Library Board - Regular Meeting

Probably 50 to 60 piles of poo, in the past few months of trying to be a coach and a volunteer in that organization. So thank you again for what you do. I'm out of time, and I look forward to working with you guys on trying to find a new home for our majors division for Alameda Little League. It's definitely needed. So thank you.

K. Next speaker is Jay Ingram.

Welcome, speaker Ingram.

And a former AGSA board member. Wanna give some higher level context. I agree with, what Adam said about finding another location. I'm here to talk about the MOU that might come before you or maybe it won't. Maybe, admittedly, we'll pull it back. Higher level context. Earlier this year, the two basketball two half court basketball courts were combined into one basketball court. There's a lot of history behind why it was two half courts. I talked with the staff and was unsuccessful. So I was told that the vipers are gonna show up and and play there.

So now this small park has potentially, vipers has the ten to twelve year old Alameda Little League. And I think you'd have to check with the planning department, Del Monte developer, neighbors across the street, they use that park as their open space to their parkland dedication. So if it's got an exclusive view towards Little League, it's not open space. It's not parkland dedicated fees. December, we got a notice about the this agreement that staff and Little League was working on for a community meeting.

We asked them to come back for another meeting. Sounded like it was proposed change, but the it didn't really sound like it was proposed. It was sounded like it was pretty much a done deal that had been moving forward pretty quickly. The changes that have happened in the park in the last nine months have greatly impacted the use, and I think you may be familiar with some of the feedback that the neighbors have provided. And I will say, kind of follows with what Adam was saying, Littlejohn hosted the Little Leaguers, the Littlest Guys, and they've been there for years, and it's been great.

So, hopefully, they'll come back. The ten to 12 will find another place. Maybe the city can work with Little League. I think Little League put in a bunch of money to the improvements, and I'll share some of the infrastructure improvements. And it's unfortunate that they put them in here, and then they might end up walking away, you know, from this field.

They could have put some improvements like this out of the field at the naval air station and worked with the city to have a more permanent permanent home. I just feel strongly in the negotiations that I've been involved with. I feel strongly that Alameda literally didn't negotiate in good faith with the city, and it didn't seem like going into it that this was gonna be a one year trial. I think there's been a little change in the sentiment from Little League that the 10 to 12 year olds just isn't a place isn't a site for them. It's too small of a park.

Let's see. If the MOU comes before you, that's what I came for tonight. I wasn't I thought it was gonna be on the agenda, but it's not. So I would ask that you would consider it and reach out to some of the neighborhood and the community in regards to some of the details of it because there's a lot of sentiment from the neighborhoods and how this has impacted the neighbors. I feel that Albany Little League should go through the field allocation process that has been through ARPD for a long time and not get exclusive use of a particular park regardless of what the school district did to them and so on and so forth.

Let's see. I'll just wrap up by saying the neighborhood park known as Littlejohn Park is too small to support the 10 to 12 year olds. I think the league is kinda realizing that and their families. I would ask that when and if an MOU comes before the Park and Recreation Commission or Recreation Park Commission that you not approve it and go from there. I'll leave you with some pictures of the infrastructure that they kinda put in. Not kind of they did. And then I will leave a picture for you, Justin, about the baller. Just a reminder as the baller. Oh, Thank you. Next

speaker is Jill Ingram.

Welcome, speaker Ingram.

Yeah. Okay. So just here to talk to you about the MOU for the Alameda Little League. It was our understanding that it would be coming to the commission, because I attended the, council meeting a few weeks ago. And, you know, as they had said the previous speakers, you know, the neighborhood definitely was in support of the little kids for little league.

It was never a problem before. And, just, you know, the majors just it doesn't seem to be a fit for them at at the park. We want the public to be able to use the park, you know, like, they've been able to use it and, be able to have rentals of the barbecue sites. And, you know, it just seems right now we of the regular public coming into the park anymore. And I think one of the things that I see quite often is a lot of people parking in the red zones.

And just in the last two days, they are parking on the corner, and it's a clearly marked red zone. And I've called the police on one occasion. They came out. They didn't take it. So that just doesn't seem to be safe.

And then, you know, maybe look at the development of Del Monte in the past to see, you know, because it's our understanding that that was their open space, for them. So, and then just I would you know, please ask to continue to notify the neighborhood with flyers coming to the, houses because that's how we found out about about both meetings, and we appreciate that. We're not someone who we're not following the website. We're not following social media. And so it just makes it hard to know when meetings are happening and things like that.

We just wanna be able to communicate and get the information. So thank you.

Great. In that case, we'll move forward. The next agenda item, excuse me, is our staff communication from recreation parks director, Justin Long. Director Long.

Good evening, commissioners. We'll have a a pretty good list of what's going on with this. We're starting our spring and summer, so our programming is getting quite high. So to go over some of the community events and engagements that are ongoing or at least coming up, the volunteer coastal cleanup takes place every second Saturday of the month. This is ongoing.

It's at 10AM at Seaplane Lagoon Park, and this is, supported by the Community Action for Sustainable Alameda CASA. Our Alameda Walk series are taking place on Saturdays. The first one is May 16 at Harbor Bay Business Parkway. The next one will take place on May 23 in the Gold Coast neighborhood. This weekend, this Saturday on May sixteenth, is the National Kids to Parks Day.

This will be taking place at Jean Sweeney Park from 09:30 until 2PM. This is a free community event with classes, crafts, and games. The twelfth annual play for the park's golf fun and dinner is taking place on Monday, May 18 at Carica Park, and the dinner will be taking place at the Harrison Center in Lincoln Park. And all proceeds go to the Friends of the Parks, and thank you for supporting us. The Alameda community band will perform a free Jitterbug music concert Friday, May 22 at 07:30PM at the Mastic Social Hall.

The Memorial Day holiday, is taking place on Monday, May 25. This is a city holiday and observed, and programs will not take place on that day. The Unity Fest is taking place on Saturday, June 13 from twelve until 5PM at Chochenyo Park. This is a free event as part of the Rhythmics in the Parks. It's a celebration of diverse cultures, music, dance, and art.

The sand castle and sculpture contest will be taking place on Saturday, June 20 at the Crown Memorial State Beach. Registration begins at 9AM, and please come out and join us for a a fabulous event. Bring a hat and some sunscreen. And then the July 4 events. So it'll start off with a five key five k race that starts at 08:30 in the morning, and all pro benefits will go to the midway shelter.

