 And staff can let us know if we can do that later this afternoon if the if the opportunity arises, but with that, we'll just get going. My name is Carol Kwan. I'm the current chair of the board of community services with us today, our vice chair, Terry Griffin, and board members Steve Spillman, Logan Pitts, and Madonna Cruz. I would also like to introduce our host Mary Lou Nichols and Elisa Rawlson, and would like to let people know that they will be helping us during the meeting. At this point, if the panelists and the presenters could silence their cell phones and mute their microphones, if not speaking, that would be very helpful. Members of the public joining this meeting will have their webcams and microphones muted. If you're phoning in to join the meeting and you choose to speak during the public comment section. For privacy concerns, the host will rename you to caller and only show the last four digits of your phone number. We know that the city of Santa Rosa is committed to providing a safe and inclusive environment free from disruptions and will not tolerate hateful speech or actions. Everyone is expected to participate respectfully, or if necessary the meeting will end immediately. And with that, Madam host, would you like to explain how the public comment section of today's meeting will take place. In one moment we're having some issues with getting. Oh, there we are. Madonna Cruz was not showing up as a panelist and I wanted to make sure that we had a quorum for sure. So now that she's in place. At each agenda item, the item will be presented. The chair will ask for word comments or questions, and then at the appropriate time, open the floor for public comments. The host will lower all hands until the public comments item is open. Once the chair has called for public comment. The chair will ask the public to raise their hand if they wish to speak on this specific agenda item. Those joining by phone my doll 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. Thank you chair quant. Thank you Marilla. And with that I call this the August 25 2021 meeting of the Board of Community Services to order at 410 in the afternoon. Due to the provisions of the governor's executive order nine to five to zero and nine to nine to zero 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 services members will be conducting today's meeting in a virtual setting using zoom board members and staff are from participating from remote locations and practicing appropriate social services. Members of the public may view and listen to the meeting as noted on the city's website and as noted on the agenda. And with that, may we have a roll call. Yes, please respond when I call your name. Chair quant. Here. Vice chair Griffin. Here. Board member Spillman. Here. Board member pits. I'm here. Board member Cruz. Board member Spence. And board member rich. I do see a board member Cruz in attendance but I'm unable to hear her. Board member Cruz are you able to hear us. Well, she is in attendance. Let the record reflect that all board members are present with the exception of board members Spence and board member rich. Thank you. Madonna, can you get a give us a thumbs up if you can hear me Madonna thumbs up. So, I'm a little concerned that Madonna's audio was turned off. I'll give her a call. Thank you so much. May I proceed regardless. Okay. Thank you so much. At this point I'd like to open the floor for public comments on non agenda items. This is the time when a person may address the board on members not listed on the agenda, but are within the subject matter of the jurisdiction of this board. Do we have any public comments for non agenda items. We received no email public comments. I do see one hand raised. Yes, we can it's going to be just a moment. We'll need Mary Lou to unmute the gentleman and then I can start the public timer. All good. Kirsten I spoke at the last meeting. And I just wanted to correct. Make a correction to the minutes if that's okay is this an appropriate venue for that appropriate time. I'm going to assume that. Okay. When I spoke last week last month. The, I was speaking about pickleball at Howard Park. And the minutes for the meeting for last month. Indicated that I said. I want to need to convert two thirds of Howard Park to pickleball courts and that is not what I said. So I just want to correct that I said two or three escorts to pickleball courts. So not two thirds of Howard parks tennis courts, but two or three. But more importantly, I had said that this desire to make the conversion would be financed by pickleball players at no cost to the city. I didn't use exactly those words, but that was very much my meaning and that didn't get reflected in the minutes entry either. So I would just like, it doesn't matter to me if the minutes are actually corrected, but I would just like the board to know that we are not asking the city to pay for this. And we will raise the funds for this. And I had asked for the agenda item in the future so this could be discussed in greater detail or do us to who to talk to. So, that's the end of my comment. Thank you. Thank you, Ken. One moment and I'll check for other speakers. I see no other public comments at this time. Thank you with that we will move on to the approval of two sets of minutes. Hopefully you've had a chance to review both the Roseland Creek master plan, special meeting minutes and also our last regular meeting from August 25. Are there any corrections to those minutes. Thank you for the correction that Mr. curse volunteered of public comment under number three on the 20 meeting on the 28th to change it from two thirds to two or three. Terry, did you have something else. No, I was going to make the same recommendation that we approve them as corrected by Mr. cursed. Thank you, Mary Lou when you make those corrections when you put two or three could you also include the total number of courts and whether or not any are already pickleball courts and that would give us information for us to do our own. Higher Mathematic equations. I believe I'm only supposed to record the comments at this point. So I will definitely make that correction. Thank you so much. I will follow up with you on the exact amount of pickleball versus 10 oh tennis at those, at those sites. And before we, before you roll into approval I just want to check back in to make sure