 Hi Scott, you want to do a quick sound check? Yeah, hello, I'm coming to you live from room 127. Thank you. Nice to see you all. Thank you, we are live at this time. So we're gonna go ahead and have you turn the computer off in your camera and microphone until we're go live. Good evening, everybody. It's 5.30 and you can go ahead and begin our meeting for the Fremont Park Santa Rosa Community Meeting number two. Thank you and welcome everybody. I am Jen Santos, the deputy director for parks at the city of Santa Rosa. I just want to welcome you to the meeting and thank you very much for joining us tonight. We know you all have very busy schedules and we're really happy that you could join us here for this important meeting to talk about Fremont Park. And with that, I'm going to introduce and turn the meeting over to Scott Wilkinson, the project manager for Fremont Park Project. We'll go through our presentation tonight. Thank you, Jen. Happy to be here. Thanks everyone for joining us here tonight as we have our second meeting in the master planning process to re-envision Fremont Park located downtown Santa Rosa. I wanna just start off by covering a few housekeeping items before we get into the meat of the meeting and the presentation itself. I'd like to first introduce our meeting hosts who are working behind the scenes to keep the meeting going here, Alisa Rawson and Shelley McClure. They will be coordinating comments and helping to manage those throughout the meeting and for any other needs that come up. At this time, I wanna make sure that panelists and presenters, please have their cell phones silenced and microphones muted if you are not currently speaking. Simultaneous Spanish interpreter services are also being provided for tonight's meeting and now our host will explain how those are gonna be working throughout the meeting tonight. Live interpretation can be heard on the Spanish channel. You can join the Spanish channel by clicking on the interpretation icon in the Zoom toolbar. It looks like a globe. Para las personas que buscan interpretación en español pueden acceder el canal de interpretación simultánea en español en la parte baja de la pantalla van a encontrar el icono, es un pequeño globito. Si hacen click en este, ahí van a encontrar la interpretación en español simultánea. At the time and during public comment, the interpreter on the panel will be prepared to assist anyone needing interpretation. It is recommended that you shut off the main audio so you can clearly hear the Spanish interpretation. Additional instruction will be given at that time. Scott, back to you for additional housekeeping for today's meeting. Thanks, Elisa. Scott, this one's that key's gotta interpret that. Go ahead, Gilberto. Para las personas que les gustaría hacer su comentario durante el momento de comentarios públicos, por favor, les vamos a dar interpretación cómo hacer esto exactamente. Vamos a tener aún intérprete disponible para que cambia del canal de español a inglés para que haga su comentario. Después yo haré la interpretación y por favor, se le recuerda que mantenga sus teléfonos al micrófono de su teléfono apagado si no está hablando en ese momento. Después le daremos un poquito más de información sobre cómo se va a llevar a cabo esta interpretación al momento de que haga sus comentarios. Thank you for that, Gilberto. We're gonna go ahead and move you on over into that Spanish channel. And again, for staff, just to make sure that when you are speaking, we are speaking slow so they can translate what we are saying. And with that, Scott, we'll turn it back over to you. OK, thank you, Gilberto. Thank you, Alisa. Again, we're going to be going over this our second meeting here in this process. We're going to be reviewing a lot of the input that we've received thus far and looking at some exciting conceptual designs here for the future of the park. But first, like I said, we have a few more housekeeping items, and that is just to say that you all are participating as members of the public, as attendees on the webinar here. And meaning that your cameras and your microphones or cameras will be disabled and microphones will be muted for the majority of the presentation. And if you are calling from, and that is except for if during the question and answer period, if you have something to say, a question or a comment, you will be able to raise your hand and provide that question or comment at that time. If you're calling in from a telephone for privacy concerns of the host will be renaming your viewable phone number on the screen to citizen and only the last four digits of your phone number will show on the screen. Once our informational presentation concludes, like I said, we will have a question and answer period for you to participate in at that time. You will be allowed to raise your hand and our Zoom host will move one by one down the list of attendees that have their hands raised. And once you have asked your question or shared your input, the Zoom host will lower your hand and you will again be returned to muted position on the meeting on the webinar. And then we would ask if you hear your question asked by another attendee that you would kindly lower your hand in the interest of time, we want to make sure that we're able to cover everything we need to cover and hear from all those who wish to speak. Additionally, I will say that the city of Santa Rosa is committed to providing a safe and inclusive environment that is free from disruption. Hateful speech or actions will not be tolerated and everyone is expected to participate respectfully in the meeting or if necessary, the meeting will end immediately. So thank you for that and with that, I would like to, I think you could move to the next slide at this point. Thank you, Scott. We're gonna throw in a quick reminder to have the speaker speak slow enough so that the interpreters can keep up with the translation. Got it. Are we good to go now? We are good to go. Okay, thank you. So we are super excited to be working with a very creative landscape architecture firm, Meijer Studio Landscape Architects on this project. They're gonna help us develop a plan that is sensitive to the historical aspect of this park and also one that will breathe activity and bring active uses into the park, which we believe is something that is really needed for the site. So with that, I'm gonna turn over the presentation to Nicole Kelly and David Meijer from Meijer Studio Landscape Architects. Take it away. Thank you, Scott. Thank you, Jen. And thank you to all who are here today. I want you to know that your voice and what we hear from you tonight really matters. After the first community meeting, our whole team was really invigorated by the number of thoughtful comments that we received. It was just amazing. And then we had 250 or so comments online. And that's kind of unheard of. So keep it up. We're listening to everything and it's really, really so great to know that this park is so well loved. I'm especially grateful to anyone who is attending their first community meeting or if you're a student of the middle school. We are really, really excited. We've tried hard to reach out to as many young people as possible. So your voice is really