And then the parade will start at 10AM, and it'll start at the Park And Lincoln Intersection. And hope everyone's ready to come out and help celebrate America's two hundred and fiftieth birthday. For some some highlights, the Harrison Center at Lincoln Park project was recently painted, and Lincoln Park had some vegetation, a lot of improvements to some irrigation around the rose garden. The Lincoln Park fitness equipment was installed. We had 48 Mastic members.

They took a day trip to the Roaring Camp Railroad and railroads in Santa Cruz. On May 8, Mastic held a book signing for The World Comes to Alameda volume two. Authors read excerpts from the book, and over 90 people attended. And then our our summer hiring is in is almost complete. So there's still a few slots that are being filled, but most of our programs are already full.

So we're really happy with how our staffing went this year. And then there's still a variety of programs that are still available in our summer guide. So, you know, please check it out and and pick an activity that you might enjoy. For some programs for our youth, we have after school pickleball for middle schoolers still taking place Tuesdays and Thursdays from four until 05:30 at the Alameda Point Gym. We have a homeschool PE for kindergarten through fifth graders taking place Wednesdays and Fridays from nine until twelve, again, at the gym.

And then we have some special interest classes taking place currently offering HTO stream HTO stream. Sorry about that. Dance fusion, Lego robotics, karate, and many more. We also have summer day camps. So registration is open for Hidden Cove and Trails End sessions held at the Memorial Crown Beach.

Again, ARPD is still supporting the the QTAC or the Queer Teen Alameda Center. This takes place at the underground at the Vets Building Fridays at 6PM, and this is supported by Alameda Pride. And then our summer volunteer programs, operation green sweep, will take place Mondays and Fridays from June 22 to July 24. And then our junior leader program is a Monday through Friday, July 6 through the thirty first, where youth will gain experience and prepare for future jobs with ARPD. And then this summer, we also have our tween teen adventure camp.

This is a summer field trips that include everything from whitewater rafting, going to the Santa Monica or Santa Cruz Boardwalk, paintball, laser tag, and many others. And then on Sundays, we're still holding our open gym. That's from six until 10PM. We have tennis lessons available for both private and group instruction. Then we have indoor pickleball taking place Fridays from 09:30 until twelve, and indoor roller skating, Wednesdays from 9PM until 10:30.

Those last two events take place at the Alameda Point Gym. The new registration or sorry. New member registration is available at Mastic. It's the takes place the second Thursday of each month where you can take a guided tour, find out all the activities that are available. And if you wanna call and get some more information, that number is (510) 747-7500.

And then the Mastiff website also has a it's got a a new look. We've got a lot of updates on trips and all the monthly activities that take place, so please visit that. We've had creative aquatic camps are now available. You can choose everything from mermaid camp, pirate camp, Star Wars, and many special programs like that. So come on out and sign out for some of our summer programs.

We're also offering group and private swim lessons for all ages throughout the summer. Wanted to let folks know that, you know, we're also trying to take care of our staff at the same time. So we had park staff attend the training at Delta Bluegrass hosted by Sports Field Maintenance Association. We had management staff attend the CPRS Pro Academy in San Jose, and then our aquatic leadership team attended a midyear training course by the Association of Aquatic Professionals as well as the Total Guard training sponsored by Jim Wheeler and the Bay Area Public Pool Operators Association. Again, as well as our our summer ARPD lead staff, they'll also attend a CPRS training institute on Saturday, May 16.

We just held on May 13 our summer kickoff program where we do an appreciation for our staff, which is just really nice to help us kind of get together, do a little team building before the crazy season gets started. So we we took care of that this year. Just some things that are upcoming and as potentials, we're in the process of considering adjusting our public office hours from Monday through Friday to Monday through Thursday to align with other city departments. And then Fridays would we're proposing having by appointment only. This is a we're gonna be issuing a public survey early next week and so we can gather feedback on what the community sees, and we'll appreciate around if there's an hour change or not.

We wanna make sure that we're in alignment with expectations. We've begun discussions with AUSD in regarding our joint use agreement that was part of the Emma pool funding strategy. And so we're beginning that process with AUSD now, and we'll be bringing those forward as they become more developed with recommendations around access to shared facilities from both parties and what that will look like. You know, ASUD has been AUST has been our partners for many years. This is just a better way for us to establish what all those those parameters are.

Just as an FYI for everyone, both of the rock spinners at Gene Sweeney Open Space Park are closed for the indefinite future. Their engineering needs to be double checked by the artist. And so until that can be reevaluated, they will be closed to the public. And then the Godfrey Park pergola behind the rec center was vandalized over the last last week. It is half the picnic site is now closed.

We have repairs up and coming, but we wanted to make sure the public was fully aware that we're we're in the process of having that fixed. It's just it it has forced us to close portion of that park or picnic area. And then another upcoming project that we wanna make sure the public was well aware of. Starting on Monday, June 8, we will be doing a safety fencing improvement at the Lincoln Park Field. This will require us to close the driveway in the parking lot for approximately six weeks to have that netting restored.

We'll be sending out communications via the city's email distribution. We will also be having it through our email distribution, not only that, but also on our website, but it'll also be posted at the park so that everyone is aware of of what's going on. We've informed all of our our renters for the Harrison Center that this is occurring. Again, this is a safety issue. The fencing needs to be replaced there, and so we're we'll be installing that starting on June 8. So with that, that's the rest of my report. Thank you.

Commissioners, any questions for director Long? I have one. Please.

For the schedule change, how will the survey be disseminated? So we'll be sending it out via our it'll be

posted on our website. We'll be sending it out to everyone within our email files through anyone who's ever registered with us. We'll also be posting it on the city's main website so that we can get that out. We're announcing it here. We're putting it out to as many people as

we can get it out to. There's no? Director Long, I'd like to ask the I think the same question I asked about this time last year. I'm curious. When you look at summer registrations for your various summer programs, how how are registrations looking now compared to the same point last year? Are you noticing any interesting trends to call out?

Sure. It it started off a little slower this year. Mhmm. It it has recently picked up. I think one of the things that we're starting to realize that the competition is growing even higher and higher now with the programs. And so we're trying to figure out ways to mark them. We're also trying to figure out if we are offering what people are looking for. There's there seems to be a lot of growth in very specialized Mhmm. Types of classes. And so that's what we're really trying to gauge.

