Parks, Recreation & Open Space Commission - Regular Meeting

One more. So it's only for the appointees that you need to go through the whole rigomear roll of she doesn't vote right. You don't vote.

It is complex. Oh crazy have to post the agenda. Oh yeah. It's a lot. It's one of those which what's different though the technologies is not used to be the technology was a problem on top of that. Now the technology is pretty straightforward. Yeah. Are we ready to start? We're expecting

Jamra, can you hear me? Yes.

Okay. Um, you know the little panel screen here? Can you operate that or do I need to do something? for us because it's things like sharing screen as it is and read the uh uh land acknowledgement. Uh the city of Albany recognizes that we occupy the land originally protected by the Confederated villages of Lejon. acknowledge the genocide that took place on these lands and must make strides to repay the moral debt that is owed to this indigenous people, specifically the Aloney tribe. Thank them for the contributions which have transformed our community and will continue to bring forth growth and unity. City of Albany commits to sustaining ongoing relationships with the tribe and together build a better future for all that now make this their home.

All right, shall we have the roll call? Yes. Um, Commissioner Chang Frank, can you hear me? Okay, here. Sorry. Commissioner Kent here. Commissioner Logan here. Commissioner Martin here. Um, I can't see your name tag and I'm blanking on your name. Trinkle. Commissioner Trinkle. Yes. Thank you. Commissioner Trinkle here. and Commissioner Mark uh Commissioner Abbott here. All right.

I didn't get a message from um Commissioner Chan, so I don't know if he's going to be late or if he's going to be absent. Okay. All right. Uh first order of business is the approval of the minutes from March 12th. I've had a chance to look at those. I would accept a motion convenience. A motion to approve the minutes. Second. Second. Okay. Okay. Commissioner Changf Frank. Yes. Commissioner Kent.

Yes. Commissioner Logan. Yes. Commissioner Martin. Yes. Commissioner Trinkle. Yes. And Abbott. Yes. Motion passes. All right. Very good. And now we will open the floor to public comment. Anybody online we need to consider for public comment? No one online.

No one online for public comment. I'm not seeing anybody here. So I would just say that this would be an opportunity for members of the public to uh speak on things that aren't on the agenda. But as apparently nobody cares tonight. We'll just move on to presentations. All right. Uh 41, uh Pierce Cleveland Bikeway Connection Outreach and Engagement Project Overview. Oh, there we go.

Welcome, Commissioner Chan. Yeah, welcome. Very good. Looks like somebody figured it figured out the panel. Well, I didn't have to touch it, so we're okay.

All right. Good evening, commissioners. Happy to be back here uh for tonight. My name is Allison Curo. Um I'm the CIP program manager here at the city of Albany, California. And I'm speaking about a project that we're kicking off here. This is probably the first time it's been discussed here as a kind of formal project. It's a project that is in the parks master plan. um but one that takes coordination with both the transportation commissioner commission and um parks and open space. Uh specifically we're talking about uh the Pierce Cleveland bikeway connection. This is a proposed bike way to go through Pier Street Park. So, what I'm doing tonight is an overview of where we are, what we're seeing, open up for feedback, make sure we've covered all the bases from a park w open space perspective. Um, I will be bringing this also to transportation commission. Uh, we're coming here first. Um, and then later this month a transportation commission. So, if you have anything you want to share there, you're welcome to join there. We'll be probably talking about the bike way and techni technical aspects of the bike way a little bit more than we will here which is talking more about kind of big picture and programming. Uh with that, so the context is uh kind of give a real high level, but uh the park master plan uh for the Pier Street Park showed quite a bit of recreational programming and some uh program space for things like um sustainable landscaping, trees, and one of the things that are in that plan includes the bikeway connection. So, this is a bike way connecting uh the north the northwestern corner of Alvany to some of the other um bike facilities uh that are to the south. Um

