Library Board - Regular Meeting

Okay. Well, good evening everyone. Welcome to the 12/11/2025 Alameda Recreation and Park Commission meeting. Could we start this evening with a roll call please?

Commissioner Alexander? Present. Commissioner Robbins?

Present.

Vice chair Swartz?

Present. Chair Radiss?

Present. Thank you. The first item on our agenda is non agenda public comment. Members of the public may speak for three minutes regarding any matter not on the agenda. Commissioners will not respond to comments or answer questions. The city welcomes speakers providing public comment, but please be advised that this is a limited public forum. And as such, speakers must stay on topic if speaking to a particular agenda item. And if speaking during non agenda public comment, they must address matters within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city. If speakers fail to follow these rules, they'll be warned. And if they continue to disregard the rules, their opportunity to speak will be ended. Do we have any non agenda public speakers tonight?

We have one in person speaker, speaker Laurel Ordunya.

Welcome speaker.

I wrote my notes so I would stay within three minutes. So hello everyone. My name is Laurel Ordunia. I'm a public high school teacher therefore I appreciate and I share your, civic responsibility and the fact that we're all here on a Thursday night. I have been in communication with Alameda Park director Justin Long, which I take it is you, for about a year looking for a venue for indoor roller skating, and you've been very helpful at suggesting lots of outdoor venues.

But I want an indoor venue for roller skating for the following reasons. During inclement weather, there's nowhere to skate. Falling down on the sidewalk and street concrete results in broken wrists. As a middle aged skater, I'm particularly mindful of safety. Falling down on the wooden floor of an indoor basketball court results in bruises, not broken wrists.

Indoor skates have polyurethane wheels, which are specifically designed for indoor skating. I brought my favorite pair of skates and then my second favorite pair of skates, and I'd be happy to show you these wheels. I sent some copies of other places around the country that allow people to roller skate on their wooden basketball courts. There are no more roller skating rinks in the Bay Area. The closest rink is Sonoma County or Santa Cruz County.

Rinks typically charge between $15 and $20 for a two hour skate session with music. Alameda is the perfect place to bridge the gap between Sonoma County and Santa Cruz County. Besides providing a place for us to skate, ARPD could make some money. There's a large Bay Area roller skating community filled with individuals of all ages and races that love the community and joy of skating together to music. Alameda Park and Rec support skateboarders, pickleballers, model plane flyers, bocce ballers, I look forward to Alameda Park And Rec's support of indoor roller skaters.

I have been in communication with Joey Carroll from Alameda Point Gym, and he was cautiously optimistic, but I haven't been able to get an answer. I've been back and forth, back and forth, phone calls, emails and so I would like this issue to be put on the agenda for a discussion at the next Park and Rec meeting.

Thank you.

Have a wonderful holiday everybody. Thank you.

Our next item this evening is our staff communication from Recreation Parks Director Justin Long. Director Long.

Alright. Thank you, Chair and Commissioners. We've had a busy winter here in fall. Just to go over some upcoming citywide community events, we have our coastal cleanup, the monthly one that takes place at Saturday, December 13 at 10AM at Seaplane Lagoon. We encourage people to bring gloves and a bag or bucket.

This is sponsored by the Community Action for Sustainable Alameda or CASA. We have a meeting at Little John Park Community right at the recreation center in the park on December 17 at 6PM till 7PM to discuss Little League usage on on how they're currently using the field there. We have the city of Alameda win our winter warming shelters. They're open from 6PM until 7AM through 04/30/2026. There's various locations throughout the city.

Services include showers, a dinner, breakfast, and case management. You can find out more information about those facilities on the city's website under the housing and human services. For our department's upcoming events, we have the Elks National Hoop Shoot contest that takes place Friday, December 12 at 06:30PM at the Alameda Pointe Gym. This is a free event for Alameda youth ages eight through 13. Please register by noon the day of the event, and it's cosponsored with Alameda Elks Lodge.

This takes place again as at the Alameda Pointe Gym. The Alameda community band holiday concert is taking place Friday, December 12 at 07:30PM at the Massock Senior Center. This this is a free event, and all are welcome. Alameda Sings winter concert is taking place on December 13 at seven p 07:30PM at the Veterans Memorial Building. Enjoy a tap dancing Christmas the a tap dancing Christmas trees and the Bay Area Music project children's chorus.

The twenty third annual breakfast with Santa's taking place on December 13 from 10AM till 12PM at the officers club out at Alameda Point. We have crafts and games in the park. This is part of our mobile rec series. It's taking place Wednesday, December 17 from 03:30 until 5PM at Longfellow Park. All ages are welcome.

Our Santa visits Alameda homes is taking place on Saturday and Sunday of December, and then our Santa's virtual visits will be taking place on December 22. The annual rose pruning is taking place on January 17 at 10AM at the Lincoln Park Rose Garden hosted by the East Bay Rose Society, and they'll be providing members with rose pruning demonstration and question and answer. The fourth annual family snowball dance party takes place on February 6 at the officers club. This is a this beloved event is for children ages five through 12 and their favorite adult or adults. Registration is open until January 21.

Wanna give you a couple project updates. Estuary Park Phase 2 has started construction. They've done a tremendous amount of site work so far, clearing the site, removing soil, and starting to lay out the actual park design. So we're happy to have this project and have the weather working with us, so this will hopefully move along pretty quickly. As you well know, we're already underway for summer planning.