But right now, we are doing pretty well. We still have a few vacancies in a in a or not vacancies, but we openings in a few of the camps. Mhmm. But, like, say, we've we've been seeing those start tick up as we get closer. People start realizing, oh, school's over.

You know, coming up in on less than a couple weeks now. And so, you know, what are we gonna do with the kids? So but but in general, I would say that we're starting to see a lot of competition. One of the projects that Matt and I are working on as well as with our recreation supervisor, it's called a rec assessment, and we're in the beginning phases of starting to formulate what that'll look like. And that'll really try to give us a, you know, a a five year look ahead of what programs are we offering, looking back at what we've done, evaluating, are they currently in alignment with the Alameda community, has things changed, and what should we propose in the future to modify our recreation program?

So, you know, over the next six to twelve, you know, months, we'll be going through that process involving the community Great. Special user groups so we can look at that.

Great. And it seems appropriate to ask with the Friends of the Park Parks event on Monday. Current state of scholarship funds available and whether you're seeing drawdown on those? So we use all

of our scholarship funds every year. We're probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 50% consumption so far. It summer's usually a pretty big hit to that. But, again, we end up utilizing every bit of the scholarship money we have available, and, you know, we will gladly accept more if if if folks want to. There is an opportunity you where you can reach out to our department and you can sponsor kids. So we also take registrations in that method as well. So we have a lot of folks that will actually I would like to sponsor a camp or I wanna sponsor a swim lesson or a class. So we take those directly at the department as well. Okay.

Great. Thank you. Okay. In that case, let's move forward. Our next item is commissioner communications. Commissioner excuse me. Commissioner Alexander, can I invite you to go first?

Sure. Thank you. First of I would like to thank commissioner Robbins for his nice letter tonight. I'm sorry he's not here with us tonight. I've enjoyed serving with him these last eight years, and there'll be more on that next month, but I want to thank and acknowledge him. I spent a lot of time going to little league games this last month. I was at Littlejohn Park. I was at Cruiser Park for the girls softball. I went to Rittler. I saw the Bantam game at Franklin.

Just wanted to spend some time there just to see and hear what people were saying, some of the issues that were brought up tonight. I had a wonderful experience at Littlejohn. The dugouts look fabulous. The field is in excellent condition. I was able to find a parking space, and the game had already started right on Buena Vista, So I can't complain about the parking. I watched one game, and then I stayed to see the transition to the next game. Everything seemed to be working smoothly. We'll probably talk more about that next month, but I just wanna say spend a lot of time out there. All the dogs I did see on the park were all on leashes. All 30 of them or so.

They were all on leashes. I went to the Mother's Day swim that they had at Inconel. It was a little chilly to actually be in the pool, but I wanna compliment Stacy Thomas and her staff. They had beautiful decorations. They had flowers for the moms and little gift bags and hot chocolate and crafts, and it's just wonderful. And I just don't think that our aquatic program gets as much recognition as they used to get. You really they are so creative. It is unbelievable. I guess that's about all I did. I went to baseball games, and I went to the Mother's Day event.

I am working on the Friends of the Park golf tournament. The good news is we're sold out. Hey. But you can always go to our when Friends of the Park website and make a donation, and we do have a raffle that's going on that night that you could participate in. So if you would just like to donate because you can't come or didn't get in, you're feel free to do that. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Boerne.

I, again, would like to give an appreciation to ARPD for having good parks to train in. For those that don't know, I mentioned this last month that I was running in the Boston Marathon to raise money for Cat Town, which is a cash shelter in Oakland. I was able to run the Boston Marathon last month. I was able to finish the Boston Marathon last month. I was able to raise money for Cat town.

So I just wanted to, again, give the appreciation to ARPD for having excellent parks in order for people to be able to train for such thing. And just to also say that good parks are not everywhere. It is a privilege, not a right. So I just want everybody to be aware of the work and effort that ARPD does in order to have excellent parks here in the city of Alameda.

Thank you. Vice chair Schwartz.

I don't have much personally. I'm actually just back from Europe, about twenty four hours ago, so still a little jet lagged. But, my parents were actually here to watch my son, so I got a little bit of a unique perspective in some of the park experiences they had. My mom went to the, aqua warrior class, so thank you for for getting that back. Great to see them back in the water, even again today.

And then, my dad went to lap swim. The both of them were at my son's t ball games, their first time at Franklin, their first time at at Bay Port Bay Port Park, so they were able to experience some of the great parks we don't usually go to because they're not in our neighborhood. And then only feedback is they were hoping to do some stuff at Masik, but didn't seem like they sounds like something about an orientation class they had to take. Some of the programs most of the programs, it seemed like, were, like, twelve weeks long. So maybe, I don't know, if just the website's not updated or but would it probably be great to have some more public facing stuff for drop ins, especially as, you know, parents might come to visit, relatives might come to visit to kind of expand, you know, what what some of them are able to participate in at Mastic if there's open space.

But that's all I got for today. Thank you. Great.

Thank you. I have a two part update to to share of park experiences from the past month. First, really happy to to finally join the Alameda aquatics community. As my son was training for a swim test over the last month, we were out at Ensenada for three consecutive weeks working out there and helping him build his his his strength in the pool. I saw both sides of it.

We were out on weekends and weekdays, including and I encourage you to get your 12 year old out to swim at 07:00 in the morning on a Friday. It's a real real experience. And I just couldn't speak more highly as new swimmers in the pool of how welcoming the staff was at the pool. We discovered we didn't know that the pool was free on the first Friday of the month. Perhaps you didn't know either.

So that was a that was a delight as well. But everyone from everyone at the front desk to to the lifeguards, to the other swimmers were were wonderful to wonderful to meet. On the flip side, when the pool was, closed, this or the lap swim was closed this past Sunday afternoon, I guess, for the Mother's Day swim, we didn't, we had trouble, learning about that, that it was closed. We saw it posted posted on the website, but but not the reason why. And in that moment, when I needed to get him in the pool for a swim, we actually we ended up, at the pool in El Cerrito, as a result.