important and I'm just so, so glad that you're here today. Next slide. One more. So the agenda for tonight, we're going to briefly talk about the project goals and the objectives. We'll touch on the schedule and find out where we are and what we can expect in the next couple of months and years. For the following that, we'll talk about the survey results and what you've told us up to now. We had surveys in the last community meeting. We also had an online survey and we'll go over all of those results. And then I'm going to present four park schemes. We'll start by digging into the site analysis, taking a look at where the park, what the park looks like today and what we think its strengths and weaknesses might be. And then we'll go into how we imagine the park could be with four different schemes, site diagrams that we'd love you guys to vote on and your feedback on. So right after you see our designs, we'll be able to take a poll. We'll close with an invitation to take the online survey. We'll talk about next steps and we'll provide contact information in case you want to reach out to us. Next slide. So the project goal, we want to reimagine Fremont Park through community participation. So again, we're really excited you're here and we can't wait to hear your thoughts. We want to create a safe, inclusive and welcoming green space. We want to enhance the park's beauty and celebrate its past. We want to improve park amenities, infrastructure and user experience. And finally, we want to strike a balance between honoring the site's original design while also creating a space that works for current and future youth and families. Next slide. So we got started in November of last year. We had a community meeting already, like we said and we have, so we're on community meeting number two. The next community meeting will be sometime in April, we believe. And at that point, we're going to present a distillation of what you've told us today. So today you'll see four designs and at the next community's meeting, we will have taken all of your comments and created one design. So that will happen in April. Project construction is slated to start in summer of 2023. Next slide. So we're going to talk a moment about what you've already told us. So it seems, if you can see the quadrant map on the left-hand side of the screen, it shows that majority of people who are responding to the survey and come into the meeting live in the Northeast quadrant, which makes sense because that's the quadrant the park is located in. We asked, what is the primary reason that you visit Fremont Park now? And sadly, we think there's not many people visiting the park because none of the above or none of the below, I should say, 43% said they weren't visiting the park essentially, but 23% said they do go to enjoy nature, 10% to walk the dog, lunch breaks, you drop off your student at the middle school, enjoy the water element, socialize and enjoy art. Next slide. What features would make Fremont a great park? You got to choose three. Seating areas was high on the list and it was these were all kind of grouped together. Walking paths, gardens, play elements, public art, open lawn, followed by community garden, sports courts, dog park or none of the above. So seating areas, walking paths, gardens, natural elements and play elements were usually high on everyone's list. We asked about relocating the Cancer Survivor Memorial is what your thoughts were about relocating it within the park or to another park in downtown Santa Rosa? 37.2% of you thought agreed or strongly agreed with the idea of moving it or relocating the Cancer Survivor Memorial elements. 30% had no preference, 15% said you needed a little more information and 18% of you said you'd like us to keep it in the park. It seems like the idea of relocating it seemed to be more favorable with many of the respondents. Next slide. What sports features would you like to see in the park? No sports, speaking was the strongest reply. It seems like really passive activities were more desirable. So ping pong and chess got some votes, 34.5. Basketball followed by skate park or skate equipment and athletic equipment. What play features would you like to see in the park? Natural play was high on the list, climbing features followed by swings, game tables, standard play equipment, slides and then some smaller amounts for play mounds or sand pits. So natural play, climbing pictures, swings and those were ways for kids to get out there and play were high on the list. Next slide. So when we asked a more open-ended question what do you want to see in the park? What do you think would make this Femont Park a great place? A lot of people, and these were open-ended so you could answer it with anything. A lot of people talked about benches, play areas, trees, shade, walking paths, those lighting, making sure there's good lighting, movie nights. So these really, the larger the word, the more we heard it. So it seems like there was a real emphasis on creating places to make comfortable places to sit and watch kids play and of course the beautiful trees. Next slide. What would you like to see in the design? Some other responses that we got were about safety, maintenance and cleanliness. That was really overwhelmingly one of the things 127 people mentioned that in their response. Keeping it nature and the park natural at the pass of recreation was 83 people mentioned this. Making the park open, inviting and family-friendly. 59 people. A lot of you talked about you wanted Femont Park to become a place for community activation and that's, we really love that. There was a lot of people who talked about the idea of Hope Street having maybe food trucks or using this park to be hold community events. Active recreation came up 7.4%. People would mention a certain sport or a certain activity that they liked and that's, we kind of grouped those all together. Historic preservation, people mentioned the history. 28 people mentioned history. The cancer memorial people, 24 people commented on it. Most of them about removing it but there was a couple of comments about saving it. 15 people said keep it as it is and then a few of you mentioned public art. Next slide. And some of the comments that we, these are just examples of some of the comments we heard. Like for the activation or the sports, we have several comments for botchy courts. The comments about play equipment and a more open field. People, it was talked often about opening up the park so you can see across the park. I would like to see it get a refresh. It feels forgotten. Some people wanted to, we had a couple of comments on making sure the park was accessible for those in wheelchairs and probably pushing strollers. The cancer memorial dominates the current space and renders it uninviting. It must be moved to a quiet, it should be moved off the beaten path location in a much larger space. And then scattered trees and covered areas with benches to sit and that protection from the elements with the people in the tables. So that was a comment that we heard quite a bit. And then finally, talking about art and highlighting local artists. Next slide. So we got a range of ideas and comments and concepts from you. And we really heard what your