specifically that path is shown in the active transportation plan uh which is weaving through the commissions and council at this as we speak. Um, this plan was actually an update from a previous one in 2012, uh, where the Cleveland where the Pier Street path was first conceived. Um, we've completed two portions of that path. There's, um, and I'll go over that in a little bit more detail. Uh, there's two more portions, two more gaps that need to be closed. Uh, and this is one of them. Uh, the other one, uh, is keyed up for construction in spring of 2007. So right now where we are, we really want to make sure we understand um the bike way because there's quite a bit of grading necessary. Um this park, although flat in the current configuration where the main park features are, uh the bikeway itself is traversing quite a bit of terrain. Um and so we really need to make sure we have that dialed in. Um there's some jurisdictional challenges. um making sure that it's a safe path and uh we want to make sure we've spoken to everybody, had an opportunity for outreach and engagement both at this commission, at transportation commission, but also we're looking at opportunities to bring it out to the public and have more feedback and engagement sessions. And this is supported by a grant from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. So, we have significantly more resources for these efforts under this project. Um, and they're supporting it because this is a a for Albany, size of Albany, a fairly major component of our bikeway network. Uh, so here's kind of a of a plan view from the park master plan. Uh, for those who are familiar with this image, I have rotated it 180 degrees so that it's consistent with the park design plan. So, please excuse the upside down words.

Um this is north is to your left, west is towards the the bottom half of the screen. Um so from a kind of large access and circulation overview um what we're talking about here is the portion of the path. This blue line here that extends into a purple dashed line and then weaves around into a purple undashed line and then separates into two paths. And what this is is we have in blue, so starting on the left in blue, this is the portion of the bikeway that's in Calrans rightway. Um then we enter the portion of the park where it's going through city- owned property. Um dashed means this is proposed, not constructed. Uh and then following this, we have this portion in purple. This was constructed for under the Saha um low-income housing development and it is completed. And here we we se separate the bike way uh for an on street facility dashed in green. This is a two-way bikeway that will travel down the west side of the street. Um and then there's an existing sidewalk. Some of it was redone during the the Saha redevelopment. Um so it's a shared use path for the majority. Um, but it separates down here at Cleveland Avenue. Uh, one thing I do want to note, I put this path in dashed even though most of it that is completed. Um, because there might be some discussions later on about the width of it and seeing if there's we may want to I don't think the right now we're not looking at changing that, but that's part of a later programming discussion around parks. It's not it's more of a connection to this active transportation access route. Um and so that's more of

an internal park circulation. Uh so it is it is dashed but conceptually at least from the parks master plan it was it's supposed to stay in that kind of general configuration. Uh so going back to the larger network um over here in yellow that is the 555 Pierce 545 Pierce and 535 Pierce uh condos. about 10% of the city of Albany lives in that tiny little area here. Um, and currently the only way to get uh pedestrians down is to take sidewalks. And there's not a great uh bikeway connection. And so this this connection here is to connect through the park again to the P uh Buchanan bikeway that exists here uh where my pointer is. Um, this Buchanan bikeway also serves as the connection point to the Bay Trail which travels over here on the west side of Golden Gate Fields and serves as a connection point to the Aloney Greenway. Uh, and so this is a very important high priority I think priority zero. It's the only priority zero um project left in the ATP from 2012. With that, jumping into some of the details. I'm going to some of these will be discussed in more detail at transportation commission because it impacts more of the bikeway. Uh but a key part of this the challenges with this site is that it's although the most of the property is city of Albany property uh cal we are still right next to Calrans rightway and CALR has very uh stringent standards for safety separation clearances uh that we're working through. Uh, additionally, there's an existing fence. Um, but that fence ends right around here. It was,

um, and when we open that fence up, it's considered a break in access, and that requires us to go all the way to the Federal Highway Administration to grant that access. Uh, so this is quite complicated jurisdictionally. Uh so moving forward I'll also talk about two other major challenges that have to do with topography. We have what I'm going to call the south connection on the south side and sorry this is oh I'm going backwards that's why and the north connection on the north side. Uh so we have here on the south connection. So this is an aerial shot uh of Saha when it was under development. It's you can kind of see the this is where that path kind of weaves through. Uh we are in order to make this path ADA compliant uh which is a 5% or less grade. We have to lower this corner of the property by about 8 ft is what we're seeing. uh that's going to take a lot of uh grading, a lot of retaining structures and in doing so we have to consider many things uh four of which I've listed here. Um general topography, the switchbacks need to make sure that they're safe for bikes who might be traveling at fairly high speeds down this path. um the bike ped visibility and how they interact at certain points uh where the kind of local circulation park circulation path and the access through the path uh through the park intersect um and of course ADA accessibility um and maintaining that through this area.