So we we felt both both sides of it, you know, the the great welcome and also the need for more for more pool space. While we're up in El Cerrito, for what it's worth, the the layout up there is very similar to the to the layout that's being contemplated for our own aquatic center. So it was really neat to to see to see that and dream a little bit and and look forward to look forward to that day. The only feedback that I have to offer from this past experience is that this past Sunday, when we're looking for a new pool space to to go to, one thing we really I end up calling around to a number of different cities in the area. And it was really easy for those other cities to reach the front desk of the pool with a single phone call and just from a distance confirm, you know, the availability of what I was finding on the website.

And I had I had a I I couldn't find a similar number here here in town. So that would that would certainly have helped us out in that in that moment. But overall, very, very positive experience, and I think the best part is my son continues to look forward to getting in the pool even at 7AM, which is great.

Can I just piggyback off that? Don't we have a number that somebody has that phone on the weekend? There's somebody always on call. Do we have that number that you could call and maybe find that information out?

Yes. We have a a standby number. I'll have Matt. He's got it memorized.

I I think I do, but I wanna confirm before I say the wrong number.

But, generally, we we have we have a standby number that after hours and on weekends that you can call, and someone can get you that information should you need it. I I will say that at the Ensenault Swim Center, we are challenged as the school district does not have a phone line to the actual front desk area or even into the building area. So it's a challenge for us to get phone calls in and out there. But I do appreciate that, and we will work on figuring out a way to get more information out to the public.

And one one user's experience. Yeah.

Our off hours standby phone number is (510) 775-5459, and staff are expected to answer that within a reasonable amount of time and help answer any questions.

And if you need me to chip in a couple of bucks for that Friday, just, just let me know. Yeah. No worries. Okay. The second piece, is similar to commissioner Alexander after April's, city council meeting where the Littlejohn MOU is discussed.

I I spent a lot of time out at Littlejohn over the last three weekends doing much the same thing, observing the games, observing the changeovers, walking the neighborhood to gain perspectives from the neighbors in the area. And, similarly, I look forward to contributing those perspectives when the when the item comes to us in the future. But that was that was time well spent and nothing quite like kind of walking in the shoes of the folks who are affected to to gain gain that experience. Okay. Let's, let's move forward. Our next item on the agenda is to approve the minutes from our 04/09/2026 meeting. Do we have a motion to approve those minutes, please?

I will motion to approve. Second.

And a roll call, please.

Commissioner Alexander? Yes. Commissioner Bernie?

Yes.

Vice chair Swartz? Yes. Chair Ades?

Yes. Thanks very much. The motion's been approved. The next item on our agenda is our regular agenda item six a, which is to, receive, the twenty twenty six recreation parks department project updates. We'll have a report and a presentation. Commissioners can ask clarifying questions. We'll have an opportunity for public comment, and then the commissioners, will discuss and offer further feedback. There is no motion to make, on this item. Director Long.

Good evening, charities and fellow commissioners. We're here tonight just to give you guys a high level overview of where we are for our twenty twenty six capital projects and small projects that we have ongoing here in the department. So we'll get started. So the first one up is the Sweeney Park Trail connectors. As many of you may gone out there or gone through the park, you've seen them fenced off.

The paving has been completed. They're working on some final components. Early next week, they're gonna start the striping and installation of signage. Once those are complete, we will then open up the connectors to the public. This will now allow for us to have two entrances from the north and then, again, two inches two entrances again from the South.

This has been a long process for the department and has put a pretty big strain on our resources for just trying to get the management of the beginning components of it. Once we got a final approval, it's moved pretty quickly over the last couple of months. So we're very happy to start bringing this project along. Again, this was really to improve pet access, pedestrian access. You know?

And so we we expect it to be open here before the end of the month. So we're thoroughly excited about this. The City View Skatepark, as you well know, over the last year, we've been working with the skating community. We work to try to identify improvements. This was built in 1999, and there's been nothing really done other than maintenance to it since then.

And so what we can see here in the yellow square is the outline of the limit of work. This is an area that they identified as needing closure to in order to complete the circuit route that this is a very well known skate park for. And so we worked with them to come up with the plans, took their feedback. And this is a little dark here, unfortunately, but, basically, it completes the loop on that northern side there on the edge in the upper right hand corner, which will allow people to go across the skate park and then come back and in and allow the circuit to really be completed. We've finished all the construction documents.

It's in permit review now, and then we're expecting it to start in October. And then once construction starts, it'll be two and a half to three months depending on weather again. We pick that time of year primarily because we know that our summer programs will be out. And then also just you know, we're just trying to align with our department's workload. But this will be a huge improvement.

There's gonna be ADA parking improvements, pathway improvements. Again, as you're gonna hear with a lot of our projects coming forward is that we're making ADA improvements that talk about path of travel. These are items that were identified in ADA transition plan that was adopted by city council last year. And so as we do projects, we are also addressing those issues as they come up so that we can work to help support the transition plan being completed. As you guys know and everyone knows, the aquatic center is coming.

The bids package came in at the April. We have been working with the council and city management, talking about the budgeting. You've heard in the the last discussion about budget that was brought before the last council meeting. The fee or the estimate for the aquatic center is about 5,000,000 more than had been budgeted. So there was a lot of conversation about how the city would meet its obligations and commitments.

And so that we are still moving forward with the aquatic center, we're going to be bringing the contract for award on June 16 in front of city council where we will award the contractor, and then we will continue to start that process for the construction of the facility. The bid package included the 30 meter competition pool, the activity pool. We're also looking at until council approves, but we put it into the base for what we want in the project, the the full scoreboard will be included. We will also be including a 16 by nine LCD wall on the maintenance or the mechanical building that will also be used for programming. We've coordinated this with AMP and their participation with the electrification.

So they'll use that as a communication device to the public about their programs. And then in other times, we will be using it for our programming. So it's a good combination or of partnership with them. So we're expecting the construction and to mobilize in July. We'll have a duration of two full years. And so once once we get the the shovels in the ground, it'll be a huge improvement. And so we're excited. It's a big project. Again, it's a it's a big taxing demand on our work time. So both Matt and I will be spending a lot of time as the construction of this project starts.

And then adjacent to the aquatic center is the community garden. We've held a couple preliminary meetings with Alameda backyard growers. We did a a sidewalk back in April looking at the facility, looking at the location. One of the things that we are looking at is to try to maximize benefit with even existing work being performed with the trail connectors. We had talked about vegetation removal in certain areas and what types to be moved.