that we also still have our quorum, before we go to the minutes approval check, I'll check back in with our host to see if we can get board member crews back on, or maybe recommend. Or fit until we can get her back on for approval. And I think she might be. Let me just double check Madonna are you the number ending in 4799. If so, can you raise your hand or girls, I'll start nine. All right, I'm getting confirmation from host nickels that 4799 is Madonna so I will go ahead and enable her speaking permission so she's able to talk. Madonna your permissions. You're unmuted and you're able to speak. Hi, this is Madonna. Thank you. Okay, so with that. Welcome Cynthia rich. We. We're going to move up to item five in the agenda, and we're going to hold off and do proper introductions of both you and everyone else on the board. Next month, when we, when we start from scratch but welcome. Thank you. You, you missed the previews but the main features have not begun so. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much. On that note, we are going to move forward to director updates. Deputy director Santos. You have the floor. I'm happy to provide director updates. I also would like to suggest that we can move back now that we have a quorum to item four, and also pick up item five, if you would like to do it in that order. And we have approval of the nuts from the July two one and July two eight 2021 meetings. Any further corrections. Seeing none, we'll put those aside now. I'm going to move on to item five upcoming events and reports on accomplished events and for that deputy director Santos, the floor is yours. Okay, and did I hear an approval of the minutes from you. And from the board, or are you going to postpone those. I will, I will move that we approve the minutes. Although some favor hands up. I. Perfect. Wonderful. And so all of you should have received our upcoming and accomplished events. Information I just wanted to highlight a couple of things as I usually do. And remind you that we also have our interim recreation deputy director Jeff Tibbets available, if there are any questions about recreational activities as we move along. As I wanted to remind the board that the creek side renaming request that that this board approved will be going to council on Tuesday, August 31 as a report item. And you're welcome to attend. And then also from an accomplished events standpoint we want to call out the rules cemetery. And that all of their tours. And that as that was held on August 14, and I hear it was fabulous. That is all I have for accomplishing that coming events. Thank you, shall we move on to director updates. Thank you chair quite so I have a few updates. I just wanted to just to tag along with my update on the rural cemetery to let you all know that if you haven't visited the rural cemetery yet there is a series of very large eucalyptus in the back of the simple icon at the back of the cemetery. And these eucalyptus are on the county of Sonoma property, and we've been working with them. They are happy to report that they are moving forward with a contract to remove these eucalyptus they are dangerous and leaning and dropping large ones and eucalyptus do tend to be a dangerous tree to have around and if they fell. They're well over 100 feet would cause. Yeah, it would cause a lot of damage so I'm happy to report that these trees will be removed. And as the county runs through their bidding process to get a removal. And that we also want to look to more native trees in our historic cemetery, the rural cemetery there. And I just wanted to let you know that's going on and in the next couple months if you see some activity happening out there that is what it is and we're happy to give you a little more details and I'm, I'm sure that our. Our own volunteer out there, the chair has more information about that as well. I also wanted to update you that we have begun an RFPA request for proposal process to bring on a design firm to reimagine Fremont Park downtown, the city council has had an interest and as directed staff to emphasize and prioritize downtown projects. And so we, we have received, I think, eight or nine proposals I can't remember at this time but we're in the process of negotiating the for a final agreement that we will take forward to council soon to have their approval. And that will be going through its typical three year master planning process where we meet with the community and stakeholders, and it'll be bringing it back to this board for review and we'll also of course be including you all along the way. So that's a fun project that's starting up. The Roseland Creek Community Park master plan that this board heard in a special meeting will be going to the city council on September 28. That is a, that is going to be a large report item to the council. And it's expected that the chair or an appointee from the board attend with staff to represent this particular item. So I'm looking forward to that going forward as well. There's a little bit of an update that the, that the, the city is responding to the increase in COVID in the county. And we are looking at still continue work from home model for staff as needed until October 1st. I know there's an interest in getting this board back to a hybrid situation we are working on that but at the same time from a perspective of having staff go out to different in person meetings we're trying to turn those into virtual meetings where we can, in order to restrict our activity but we are still very much modeling going to model the board after what we're doing at city council and are still moving forward with our hybrid process. So from a staff perspective we are targeting October 1st to return to work more than working from home. Let's see I also wanted to give you a little heads up about the drought, the Howard Park lake levels are going to be lower than usual. In fact, if you've ever been to Howard Park, I've never seen it where you can actually walk out to be to the island in the lake level and that's something you can do now because the lake levels are really low. Normally we have another influx of water but we're holding off this year in respect for the drought so that we're not using additional, additional water. And our recreation staff tell us that they usually close the boat house on the lake at the end of September so that we're going to