often do you visit Creek side of the space? This one is a little bit more surprising since 21% of the city-wide respondents said that they visit every day versus 8% of those living in the Southeast quadrant. But it has a good point. So the next few questions, the, everything in quotes comes directly from the park naming policy and procedure. So our Mary traverses civic contributions and occurrence or event of national or local significance, 75% of the Southeast respondents, 75% of the South East respondents, 75% of the South East respondents, 75% of the South East respondents said yes. And in comparison to 62% of the city-wide respondents. Next slide, please. And you'll notice that these results for them, these questions are pretty similar throughout. Just changing the Creek side open space park name to Mary traversal, enhance the city's values and heritage, 71% in the Southeast said yes, 62% city-wide. Next slide, please. Next slide, please. Is changing the Creek side open space park name to Mary traversal compatible with community interest, 75% Southeast and 64% city-wide. Next slide, please. So 13 and 14 will look at in a couple of different aspects. Are you in favor of changing the name of Creek side open space to Mary traversal open space? And so this is comparing the three different community feedback methods. And you'll see that from the zoom poll, 75% said yes, where 4% said no. But then when we had the first survey, 23% said yes, we're in favor. And 51% were not in favor. But then in survey members. Okay. So anyway, those first two pieces of data went forward to you in December. And that was why you asked us to go back out into the community and get responses specifically from the Southeast quadrant. So, we went back out in the beginning of the year, 97% of the respondents said yes, they are in favor of changing the name. And again, remember that 52% of the people who responded to survey number two are from the Southeast quadrant. Next slide, please. So looking at this a different way. Are you in favor of changing the name? 73% of the Southeast respondents say yes. And then the second graph looks at all responses. Those outside the city. And in addition to everyone living inside the city and 66% said yes. If you remove the data for all of those living outside the city. Yes, goes down to 62%. So not a lot of change. Next slide, please. The other question that we really wanted to know was how much community support do we need for renaming to occur? So what percentage of the community should support the naming or renaming of an existing park? And what percentage of the community should support the naming or renaming of an existing park? And for the zoom, 42% said it should be greater than 50% of respondents should be in support. For survey number one, it was at 84%. Greater than 50% support. And for the city. And then for survey two, it was 54%. Next slide, please. Next slide, please. And then looking at the data from the southeast quadrant versus citywide. The numbers are very close. So 69% of southeast respondents, think that 50% are greater. People participating should be in support of the name change and citywide at 66%. Next slide, please. This is a lot of text. But the staff minds that overall, there is support for a name change with 50% or more support for from the community. So it's 73% from those living in southeast Santa Rosa. 66% for everyone and 62% for those residents. Next slide, please. So there's a couple of ways that you can move forward or you can discuss moving forward. We would advise you either approve the park name change from Creekside open space to marry Traverso open space with 73% of southeast resident respondents and 62% of city resident respondents in favor, which is the 62% of city residents. The 62% is 12% above the 50%, 50% to 100% support from the community. Which is favor by all meeting attendees and respondents. Or you can retain the name Creekside open space until the city adopts an updated park name policy and procedure. And the Traverso family may resubmit their request under the new policy. Next slide, please. The steps after this meeting, your recommendation will go forward to city council. City council will review it in the summer. And if it is approved, then as city maps in the website and anywhere where the name Creekside open space appears, the media will be updated with the Mary Traverso open space name. Next slide, please. And with that, I thank you for your time and look forward to your questions. And I'll turn it back over to Vice Chair Griffin. Thank you, Emily. Any questions for staff before we move to public comment? I have a couple of questions, Emily. What is the cost if we were to approve this name change, what would be the cost to the city in affecting that name change? If any. Yes, for this renaming request, there would not be any budgetary impact. It would not be a budgetary impact. But it would not be a budgetary impact. Because we will be updating the media as it needs to be updated. So when we go to print on the next version of the park system map, we'll change the name there. So it would be just a standard cost for that thing. Or changing the website is just a little bit of staff time. Okay. So no need for a sign or sign change or anything like that. Okay. So we'll go to the next slide. Okay. And then I think you already covered this, but just to confirm the support, the change in support from survey number one to survey number two appears to be driven by the fact that it was more targeted outreach in terms of targeting the neighborhood as we asked you to do. Would that be an accurate statement? That is true. I do want to clarify that the outreach was on the city website, but mostly it was done by the Traversa family. Okay. Great. Thank you. Any other questions for staff before we move to public comment? Okay. Okay. Go ahead Logan. Thanks. Emily, you mentioned, maybe I didn't hear this correctly at the beginning. There's an acre that is approved for development at the, and not property. So we're looking at whether or not we should change the park type classification from open space to neighborhood park. One of the things we wanted to look at was how much of it is, how much of the site is developable because neighborhood parks are generally two to 10 acres. And like whether or not there would be enough land in order to put in a playground or amenities that would make it a neighborhood park. But since it's open space that doesn't, it doesn't mean that it's a neighborhood park. So we're looking at whether or not there would be enough land in order to put in a neighborhood