So we're actually working at with that contractor to try to maximize even from the previous project whether or not they might be able to help support this. That'll still depend on just quite what they have left. We anticipate bringing, you know, more forward. You know, the goal is to approximately get to two acres. The initial phase is not two acres.

It's about half of that. And so what we're really trying to do is to do this in a phase mechanism in order to build momentum and get this this this going. The the first phase will have between 70 and a 100 plots. These are gonna be raised beds. And, again, we're looking at trying to get, you know, as much as we can, whether it's even just a vegetation moving removal done in August and then start getting the other components ready.

So we're hoping for the duration to be about twelve to fourteen months and then expected completion hopefully no hopefully sooner than December '27, but it'll all depend on weather and some of the resources that become available. This is Franklin Park. We've identified through the paving assessment that we'd we'd performed over the last year and a half that the paving for the basketball half court outside of the rec center really needs to be redone. It's got aggregate showing at this point, and so we've focused on repaving this segment, and it'll have resurfacing, putting in a new standard. Again, this is also part about improving the ADA paving in that area, so we will be doing that at the same process.

So that is expected to start in the '26 and take about four to six weeks. So we'll be doing a lot of coordination with our after school program. We'll be doing it with the school because these facilities are both heavily used by both facilities. This is Longfellow Park on the West End. And so this is another park with a paving issue that we you know, it's been a long time since the main basketball court and area has been paved.

This is something that we have been in our plan for a while, but we're finally being able to get to it this year. And so this is the area that we're talking about that will be addressed. What you're gonna be also coming up in the next meeting is there's an ADA improvement project that has to occur. This park, as many of you may know, only has one entrance. It's by the rec center, and it exceeds the ADA requirement for the thresholds and slope.

And so we are going to be exploring, installing another entrance into the park, which we will bring forward here. But this project, we're expecting to start in the '27. It's gonna last about four to six weeks. Again, these paving projects are all dependent on contractors' availability. A lot of these projects are relatively small in comparison to a lot of big paving projects, so we often have to work with contractor schedules in order to try to navigate when they can get to these and when they can't.

But it'll be a big improvement in this park as we have not been able to put a lot of attention to this in a long time. And then over here at Lincoln Park, I had just mentioned in my director's report because I wanted to get information in a couple places. This is where we were talking about doing an improvement to the baseball field netting. We have existing fencing on the north side there along the driveway access. It has become a little bit precarious, and we wanna make sure that it becomes safe.

So we will be installing netting along the first or or netting along the third baseline, which will be the tall netting, which is what we have on the south side of the park. And then there's also gonna be the installation of netting along the bleacher area. We we a gentleman came and spoke earlier about the safety issue here. So they're going to be installing both of those at the same time. This is, again, starting on June 8, and it'll take between four to six weeks.

But this, again, will be a big safety improvement for both property and pedestrians, and we're excited for this one to to start here real soon. And then, again, in Lincoln Park, as we've stated before, as Estuary Park comes to its completion, there'll be six new pickleball courts there. We've talked to the pickleball community here about the resurfacing of these courts as we do know that there's cracks. They've come before you, and one even brought a piece out here once for you all. So we've been working to, you know, maintain those and keep those cracks filled.

However, it is time for a full resurfacing that will come come to fruition. Again, we are waiting until Estuary Park comes online, which we expect to happen in either late December or '27, then we'll have a place for our pickleball community to go, and then we can take these offline and and get them reconstructed. Again, that is going to take between six to eight weeks in order to do that work. And as I just mentioned with Estuary Phase two, we are well into the construction of our five and a half acre phase two here. This park is, again, this is a a illustration of what the park will look like.

There's been some modifications on this since then. But this is the general layout of the park. We will have a the six pickleball courts, the full basketball court. We'll have bank shot. It'll have a new ADA playground. We'll have a lawn area for the community to gather as there's a lot of density around this. It'll have open space. We'll have two dog parks for both large and small and a reasonable sized parking lot to service both Estuary existing park for the athletic fields, but as well as the the park itself. I wanna point out that Estuary Park has not had restroom facilities since it was constructed. They've had to use temporary portables.

This now will allow for six individual stalls to support both park and the existing athletic fields. We're excited about this because if you ever get a chance to go out there, I highly encourage you to because if you're curious about park development, you it's amazing to see something turn from a dirt field very quickly into something that starts to look like a park. And so, like I say, we we anticipate this coming online at the end of the year. We've received a decent amount of grant money for this, so we really are appreciative of that. But but this is gonna be an exciting change on the West End.

And then not to ignore the East End at all, especially around dog parks, as part of the Clement Tilden project and realignment, there's two there's several large green areas you see there. They're dedicated to be a dog park. We'll have two there, one again for a large and small. These will be installed at the completion of the project. As you can see along Broadway, that little parklet area where there used to be the old platform has been transformed pretty quickly.

So, you know, as this project comes to a a closure, we'll be opening those two dog parks. So we'll actually have a have the ability to have grown our our dog parks across Almeinas. You will find out through many the folks that come here about whether it's off leash dogs at Littlejohn or at Cruisy or at Lincoln. We do our best to work with our animal control folks to do education. I think if you look at our guidebook, I try to mention it every time to keep your dog on a leash.

We invite everyone to visit our dog parks for that experience, and so we're excited to be bringing this forward. Again, we're expected that the completion will happen in the '27. So things are starting to turn out sooner than you think. So this summer is gonna be a pretty busy summer with projects going on and then into the fall. So we're excited to be able to make these improvements.

I encourage everyone to watch the budget process. You know, the the city is in healthy shape. But, again, as part of that process, you know, there are needs that will have to happen. You know, we have had our our playground replacement funding unfunded for the last two years. So it's one of those things where we've had to delay replacement.

And so as we move forward, we're going to try to strategically make improvements as those funds become available. Leading into playground replacement, we did this is the last playground that we had funding for. So this is Lydecker. As you can see, this this this playground has outlived its lifespan by many years. We've been able to keep it going and keep it safe, but it's virtually impossible to get parts for replacement anymore.

And so we're excited to start this process. We went through a significant public engagement. We brought it forward to you for the new design. Again, there's ADA improvements included in this, and we're going to start construction on this in August. It'll be down for one to two months, and then we'll be able to reopen the playground to the public. With that, I'll conclude my presentation and be available for questions.