priorities are. What you're looking at now, we're going to talk a little bit about the site itself. You're looking at a bird's eye view. So the park from above. The layout of the park and the paths looks very similar to the original drawing. The original drawing for the park was posted online on the city's website. It's a little hard to read. So we're not showing it tonight, but you can see the pond located at the top. And where the art is located between the use, there was originally plans for a reflecting pool there. And then just below that, you can see a yellow tree noted as a cork oak. There was also plans for an additional fountain, additional water feature, with some seat walls around it, planned for that lower corner on lower Nook on Forest Street. So the central promenade would have been, you know, full of water features, if Howard Gilkey had had the design fully built. Another part of the original design included some really beautiful native plants that were along the Western property line underneath the redwoods. Those are no longer here today. But some of the plants and trees that he had on his plan are still here. For example, the redwoods, the three cluster of redwoods at Fifth Street, close to Fifth Street, those are in the original design. The cypress tree, the beautiful, beautiful cypress tree that you'll see in a couple of our designs really focus. We celebrate that tree. That was part of the original design. And as were the use, there was also a few other ornamental trees that are existing some crepe myrtles that are unfortunately in poor health. He also had rows of peach trees designed to go outside the use and who knows if those were ever installed, but the planting plan, the really important parts of the planting plan that live today are in the trees and the cypress and in the redwoods. The design of the park is really, it was designed and installed in the late 1920s and it's really a park for strolling and appreciating nature. And we feel like that is a great idea. It's a great for a larger park, perhaps, like a park or a central park, but it makes today for a very short visit because the park just isn't large enough. There's not really large enough to, once you walk through it, there's no magnet and there's no activation currently. You can see the path leading underneath the cypress tree. We have four paths kind of leading to a space that we kind of, it's kind of like a dead zone. There's nothing there. So we just, you know, in thinking about the site, we believe that the layout is perhaps not working for activating the park today. And what we really want is to bring people to the park and get them to stay and get them to love it. So let's see, as you know, the park is located in a really wonderful spot. It's walkable. It's at the, located between fourth and fifth at Hope Street adjacent to, it's at the back of the middle schools right across the street on fifth. We have great visibility on the Hope Street and Fifth Street side. It's really open. The traffic on Hope is really slow if there's any cars at all. So that corner, we see that as a good location for a potential location for activation. In the future, we think that pedestrian traffic there's gonna be most pedestrian traffic will come from downtown. And also from the future housing development. You can see in blue across fourth, there's a future apartment building going in there. And we believe that that will be great for bringing young families to the park as well. So we really see the lower, the fourth street side is how many people will circulate and come into the park. Next slide. Some of the original park elements, you can see a historic photo in the top left showing the fountain as it was originally designed. The ram's head at the back of the wall and water would come out of its mouth and then cascade down. And you can really, it's a very romantic park. You can imagine a lady with a beautiful dress and a big hat and maybe a parasol walking by is really created in an era of people would stroll through the park and enjoy nature and you can see the beautiful setting behind it. Today, unfortunately, the wall is creating a visual barrier and it's about 44 feet tall. And so it's kind of lending to some of the sight line issues that we have along Fifth Street. Also, you can see the pond itself. The city is, it's become really difficult to maintain the water feature. And with the current drought and the severe drought that we're in, it's just become an untenable maintenance for the park, for the city. Next slide. One of the other original park elements that is a bit problematic are the use. They're creating a double set of walls in the center of the park, which divide very hard of the park into three separate spaces. So when you're on one side, you can see it's almost, you can't really see through and you can't see what's on the other side and it creates some safety and sight line issues that we think or that we heard also of many comments talking about sight line issues. So we heard people, some of you like the use and so you'll see in some of our designs, we'll keep a couple of them in honor of the design, but we think that it's probably best to open up the center of the park and you'll see that in a few moments. Next slide. Within the use is the Cancer Survivor Plaza. So in 2000, the Cancer Survivor Memorial Plaza was installed. It includes this wall, this monument signage on the top left. This is on 4th Street. There's also additional signage on the back of the fountain that you can see in the top right. In the bottom left is the art that was installed, memorializing people who have come through a difficult time. And then within the U Grove at the base of the U's, there's a positive mental attitude walk and it has several plaques. With quotes about positive mental attitude and about ways to make it through a difficult time. Moving forward as you saw in some of the comments and when we reached out in the surveys, it was determined that most people are comfortable with relocating these elements. So you'll see in our designs that we don't include the Cancer Survivor Memorial in future park designs. If we are going to, that is not a completely, it's not set in stone. So we are asking you again. We'll ask you again today to make note and to give us your thoughts on relocating it again, just to make sure that is okay with the community. Next slide, please. Okay, the trees. The reason that Fremont Park is just such a wonderful, magical place and the reason I think it is so well-loved is because it's an oasis of beautiful trees. On the left is a butternut tree, we think. Do their walnut or butternut, but if it is a butternut tree, it will be the largest in California according to our arborist, which is really special. And then the redwoods in the center, these are the original redwoods. We think this underneath this grove of redwoods is a really magical place. And we have a few different ideas about what to do underneath that grove. And then the cedar is on the far right. That is a really old and beautiful majestic cedar tree. Again, part of the original planting plan. So we really want to honor and celebrate that tree. Now trees that aren't showing up here, but which are really beautiful, I know