So right now, staff are working together, putting together our very busy summer series and we'll be working on that activity guide and then we'll be getting that out to the public as soon as possible. Just a highlight on December 6, this last Saturday, we held the annual winter lights celebration. We had our our dancing Christmas trees, the Alameda free library, had book giveaways, we had performances from the the Tap Dancing Christmas Trees, and we also had the Alameda Strings Collaborative. And it was a great donation and toy station for the firefighters toy drive and the Jammie Drive and also as well for the Alameda Food Bank. So it was a really it was a really busy event this year, so it was it was really nice to see everyone out there.

We have the second annual North Pole swim, which is taking place on Sunday, December 14 from twelve until 3PM. Join us for a fun afternoon, a festive fun with and swim with Santa and get some hot chocolate and make some crafts. We'll see here. We also have Santa's workshop for Tiny Tots. They're taking place on Monday and Tuesday, December from 9AM until 12PM at Godfried And McKinley Centers.

And then our non school day camps are taking place during winter break, December as well as the twenty ninth and thirty first at Kruse, Lydecker Center, Harrison Center, the Alameda Point Gym, and the Vets Building. Our our teens teaching technology take place on December 18 and January 8. This is where teens help seniors with technical questions. This will take place at 4PM at the Massock Senior Center. Our our ARPD, we're still facilitating the the Queer Teen Alameda Center that takes place at the Teen Underground Center at the Vets Building.

This is Fridays at 6PM. Our youth sports programs, so we have our twenty twenty six junior warriors youth basketball. This is now this will take place every Saturday, January 10 through February 28 at the Alameda Point Gym, and this is a program for kids k through fifth grade. And then we have our after school pickleball for middle school aged kids. This is taking place Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4PM through 5PM at the Alameda Pointe gym.

We're also offering homeschool PE, Wednesdays and Fridays, 9AM till noon at the Alameda Pointe gym. Our open gym is still continuing every Sunday from 6PM until 10PM as a drop in use of the basketball courts. And then we have our our tennis lessons, private lessons, and group lessons are available. Our group lessons will resume in January 2026. We have drop in pickleball on Fridays and from 09:30 till twelve at the Alameda Pointe Gym.

And then the adult woman's flag football program is running Thursdays, January tenth through March 12, 7PM till 10PM at Estuary Park. For Mastic, we have table tennis and that runs Monday and Friday from nine until three. This is free drop in. The the game is easy on the joints and burns calories and improves reflexes. We have square dance on Mondays from 01:30 to 03:30.

This is free and ongoing, so please drop in. And then we're running the a new member orientation Thursday, January 8 from 10:30 at 10:30AM, and this is where we give you a guided tour and lunch and go over everything that you can find out about Mastic. And so we'll go through all of that. And then the thrift shop holiday schedule, the days that it is closed are Tuesday, December 23 through Thursday, January 1, and that's gonna reopen on January 3. For our highlights, 52 seniors went to the SF holiday lights tour on oh, it was this evening, December 11.

They'll dine and see the Christmas light show at Pier 39. And then for some just some numbers that we like to give, served over a thousand lunches. They had over a 119 volunteers and just about 1,700 volunteer hours this month. So we thank everyone for all their help. Massok survives on our volunteers and our volunteer programs.

The leisure club is going to members will attend a production of Peter Pan on December 14 at the Presidio Theater. Then on Thursday, December 18, members will take their annual stroll down Christmas Tree Lane and then be followed by a hot chocolate and then treats at the Harrison Center. For our park operations, just to give you guys a few updates on some projects, our sports field renovation is ongoing. The bulk of the restorative work has been completed and now the field still remain closure while everything grows in and settles so that we'll be ready to invite all of our user groups back in February. Our park staff attended a maintenance manual school.

This is a a five year program hosted by the California Recreation and Parks Society. Staff learned resource management, budget management participated in self evaluations and this is just a really good thing that we can get our main management staff, you know, ready for that next level. So it's really helpful to have that. And then at Main Street Linear Park, there was a tree planting on Saturday, December 6. Families and friends of Anacostia donated 22 redwoods and spruce trees.

This group has been donating trees around the bay since 1989, have planted over 1,500 trees throughout the bay. And this is a continuation of our our goal of building out Linear Park as a wooded urban space for kids to enjoy, so we're happy to continue to add trees. And then I'd like to recognize recognize and congratulate Enrique Bolanos. He was our park maintenance worker, and he recently retired. He dedicated over thirty years of service to the city and took great pride and care on his work. And we extend a heartfelt appreciation for everything he has done and wish him all the best. So with that, it's the end of my update.

Thank you. Do we have any questions for Director Long this evening?

Go ahead.

Unrelated to a lot of the stuff you said, but there was some talk at the last city council meeting. This seems unrelated about just developer fees, and I know you were there for that meeting. How is it decided? Think correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Seaplane Lagoon Promenade, the first part was built by a developer. Just curious kind of what that process is for how when a developer buys some land to do a development, how any kind of park building gets built into that plan.

So as part of development fees, there's a park diff that's usually or a differential fee that's associated with the price of that development. Depending on how much square footage they provide within their property for open space, it can give them a discount potentially. But like you said, Seaplane Lagoon was developer paid for and built. And that's as future development happens contributing into that is what will provide those additional park spaces to provide services for those extra residents. As as director Alan Tighe stated that if they do a nexus study, it'll help them to determine what those values are and park fees are usually included as part of that study.