This is this is the current grading. Um for those who are familiar with um topography and kind of interpreting contour lines, we are tight. We are very very tight here in order to maximize the size of the available park kind of programmatic park space up here. Um and we're looking at and we've looked at it a few times. This is a third or fourth iteration of looking at how we can further squeeze. But at this point, we're we essentially have uh no more ability to push um the path south um and still maintain ADA compliance in a safe and comfortable I would say comfortable path and I'll get into the comfort of this as well um in later slides. Uh on the north side we have its own special con uh special challenges. The property drastically narrows down at this point. Um we did look on the transportation front at seeing if we could make this an on street bike way rather than coming through CALR jurisdiction and there's a significant elevation climb up. Um, and so the the what we really want to do is make sure that we we make this path as easy for folks to be able to use. There's a focus on all ages and abilities. Um, and a separated bikeway is really going to be the the best case here, especially with all the buses and um, vehicles that come down here at reasonably high speeds. Um, so the other thing here is that immediately next to it, we have our freeway. Um, so we're pinched on both sides. Um, while over here in the park, it's called grade separated. That's where the freeway is in a bridge structure above the park. As we come north, it's no longer grade separated. Uh, we up to

about here, we're actually at the same elevation as the freeway. There is no separation. There's no guardrail right now. It is you walk out there and it is just freeway. Um, so in order to make it safe, we're going to be doing a lot of we're planning and proposing and designing a lot of significant safety elements. Um, but in this area there's actually additional kind of considerations that I wanted to bring up, which is the perceived safety and comfort. And so this is kind of environmental uh design 101 is that it's not just about the measured um safety, but we really want to make sure people feel comfortable being able to use it. Um, and so this is a section cut. This is actually from the park's master plan where they did a really good job of kind of showing one option of how that might look like. Um, this is where the the path is at grade with the freeway uh with a guardrail in between and a fence probably with screening. Um, we are looking at other types of improvements here, including trees and other ways to make this feel less like we're next to a busy freeway. Um, other things that are being evaluated, we need to have wind brakes. This is a very windy area. Uh, shade and lighting. And one of well the complexities with some of these perceived safety and comfort considerations is that it's somewhat subjective. Uh people experience perceive safety and comfort differently and it's also there's a sometimes a bit of a paradox where lighting levels or lighting levels and shade interact in different ways at night than they do during the day. Um whereas an open kind of clear open area during the the day might be desired or or it might be not desired because it

feels too open. Um at night often shade and um other kinds of plantings can sometimes feel like there might be people hiding in them. And so there's a balancing act here um that we're going to have to evaluate and uh as we go through conceptual design lighting level as well. We went through a fairly significant citywide lighting uh evaluation in 2023 uh to evaluate and decide on city lighting standards. And these come with making sure the right temperature um for the lights that it's dark sky. We consider dark sky um and make sure that we don't get too much light coming off the the design of the light fixtures themselves controlling the light. cover. One of the things with the lighting levels is that um again subjective um and personal it's it connects to your personal there is a difference in how lighting is perceived as you age um that we discuss in that or found out through that assessment. And so these are things which we want to look at and we want to balance um both for this path for park projects but also we need to acknowledge that is there is some subjectivity here and so we're going to work with you and the transportation commission to find the right balance with that. I think the more important or the more you know interesting part of this presentation for this commission is probably where the recreational programming opportunities are. Um and so in the parks master plan there's this uh kind of oblong oval that's identified as a potential spot. Uh this has been shared with uh the other uh planning effort that's underway uh with uh community development uh so that when the consultants who are working on that effort are looking at opportunities for uh programmatic elements and recreational facilities, they understand