keep an eye on it. And there is possibility it might have to close early but we were hopeful that it can stay open. That was as of Tuesday so things things may have changed by now but that's what I heard on Thursday that we're trying to keep it open. We're trying to keep the lake levels, but that we might have to keep an eye on it and there is a possibility it could close early. And then we've had just to let you know we have had some of our permit holders or people renting picnic reservations from the city, call to cancel, because of COVID or smoke related are the smoke from all the fires around the northern, northern California so for a variety of reasons we've had a few more cancellations than usual. And we also heard a presentation from Council had a goal setting session last night, and I don't have it right in front of me here all of their goals but from what I can tell last night it was very similar to their similar to their goals they've had in previous years where homelessness and housing are right up there at the very top. And so we should be receiving from the city's consultant a list of those Council goals and priorities and I will forward those to you as soon as I receive them. And with that that's the end of my director updates. Thank you Jen. Do we have check to bits on the line if there are recreational questions from the board. So, questions from the board, either to the parks and or the recreation and for Jen or Jeff tidbits. Hands seeing no hands. So the vision of Rosen Creek master plan going to see Council on September 28. I know that Logan you've been out there with the mayor. I'm doing dances with my city council person to get her out there. It's proving challenging finding a time that will work for both me and my city council person Victoria Fleming, but an endeavor well worth pursuing. Either we as appointees or staff will get the majority of city council out on site. As we all know, looking at a park in three dimensions means a lot more than looking at it on a piece of paper or a zoom screen. And I do plan on attending the meeting on the 28th and would love a reminder from staff to go out to to us all in that regard. Thank you so much. We are moving on to number seven scheduled items. And I have the pleasure of introducing James Castro, who is the head of parks maintenance to give us a parks maintenance update. And James it says here you are the parks super intendant. And I'm just going to turn it over to you. Hi James. I'm going to turn it over to you and board. I'm hoping that we can have a healthy exchange of information and contacting comments and questions with James after his presentation. Good enough. Take it away James. Good afternoon, chair quite by chair Griffin board members. Yes, I am James Castro and I am the superintendent that oversees parks. I've been in this city for 14 years, but I'm brand new into this position only four months old. So, I'm still learning a lot. I've got a lot that I have learned up to this point, and I'm very excited that there's actually a board of people here. Our advocates for recreation parks. So thank you for inviting me. I have got a small presentation it's five slides. It's not, it's not exciting information but I think it's important for this information to be relayed to the board, specifically what's going on in park maintenance right now. So, we'll get into it. Next slide please. So, here's our staffing and 2008 park maintenance had 57 employees and this was a time when parks was thriving, we had special projects crews we had our own mowing crew and island crew a tree crew. Today we're we're at 23 employees. So none of those special projects crews exists. This this happened after the recession into would burn a little bit of a downturn. And so we're making do with what we have now. If you see that the national average for park staff is 16 and a half acres per full time employee city of Santa Rosa, we cover 45 per employee so it's quite a bit different than it once was the park's maintenance to be in with the national average we would need an additional 40 maintenance workers added to our staffing which, you know, it causes a little bit of angst amongst amongst staff and, you know where we are trying to figure it out but this is the reality of what we're dealing with. I put a bottom bullet point there I put in to represent if there are 73 acres of median and roadside landscaping that in the last couple of years park maintenance staff has had to take over. Prior to that, it was part of a landscaping contract that the city had and city was interested in soliciting bids for new contractor to come in, and the landscape and roadside. The median and roadside landscaping was not adopted as part of that contract so right now park staff is taking care of it. I think that this is important. There's a little bit of confusion about you know go reorg that took place a couple years back. Everybody knows that there was a separation between recreation and parks. But really we were separated into three, three different divisions, it was recreation, now parks planning and parks maintenance. And what what this organizational chart doesn't show is that assistant city manager Jason that oversees much more than this. I was just simply trying to display for you all. What, what parks is dealing with now I will park maintenance reports, the deputy director of field services, and the parks planning reports the deputy rep reports. The water reduction parks so we are in compliance with the stage three restrictions we've made 20% cuts across the whole park system, with the exception of community parks and sports fields were continuing to irrigate those regularly to support our outdoor spaces. And as you'll see, although that the spray grounds are allowed during the stage three, in respect for the drought the city is not turning on the spray ground or the splash pad at Prince Gateway Park. I do think it's important that the public knows that as part of our permit with the county to have the splash pad. We actually have to exercise the system at a minimum of once a month so you may see it on randomly. But it is closed as a feature to the public. All drinking fountain hydration stations are in normal operation. Next slide. Parks volunteer program so parks is going to be working on revitalizing the parks volunteer program obviously this program already exists it's