Great, thank you.

I have a question I'd like to revisit something from last month. I'd like you to clarify who runs the Holiday Boutique. I know that Commissioner Robbins has some questions about that and I don't think it was clear that it's really not ARPD. So could you clarify that please?

So our Holiday Boutique, there's actually a group of volunteers, a small nonprofit organization that is actually the organizer of the event. We are graciously host them at the O Club. All the benefits go to our leisure club. So this generates like last year's donation to the leisure club, it was just over $6,700 So all of that goes back to supporting the leisure club program. So they've been great partners as a nonprofit for helping to do that. But it's not run by ARPD.

Thank you. And I have one more question to clarify. Incentel Swim Centers had a lot of issues lately with pumps not working and heaters not working and all that. Can you define who's in charge of all that maintenance down there that is that ARPD or is it the school district?

So we have a joint use agreement with the school district that grants us access to provide programming at those facilities. That agreement comes with an annual fee for them to provide the maintenance and service of that facility including capital repairs. Our joint use agreement does specify in there that we will split repair costs fifty-fifty as they develop but the organizers and ongoing maintenance are all AUSD, the school district.

Thank you.

Thank you all. Moving forward, our next item is Commissioner Communications. Commissioner Alexander, would you like to lead us off?

All right, thank you. I attended the Turkey Dip Swim at the swim center. Unfortunately, they didn't have any lap swimming because the boiler wasn't working or something. But I have to tell you, there were a lot of families down there with kids all under the age of 10, I would guess, and they were having a great time in that water. It was not warm out there, trust me.

But, they had a great time and Stacy Thomas and her staff, those lifeguards are wonderful. Kids had I think hot apple cider and crafts and the parents just thought it was the greatest thing ever. So I know the crowd was small, but I still think we need to continue those events. I did go to the tree planting at Linear Park. I want to thank the Alameda High School Leadership Club, I believe it was, who probably had, I don't know, fifty, sixty kids down there helping with that. It was really nice that staff had all of the holes already dug and ready to go. All you had to do was take the tree out of the pot and stick it in and add a little dirt. So, it was very helpful that that was done. I did go to the tree lighting ceremony. I saw there are dancing Christmas trees.

The tree looks really nice. I know that Pat Russi and Ashley were in charge of that and it looks really great. And I did go to a tradition that's not really ARPD thing but I want to mention it. Several of the park kids from Kruse Park have gotten together at the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving for over thirty years now because on Thanksgiving morning, they used to play flag football at Kruse Park. Well, COVID kind of stopped that along with aging, but they do still have their dinner the night before.

So, I was lucky to be invited. This year we had it at McGee's which is owned by one of our Cruisy kids. And so it's interesting to see that these kids thirty, forty years later are still close friends and can call on one another when there's an issue. And I think that attests to what the park system was way back when. You've heard me talk about that, I know, almost every time.

But it's really something. And it happens at other parks too. I'm not just singling out one. But hopefully with these new programs that we're having where we're having kids come to the park to do crafts and all that, that those kids will get some of those relationships and be able to have friendships like that where the parents will be comfortable having the kids go to the park and play and enjoy what our parks have to offer. So it's really a it's a thrill to be able to go to that every year.

Women were not invited for a long time. It was just the men. But I got in and so once I got in, the other moms go too. So it was really nice and I just wanted to mention that. And although they were not playing at Kruse Park, as I drove around town Thanksgiving morning, there were flag football games at Tillman, Rittler. There were several. Kruse, Washington. So there were several out there. So it's kind of nice to see that that tradition was continuing even with another group of people. So thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Robbins.

Thank you. I do not have anything to report other than I'm really happy with the tree planting that's going on at Linear Park. I still think that's an untapped treasure for us and I'm glad to see that we are fostering that park. Thanks.

Thank you. Vice Chair Schwartz.

I sadly missed the turkey dip because of the heater breaking. I was in the pool on Wednesday when it started to get a little chilly. But glad to see that's been resolved. Happy to see the covers coming on the pool. Hopefully, that maybe helps with some future maintenance issues. But again, appreciate I know there's a lot of work between you and AUSD to coordinate when these things happen, so really appreciate that. I did spend some time at Cruisy over Thanksgiving holiday, including Thanksgiving later morning trying to get my son

to get some energy out. So it was really great to

see the park busy. I saw the flag football players, people playing softball, a lot of kids at the park, parents at the park. And so that was great to see even on a chilly morning. And that's all I got. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. For myself, my own time in the parks over the last month has been somewhat curtailed by the early onset of darkness as well as the fact that it has been a little bit cold over the last month, I would I would say. I it gave me time to reflect and I will note in case in case it was missed that the recommendation that our commission made last month to approve the 2026 fee schedule for for Parks and Recreation wasn't fully adopted when it went to the full council. It was adopted in part with the with the pool fees returned for further consideration and to return return back to council after the New Year.

And while at some level I find that disappointing, you know, I reflect more generally that the process worked. We had a robust conversation here at our commission and a well organized community group continued their advocacy and were heard were heard by the council which is which is great to see. The entire experience made me reflect whether it's in thinking through pool fees or the other fees that the department sets, just how intertwined those expenses are with the downstream economics of various community groups. How rental fees are related to other costs that groups might might incur in providing their services and their programs and which ultimately are reflected in the the fees that they then charge their their members. At some point, I'm not sure this is possible, at some point that might be a fascinating study to undertake across a number of different programs that take place across the city.