kind of what the the limits of the grading were. And so we can we're working in lock step um as we go through this. And then on the north side I put it into I have a gradient of yellow to gray. And that's because as part of this discussion on comfort and perceived safety in especially in this area we're going to be looking at where this change from this blue line to the purple line. This uh alignment shift happens. Right now we've pushed it as far north as possible. Um, but what that means is right here where my mouse is pointing in red, um, there's a pretty significant climb. It's still 5%, but on a bike, especially one without a motorized, um, assist, 5% can feel pretty steep. Um, to re to reduce that and make it a more comfortable ride, it would mean pushing this path in towards this gray area. And so that's something that's going to be under development as we go through conceptual planning to to kind of dial in on exactly where that is. And of course that changes the available space for recreational programming. Um and that's something we'll bring bringing in future presentations. Uh sorry. All right. And then lastly, something that it's kind of discussed, um, and we don't yet have this identified, but the opportunity to potentially put in some pedestrian stairs, um, so that people don't have to go through a full switch back in order to get to the park. And so, generally, in order to make all this project work, these are a lot of the things that we're looking at as a as we go through conceptual planning. Um, how do we make sure that uh our embankments and retaining walls are both uh cost effective of course, but also ones that create that maintain comfort um and ones where we can still be able to plant and make and green our space. Uh so the these are some images from uh a local um

I think it was Napa, city of Napa's planning guides uh where they talk about various kinds of best practice when you have slopes. Um you don't want to have for example a large retaining wall if you can avoid it. You it's much more pleasant for folks if there's a series of small retaining walls so it doesn't feel like you're standing next to concrete. Um and so these are some of the things we're looking at. We're looking at railings again with bikes coming down the path. We want to make sure and going to a a fairly uh tight switchback. We want to make sure that that's safe for for bikes, bike riders. Um stairs, as I mentioned, lighting, um planting and screening. And then we get into the more civil design elements such as drainage and existing utilities. Um and those we want to make sure we understand uh at this stage so we can fully scope out what this project is. Uh so this is an example of a retaining wall design uh where instead of having a single wall, you have a cut and fill. This is also beneficial just as a as an FYI, it's also beneficial from a a cost perspective because we're not removing as much soil, but um it's also more pleasant. So it's it's one of these uh situations where there's a nexus between costs and comfort. Um, and this is an example of a railing that might something like this that we're going to be evaluating at the top of some of these retaining structures. And an example from uh Portland that shows kind of a a windy trail on a on a hillside just to give an example. Again, we're we're not yet to the point where we're looking at materials, any of that. We're at still very early stages just to make sure we know where things are going. um that the next steps mentioned we're bringing we've bringing this to pros tonight. Transportation commission is next in uh the third Thursday of this month. Uh what we want to make sure is that when we come back we have the right

visuals and the right materials to be able to answer any questions you have and and dial in on decisions. Um, so we're working with a the project designer who has also brought in a landscape architect uh to assist with architectural renderings and cross-sections uh to better understand the site. Uh we're definitely looking at one cross one rendering for the south end of the site where the switchback occurs because I think that's where it it's helpful to be able to see it in three dimension. Um could use your you know feedback if there's another location. Right now, we're targeting two renderings. Um, and then cross-sections, we can do any number of cross-sections. Those are a little less challenging to the budget, as I would put it. Um, and so feedback tonight absolutely would love to know where you're having trouble visualizing what this path might look like. Um, so we can make sure we bring that material back. um if you have any feedback on additional public and community engagement locations. One of the ones we're looking at is uh 555 Pierce has a annual fire safety kind of HOA and fire department get together and so that's one we want to really reach out to the to the community and HOAs at um in that Pier Street corridor. Um we want to confirm the completeness of the project scope. This is really important because right now We are starting our search for grants to feed the next phase. And so this phase is expected to finish out by the end of the year ideally. Um but we want to make sure we can roll right into um next phase which would get into design early design. Um and to do so we're going to start looking at grants now. And so making sure that we've covered all of the kind of bikeway components. Absolutely. and then things that may be kind of park