Perfect. Thank you. Thank you both to the entire department. Commissioners, can we have clarifying questions, please?

Thank you for after some of the comments from the community guarding prioritizing that. I really appreciate that, Justin. Is I believe when you go to Jean Sweeney Park, there is a very outdated master plan sign right by the playground. Given that master plan didn't include an aquatic facility, is there gonna be a new master plan for Gene Sweeney

that y'all guys will put together? At this time, we haven't put together a a redraw of the master plan that includes the aquatic center. I think that's something that as we get further down the road that we can address. I think it's also just trying to take into account, you know, the older master plan, and I think we can I think we can update that as soon as we, know, you start to lay ground? I kinda wanna see it come to fruition before I start making a new story. Totally agree. I was

just curious on on that one since I I always see that big sign when when I walk in. I know there's been some significant changes. But, yes, I agree. I think that that would make sense to see at least when ground's broken, if not, when it's done. So,

that was all I had. I just have

have two. For Sweeney Park, it's because there's a lot of things going on there. Will there be any disruptions for people who still want to use the park during that time?

So we will have to put up construction fencing, and the contract will have a plan. But the goal is to keep the Cross Alameda Trail open.

Okay.

It'll there will be several times when it probably has to be shut down, but we will be issuing notices well in advance of when that occurs. And, again, we'll know more of what that plan is when we get the contractor on board and start getting a construction schedule and plan from them. Mhmm. So what we'll try to do is to minimize that as much as possible.

And for the decker the playground update, I suppose, is there any concern from the community? Because this is a total rebuild. So the old playground is being removed and a new playground is being built, but then there'll be a transition period in which there won't be a playground. So is there any concerns during that transition period about people not having a playground?

So one of the unique things about Lydecker Park is it is in the Harbor Bay community. Mhmm. And that that condo association also has other private playgrounds within that community. But, also, there's another playground that's available for folks at Tillman Park, which is not terribly far away, and we will be putting up signage and on our website as well as to where people can find the nearest playground to Lydecker.

Okay. Okay. I have a couple. The skateboard park, is the rest of the skateboard park gonna be open while they're doing construction?

It will not.

It will not. So we it'll be closed?

Correct.

Okay. Do they the skateboarders know that

The

as part of the

Our focus group is aware of it. And that's part of the reason why we are in October at that point, unfortunately, because they have a few events.

Thank you. The community garden. I just wanna say that I tried to attend the meeting down there. I left my house, and it was drizzling. I thought, oh, this will be good. I got to the fire station on Park Street, and it downpoured. I thought, oh, I'll just keep going. It's probably coming this way. Well, when I pulled into Jean Sweeney Park, there was flooding everywhere. There was rain. I'm sorry. I didn't stay. I turned around and went home, but I did try. The Franklin Basketball Court is gonna stay in the same place, and it's just half court. Correct?

Correct.

It's a it's a full court currently, and it's gonna remain a full court.

Does it go this way or this way?

Which way is this way?

Well, there's only one there's only one, hoop there, isn't there?

There's one that's at, 10 feet and one that's at eight feet currently. It's, parallel to the tennis courts.

Oh, that's a cool look at that. So the driveway at Lincoln, will two cars be able to go down the driveway now at the same time?

More successfully than they are able to now.

I I drove that many a day to staff meetings, and it's not a fun thing. And at Estuary Park, I know that the design picture only has a half court. Is the full court gonna be in that same place?

So the full court will be in the same place. We moved the bank shot closer to the playground. Okay. And so it's in a combination space over by the playground now. So

Okay. I think that's all. Thank you.

Thank you again for the the comprehensive update, and and I believe as well to the two of you as as the principal project managers also, not to let that go unmentioned. So a a few questions. I I wanna start with the aquatic center. So construction time is money. I'm curious. Is there any contingency plan if construction extends beyond the projected two year duration? Is there any is there any risk there?

I I I don't believe there's risk, but in all of our contracts, we have it written into the number of constructible days. Okay. You know, potentially, it goes into penalties. Mhmm. You know? So what we've done is we've looked at with our design team to build out what we think is probably the longest period that's gonna be needed. So we're anticipating hopefully that it'll be shorter than that. Mhmm. But, again, you know, we all know with construction and weather. Yeah. And but but I think two years is a pretty confident time frame.

Okay. Great. And I I recall that during the council discussion, there was a lot of conversation about parking specifically in the configuration of the parking lot. And I'm just wondering whether there's been any evolution in that thinking or any further design.

So we received direction to go back and explore parking options and capacity issues around programming. We did that. We contracted with a a company that's been doing our our ferry terminal lots and and parking plans. We'll be bringing that actually on the June 2. In front of council to have that conversation.

And then we we'll be bringing both options, both a 50 space layout and a 67 space layout. There's been a lot of work with surrounding property owners. Mhmm. I don't wanna get ahead of council on this, but there's just been a lot of work. And so we'll be we'll be making a recommendation of from that parking study about a variety of things that we're gonna propose, and then we'll see what council thinks of those. Okay.

Great. Moving over to the the community garden. I'm curious from those discussions, what type of governance model is envisioned for the community garden? City operated, community operated. What's the what's the idea?

So there's been a lot of work over the years, and I think some of our friends here in the audience can can better warrant, like, the the amount of effort that was done on operating models. I I believe we will still have my best recommendation would still to have a part time city staff be as the coordinator and then work with a appointed or a volunteer board of how to operate the facility Okay. And to work with the different individuals that have plots. Just it's a little bit better cohesion sometimes when you have someone that this is their job to focus on. It helps alleviate any types of issues that may arise, and it really just helps to keep it in orderly fashion and make sure bylaws are being followed and and whatnot.

Okay. Great. I'm glad to hear that this can be staff support. Yep. Okay. Just two more questions. The first is on the the subject of accessibility. So big, big fan of accessibility improvements. They end up benefiting everybody. I'm curious as you move beyond kind of the bare minimum ADA compliance, what are the the priority accessibility equipment excuse me, accessibility improvements that you like to to make in situations like these?

Yeah. So, you know, it is it's a variety of things that we've been looking at. You know, there's the there's the physical environment. You'll see that we've been working with our program flyers, our communications, and just different one of the biggest things is trying to eliminate any type of barrier for someone even finding out about information for us. The city's ADA coordinator has been working with our staff, coming up with graphic standards, information standards for how we share information, what's an image versus what's a what what should be in text, what and and how it would appear to someone with some type of impairment

Mhmm.