existed for years. We work very closely with recreation, but the take home from this one is that we are really trying to bring back the volunteer cleanup day once a month in in parks and around parks, all across the city and every district. And, you know, hopefully this will get a little bit of momentum behind it and we'll be able to pull in a lot of the community to help us with our parks because really, you know, if the public is. going to sit around and wait for the city to fix the parks problems that they're never going to stop waiting, we really need the public to be involved and hoping that the revitalization of this program will will be a bigger draw for the public. Next slide please. This is new in park maintenance. We've created a parks maintenance SR city.org email address. The plan is to create signage that will go into all the parks, letting people know that they can get a hold of park maintenance staff at this email address blog we will include the phone number that's already out there the 3770 number. But this is this is beginning to roll out this this email address is live now the public can send their requests to this email address. And we are working on the design of the signs that will be placed in parks. Next slide. Tada. Easy. Any questions. Let's hear them. So James I don't think there's anything easy. Yeah, unfortunately. I'm hoping both Jen who has years of perspective and all of the board members will weigh in and we can have an active discussion about how this board as well as the city can nurture our parks better. I see Logan Scott his hand raised I would love to be informal at this I don't want to go through a set order. I'll call on you raise your hand and we'll get to everybody. Logan. Thanks, Carol. James thanks for the presentation. Two questions for you are those signs going to be in Spanish and English. That hasn't been discussed yet but I think that's a great idea. Highly encourage it to be bilingual. That's great. So those cleanup days, is that like a city wide day or does each park have a different day. No, it'll be a city wide and it will be put on our website and advertised on the different networks that we have. But the goal is one park a month in different districts each month. So it's not a park in each district each month. The goal is one, one a month. So it'd be like a one day a month for seven parks in each. Is that what you mean in each, each of the seven council districts. No, I mean the opposite it'll be one park a month. And throughout the year each district will get hit. Got it. Okay, so each month will be a separate district and separate park within that district. Okay. That's great. Yeah, I was talking with the mayor and I think that might have been what he referenced the different council members might want to come out and do those cleanups so that's That would be wonderful. Yeah, we'd love to see council members out there. They'll get they'll get more volunteers maybe so okay that's all great thanks James. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks James for the presentation just a couple quick questions. Actually Logan asked my Spanish question so thank you for bringing that up Logan. Um, with the park cleanup the once a month park cleanup preclude neighborhood groups from doing park cleanups, perhaps on a more frequent basis. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. And that's and that it really is the hope I would love to hear from 68 people from the public saying they want to adopt a park. And the city help us by yeah 100% the city is going to organize a formal park cleanup once a month. And as I was talking to board member pits is that we would love for council to come to that we would love for you guys to come to that. Hopefully it'll be a big event and I know that this is not. This is not a new idea where we haven't created this but maybe we're going to add a little flair, maybe we're going to have a DJ. And do things a little bit differently. I would love to see this experience happen in city wide with with everybody taking pride in their parks. Well count me in for cleanup slash party. I love that idea. Wonderful. So my other question then is, in terms of timing, do you have any sense of when neighborhood groups might be able to start forming for park adoption and I am thinking specifically of a case of my own neighborhood and I think you're probably well aware of the situation we have a neighbor who is very proactive. Maintaining our park picking up trash painting the fence and so forth. And I think she's starting to generate some interest in the neighborhood to join her which is so wonderful and exciting. But I'm just wondering in terms of the timing of formally forming these groups with the city, do you have a sense of that. We're ready now. I'm fired up I would love for this to happen immediately where we're still in the process of creating the parks a month. But what we're talking about as far as small groups in neighborhood parks where we're set up we work we were very closely with recreation to have these programs already in place. And I love hearing about people that are actually doing it already. Great. And then one last question. In terms of the use of the email or the phone number for contacting parks maintenance. Is that it going to still be in addition to my Santa Rosa. And if my Santa Rosa will still be used do you have a preference in terms of what folks use. So the the idea behind the email address is that it gives us the ability internally to have every one of our park maintenance staff, get a ping on their phone, once an email is sent in. So they can respond pretty quickly should there be an urgent matter we still want there to be somebody that they can talk to and available over the phone which is why the phone numbers there can talk to a real person. I just understand that not everybody likes calling a lot of people like to send emails or have it and it's actually makes it easier on our end when we create work orders, people sending an email are our administrative staff doesn't have to interpret their language. We can actually just take their email and plug it into our work order system, and then spit it out and so that's our hope our preference would be the email address. Okay, yeah, the phone numbers available. Okay, those are all my questions. Thank you so much. I just wanted to jump in there real