I think the conversation about pool fees over the last month has been a pretty fascinating pretty fascinating example of how those how those elements come together and ultimately are expressed in policy. It's also a good a good reminder that each of us is free in our private capacities to advocate for whatever interest we may have out in public. Certainly, to represent the commission as a whole, please please come speak to me in in advance for something like that. The last reflection is that ultimately all of those interactions come down to a fairly subjective assessment of what is ultimately fair and and reasonable from a policy standpoint. We rely in large part on the work and the analysis of the professional staff to make their recommendations which we combine with the perspectives in the community to make our own recommendations downstream.

We had a really great conversation here last month. And think more than any particular outcome, the greater risk is that we get to a place where policy is set to serve individual groups as opposed to the system as a whole. So in reflecting on the conversation that we had, the thing that I observed is that ultimately in our conversation no different motion was made at that time that may have improved the ultimate recommendation that was made to the council which may have benefited Director Long and his team if by only by virtue of having more time to have refined the recommendation before it before it ultimately went to the council. And so, I hope through our continued conversation and work together, you know, we might ultimately be able to get to more effective outcomes ourselves. Thank you.

Okay. Moving moving forward. The next item on our agenda is to approve the minutes from our 11/13/2025 meeting. Do we have a motion to approve those minutes? A motion to approve.

I'll second.

Thank you both. May I have a roll call vote please?

Commissioner Alexander? Yes. Commissioner Robbins?

Yes.

Vice chair Swartz?

Yes. Chair Radies?

Yes. Thanks very much. The motion has been approved. Moving forward to our regular agenda items. The next item on our agenda is our regular agenda item six a which is to receive or really to conduct a workshop to review and provide comments on the banner policy update, new proposed policies for park amenity donations, and park storage units. Sorry. That's a mouthful. We'll have a report and presentation then the commissioners can ask clarifying questions. We'll have an opportunity for public comment and then the commissioners will discuss and offer their own comments. There's no motion to make on this item. Director Long.

I'll give a second to load the presentation. Alright. Good evening commissioners. Again, Justin Long here, recreation parks director. As part of the commission's overall responsibility, it's to look at some of our policies, provide comment so the department can keep things up to date, and also provide us feedback and guidance as we start to look at how we'll implement them and overall how ARPD will implement these across our recreation programs.

Tonight we're here to talk about three. One is an existing policy. We have some that are active procedures, and then we have some that haven't existed at all before. We currently have a banner policy here within the city. This is where we're able to allow community groups to display along our fence lines, usually advertising community events, programs that are available, and things like that.

And then we have our storage unit and parks, and this can be everything from a small box that a baseball or softball team might need stored all the way up to a small storage shed, which we have, for example, at Godfrey or even at some of them where we allow for smaller storage containers, smaller shipping containers to be there temporarily while they're currently using our fields. We also have a memorial bench donation procedure currently where people can donate a bench, but we really don't have any policy guidelines around it. We don't have timelines. We don't have a whole we just don't have a lot of information for people to utilize in order to do that. And so we'll be here to discuss what some of those potentials could be to include in a policy, to get your feedback, and then we can come back later in the spring with a finalized policy with the feedback that we've heard from you tonight.

So to start, the majority of our Banner policy is staying the same, and we only have two recommended changes currently. The current policy allows groups to display banners for sixty days. Many of the programs aren't open for sixty days and what ends up happening is we end up having limited capacity to add new displays because of the duration. And then the other location, the thing that we wanted to add is we want to add two new locations. We don't allow it at every park because a lot of them don't get the visibility, plus we're also just trying to minimize where we're putting these because, you know, for lack of everything, too many banners all of sudden starts looking like advertising land.

And so we need to try to like to manage what this looks like. But we're proposing adding some at Leidecker along the back of the tennis courts and then at Longfellow along Lincoln Avenue. So what we'll do at the end is I'm going walk through these and then open it up for discussion as a whole. So we just won't be answering for questions at each one. Our storage unit policy.

So what we're doing here is the policy is that is attached is a draft policy. It addresses like location, condition, the duration, and then potentially what the removal responsibilities are. What we're really trying to do is come up with a clear methodology that if a group does this, they'll know how much it costs, what's the duration, whose responsibility, and then what is the responsibility if you don't remove it? And how do we address that when that occurs? And so what you guys have attached in your packets really is a detailed draft, but we're proposing these different items.

We've had our legal team look at it to determine whether or not our removal practices, but we're really here just to get some feedback on that detail in there. So I think the bulk of our presentation really will revolve around sort of our, you know, we're trying to change it a little bit. We have a memorial bench policy currently, but we also do picnic tables. So we're trying to get into changing the name a little bit. We're looking at calling it our memorial amenity donation policies.

So this will cover different park amenities, could be a table, could be a drinking fountain, could be. So we're just trying to get an idea of how we can increase sort of the ability for people to provide amenities or to the park system as part of that process. But one of the things that this is going to do really is provide clarity because right now we have GIS ed all of our current memorial benches and picnic tables. So we'll be able to eventually put these on a map for people to see. And then what we like to really be able to is get, you know, the whole program.