right now are the saucer magnolias, which are blooming because when a member of our team was just at the park last week, and we couldn't get the slide, the photo in here in time, but by the pond and also at the corner, there's saucer magnolias, which are also really nice. Next slide. Okay, so I am gonna show you four different ways of thinking about the park. These layouts are really diagrams. When you're looking at these concepts, I want you to really don't feel like this park is designed and it's set in stone. These are just diagrams, thinking about the park in different ways, different pathways, different open spaces, different elements. But it's really just to get your feedback. Each has a certain feature that was mentioned that was important to the community. So we are presenting them here today and as a work in progress. So you'll get definitely, there'll be an evolution of whatever concept we find is most favorable to the community. So let's, the first one that I'm gonna show you today is the original layout reimagined. The second one, we're calling patchwork of clay. The third one is artful organic. And the fourth one is called the open heart. So with that, I'll take the next slide. Okay, so the original layout reimagined. We did look at using the original footprint exactly as it was before, but we felt two things, that the park was still divided and that the focal point or the magnet that we were hoping that this park can become was too small and in the wrong location. So we took the oval shape of the pond that's there today and we expanded it and made it larger and brought it into the center of the park. We brought it into the center of the park on axis with that beautiful cyclist tree. So you can see the central part of this park has a sculptural play element and on the top right, excuse me, yes, the top right photo. You can see what we're talking about. That play element, we really want to be something spectacular. This is a humpback whale in Emeryville and a park that is all about the Pacific Ocean. So where it's a site specific play element and we kind of, we see the same thing for Santa Rosa or Fremont Park and that this play element, whatever it is, can also honor the history of Santa Rosa in some way or some special part or history about the park or the location or the city itself. So we want this play element to be special and sculptural. From the oval, you can see that there are pathways radiating out to fourth street at the corner and then closer to downtown because again, that's how we really see people entering space. The promenade that was originally designed that is still there in the center of the space taking you from fifth to fourth. Opposite the Cypress Street, we have a trellis. So we have seating area so parents could sit under there and eat lunch and watch their kids play. And there's also additional seat walls underneath the cedar tree and ringing the oval. We have four of the U's. You'll see at the top and then entrance to the play area. There's four of them. I believe two of them are in their current location and then we'd have to replant two more but these can really be markers and gateways into the central space. In the corner at fifth street underneath the redwoods we're showing a natural play area. You can see in the bottom photo on the right, this is, it's a playground that feels at home underneath trees. So it's probably going to be wood with bark mulch underneath. It's something that can still be fun. This is I think a brass hopper perhaps or a praying mantis. You can still have something that is unique but it's just the idea of having a natural feel and being really at home underneath a grove of redwoods. The stone historic marker that you can see underneath the cedar tree, that is relocated from the corner. The corner, if you are familiar with the corner and the magnolia trees there, there's a historic plaque located on a stone that talks about the first transfer of how the park became city property and that's memorialized in that plaque. So that would be moved underneath the cedar tree in this game. Next slide. We've created 3D views so that you can kind of get a more, you can really dive in to get a better view of how the park might feel. So you can see the promenade through the center of the park and the pounds radiating out from the oval. You can see the trellis with the seating opposite the cedar that's existing, the central play area and then you can see it that around that central play area we really designed that paving around the central player to be wide. So you can imagine that people would be walking around, kids might be riding scooters but it's wide enough to take some traffic. And then you can see the natural play area underneath the redwoods. So that's scheme one. Next slide. Number two is what we're calling patchwork of play. This layout is similar in spirit to the last one in that it contains a central plaza space on access with the cedar tree. It also maintains the promenade that takes you from fifth down to fourth. In this case, the cedar tree is opposite a trellis that's linear. So the layout of this park is a bit more linear than the previous one. The other difference here is that we, with the park being so close to the middle school and we do, it was always on our mind like how are we going to bring youth and middle schoolers and kids of all ages? How are they gonna create? How do we create a space for them? And we did hear a few younger members mentioned skate elements in this park. So we are including some of those at the top at the corner of hope and fifth. These, we don't believe that this park can have a skate park like a bowl and a large skate park but we do think that this park could have some skate elements. So you can see the middle photo. You can imagine younger kids on their scooter and kids on their skateboards kind of being at home in the same place. So that's at the corner of fifth and hope. Adjacent to that, we have a playground and then underneath the redwoods on this design we have a dog park. Just another way to use that space on the western boundary underneath the redwoods and trees. We have an open lawn and then we have a bachi court. So you can imagine if you're sitting under that trellis you could play bachi or you could be watching a community event in the central plaza. The central plaza is showing an art element. We talked about this with the team and we're talking about the idea of the, you may be seeing pictures of Millennium Park in Chicago with the beam. The beam that is like a mirror. It's an art feature that really draws people into the park and it's very engaging. So we can see this plaza holding a piece of art and this red tubular shape at the top is something equally engaging. It's not exactly representing what we think would be there but the idea that kids could play on it it could draw people in. That's what we really wanna convey. So that public plaza feel would be a great place for community events and that sort of thing. So on either side of the plaza we have seat walls, memorial seat walls. And these seat walls we can imagine they would either be historic, there could be historic markers within the walls. Perhaps we use the same stone as the stone that was in the