park. That's a current designation, right? Correct. Okay. Also just say I live across the creek in an apartment I rent. So don't need to recuse, but I am a regular user of the park. And there's people in it basically every time I walk by a few times a week. So it's, it's a great place to be. So thank you. Thank you. And Steve, you had a question. Yes, I have a couple of them. It was just mostly background. But obviously there's a overwhelming support for the name change. The objectives of the city apparently have the name enhance the city's values and heritage and compatible community interest. Obviously that's, that's the case. I don't know if I'm going to recommend it if I'm reading it, right? One of the objectives is to easily identify parks by geographic location or function. Does this name change meet that objective? And if not, is there another name that would be acceptable? Something that might include Creekside. If Creekside, in fact, designates to folks a specific location. That is a great point. Yes. It is, it's very clear that, I guess where the name comes from and how to find it because it is on Creekside road. Although my understanding, Jen, you'll have to jump in on this, is there are a lot of other things in the city with the name Creekside. And so at least one staff member said it would be helpful from a GIS perspective for clarity. If this park would not name that, but I think I would have to go back to the person who requested, the Traversa family to see if they would be open to incorporating Creekside into the name. That doesn't really do a great job of answering your question. I understand. It is definitely something that staff has wrestled with. And I do want to say that the policy objectives, we only need to meet one of those as far as the name goes, but it is aptly named currently. And I guess, as I understood when the vice chair asked the question about additional costs to the city, was it implied that there's a difference between an open space and a park regarding costs or maintenance or monument sign, or could you help me better understand the difference between an open space and a park when it comes to this particular question? Yes. So an open space park generally has very minimal improvements. Conventions or picnic tables, trash cans are kind of the extent of what you would see in an open space park as opposed to like a neighborhood park which has park monument signs, at least one. And, you know, a playground or some feature that the community is being drawn in, drawn to as well as like picnic areas. And then a community park would have even more amenities than a neighborhood park and would also need those monument signs. And the open and open space park is so for a neighborhood park that's supposed to serve a half mile radius of residents around the park with an open space park. It technically serves the entire city. And so there's not a stipulation on how small or large they can be with a neighborhood park. As I said a little bit earlier, it'd be like two to 10 acres and then a community park would be like 10 to 25 acres. And but I also wanted to say that we do have another park renaming request on the table for a neighborhood park. And there are two park monument signs in that park. And so if we were going to rename that, those would need to be replaced. And those signs are expensive. And with a new sign policy, they have to have electricity to them. So that would be a costly endeavor. Could there be any waivers to the cost for where I'm getting at is, is there an opportunity to honor Mary with some sort of sign that wouldn't be too expensive? And they're waiver of some of the other requirements such as electricity to a park, but not to an open spaces. Is there some way to recognize her? Well, and if you don't mind if I just jump in really quick, Emily, I'm so sorry. I don't mean to interrupt, but I just want to say that that's that question is a great question to honor Mary. There is some honorary bench in the park already. And none of our open spaces or parks like this have any opens, any signage for parks and there's no policy to do that so far. That would be an enormous undertaking to look at that question. So that would be a larger question that we have before you tonight. What we have for you tonight is just simple name, not simple, but a request to change the name. So it's it's a pretty expensive endeavor to add park signage. Our initial investigations and previous cost estimates for including signs are 20 to $25,000 per sign to meet the requirements for signs and parks and if there's no electricity to a park sufficient to support the new lighting requirements, it could be even it could be really costly. So we're just being cautious about how we do that. We certainly feel that what is in there is honoring the treasure traversal family. Although it just happens to be that how we have our parks here, which is very common among agencies in the state is not really identifying open spaces per se as a neighborhood or community park which do have park signs. We do have a major amenities in parks like that and these are mostly meant to protect open space so that they can be enjoyed as is so hopefully it gives you some bigger perspective background and I didn't mean to jump in. If Emily if you had anything else to add specific to this site that helps. Well, thank you for helping me get up to speed on on the policies that my learning curve is straight up so all the perspective you can provide I appreciate one final questions are any prohibition for folks doing a fundraiser to create a small sign that go in that could possibly go in the open space. And again what I would say is that to put a sign here we'd want to look at changing the sign policy before we do that because right now there's no policy that allows for that at this park. We'd want to bring it back in a more open session to look at it for all open space parks and then consider the cost for this as part of that so we weren't prepared to bring forward we haven't been asked by the board to look at that scenario thus far. Thank you so much as Pamela. Thank you. Thanks a lot to Emily and or and your team for being very thorough and looking through all those things I've been lucky to be along the ride. And it's been, you know, crazy times with fires and pandemics so, but what I did want to say to give my personal understanding and context is, we really thought a lot about wait what's our policy about this and during that time like Emily alluded to, there's a second name change brought forward to us request, and we really wanted to understand