quick and say that I love that email as well it's going to be good for internal staff as well to use. And just to clarify that we are super excited to get the volunteer program back and running but we will be working internally to make sure that we're meeting county health code requirements and not gathering so. But I shouldn't, I shouldn't preclude you from getting excited and getting interested in sending your interest in so that we can be ready once we can meet in person. I can thank you for that clarification a coven. I don't want to say it's going to damper the enthusiasm but it is something that we have to continue to filter things through. Also, the first time I heard the use of the term work order. I thought somebody asked for something boom a work order happens and it, and it takes place a work order. James, Jim, please correct me is simply documentation for further information it is not necessarily a traditional work order where someone is being directed to go and take care of what someone is bringing to the city's attention. You are correct yes it allows us to collect data, and we can run reports that say we have the same problem at a park over and over and over and we can show them that more attention than just maintenance workers showing up for say so it's it's data tracking for us. What, before I move forward. Will every email be answered in one form or another. Our goal is that anybody that contacts the city that wants a call back that we can provide that. So, does that the question you're asking that sounded like a qualified yes. Nothing else what they get a non auto response thank you for your concern, so that they know that somebody from park maintenance actually read their email. Yeah, so our current our current asset management system is old and antiquated and we're we're in the final stages of bringing our new system into the into the works it's actually called city works. And that system is going to give us a lot more capabilities and our current system has, but its current system doesn't have the means of doing anything other than an automatic your has it has been received. But I will address that question and come up with a solution. We're coming closer to the yes I'm looking for. Thank you. Steve. Yes, thank you. First of all, welcome Cynthia. As you may know I have been the rookie on the board since the first of the year. And I now I guess I'm promoted to sophomore, but I'm guessing you will find out quickly that I'm on a learning curve that straight up and you probably know more about parks in the city than I do. Here goes a rookie question of Mr Castro your second slide was eye opening to say the least for someone who was not familiar with it of course I looked at it a few weeks ago. And I was trying to wonder and this is a question not just sorry for you but for anybody who has better perspective and experience that maybe it's Carol Terry, Jim. Why are we looking at these numbers is this a budget issues as a priorities have changed or can you kind of give me the overall view about why the parks are in this, or staffing is kind of in this situation. It's all of the above. I think that we are being forced to look at our budget and the reductions that we need to make in in part maintenance. That's been challenging for us the separation from recreation and the further split within parks. And we're we're asking, we're being asked to look at how to reduce reduce services. And so, when we hear about the weeds around the city, and the different things that you know the the parks that aren't being cleaned up the council's priorities are not park maintenance. And so we use internal resources to take care of what council's priorities are. And unfortunately, when we look at these numbers. It paints the clear picture on, you know why we're not tending to our parks the way that we are. People don't come work for the parks department, because they want to get rich and famous they do it because they love what they do. They love being in parks and taking care of the outdoor spaces, and it's a very close family of people that work here. And when we hear about the complaints and how things are looking and why parks is are the way that they are. Nobody's more frustrated than than park maintenance staff, because these are their state they love these spaces and in 2008, the parks got to feel that love. And now we're in a position where we're in medians and cutting weeds and taking care of other things that have have pulled us physically out of parks. So these numbers demonstrate why that is, does that answer your question. Yes, it does. Thank you very much. As you know, this board just recommended to city council to create an additional park so you're going if the city council agrees with our recommendation. It appears you're going to have even more work to do. Yeah, and this is not this is not new to city staff, and it's not unique to parks. If there's a new facility added facility maintenance has to take care of it without additional resources. Same way more acreages added and we're expected to maintain them with the resources we have, we would love to be excited, we would love it. I mean, these are new parks they're shiny things. We have to work out the logistics and how to maintain those. And, you know, we've got a lot of parts that already exist that are being neglected. Well, thank you for your dedication and creativity. You are welcome. Thank you. Cynthia, I saw your hand up. Did you still have a question. No, actually that was my question and so it's been covered. Thank you. Great. So, Jen, can I put you on the spot and ask you to find some of the silver linings or some of the Steve mentioned the elephant that I've known has been in the room I think we've all known has been in the room of the disparity between the amount of park space we have and the shortcoming in staff, which we've been discussing in board of services for as long as I've been there from your seat is the picture as leak as what I'm now picturing in my head. I know it's, it's, it's hard when you think of it in the terms of we really just simply do not it's black and white we simply do not have the maintenance staff needed to care for the city we created. So the general plan the general plan specifies, you know, we will build this many parks over this many years to support the growing neighborhoods that we have, so that new