It's really about being able to cover the cost of the installation, cost of the plaque, and then the maintenance. And so, going be proposing things that talk about duration, the cost, how do we address all of our existing facilities that we already currently have as donations? And so, we'll start to go over this for you. Currently, even our procedure allows for individuals, families, organizations to apply. What we do request that you submit a packet to us of what you would like to do in advance.

Staff will then look at it. There's, you know, that type of information we'll need is, you know, what is the inscription, preferred location type, what's your contact, so that we can reach out and finally figure out where we can do this. One of the things around that we're always going to be looking at is locations and availability. We have a lot of parks that are kind of at capacity currently for our memorial benches. And so we'll really want to be able to work with the donor to find an appropriate location that meets the needs of everyone.

We also consider, you know, safety, accessibility, you know, future development, really where we're trying to make sure that it fits within normal park use. And then provide some alternatives to people if that's not available. And then it's dealing with what happens at the end of life of these amenities. So, you know, a lot of our new benches are very durable and will last a very long time. But some of the old wooden type bench structures will deteriorate at around a ten year timeframe.

And then what do we do with that? And so this policy is really to try to adjust what some of those recommendations are. So we reviewed quite a few different city policies. I developed a policy in Minneapolis the same way that looking at what is the duration and then, you know, what can you possibly do as a suggestion should the amenity continue to be in good condition. So a lot of them have about a ten year timeframe.

What you're or to the life of the amenity is what I'm saying as well. What we're proposing is for all existing previously donated benches where they would be grandfathered in and their new timeline would start when the policy starts. And then what we would also do is be able to offer a renewal option if the facility is in really good condition and we want to continue. A lot of times what we found is donors are, you know, or at least some are toward end of life and then there's no longer a contact. So this gives us the ability to try to reach out at the end of life and then see end of term of the asset and figure out what to do.

And then it's also looking at what happens with our benches that may need to be removed or relocated if they're vandalized. And so what we're trying to do is set expectations about what staff can provide. You know, we will do everything in our ability to keep all these facilities in good working order, making normal minor repairs. If they're vandalized with graffiti or whatever, we will do everything we can. But if they become damaged or unsafe, we may have to remove them.

And then how do we coordinate with said donor to find either an outcome or, you know, what does that look like for the amenity of whether it can be moved or not. So, part of the process that someone will have to do is, you know, we already currently have a request form. Staff will review it. We'll agree to sort of like the payment, the location, and then we'll work on getting the installation. Now a lot of these facilities are amenities as you may know.

We have lead time now. It's gotten a lot longer than what our previous procedure was. So we're trying to give at least a typical eight to sixteen week timeline in order to get you know, everything installed so that the amenity can be put in place. And so that's really roughly the timeline that would take. And then, you know, again, part of the process again is meeting with the applicant to determine location.

We can't always put in a medi in every beloved location that someone wants, but we will do our best to try to find something. And then there's the process of approval of the inscription. This is something that is briefly mentioned in our current procedure, but we just want to make sure that we're addressing it here. And then when we're talking about at the end of a ten year term, giving people an option to renew, a lot of the fees that have been assessed over other departments have been in the neighborhood of $1,000 to $1,500 depending on what that is. Again, it has the ability if you want to continue, you get to continue that as well.

If the donors are unavailable or we're not able to communicate with them, the amenity may be redirected so that we can rededicate it or we won't likely remove it unless we have to from the condition of the amenity. So with that, those are the major changes that we're talking about. Our current policy, like I said, especially around our memorial bench donation, it's you buy the bench, it gets donated and then that's it. There's no real follow-up. There's no ability to inform generally if there's something wrong with the bench to the right people.

So we really want to make sure that we're being able to communicate directly with all of our donors. This is, maybe I can provide a little bit of other overview. This is not an income generating program for us. What we do is try to allow people to minimize costs as much as possible by covering the cost of the amenity and a little bit of the installation cost and then a very small portion of ongoing maintenance. So that's really the overall goal here is to provide an avenue.

The benefit to our park system is the fact that we get more amenities, more picnic tables, more benches throughout the whole system for everyone to enjoy. So there's great value to the community for having this. And so it's I just want to put that out there as part of the overall goal of having this program available for individuals in the community. So with that, I'll open it up for questions and comments.

Thank you for the presentation. I'm just curious, how much does a typical bench cost?

So right now it's in the neighborhood I believe about $2,500 depending on, let me just see if I've got the copy

It starts off at 2,000 and goes up to about 2,102 thousand $200 depending on the amenity currently.

Okay. And then I guess over the ten year lifespan, how much maintenance costs do you think you put into them?

I would say depending on the selection, wooden ones probably have the most maintenance where you'll have to either sand or occasionally coat. The concrete ones really come down to working on cleaning them. Sometimes there's graffiti, sometimes food gets spilled on them, things like that. But they're not particularly susceptible to a lot of damage. It's fascinating because

I never thought about this as something as an ongoing cost. So I appreciate you, you know, even thinking about this. Because after that ten year period, then you have another whatever cost associated with it. Is there any thought of asking the donors for, you know, 2x of the actual cost just to be able to cover the ongoing maintenance of it?

I think what the department has done is tried to look at, you know, how do we balance out those ongoing costs and keeping something still a realistic and approachable donation. Will say that my experience in managing large park systems, we probably have a higher donation rate of benches than say San Jose. So especially across particularly around bench donations because of the pricing level. So it's actually, was surprised when I talked to assistant director Nolan about it that well we actually have quite a few of these. So because it just always seemed so rare when I ran other systems. Okay.