like wait if we're going to be able to just change name like under what is really involved and how do we make this decision thoughtfully. Are we suddenly going to change a dozen or 20 park names or what is what are we really faced with so I think it was really good to get the community input understand the history understand the reasons behind it. And then understand the costs involved of that too and it's our intention to really make sure that policy is updated and meets the needs of the city and the parks so that it's relevant and helps us make it clear how to make those decisions. So I've, I've only lived in in Santa Rosa for about 22 years so I didn't grow up here, but I did frequent traversals market and I see how it was really integral to the culture of the city of the city of Santa Rosa for, like you said, 80 years and that family rent and the whole Italian grocery store it was a definitely a significant place that had character and people knew the family and the food was amazing and I think and we also learned about Mary and how she loved the nature landscape that was there and cared for it and so I kind of like the idea that it's a place and it's kept the way she kept it and and not changed to be a formal garden or a playground or something because she she loved it and treasured that natural surrounding so I, I'm going to certainly support the name change, and I'm going to do it based on. You looked closely at it you brought a lot of information to it is a lot of heart and soul and input from the community and I think, I think it warrants that and that every time we consider a name change that we take it seriously like this and really think about it deeply. Thank you any other questions before we move to public comment. Okay, seeing none. Madam host do we have public comment for the sign them. There is one hand raised. I think Mary Lou is going to handle this. Hello Mr birding. We have enabled your speaking permissions. Please state your full name for the record if you so choose and provide your comment. Hello. Good evening. Thank you my name is Travis birding. I'm the one that submitted this almost three years ago for my mother in law, so I just wanted to say a little comment before my before before you guys and before my son's T ball game but I wanted to say that you know this has been three years in the making. You know, this year, about a month ago, Mary passed. So, you know, this is a momentous time to hopefully, you know, you guys can see the proof that, you know, the community wants to see this change name change and, you know, it'd be great for the community, not only for the family and everyone but this would be a win for that for the community and everyone that volunteered with Mary, with that park in particular and every part that she did within a valley. But this, this would be this would be fantastic and I would hope that you guys can move forward with pushing this so long and knowing to see what, you know, the community has said and has spoken and I hope you guys can go ahead and approve this I appreciate all your comments and every one of those comments held true to what Mary was and I hope we can keep this alive and I think on one of the slides that you didn't present on this one but previous presentations with the bird house are still there that Mary really cherished and appreciated so, you know, again, thank you for your time. And I really hope that you guys, your council pushes this along so thank you for everyone's hard work Emily you included and in your staff so thank you so much. Thank you Mr birding any other public comments, Madam host. I see no other hands raised at this time. Okay thank you then we'll bring it back to the board for any final comment and hopefully emotion. Board members any final comments. Okay. I'll just say I'm also very supportive of the name change I really appreciate all of the work that staff has done to reach out to the community. And particularly in light of what is a very challenging and ambiguous policy and I look forward to updating our policy in the months to come and making it more clear when it's appropriate to rename a park and under what circumstances so. But I do feel that Mary traversal was instrumental in the love and care of this particular this beautiful piece of open space, and I'm very comfortable with the name change as recommended so Mr birding appreciate your patients. Anyone like to make a motion for this item. I'd like to make a motion that we approve the name change of the creek side open space to Mary traversal open space. I'll second it. Thank you we have a motion by board member Ben health some up. Second by board member spends to approve the name change. All those I suppose we need a roll call vote sorry madam post maybe we have a roll call vote. Yes, please say I or nay when I call your name. Vice chair Griffin. I board member spillman. I board member pits. I board member Cruz. I thank you. Board member spends. And board member Van Helsima. I motion passes with six eyes. Thank you. Thank you. All right. With that. We will move on to item eight committee reports. Chair Kwant will I'm sure update us on her mayor's lunch that that was held this month as well as the one that will be held in June at our next meeting. And also on waterways advisory committee she happens to hold both of those seats. Before we move on to written or electronic communications I just want to check in with board member spends to see if there are any updates on the merit awards. Thank you for that opportunity. Yes, the merit award nominations are now starting to flow in. And as always, they're so inspiring. And we are, we have just begun we, we have it for we have several more meetings where we will be reading and making decisions. So thank you for that we're encouraging you all to either go online and or pick up an application. And, and I'm happy to drop one off to you if you need it, just to be just because it's a wonderful, wonderful event. And thank you for the opportunity. Thank you. And July 10th is that the deadline for the applications. It is indeed. Great. Thank you. All right. Moving on to written and or electronic communications. Vice chair, vice chair Griffin. We have received no electronic or written communications. Okay, thank you. Moving on to future agenda items. Are there any items board members would like to see on a future agenda. Okay. None. With that we'll, I will adjourn the meeting of the board of community services at 520 p.m. Our next regularly scheduled meeting will be held Wednesday, June 23 2021 at 4pm. Thank you so much everyone have a wonderful.