neighborhoods have parks. But from a budgetary perspective we have not kept up with the maintenance staff that are required to take care of those and in 2008 just nationwide not just this city alone. And a lot of park and rec departments, especially maintenance were just, you know, disseminated like ours ours was really significantly reduced. We, you know, on a good day we have 14 maintenance staff. And with James coming on there, I feel like there is a silver lining and there is a recognition last night at council about how much the council is putting on staff and a recognition that sometimes their desires, their general statements don't really match up with what we're doing so I think being able to silver lining to me is educating council, bringing this back to the board to recognize that it is here it exists we need to deal with it as a community and as a, as a group. And we didn't have James position for two years. So we're starting to build slowly but surely but with a careful eye on what councils are going to do with the budget. Because that's certainly unfortunately one of the first places that we go for that and, and we are also on the other side of that being cautious with what we do with parks. And slowing the pace on brand new parks versus parks that have already been in the works. So framework park is already there. We're reimagining it. Rosalind Park is already there. We're, you know, doing the master plan so really not looking at a big leap out for new land we're really trying to rein it in and take care of the things that were already on the docket to do. So we'll definitely keep our eyes open, and the park maintenance team is rebuilding, and we hope to keep that momentum going. So hopefully, hopefully that's a little bit of silver lining there for you. Yeah, you're here. Logan hold on a second Madonna. I can't see anything but the last four digits of your phone number. Did you want to chime in on anything Madonna. Thank you. No, I know, thank you for the presentation. So, I was able to see that through the email. But before we go continue with the hands. I'm hoping before we're done today, we can loop back as a board and come up with board messages for our city council people that we take this beyond thanking James for his presentation, truly to how we can be an active board full of active advisory city council appointees, rather than just containing this to our cell, and that we have ideas to kick around before we sign off today. And with that Logan. Yeah, I have an idea in that vein Carol. James, do you track those maintenance requests by park. Do you have a tally. So, when I came over. So we will we call them there are charge numbers or org numbers and for park maintenance one org number existed for the whole system so it's really a terrible way of tracking how things are done so I've been working with our ASO which is our human services representative to create a charge number for each one of the parks so we can track exactly how much money is spent in every part, whether it's by a maintenance staff or outside contractor or anything that's done we can track all of that. So it's not something that was previously previously in place but it will be very soon. That's great. I think those. So here's some suggestions for me for how to get the city council attention. I think that you should definitely track the maintenance costs per park. I think you should also do that per council district. And I'd recommend doing the number of complaints per district. And if you really want to get fancy do that as a per capita basis. Just so they can get a better idea of how many of their constituents because I know that they'll listen to us, because they respect our opinions. But they'll also listen to their constituents closely so that would be kind of my political advice for you to get their attention is just really drill down into the districts and present that information on a regular basis to the council. Great advice. Thank you very much. Yep. On that note. I hate to have you do nothing but run spreadsheets, but this park is this many acres. Here's how much time had to be spent here. I should assume that would assume that the time spent at Howard Park would be disproportionate. And then say, North Street Park, which is one acre, it could be either amenity based somehow flesh it out. I just a very small aside and I think I already shared this with you James Cynthia rich and I met at Dutch floor. That was Cynthia's here. Let me throw everything at you at once introduction to the board of community services. But while we were there on a lovely afternoon of park maintenance workers showed up in a truck. He waved which was great we waved back. He went over and Cynthia do you think he swept up some glass. Yeah, yes. So, our hope was he was going to do some other stuff but no, he swept up the glass got back in his truck and left. First I was thrilled that he waved and made eye contact with us. My second thought was your parks at work. And my third thought was our tax dollars not being really efficiently used if this guy came out from corporate yard to clean up some glass. Is that kind of thing happen. Will that be part of the tracking. I can I can understand where you're coming from I would say that I think that's a little bit presumptuous are our folks try to address safety concerns as quickly as possible. They're on their routes taking care of their parks, and every one of their parks is on a schedule or maintenance and so they don't change that schedule up when we address safety concerns if there's glass or safety concerns, you know, it's in your district you're going to go take care of it and then you're going to get back to what you will pre scheduled for your day. So, we're going to track as much as we possibly can, and we're going to categorize every one of our requests, you know, with numbers it's a number one meaning emergency get to it right now. Versus a number three which is the maintenance of the park and we're going to get that on the rounds, but to be frank, most of what we're doing right now is reactive maintenance we would love to be doing preventative maintenance and taking care of our parks at another level. But that's just not the time we're in. So I don't see any more hands raised. At this point. I would love to discuss whether or not we as city council appointees have a desire to an