All right. Thank I

would say we have kept the price pretty low also due to the fact that amenities get expensive to place within parks. And so we utilize this quite heavily to kind of encourage expanding upon those. Okay. So all of Shoreline Park for instance, those benches have been donated and otherwise we would have had to fund those through our department operations that gets quite costly as well.

I have a couple questions. I personally have been with two groups that have donated two benches and I donated a picnic table. And the costs have gotten a lot more expensive from when I did that. When we put in two benches at Kruse Park, we worked with ARPD to decide where we were going to put them. That was fine. And we were told that ARPD would not stain them or do any maintenance on them. So once or twice a year, excuse me, a couple of us would go out and restain the benches. So is that still an option if someone wants to do that with their bench?

I would say that we would make that available to that individual if that's what they wanted to do. It just comes down to the question of perpetuity and how long they can do that. And so, but we would make it available to them if they would like to do that.

So then in perpetuity, the two benches that we have installed in ten years, you're going to ask for a thousand dollars for each bench to keep that bench there for another ten years. Am I understanding that correctly?

I think what we can do with, and this is what we're seeking a recommendation on is, you know, what should we include for those that already exist? It doesn't have to, I mean, we're proposing a thousand dollar renewal for another ten years instead of the overall price that they're doing, but we can modify that. We can figure out what we want to do for our grandfathered donors. And again, what I'm trying to do is to figure out an appropriate lifespan for the amenities because should your wooden bench not get treated for ten years, it may end up being need to be removed at that point. And so we want to give people the option.

And that's what we're trying to figure out based on the condition of the asset, like how or the amenity, what is the appropriate timeframe. If it's not ten years, maybe it's longer. Again, we're trying to be fair here and because, you know, right now since there wasn't a policy, we can start to make that and that's why we're really here for your comments.

So I guess you're gonna wanna go to all the benches that were donated and try to find out who the person was that bought that bench and contact them so you could like get a list of all these people. Is that the thought?

Well, we will do our best to do that with the information that we have available to us.

And I know at one time, I believe the Boy Scouts, I could be wrong, restained all the benches at Sweeney Park. So maybe there's a community group or project that may be willing to go do that. Could we look into that possibility too?

Those possibilities are available, yes.

Okay.

Quick clarification. So it sounds like this is the old form. Is that right?

That's correct.

So the old form, it sounds like the plaque had to be done separately, but now it's getting included. Is that correct or no?

No, the plaque will still be provided by the donor. All we're doing is, again, we currently approve the language. This just establishes the policy about it shouldn't have corporate logos, it shouldn't have advertising and that type of stuff.

Got it. Okay. That's my only question.

So I definitely feel the push and the pull of wanting to get community groups involved either as stewards or as funders. I mean, it's great, but it's the sustaining of that commitment involvement. Oakland has a whole network of friends groups that look after individual parks and they'll do things like my colleagues are suggesting in terms of going on painting the benches, conducting light maintenance on whatever the the amenity might be. But then the question becomes what if the president of that friends group moves away and there's no one to to to pick up the pick up the mantle. I I wonder just from a philosophical standpoint, I mean, these if these amenities have hard costs, why not just charge for them?

You know? Put put the put the real cost out there. Because at the end of the day, if the cost isn't covered, it's gonna come it's gonna come back to you to to maintain. So why not if something truly costs $5,000 to install and maintain, why not put it out there as a as a something of an annuity to to provide for both the installation and the the care. And then like you're suggesting, if it if it falls short, then it can be effectively relicensed to to someone else. Yeah. Is there is there a reason not to go down that road?

No. I mean, I think I think what staff have always tried to do is to mitigate as much as they could to make it an approachable program. And again, like I this is why we're getting this feedback that if we wanted to still make it a reasonable donation for being able to cover the actual cost of installation and purchase, but still giving folks that opportunity because we do realize that our parks are important to our community and but again, this is why we're getting this feedback from

Might might it be more perhaps more to offer more affordable option to work with of course, if you're making a donation, may wanna place the amenity in a specific location. But could we reverse engineer it and have someone effectively sponsor an existing amenity so it's already installed and then the sponsorship goes to its ongoing care and that might bring the cost down?

Again, that's definitely a possibility. We've done that a few times in the past where we've had available benches that are able to adopt. And again, we've used some of those funds in that sense of because there wasn't a different price set for that. We've used those sometimes to offset the cost of the departments had overall. So, but it's essentially you getting a memorial bench that's there.

So. I guess the thing that Matt was just mentioning that there's somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 of these benches potentially. And if there's 500 of these benches and they're just the initial cost is 2,000, what does that work out to? A lot

of bench money.

Yeah, a heck of a lot of money. And then if we have to do the ongoing and that's not even factored into it, that then goes back to our bottom line where as we know there's just so many maintenance costs already that we aren't, we don't have the money to have covered. So I'm more of the opinion of put it out there and say this is the, you know, suggested cost. And then if somebody wants to come back and say I don't have that kind of money, I would rather do X, Y, Z, then, you know, potentially work with them. But I think the idea of saying, hey, it's five, I'm just rounding number $5.

And then at least that way you have a fund to work from. And then that will then help us with the reconditioning of the older ones as well.