And how to get that information out there. There's been a lot of experiments through other different park systems where they've actually put whether it's QR codes or things that actually end up becoming, like like, audio components describing the park and how to navigate the park. You know, I think we're we'll get there eventually. But I think at the beginning, we need to get rid of the initial barriers, whether they be physical or even just how do you even find us. So I think that's what we're gonna focus on first.

I think from a programming perspective, this is something that I know Morris at Mastic is exceptionally passionate about. It's Rusty is incredibly passionate about this. It's trying to figure out how can we make all of our programs accessible to everybody. We've been working really hard to try to do that. We have different tools in our toolkit where parents can reach out to us, and how do we make them more adaptive.

We we run adaptive swim lessons right now. And so it's really about trying to figure out how do we get our programs, you know, accessible as well as our physical environment first, and then trying to add on the bells and whistles of how do we help people navigate, how do we help them exist in our park system even if they do have some type of impairment or disability.

That's great. Thank you. It's great to hear your thinking on that. And then last, obviously, this is a lot of construction, a lot of investment. I'm curious, are are there do you have any concerns about the level of capital investment with budget season coming relative to or or rather the the level of investment outpacing the sustainability of funding maintenance and and operations? So I think, you know, our our challenge is really you know, we have

a pretty old park system. You know, we've got a lot of older assets in it. I think from a funding perspective, if for the next biennial budget, it's really trying to reestablish you know, we are a general fund department, so, you know, we we draw on the general funds that are come through our taxes. But it's it's really one of those things where if we don't keep building, it will continue to overtax the the operations and maintenance staff to the ability where they won't be able to keep up and things will start to slide. And so one of the ways you do that is by, again, getting those capital dollars in a regular basis so you're not asking for them all at once, and then you're able to to keep up with some of that systematic replacement along the way.

From an o and m perspective, right now, the department is in a pretty decent spot. But, again, you know, as you'll hear in the next budget cycle or this next meeting, they've asked all the full time requests from our departments to be made part time. Okay. So we're gonna be bringing five and a half acres of estuary park online, but it's not gonna come with any full time staff. That is something that it should come with, but it's gonna come with some part time dollars in order to get us through this next cycle.

Mhmm. Hopefully, in the next biennial, we'll be able to make them full time position. So it's just it's incremental, but what what ends up doing is now we're gonna be dividing even more acreage over a smaller group of people so it's more to take care of with less. And so it overall, it will impact, but we're gonna do the best we can.

Okay. Thank you. That's really helpful context. Okay. Let's let's have more question. Commissioner Alexander.

Is at Leidecker, the playground, is it gonna have that poured surface? Or

So there is gonna be a combination of poured surface and wood fiber. Both of them are technically ADA accessible, but the routes going to very specific pieces of equipment and exit pieces out of the playground will be in the rubberized surfacing, and then other areas will be in the And

I'm sure the same thing in estuary. Correct?

So estuary is actually going to be all All? All in the pour in place because it's specifically made extra efforts to make every element in that playground fully accessible. Thank you.

Great. Great. Thank you all. Do we have public comment?

Yes. We have two speakers. The first speaker is Liz W.

Welcome.

Thank you, Liz Warmadam. I am the president of Almeda Backyard Growers. And commissioner Alexander, I'm sorry you didn't make the yeah. It was raining Yeah. Pretty hard. I just wanted to say, first of all, I've lived at Alameda for thirty years, raised my kids here. I think I have experienced every single one of those parks that you are either updating or remodeling. We do have an amazing park system. Commissioner Bernie, you're absolutely right. And we don't have enough money, and you guys do a great job.

You really do. You need more money. Almeda Backyard Growers is really excited to be working with staff. They've been fantastic. We did our our sidewalk, and, you know, we're really excited.

Birgit, my colleague here tonight, is gonna talk to you a little bit about the work that we did about the management of the of the of the garden. We're an educational nonprofit, so we don't we she's gonna talk about it, but it'll be nice to have some some dedicated folks. But, anyway, I just wanted to say thank you for your continued support of the community garden. We have a lot of folks that are really excited about this project and are ready to get sorry for saying it, but our hands dirty. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Birgit Evans.

Welcome. Speaker Evans.

Hi. My name is Birgit Evans. I was not actually intending to speak today, but who can pass up an opportunity in this lovely room to get up at this at the podium? Yeah. That was quite a meeting out in the rain, but I was actually very delighted with the site because we've got some existing young oak trees there.

And we were able to talk to Matt and Justin who was there in his dress shoes in the mud. I felt very badly for him, but thanks to both of them for taking us through there and showing us the site, and I'm really excited to maybe have the educational space in the shade of one of those oaks as it grows up to be able to give classes there because we have needed a place to give classes for a very long time. We give monthly class education classes on all forms of gardening, and that will be really a treat. I'm trying off the top of my head, and this was a very long time ago when we discussed the management. But, yes, it will be very, very good to have a staff person who can collect fees from the gardeners because, obviously, there's gonna have to be an annual fee, And that is not a volunteer job to to collect money from people and to say, hey.

You haven't you know, we don't really have that authority. But, otherwise, my friend Sam ran the Emeryville Community Organic Garden for fifteen, twenty years or so. They had a board, and they made decisions. They met, and they made decisions about what they were gonna do. And they also had bylaws and rules which said, you know, if you haven't maintained your plot for the past two seasons or three seasons or however long you wanna go, then, you know, we're gonna take the plot and bring somebody else in.

So there are different rules, obviously, about how, you know, behavior and space of respect for other gardeners and who can use what and how to access what and tools, etcetera. So there'll be a set of bylaws that we will presumably write up with the assistance of the staff person, and then we will come up with how much we need to we need for a fee every year. And I believe we're we're paying for the water?

Yeah. What the proposal will be is that the water is divided amongst all users.

Right. So part of that fee will be for the water and then for other things that we agree upon that we need, and then we will come up with some bylaws around that and working with a staff person. So very happy to have a staff person who can do the collecting the money and the being the bad cop, and then the rest of us can hopefully work together and come up with a really great plan. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Commissioners, discussion and feedback.