fountain and or perhaps the positive attitude cancer memorial plaques could also be part of that wall the seat walls. And then on either end of the seat walls are the use. So in this design we have two of the use transplanted as markers into the plaza. Next slide. This is a bird's eye view of what the park could look like. So you see, we still have a pretty big open mon with the bachi court and connecting into a trellis with seating underneath connected to the main promenade throughout the park. We have a main that plaza for community events and we have seating platform underneath the cedar tree. In the corner you can see the skate elements and then the playground closer to the butternut tree. And you can't really see it but on the underneath the redwoods we have the dog park. Next slide. This is scheme three. It's called artful organic. This scheme really honors the organic nature the concept of the original design and the idea of walking paths in a strolling park. And even though we took out the central promenade we are using, if you can see that the swooping promenade that we have here going from the corner of fifth and hope down to fourth street. It largely follows paths that are there today but are a bit more smoothed out. But we see that as a wide promenade with benches on either side and a place to sit and kind of stroll through the park. These paths are more for meandering through. It's a more casual and organic scheme. The main heart of the park where the pond was we relocated a play element there and a community plaza. So you can see there's a circular plaza play element and then a tree with a seat well underneath. We also are introducing a large flexible lawn space. Our office is really close to a lawn, I mean, a park with a great open lawn and the middle image is actually taken at that park. It is always used by someone. We can, I think there's a class being held there in this photo. There is picnics, there's volleyball games. And so, many people talked about the openness wanting this park to be open. And we think a flexible lawn would be a great way to do that. In the corner underneath red blokes, we have parkour or fitness. That is another idea we think that teens and older kids might like. Parkour is fast moving, jumping. I've never done it myself, but it involves a lot of fitness and jumping and it's great for teens. So that's kind of what you're seeing in the lower photo. There's picnic tables up there under the shade of the butternut tree. The central play area we see as being, there's many ways to think about it. In this one, we're thinking about a vertical element so that it has good visibility so you could really see it from Fourth Street. This one is a cat tail theme and you can see the kids can play in the play element and there's a nest. So something like that would be a really great way to activate that central space. Next slide. Here's a bird's-eye view of it. You can imagine coming from downtown and entering the park on the promenade and then maybe having lunch on the lawn and then making your way to the play area if you have kids and then you could sit there on the seat wall and you can watch your kids play or watch them throw a frisbee. And then if you're a teenager or just want to get a workout, you could go to the parkour area underneath the redwoods. Next slide. So this is scheme four. This is our final scheme. This is called the open heart. The focus here is really to create a space that can be great for picnics, for throwing frisbee, a place that is open and inviting. The oval shape has been rotated 90 degrees. And we have what we're calling a historic walk. The loop, we can imagine people would come perhaps on their lunch breaks and get some exercise by walking the loop. And along this loop, we have historic markers. Right now they're just represented as red circles, but we can see those as stone markers or some sort of a historic marker that talks about the site, the park history, the history of the city. So those are all along the oval. We have a circular pathway system that brings people in of the arc coming from downtown, brings you into the park. And then also you have another entrance at the corner of 4th and Hope Street. If you're coming off, if you park at 4th Street, you can enter the park directly there as well. There's a trellis and shaded seating and then a play area right in the center of the lower part of the oval. Again, sculptural play. We think that something beautiful and this is I think a dragon, the blue one, but something that resonates with the town and talks about the history of the site we think would be great. Perhaps it's a ram, hearkening back to the ram on the water feature or something like that. On the underneath the redwoods on this one, we have a native garden. The scale of that is pretty large. So we anticipate that that would need maybe volunteer support, but we think it's a great place to have some California native shade-loving plants. At the top of the oval, you can see there's another, again, directly across from the middle school, it's the teen hangout space. We have parkour and fitness. And the entire ring around the park, the oval has seating available around the entire edge. Next slide. So this is the bird's-eye view looking into it again. You can imagine walking in adjacent to the native garden, coming into the oval. And if you want to get some exercise, taking a few laps around the park, you can imagine people playing volleyball or having a picnic, but it's really open. All the existing trees are maintained. The existing trees are maintained, the magnolias and the oaks that are there today, and that's true for all of the designs. And you really create a completely different feel from what's there today with the great visibility and the openness and the inviting spaces in the park. So, oh, I should mention that some of these, we did have, so you can't see, didn't mention that we have picnic tables underneath the trellis. The trellis also creates shading for parents who want to watch their kids play. I think that covers it. So those are all the designs that we've come up with in collaboration with Jen and Scott. In a second, you're gonna be asked about your favorite scheme. Please know that certain elements are interchangeable. What we really wanna know is about the park layout. If you think the idea of a native garden is bad in this park, but you like the way it's laid out, just know that the dog park or whatever, all of those little pieces, those elements are interchangeable and you'll get your chance to let us know that later. But what we're really looking for when you vote on a scheme is the park layout and the park feel. So try to keep that in mind rather than focusing on a single element when you're picking out between number one, two, three and four. So I think with that, I'm gonna pass it over to the host and we'll take the community poll. So thank you so much, everyone. Thank you, Nicole. So I'm gonna go over how the polling will work today. All poll questions are multiple choice. You must answer all questions in order to submit your responses. The submit button is at the very end of the poll. You may need to scroll to the bottom of your screen to find it. If you are completing the poll