But if we're not reconditioning those benches because I said when I put my benches in, I was told there'd be no maintenance. So if we wanted to go clean the bench or stain it, we had to do it ourselves. So I don't think that we are going around and doing all these benches. So there's that cost is not there right now.

Subbanner, inject. I would say that when we come back with a draft policy, we'll have staff look at past maintenance costs and try to figure out what that is when we look at the pricing if we need to bring back some variation that is different than what is existing in our pricing structure. And then we can look at that and see what that would look like. And then, you know, if it comes to the point where we look at past maintenance costs and we can approach the original donor and say, is that something that you were wanting to cover? Then maybe we can reach out and come to some sort of agreement around that.

And, but a realistic idea of what we can actually provide as a service. I think that's the other thing is to look at is, you know, looking at our, not reduced, but our minimal maintenance staff and what they can continue to provide as a service level, that's where we have to look at that option as well.

Well, also just thinking about like when you originally donated yours, the costs were much less and now they're more And in another ten years, there's going to be an incremental cost. And then another ten years after that, it's going to be another incremental cost. So the costs are going to continue to go up. And if we don't take that future cost into consideration, we're behind the eight ball again. So that's where I'm thinking we should be looking at a more proactive approach to cover our long term costs.

Yeah, I think ideally what we would end up doing is bringing our, this donation component into our annual fee schedule.

Right.

So that it can be addressed as costs go up so that we're not in that situation where we're not evaluating it on a regular basis and that's just fixed in time. So I think we would wanna do something like that as we move forward. Do

we have a count of how many benches and picnic tables get donated in a year on average?

I would say we I'm not exactly sure when we started it, but in our system we have about 500 total in the system.

But that's not in one year?

No, correct. Since we've started this program.

No, I think her question is like in 2024, do we know was it six?

I'm just curious.

We can bring those numbers back to you when we bring you back to policy.

I'll just be curious to know that.

Yep, we can do that.

Conceptually, I might set aside bench, call it a tree, planting a tree, putting a plaque on a tree. Obviously, parks have trees in them that need to be maintained and maintaining a tree is different than planting a whole new tree and then maintaining a tree. I might approach the challenge the same way conceptually which is to say that if we're talking about an existing bench that's part of an existing maintenance budget then yeah, then the sponsorship is to cover, you know, recover the cost of the maintenance of that bench fully. And that that would be a wonderful memorial and a wonderful sponsorship. And then were we to talk about installing something new that it would be both for the investment of the installation, the planting of the tree so to speak as well as for the ongoing maintenance.

Think that's kind of where I come to agreement with Commissioner Robbins.

My only concern with that too is we tell someone, well in ten years it'll be $1,000 And then all of a sudden, ten

years later, it's $2,000

So I don't know if we can maybe somehow make it so it's like if in 2024, if that's when you got your bench, this is your rate for the next ten years. And then maybe it can then the next ten years after that's whenever when they renew. I would just be worried about something like that. If we put that in front and then all of sudden ten years is a long time, that price is going to significantly change probably in ten years. So I would be concerned with that and maybe we grandfather in whatever the next ten year renewal rate is so there's no surprises when those come up.

I'd like to consider that. I'm also a little bit this tug and pull on when you do a bench and now there's a limit where there possibly wasn't before. But we also have finite space. And at some point we're going to hit a capacity if we don't put

a limit on it and then no one else gets any memorial bench. So do have this I think the ten year or having at

least some time frame makes sense because it just allows for longer stability of the program because at some point someone's going not pay the renewal. That opens up a bench to either be replaced or somebody else's sponsorship, and it kind of just keeps the cycle going because at some point we would run out of space if we've done 500 in a time span. I know we're building new parks, but at some point, Halloween to Point's going to be done. And I would just hate for it's like this program ends or we have to put a picnic or you have to put a bench every two feet. So that's my feedback, but love that we're looking into this and making it a little bit more clear and some more better process around it.

My only other comment is reading through here that you've just cleaned up the language basically on these.

Not on everything.

No, but while the red is all new.

Yeah, was just showing what we edited.

My only question is is five days enough time for staff to process an application? It seemed like a short amount of time to me.

For the banner policy or for the

For the, yeah, the banner. So you know you have to do it five days in advance. It seems like that's not allowed a time for staff to take care of that.

I took the recommendation from our recreation supervisor.

Okay.

And he seems to believe that staff have the capacity to do that within the five days based on historical submissions.

Okay. That was just my only question looking at that.

Thank you for moving to other parts of the presentation. We'll continue in that direction. Are there any comments before we do further comments on the bench policy or are we exhausted that?

I just I love your recommendation of maybe including it in the incremental cost increase with the rest of it. And that would take care of future. That's that's a smart idea.

And my my only final comment on this on this piece is just where I've seen memorial benches lead is towards a bigger naming rights policy. And I just wonder whether there's any thinking about bigger picture naming rights.

Well, what I would the reason why we're changing to park amenity Mhmm. As a memorial is that we would have the ability to amend beyond picnic tables and benches. Should we run out, you know, potentially you'd have the ability to adopt a dugout or something. We're trying to give people options, you know, in a variety of different scales of donation level. Ideally, you know, if someone wants to come up with a few million dollars, I can name an aquatic center. I happy would if folks are listening for that.

Very good, very good. Okay, happy to ask the question. Okay, shall we move to the banner policy?

Yeah. Please. No, I love the idea of shortening the timeframe because Rittler Park, it's just one big long stream of advertisement along there. So I like the idea of shortening it to a thirty day.