related. Um, making sure we understand what those might be and see if there's any way to include those also into grants. Um, we'd also look at grants for park development and things like that as well as part of our grant search. Um, but those are a little harder to come across than than transportation grant funding. Um, and then our next and future phases. So, so we'll be bringing this back many times. This project is quite complicated, has a lot of inter interactions um between two different commissions, a large swath of the community. And so we want to make sure we're we're targeting the right of level of development, safety, comfort, and um coordination between all the different needs of this area. Um with that, open up to questions and feedback.

All right. Well, thank you very much. It is exciting to see this being fleshed out. All right. Uh any clarifying questions? I was a little confused if we talk about the CALR and city property. What it's all on city property, right? No. So yeah. Uh let me let me go back to that slide. Uh actually this one will work. Uh so the section in blue here, this is Calr ride ofway. Yeah. When we um when we purchased the property, we purchased in I think the 2000s, we purchased this section of it. That part's built already. I'm sorry. Calrron's part is already built.

It's not built. This is this is the majority of the costs of this part of our kind of conceptual plan development is actually figuring out what CALR is going to require. And it is a stack of reports this thick. This project despite being only in the CALR rideway being a few hundred feet uh is actually as complicated as you can get without actually just doing freeway work. It hits every component of complexity uh that they could bring up. Um we're going to be coordinating with at least 10 departments in CALR in order to deal with this section of the of the path. I just just point out that um there's a very nice sidewalk ends.

That's what I'm thinking. I see. Parking ends right before the blue line, right? Yeah, that's where we're connected to. Got it. It seems like such a simple idea, but it's not as simple as that. I think the idea is great. Um and you're right. It is actually a very simple idea. It's it's making sure that we're doing it safely. Yeah, actually Allison had a simple solution of just buying the land from CALR might be easier than than going might be easier and cheaper than doing their design review.

We we we've asked the question. Um so far we have not heard that they're willing to sell it. Um sounds like they're there's some um desire to hold it. Um but we haven't gotten formal response yet on that. All right. Any other uh additional questions? I mean, from us, you're particularly looking for feedback on the park and recreation elements and making sure you understand. Yeah, I'm sure you'd be open to to other transportation parts, but in particular the parks and recreation.

I think I think so. One of the purposes of this bringing it this early is also so you get um we're going to be discussing as part of the park's master plan supplement um different things that can go in different areas. So this is really a foundational element that will frame whatever goes there. So it's feedback but also education and and I would say um renderings and cross-sections looked at it. Hey, if we're going to try to fit something through here, really need to know and see what this looks like, this section looks like. So, I think I think there's um that element

and and let me just um the the part in orange gray here that's still kind of thought to be like a pump track for the mountain bike mountain biking. Do we not really know? That's kind of so that was one of the options option one of the one of the things that was proposed in the um in the original master plan. Um but they also proposed doing additional develop um studies to figure out exactly what goes there and what where it fits best. So okay um it's definitely on the on the table.

It's a very awkward space otherwise. It's it's it's definitely on the table, but you know, part of it is how much, you know, if we have to push if we have to push the uh pathway further further towards Pierce, that eats up the available space. So, that kind of has to factor in. I say I I would also say it's an opportunity to to use parts of the path to support, right, the other bicycle feature that would right. I mean, it makes perfect to put a bicycle park next to a bicycle path, but I would think.