on your smartphone, you must answer the first question before you can answer the second question. If you are participating in the meeting via a landline, you will not be able to participate in the poll at this time. However, the survey is posted on the project webpage through March 16th. Once everyone has completed the poll and it has been closed, the results will appear immediately and Scott will walk you through those results. We have 10 of the 15 participants had the opportunity to answer. We're gonna give this about another minute. All right, I believe everybody's had the opportunity. We're gonna go ahead and end the poll. Okay, thank you everyone for participating. Quickly walk through the results here. The number one votes for number one were 30% for the original layout reimagined scheme number one, 10% for the second scheme patchwork of play. Again, 30% or three out of 10 for the Artful Organic scheme and similarly 30% for the fourth scheme at the number one for the number one choice ranking. So that is a pretty good spread. Let's move on to the second position. The second choice, 50% had the original layout reimagined followed by 20% for Artful Organic and 20% for OpenHeart and 10% for the patchwork of play. Number three, 30% patchwork, organic and heart and 10% for the original layout reimagined. And that would bring us to fourth place. 40% had the original layout reimagined in the fourth position, 30% patchwork of play and 20% OpenHeart and 10% Artful Organic. So those are the results of our first polling, live polling here. At this point, I think we'll roll into our second poll which has to do with collecting a bit more information about the folks here that are on the call on the webinar and just want you to look really quickly at this map and determine which number or quadrant number you find yourself living in. And as that will help you answer one of the questions in poll number two. And I believe there are six questions in poll number two here. So we'll give you just a little bit of time to complete this one. It looks like we have six of our participants who've been able to answer all the questions. We're gonna go ahead and give it another minute or two. All right, we're gonna give you about 30 more seconds. All right, we're muted. I was muted, thank you. Live polling results just in poll number two. What are your favorite elements in the conceptual park designs? Two is up to four. As you can see, a lot of interest in picnic areas and shaded seating areas at 86%. Also scoring high is the historic walk concept at 71%. Native plant garden, 57% respondents in favor of a native plant garden. 43% open lawn, the idea of an open and flexible lawn space. 29% in favor of a botchy. 14% dog park and zero skaters in the crowd tonight, it seems. Question number, oh, there are some more here, sorry. Sculptural play feature at 43%. Similar, exactly the same as the play area, which could also be sculptural or more traditional. We will get into the details of that. And the parkour fitness component was not a popular item either at 0% responders. Cancer Survivors Memorial should be relocated at 29% to a different part of the park, 14% to actually a different park. And the majority, the highest responders responded that it should be donated to an organization or perhaps a hospital or another clinic. And 14% were undecided in that question there. So, good information. We can see that 100% of our attendees are between the age of 51 and 75. And most are in the Northwest with some in the Southeast and Southwest Quadrant, Quadrants. And then we have some information about how did you hear about this meeting? I can actually open this up bigger. So, social media, a lot of people are using that these days. So, that makes sense. City website, city e-newsletter, also a popular way to stay connected if you're not signed up for that. That's a good thing to sign up for, for park planning and other outlets. That's for information and outlet for other information. And then 14% other. We also had signs in the park and things like that and at the school as well. And how often do you visit a city park? We have weekly users. We have a number of daily users at 29% and once a month. And then 14% who actually don't use any parks at all. So there you have it, the results of poll number two, that's all helpful information. And we will consider all of that in our next steps here with these alternative designs. At this point, it is time for our live Q&A session. So we're going to open it up to additional input that you may have questions and comments that you may have on the schemes or anything else that's been presented here tonight. Shelly, can you let us know how, how best to proceed with this portion of tonight's meeting? Thank you. A countdown timer will appear for the convenience of the speaker and the viewers. The first speaker will be acknowledged and invited to speak. So please make sure to unmute yourself when you're invited to do so. Your microphone will be unmuted at the end of that count. Sorry, your microphone will be muted at the end of that countdown or at the conclusion of your comment. If you're participating in the meeting from the Spanish channel in Zoom, we have an interpreter on standby on the English channel to assist you during your public comment. Just let us know. If you wish to ask a question or provide input, please be sure to pause throughout your comments to allow for interpretation. Those using interpreter support will be afforded additional time for your comments. For Spanish speakers, at the time you hear your name called, turn off the Spanish channel to make your public comment. This icon may now look like a circle with an ES in the middle and the word Spanish underneath. So we're going to start the countdown slide. And anybody wishing to comment, please go ahead and raise your hand at this time. If you're on the phone, please press star nine. All right. Our first speaker is Ellen. Ellen, we're going to go ahead and ask you to unmute yourself. Ellen, can you hear us? Yes, I can. Okay. I've got to talk fast. I indicated on the question about what to do with the cancer survivors monument that I didn't know I needed more information. And the reason I need more information is my recollection is that that monument was donated to the city. And so, and I don't know if that's correct or not, but I wanted to know what the source was, how we got that monument. And it was donated by somebody. It seems to me that we should take into consideration what their wishes would be for what happens to it. We've had so many other important historical structures that have been donated to the city that have just ended up being taken apart and put in storage and that sort of thing, which I think has been not the right way to go. So those were my questions that I had about that before a decision is made about what to do with it. Thank you. That's all. Thank you, Ellen. And I can jump in with a quick answer with that, I think. And Scott or Nicole or David, please follow up if you have anything else, but the. Cancer survivor art was donated donated from the block foundation. Which started, they started years ago. Implementing the same art piece that you see a three month journey across the nation. And it is. And so it was a donation. That's why we're looking at potentially relocating it and. And with the idea of not, not destroying this, but can we relocate it either in the park? Or can we donate it somewhere that would be really useful. Or maybe move it to a larger park where it could be. More enjoyed by a larger variety of folks. So it was originally donated. And although it's not original artwork, it was accessioned into the art and public places. Committee so that it can receive a periodic. Cleaning and restoration as needed. So hopefully that gives you a little bit of background about the art to help you make your. Your decision. And if there's anybody else on the panel that has additional information. Please jump in. Right. Thank you. We'll call our next. Speaker Hugh. We're going to ask you to unmute yourself. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. Right. Hugh, Hugh trail. I'm the chair of the downtown action organization that administers the. Downtown business improvement district. And I know that Cadence. And the executive director looks forward to connecting with. I'm not participating as, as a DO chair. As I think you know, I, my company owns the housing project under construction across the street as well as other buildings downtown. And that'll be about a hundred and that will be exactly 100 units. That means perhaps 200 to 250 residents. And so we do have a sense based on our expectations of occupancy, what, what those tenants are likely to want. And that does reflect part of the comments I'm going to make right now. One of those fundamental issues is the issue of indigence and homelessness within the park. And lines of sight for public safety are fundamental. But so is the need to prevent encampments growing at the most wonderful design can be created. And some of these three of these four are superb. Conceptual designs. But unless that issue is dealt with, the public will not be able to successfully activate and use the park. So I would encourage the notion of perimeter ironwork fencing. Highly attractive with gates that can be locked at dusk. This is really, really an important issue. Secondly, we would encourage as, as, as noted in the memorandum, which I, I provided to the city. I think it's a really important issue. I think it's a really, really important issue. I think it's a really, really important issue. There's so much hard scape that invites skateboarding is a mistake. Skateboarding is available across the street in the middle school. Vast amounts of asphalt there. We have the experience of Corda square. And that large plaza and the impact of bike, bikers and skateboarders and depriving the public. Of the ability to use large portions of, of that plaza. We have the ability to use large parts of the city. And the city. We have the ability to use large parts of the city and the city generally, generally face. So soft scape is urgent. In terms of the play areas, those are critical. Small children are likely to predominate among the children in our building. So we encourage particular focus on what is attractive and safe for small children, including clearly delineated areas. We've got low, low fencing and gates that give parents a sense of security. And finally relocating the cancer survivors park really is essential aesthetically. But I want to commend the work that the city has done so far in the design team, except for schematic number two, which has certain problems. The work has been done is outstanding. And it's very encouraging. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I think great comments. Shelly, do, do we have any additional commenters? We do. We have two. The next one will be Denise. Would you like Denise to speak now? Okay. Yes, please. Thank you. Go ahead, Denise. Hi, can you hear me? We can. Thank you. Hi, everybody. Thank you for the presentation. I do agree with you on the homeless situation. It seems like there's a lot of dark places currently in that park and also the potential if you put in picnic tables and seating that that would be overtaken by encampments where they can hook up their tents or hang out during the day. So I guess I would encourage if you're going to do that, that you don't have just flat tables and seating. You have, especially on the seating dividers so that they can't be used as beds, which is unfortunate, but we do have a homeless service shelter that. We'll accept people off the street. So there are our alternatives, but I mostly calling because I'm concerned and disappointed that that lovely fountain is not incorporated in any of the designs, nor is there any mention about where it's going to end up. And so I'm wondering if you can tell us if a, there's an opportunity to plant it with flowers and not use it for water. I think it's kind of been going that direction anyway. And keep it in the park. And if that isn't going to happen, which would be unfortunate. If you can tell us where is the fountain going? And if it's for sale, I'll put in the first bid. So I hope to hear an answer to that tonight. Thanks. Yeah. Thank you, Denise. I will start it off, but others on the panel probably have things to say as well. I think that, you know, you heard from Nicole about some of the, the problematic aspects in terms of the maintenance and site lines, the challenges that it creates and in its height and position on the site currently. Some of the ideas, yeah, it does not show up in any of the four schemes thus far. But we have some ideas about possibly reusing certain elements of the materials, the stone work, perhaps could show up in some of the walls or planters or edges to some of the walkways and things like that. And I know that there's other other ideas that the team have talked about as well. If you wanted to chime in to either Nicole or David. Well, you know, we really love the design itself. You know, it really comes down to the water feature. You know, the location it is. And I'm not, you know, we did, we look really hard and studied ideas in which we kept that shape and thought about it becoming something else. We, it just, they never, it never felt like it was doing. It was, it was the strong enough design or meeting a potential that the part could really be, you know, become like we want this part to become a magnet. And all the ideas that we had for reusing the fountain were just not quite as exciting as the other ideas and we didn't feel it was the best use of the space. That said, you know, I have a thought, well, wouldn't it be great if maybe that's, you know, it somehow we use that the ram's head feature and the wall and think about it in a play area or a sand pit or something like that. And we tried to brainstorm ways to, to use it and if economically feasible and if the, and if it seems like the city bang, the community is really excited about keeping that, you know, then I think it's something that we can consider. It would be really expensive to move and, and, and it would be, you know, kind of rather daunting task to, to relocate it but it's something that we, we can consider. Thank you. Our next speaker will be Carol. Hi Carol, let me go ahead and ask you on you. Hi, I would like to piggyback on the last speaker and say that I noted that in all of the plans