Well, I just wanna say that's a lot of work for 14 full time people down there in the recreation department. I think we say that every month, don't we? It's amazing what they get done. It's nice to from this perspective, to see some things coming to fruition. We vote on a lot of things. We say, oh, yeah. That's great. That's a good idea. It's nice to be seen in the next year a lot of these projects will be finished. I guess my only question is I guess I should have asked. Are you pretty confident we're gonna get that $5,000,000 to finish the pool? I don't wanna put you on the spot. But

I the mayor at the last meeting said that we have to honor our commitments, and I think it there's full support for it.

Okay. Thank you.

Others?

No. I'll I'll just say this is a lot of work. I'm actually glad that you have start dates but also finish dates. I think that's good for the community to let people know that these some of these projects won't be in continued purgatory, so I think that's great. I think the only concern I have is nothing you can really control is just I think the underlying theme is construction costs. Because, obviously, things happen. There's an election coming up. There there could be delay. There would be weather. And how does that all impact the funding of these project?

But we pretty much can't control that. But is this something we'll have just have to monitor as these projects are coming to fruition? Because I know there's a lot of independent groups that are looking forward to a particular product they may have coming to fruition, and that will be delayed. So that that could potentially be delayed, so we just have to just have to keep people updated on that front.

I'll just echo commissioner Alexander. It's really great to see progress on some things, you know, we've discussed or voted on and discussed it again. So thank you for this, great update.

I I echo my colleague's comments. You know, my my general reflection two two reflections and then and then just one one final question. It it just it dawns on me in looking at this this full stack of great projects coming to fruition that that each one of them, in some manner, or large, represents some element of change for each of these surrounding communities in addition to the the actual site location itself. And I would just continue to encourage active community outreach to to the immediate neighbors and to the to the surrounding neighborhood to help manage even changes that seem like solely a benefit to the neighborhood that really that that communication can only be can only be a positive, number one. And then number two, I I I just wonder in in addition in adding new facilities and amenities to these these spaces just to keep a mind a mindful balance between between developed parks and and passively enjoyed open space.

Just when I see projects being built, overall, I'm very encouraged, but that's always in the back of my mind to think, are we are we still allowing enough open space for people to enjoy just out in nature itself? So two two general those are two just general reflections. The question I had is just for the the budgeting cycle, are there any public dates key public dates that would you you would have either us or the general public aware of as you're going through the process?

Well, I I would say at the next city council meeting, that'll be the second discussion around budget. Mhmm. So it's good for folks to attend and to understand the the budget adoption. Starting in the fall, we will start work on the next biennial budget. So we'll be we'll be starting to do the planning work for the next two year budget cycle. Again, I think that'll be important for the community to be involved in. That's kinda sets the mark for, you know, a two year strategy. However, every we call it mid cycle. Every after the first year, we will revisit again

Mhmm.

And see if anything needs to change as that's what they're doing currently. So, again, I would encourage folks to watch the city calendar about when budget's coming forward. Mhmm. Again, I think the more people we have participating, the more feedback that everyone gets, I think, is helpful for everyone in a more successful city government.

You know, as specifically relates to to parks and recreation, you know, budgets for the general public, I feel like, can often seem very just big and complicated and and opaque. Are there any particular areas of feedback or any specific types of feedback that you find are helpful from the the public during these processes?

I think, you know, there's there's you'll see that there's often a presentation, but you can dig further into the actual budget pages, and you can actually dig down to look at specific interests you might be looking for, whether it's park and recreation or if you're interested in what the fire department's doing or the police department. You can actually select out and get down to, like, more granular data. The the presentation is really meant as a high level, and but there's very specific detailed budget information in a lot of those documents that I I would encourage folks to do. Again, come out here to the commission, advocate for things that you think that are important to you that you can communicate directly with staff to tell us what you think is important. You know, we look at things holistically from the department, but then we also try to look at what's happening, you know, in in the community and where we think we need to put resources from what we hear year round.

Mhmm.

But I do think having that direct involvement and coming out to commissions like this and saying what you think is important is really helpful for the public to do. And the more feedback and the more involved, the more change occurs. Great.

Thanks very much. Yep. Any other feedback before we move forward? Okay. In that case, the next item on the agenda is our next meeting on 06/11/2026. Do we have any agenda items, the commissioners would like to suggest for that meeting?

I have something, but I don't think it needs to be on the next meeting. Might be busy. I'm,

like, at

the end of the summer, like, say, September, to have an update on all the programs and how successful they all were. You know? Do we have a 100% of day camp? Do we have 50% of this? I think that would be an interesting stat at the end of the summer to know. And I'm sorry, staff. I know I'm giving you more work, but I think it's in it's probably all on the computer now. You gotta print it out. But I think that would be interesting information for the commission to have.

Thank you. Others. In that case, director Long, do you have anything to add to that agenda?

Yes. So at the next meeting, we will be bringing information about the Little League MOU, the conversation that that several of the public spoke to tonight. We will go in-depth into the topic about the location, potentially alternate locations. I think I think if you've heard from both a representative from Little League tonight, also the community that the department we're working with Little League very specifically to try to resolve the issue so that everyone you know, it works for everyone. You know?

And then we'll also probably be bringing some information around the ADA access at Longfellow Park at the same time for had to have an open discussion about the project, the project, the importance of it, and, hopefully, to provide another opportunity for members of the public to speak to about the because it is a it would be the potential of adding an additional entrance to the park.

Great. Do you anticipate perhaps in the fall or just subsequent to June that the joint use agreement with with the school district will will come come here in some form?

The school district agreement will come here, especially as we get closer to having a sort of a not really a a punch list, but sort of having a short list of items that we wanna talk about to get your feedback on. We would hopefully anticipate bringing it to council once it or to commission after that fact, once it's finalized back sometime in October, November. The goal is to have it completed by both boards by the end of the year. That's that's when we anticipate Emma Hood coming online. The school district, I think, has a different opinion.

Okay. Great. Thanks very much. Moving forward, the final item on our our agenda is adjournment for the evening. Can I have a motion to adjourn, please?

I'll make a motion to adjourn.

I'll second.

And vote, please.

Commissioner Alexander? Yes. Commissioner Bernie?

Yes.

Vice chair Sorts?

Yes.

Chair Ades?

Yes. Okay. Thanks very much, everyone. The meeting is now adjourned. We'll see everybody in June.

Thanks.