And also about this path, uh although it's called a we've been I've been calling it a bike way, it's really a shared use path and it's going to be part of the circulation for the park as well. And so there's definitely a nexus here with comfort for the bike users, but also that same comfort applies to the pedestrians who will be using it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I had a clarifying Oh, I have a clarifying question. Can you go back to the access and circulation overview? Okay, thanks. Yeah. So, um, that's fine. I see this like darker gray line. It's not I can't see it much here, but I see it in the in the deck

online. I'm just wondering it like underneath that purple kind of squiggly line, there's like these gray. Maybe these are the switchbacks. Yeah. So, this was from the uh parks master plan rendering where they didn't quite know what kind of switchbacks were going to be required. Okay. So, what I've done is kind of lightly traced over. Oh, good. So, I I should that's actually a better sort of visual of what might be. Okay. Good. And um as part of this this so this was a single Well, it depends. The bikeway section is a bikeway shared use path is a single switch back to connect it to the pedestrian. There's a second small switch back here. That's the yellow line.

That's the yellow line. Um, and so it's it's kind of two switchbacks for for pedestrians, I would say, to the park or access to the park. Uh, one of the things you'll notice is that there's also another kind of light gray line here. And I think my interpreting what is going on here, I think that's because they thought there was an additional switchback and that in order to connect to the wider kind of park area, you would have to use have a secondary path there. Um, so I can I was there. Oh, you were there. Thank you. Yes. That was that was initially the bike path. That was to show you come down off Pier Street on that bike and that's how you would get around down.

Oh, interesting. Because it also showed this purple one. It was like two. They were looking at two. All right. I mean, this is way but it was intended. Okay. Okay. So, just to understand then this this purple line would be a shared use bike pedestrian path. So is the yellow. The yellow is being proposed right now as just a park circulation. So more for pedestrians. And so actually I didn't have a chance to kind of talk through this but one of the things hearing a lot of the feedback we've gotten with kind of bike and pet interactions one of the things we focused on with looking at circulation is to try to have a separate location that especially knowing that there's children running around.

Uh we really wanted to make sure that we had kind of a separate connection here. the the original park kind of plan showed this, but then when we did grading, it was it's a little challenging to do this little tiny connection here. But I do think it makes an improvement. So you're when you're coming down the bike way and you might be going at hopefully not 20 miles an hour, but at a consistent slope down, people can reach pretty high speeds. Um, we wanted to make sure that the transition into kind of a pedestrian path is fully separate. We're not They have to make a decision to leave or a decision to leave the pedestrian path and not one where it just kind of blends. Yeah.

Okay, great. And Oh, sorry if you don't mind. I continue. So the purple So the purple one that loops around. So if you go down Yeah. The one that kind of loops into that space. Um that is so that a biker can kind of go to that upper part of the park. Is that right? In terms of why there's circulation need there. So this portion here um that portion is uh in order to get both pedestrians and cyclists. It's it's a 5% slope. So that means it's actually ADA compliant. So it's it is for pedestrians as well, but is is so they can like get closer to that part of the park. Is that right? So they can access the park. Yes. Enough length need the length really steep there.

Right. I guess I'm just wondering like fine, but is that that's a lot of circulation that that of area it takes up and I'm just I just want to the big picture question is like it's I don't even I can't even tell the scale like the distance that that would take but that takes up a lot of potential park space before that circulation, right? And so the question is is that a really good use of that circula do you see what I'm saying? Um, is that a really necessary use? Yeah. Okay. It's needed to make a to meet ADA. Okay. You need a certain length of trail and you so you need to go have the switchbacks to get that length.

Got it. So, it's just a requirement ADA requirement and and actually the the solid section is already built that was built with with the saw which brings up why that one's pretty flat, isn't it? And can we rip that up and add some grade there so we can That one is also at 5% already. 5% is is so 5% too. It's already 5%. Really? It doesn't look like it on the plan. Yeah, there there's probably a small section down here. Um right here that might not be, but right as we get over here it's definitely climbing. Um it 5% is is very it is very flat. Um

um it's it's also used as the um emergency exit for the Saha building. So their first section of it may I think it has to hit some thresholds on the building. So it may not be exactly 5% everywhere. Okay. I guess my main question is for the purposes of this commission like are we able to maximize the recreational usage with this design? I guess and the all the require all the things. I'm assuming you've thought that through but I just wanted to sort of Yeah. So we we we've this is the fourth iteration of how far we can push this path and squeeze it in.