presented the fountain was gone. It used to be a city decision that was made before community input was really asked about that. The fact that this fountain is made from local cobblestones that it was a WPA feature developed in the 1920s is really a part of the city. I'm wondering, number one, if that's something that perhaps you could gather more community input on. Give the community some historical background that goes a long way. If the fountain has to go I understand it is outdated and water is very precious. The focusing of those local cobblestones in this park would be a bare minimum in my impression. The thought of fencing the park is absolutely horrifying. Eyes on the park, community engagement, community use of the park. This is what activates and keeps the park safe in my opinion. The team has had a chance to work with the city on the half mile radius of this area in the future. Not only is the apartment building with 250 residents going in across the street. This is a 90,000 square foot professional medical office building that's very close to being approved one block away. The downtown area will be different 10 years from now. And this historic park needs to be pertinent to both today's families and also the families 10 years from now. And I thank you for your consideration. I'll just jump in really quick to let you know that certainly any decision about fountains or anything that was not made in advance of any sort of public comments we received or it was not the direction given. It was just accumulation of design process at this point, and we absolutely agree that incorporating elements of this fountain are certainly something we will move forward with. And once we get all the comments back from not only this evening, but all the other survey comments will receive online as well as from our business district and Santa Rosa middle school so we can really reach a wide cross section of the city. And we've gone out beyond the half mile radius, reaching out to folks that we will definitely take all the comments into consideration and keeping the pond is something that someone is a strong desire in this community. We can absolutely come back to the table with something that memorializes that in some way. So hopefully that gives you a sense of where we've come from where we're going and then certainly Nicole David Scott if you have anything else to add to make sure we're responding to that question. Well, I think just to layer one of the fact that into it is is the maintenance upkeep that has to be supported wholeheartedly with the other people on and that is an issue that is under consideration throughout all conditions that we're looking at for the part. Thank you, David. I think that also I would reiterate the the idea of relocating or moving the fountain. It's a, it's a site specific element that was built there. It seems, and that the cost to actually move it would be rather rather extensive. And, and I, and I think the team is just looking at the placement of it being not quite right going forward. I mean, and particularly if you look at how it's sort of used right now it's become. It's a, it's, it's, it's a living room for a certain group of folks that have sort of occupied that that that fountain and, and to me, it seems like you know reworking that whole that whole area is so is so critical and the fountain being such a, you know, while it while it is beautiful and it does have a historic component to it that it's it isn't maybe the right thing for the next 10 years or 20 years or looking a more forward looking kind of approach but like Jen said I think you know no decisions have been made and if, and if there is a strong desire to to reconsider that that idea that notion going forward we can certainly do that so Are there do we have additional comments Shelly on the line additional hands up. We have no more speakers at this time. Okay. Does any do any of the other panelists have anything else to say in response to any of the comments or questions we've heard tonight. I would just like to add for anybody else that you know one thing that Nicole brought up early on when we had the presentation of the for design layouts is often in a virtual setting we don't give the opportunity to say the little bits and pieces that we like from each of the designs and stuff so you know I encourage anybody tonight if you have any any comments about that to please speak up or. Certainly we have a more extensive survey online, if you would like to hand write in or not hand write but electronically type in things that are a little more detail will have that survey available, and of course, we're all available with the city as well because you want to have a conversation so feel free to speak up tonight if you have anything you want to say about those are. Or we have a survey as well. Okay. Seeing no hands shooting up. We will will continue and and sort of wrap up tonight's meeting. The days and weeks following this meeting, we will, you know, very much embark on another round of creative thinking with David and Nicole and their team based on you know what we're hearing here tonight and and rework the designs with the goal of of kind of creating a preferred alternative a concept that you know takes into consideration, many of these different ideas and and thoughts and it may well be, you know, kind of a hybrid as Nicole was but as she stated in her in her presentation very much is a work in progress right now and we thank you for being part of that work and part of that a progress towards an alternative that will hopefully really reflect the the desires of the community, the community of the community and and the future needs as well with the way things are changing downtown and in this particular part of downtown specifically so, as Jen mentioned, I should say, the next meeting meeting number three would be then to present that preferred master plan concept. We're looking at sometime in April to do that. So stay tuned for an actual date as we get closer there. Please check the website if we could have the next slide up please, which I believe has some information about where the site or the online community will live some of the questions are in fact the same as we're a part of the polling but it does have some write in questions as well so that you can feel free to expand on on on your ideas. And also feel free to, you know, contact me directly via email or phone as you can see my information there on the screen, or is also available through the at the website at the park, the project website. We will kind of look to conclude our meeting here tonight. And again, I just want to, you know, thank you all for being here. It's a really unique project and unique park in our city and we're really excited about, you know, giving it new life, and, and we're excited about hearing all of your ideas and continue to move forward with Meyer, David and Nicole Meyer landscape context to create the best solution for for the future of this park so thanks David and Nicole, and thank you all for being here. We really appreciate your participation in the product in the process. Thank you for your comments. Thank you everyone. Thank you. Good night. Good night. Good night. Thanks. Good night.