ability to time to, or an interest in taking a more active role in trying to foster volunteer programs in the parks in our districts, or possibly in districts that are not our districts. You can represent a park that you don't happen to live in. You can have one foot in each of two districts. Jerry. Yes, I, and in fact, this neighbor of mine who has been so incredibly proactive and has reached out to the neighborhood via next door. That was going to be my first step following this meeting, assuming I had a good sense of what the timing could be in terms of forming a volunteer group so I plan to do that reach out to my neighbors via next door and join with this person who's already begun some park maintenance tasks and I think she's doing it. James in coordination with your team. I don't think she's doing it independently but so yeah I plan to do that knowing that the timing is okay to go forward and make those connections and see what the interest is in the neighborhood. Thank you. Oh, chair quite you're still muted. I'm sorry. Will someone from parks or from wreck be sending out the protocols for how we can help facilitate the either the reestablishment or the furthering of these groups I too would love to be using. Next door, and community bulletin boards, as well as just talking with people who are frequenting their parks for hey, we can do this, but, but we need to play within the framework and I'm not quite sure what the framework for establishing new volunteer groups or even revitalizing groups that already exist. I'd be happy to send you guys link. Once everything is established and we have all the guidelines in place, if that's what you desire. So I would love to hear from some other board members as far as their desire and ability to foster potential volunteer programs. And their community in their district and reaching out to their city council person to play with us. Okay. So, perhaps, thinking about this this is something that we could possibly revisit I'm hoping people will reach out to their city council people and ask them their thoughts. So the budget is established for a calendar for the fiscal year through next June, correct, Jen. Right, that's correct. It's fiscal year so yeah already next June 30. But there's always said opportunities for mid year budget adjustments. You never know, you never know what could happen. But it's that it's that. Think about it. If anyone does have some success, I would love to for them to share it with this board. Next month. I'll just come right out and tell you I'm already involved in the best park and the best volunteer group in town. And I don't really like to toot my own horn but we had 28 people in a rural cemetery on Saturday, including a certain man in a white collared shirt and his family. And we had an awful lot of fun got an awful lot of work done those people will be back. The Boy Scouts troop number I forget but the Boy Scouts name is the zombie patrol. And they not only cut down a non native but they found a footstone for people who died in 1904. That footstone will be reunited with a 20 year old mother and her one day old son who died in 1904, and they will get a nice letter of thank you they'll get a write up in our newsletter. And that Boy Scout troop feels really good about themselves, as did the other volunteers who showed up that day. People like to help. They just need some motivation. One time Victoria Fleming showed up to a work party, and the guy who leads our group. He talked about her for like the next six meetings I can't believe she actually showed up nobody else from city council that she actually got her hands dirty. So people recognize when their board members show up, they recognize when their city council, people show up, and they, they like being appreciated. And there's a certain ownership of parks that make them better places that we really are in a position to foster and I feel like I'm preaching. So, I'm done. Any comments or questions for item 7.1. And share, I don't think we have a lot of attendees that are staff but if you want to open it up to the community. There might be somebody on this thing. Do we have any questions or comments from the public on item 7.1 chair quant I see no hands up. So, with that we are going to move on to committee reports. There was no mayor's luncheon. Logan I think he was in Ireland or Scotland at that point with for a family. So there will be a mayor's luncheon next month and the waterways committee also did not meet but there is a waterways meeting tomorrow and we are revisiting a housing project on Old Stony Point Road, which borders one of the reaches of, I think I could be wrong. But that's what's going on with the waterways committee. Do we have any written or electronic communications to share deputy Santos care quite we received no written or electronic communication. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Future agenda items, both sides next month. I promise we will do a round of introductions. Terry, I see your hand up. Yeah, just a couple of ideas. Thank you. I just want to thank the chair, the chair, or a member of the parks foundation to come and brief our board on what activities they currently have going and how we might help them in their goals and and vice versa. I don't think we've done that for a while. So I think that would be a great to meet those folks and hear what they're doing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Another item I thought we might consider is in past years and odd numbered years. The city clerk's office and the city attorney's office would do a very large training for new board and commission members on the brown act. So, but she did offer that someone from the city attorney's office and the clerk's office could come to our board and give us that overview. So I'd like to make that request. When the timing is appropriate since we now have a full board. I've noted that down and also turning back to chair quant. I know that Jeff Tibbets is stepping in where our former W director of recreation left off with our Santa Rosa parks foundation and it looks like he might have some information for us. We'd like to call him. Yes, hello. Can you hear me. Perfect. So I did want to just chime in on the parks foundation between the work kind of wrapping up that they did for fundraising for coffee park and the fire recovery. And then with