My general reflection on the Banner policy and all three of these actually is that they all of these in my view should be positive margin efforts, positive contributions to the bottom line. The flip side of that is where Commissioner Alexander was going was on the cost side. I just wonder from a processing standpoint, are you envisioning that all of these would be conducted online and that workflow would be not on physical pieces of paper?

Ideally, it would be great to have everything into a at least a bare minimum of fillable PDF on our website so that you can email that to the appropriate staff member. The ideal would be is to eventually get a system in place where donations can come right through and into that process. It will still take staff review time but you know, anything that we can do more digitally is something the department is being a proponent of.

Excellent, I would second that. Any other comments on the banner policy?

I'll just add, was it considered instead of having a flat fee for failure to remove by date, maybe making it like per day per week?

So the removal date is actually from our office. We will remove your Oh, I get you. And then you'll have thirty days to pick it up from the office and then there's a disposal fee.

Got it.

So we do have, we do our best to make sure everyone comes and gets their banners. Okay. You know, we just, we'll just have staff remove them.

Got it. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Moving forward to the storage lockers.

So from last month's meeting, I thought there was a fee for storage lockers even at Washington Park for the softball people. Is that correct?

That's correct.

Yeah. Yeah.

We have a small, medium and a large fee ranges from $50 to $150 a year. This again is that was approved in the fee schedule, but this is the actual policy that identifies the terms, the conditions, the renewals, just so that individuals, we've had instances where we have a storage container, they're unresponsive, it's full of equipment, and it's in the middle of a park that's getting constructed. So we had it relocated. We tried to notify them. No response.

So now we are the owners of the container and all the contents. So it's that type of communication that we're trying to make sure that all of our user groups stay connected with us. If you bring something like a storage shed and the roof is rotting, that is on you to repair. And so how do we communicate with you to be able to do this? So it's really trying to create that communication and responsibilities roles in this policy.

And so to give our department some ability to handle what happens when people just bring x and now we're stuck with it. So we really want to make sure we get down into that process. I think the policy has a section in there that talks about the cost of removal. And if we have to do it, it's at the, it's the organizer's expense. So it's just really getting into those types of requests and formality. And so what we'll do again is if there's any feedback from you all about it, we will incorporate that into the policy and we'll bring it back to you again in the spring for adoption. And then there'll be a timeframe for it to go into effect.

So the, on the part about missing the deadline to renew but can still do ten days after, is the late fee it's set in there, is that in the fee schedule?

I'm not sure the late fee is in there. I'll have to do a double check.

Okay. Cool.

It'd be great to have I would say it'd be great to have, even if it's just in here versus in the fee schedule, what, like,

an actual late fee. I get the removal is just gonna be whatever the cost was to remove it, but maybe an

actual number of what the fee is for the late application renewal would be a good thing to add.

Okay. Noted.

I'm curious, the storage containers themselves, whether you have the view of trying to standardize those just from an aesthetic standpoint to make sure that you don't have a mishmash of different storage facilities out there?

So I think that's going to come down to staff because we have request that staff have the time to approve the application. And so at that point, we can actually add a component in there where it talks about the aesthetics. We try to make sure that they're clean and painted, not rusting uniform, but we can actually, if we want to, we can request a certain color, you know, that and make sure that it fits in with other park amenities. So you don't get a yellow or blue one just because they have that.

And then I wonder whether there's any thought or value into considering the management of keys and codes and that type of thing, access, whether that's something that you all want to have a view into or whether you're going to leave it to the groups to manage that themselves?

So typically these are private use

facilities.

So we generally don't request access into some, you know, into those. If it were our facility and you were renting it from us, we would then coordinate that whole key access lock issue. But I think as part of this, we may request that we get a copy that have on file just in case you abandon the elements. So we're not cutting the lock off. And so we can probably include that in the policy. We need you to have provide us a key for your facility just to make sure.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Any other questions? On the spirit of a workshop environment, we blurred questions and comments. May I ask, do we have any public comment on this item?

No public comment.

Thank you. Any further comments from commissioners?

I still say that our fees for the units are really too reasonable when you consider what a self storage unit fee would be for these types of things. And I know that the fees that these organizations bring in should more than be able to cover a higher price for the fact that we are actually storing their stuff for them.

Okay. Thank you all.

Thank you.

Moving forward, the next item excuse me. The next item on the agenda is our next meeting on 01/08/2026. Do we have any agenda items that anyone would like to put on that meeting? Director Long?

Just as a clear fact, question about the open speaker tonight. Is that something the commission is interested in having an agendized item or do you just would you rather staff reach out to the speaker and see if we can figure out I'll I'll coordinate with our athletics individual staff member and see if something can be worked out. I I personally have gotten requests for outdoor facilities, but the staff member sounds like they've gotten requests for inside the gym. So it'd be interesting. I'll get their feedback and I can give you guys an update in the staff report next time if that's acceptable.

It feels like something that can be managed with an existing policy.

Okay. Okay.

In that case, the next item of the agenda is the adjournment. Do we have a motion to adjourn, please?

I'll motion to adjourn. I'll second that.

And a roll call vote, please.

Commissioner Alexander?

Yes.

Commissioner Robbins? Yes. Vice chair Swartz?

Yes. Chair Ades?

Yes. Thank you. The meeting is now adjourned. We'll see everyone in January.