COVID and everything they have not been actively meeting recently. I think that's passed them off to me. We've had a couple conversations there. They're just kind of starting to try to read revamp. So I think great to bring them forward to this committee, but I think that's probably still at least a few months out until they really have something to report to you guys. Thank you for that Jeff on that note. I would also like to further the the thought of having some interaction between the board of community services and cab the community advisory board. So, we're there's going to be some discussion of some overlap in sitting in on each other's meetings and so much of what happens at community advice. The community advisory board meetings involved parks or could take place in parks and to to foster for us to foster each other, either by having shared members or at least communication between the two so that we're aware of each other's events and can foster each other's events. Steve. Yes, sir. Are you referring to the general plan update. I was speaking more in in general when I attend the mayor's lunch. Oftentimes, Leslie Grace will talk about things that cab is doing and I look at them through the board of community services lens and say, Whoa, that could have happened at a public park or whoa, recreation could have been just just to have a different perspective it wasn't specific to the general plan, my thoughts but but to add to the conversation most definitely. So are there just curious are there more than one community advisory committee in the city. As far as I know is the largest board, there's, and they have a number of sub committees. I don't know if different board, I can't, I can't answer this one. Jen, could you address that. I don't think that there is another board is another board like, like that. I'm looking it up right now, as we speak, and just to make sure I can look at that but yeah I. Yeah, I do not see this is this, this similar to the community advisory board. The rest of them are very specific in in in my mind but if you, if you want to search them yourselves there's also some of the boards on the city, cities just basic SR city org website. There's a boards and commissions under city council, and there's a whole list of them that there's like the bicycle and pedestrian advisory body, things like that they're a little more specific to a topic, whereas the community advisory board is a little more wide open, very similar to the board of community services all the board this board has free has more in the later years been focused on the reason I was asking if you're referring to the community advisory committee that's focused on the general plan update, and you were mentioning there may be benefits of cross fertilization for example, I just wanted this board to know that I'm on that committee. Do you sound like a great point person, Steve. Um, I, I also know that you're new to that board as well. Do you feel up to speed on everything the community advisory boards doing at this point. I'm sorry, could you say it again please do. Do your association with cab is probably about the same. Yes, then is. So, would you would you be comfortable functioning as could you report in on all things. Do your ears perk up when anything that might involve park and rec comes before cab, or are you still getting your feet wet in that board as well. Yes and no way I can dodge that. I was the chairman of the planning and transportation Commission mission Viejo when the city revised its general plan. So I'm very comfortable with because I led the general plan revision that city. I've been on that committee here in Santa Rosa a little longer than this board, but I think that's probably a question for Andy. I think that he's the one who would, you know, probably make that decision or offer the that information, rather than me right now saying I can represent that committee here that I think that'd be a little outline for me to do that. But please know that you know parks is a is a major part of the general plan update. As is transportation, housing, you know everything this is the city's strategic plan for the next 20 years so of course parks is a big part of it. And Andy is quite experienced in this highly respected as his entire team is so I would suggest that maybe Jen talk to Andy and see if that's something that's proper or beneficial or just have a conversation and see what shakes out because it's not only, you know, this general plan committee reaching out to parks and reaching out to transportation reaching out to finance reaching out to anybody has anything to do with promoting the city or tourism or housing or, you know, I'm sure that staff is coordinating this in house. So anyway, that's my long winded answer to a short question. So, so my suggestion had to do with the Community Advisory Board that's chaired by Leslie graves at this point. It's not the master plan review community advisory committee. I, I, my thought was that the board of community services that I currently chair, have some overlap with the Community Advisory Board currently chaired by Leslie graves. Okay, sorry. I was thinking the Community Advisory Committee. Good enough. I saw a couple of hands raised earlier. I'm going to carry and I were going to try to clear that up. Yep. Any other items to consider for the agenda moving forward. Okay, with that, I would like to one more time. Welcome Cynthia. I would like it for the board through staff to reach out one more time to Pamela Ben-Halsama and thank her for her extended. I don't know if everyone knows. Pamela was last appointed by Julie Combs. Pamela has been sticking with this board, long after Julie Combs left city council and Pamela was always more than present she was a vital member of this board who, who really believes in Santa Rosa and all things park and wreck and as a board member I truly appreciate the time she spent with us. Cynthia, you got big shoes to fill, but you can do it. I'm going to do my best. Okay. So, at this point, I can say that the next scheduled meeting of the board of community services is September 22 at four o'clock, and at 524, six minutes shy of 530. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you all for attending. Thank you, everyone. Thank you for having me. Hey James, you still there. Goodbye. James. Hey. Call me. Okay. I will. Thank you.