Okay. Um, and at this point, the alternatives are essentially to create giant retaining walls for the bikeway where you'll be significantly further below the here and you would be stuck between the um freeway overpass and a greater than 8 foot embankment uh in a little tunnel. It would be very unpleasant. Okay, thanks. Just love tunnels. It's also a safety concern. The kids would love it. Jesus. I had a few questions.

Uh, one was, um, let's see, regarding the bike ped, uh, you said it's a shared use path. Um, will it be wide enough to have kind of like with the Looney Greenway to have separate sections for or separate lanes for bikes versus pedestrians or it's or not? Uh, so right now it it's not that wide and a big portion of that comes with being able to fit it in on the side of a hill um feasibly without getting to the point where the retaining walls are unmanageable.

Um, we just don't have the space to do that. If we were to do that and try to have a separate ped bike or widen it out, we would be looking at further reducing the amount of recreational space here. We'd essentially kind of start moving up the hill even further. So another question related to that is um uh I is is it true that you are pursuing shortcuts for pedestrians uh stairs and things so that they they might because they're probably going to want to at the corners.

Yeah, I think that's I think that's in the parks master plan. We just haven't detailed that out. This is until we have the grading for the where they're connecting. we don't actually know exactly where those um the orientation of those um steps and we would need to make sure that we have the right kind of transitions um so that they're not now we're not taking space away from the path. Um so they may be instead of instead of a straight line style they may be more angled in order to kind of catch grades.

Um and that just that needs to be further refined. And then one thing I didn't hear mentioned much, I don't think I heard mentioned is uh when you're when you're on Cleveland looking at the park, um you can see there's a steep embankment on the um like where the oval touches the the dashed purple line

and um do you anticipate any challenges with needing to shore up that um space to put the paved path there? So right now what we're proposing is lowering some of that embankment. Um that's that 8 foot that we're reduc that we're lowering. Let me get to that slide. Um so where this arrow is, we're lowering by 8 ft. But in order to do that, we're going to be taking out some of that embankment. So 8t of embankment and then it kind of trails up this way. Oh, okay. So it's not just the southern the very southern end that you're uh grading it. You're digging a lot. It's it's along that whole way.

Yeah. This whole hillside is going to kind of get dug out. It's an old embankment from Calrans. This the material is actually fairly structurally sound for for this kind of work. And then that embankment that you're talking about that you see from Cleveland actually has geoteexile or geo geog grid in it. Um it's it's a Calrans put it in. It's fairly well-developed and we're actually by lowering it, we're not we're not going to be kind of forcing more of that, but it will be still an embankment and a drop. So, part of that design, again, back to railings and guardrails and fencing, is to make sure that it's nobody's going to try to jump over that.

And then we'll also I I assume then along the oval, we'll need some sort of fencing so people don't fall into that um the lower grade of the path then. So, That's a great question. Um, right now the grading design is showing this as a as an embankment um 3 to one slope. Um, so it's and then we would probably be putting planting there. Um, it's just a more pleasant way to stop people from kind of going than fences. Um it's when we do have retaining walls, we would we would be we would need to put in railings, but if we can do it in a way that's more gradual, um we would want to do that.

That embankment goes quite a ways um away from the Saha project, but I think you're saying um that the path will at some point reach the same level as the oval as the lawn or something. Right around like right right in this area here is where it kind of reaches the same level as alone. Okay. Well, so long as there's nothing that people just trip or fall into when they're playing soccer or something or running around, that would absolutely be part of the design of um the soccer the field, but also in an interim condition if we go forward with say the path first. And

it we we don't know if this is being developed as one full project with parks and bikeway at the same time or not. It's too early to tell. Um but either way, we would want to make sure the final configuration and any interim conditions kind of take it take that into account. Um and then to the north, the Abbott already asked about the bike skills park. I um I just wanted to ask if there's some things that could be done. um with separation and safety that would also benefit whatever goes there like a bike skills park or something like that.

Yeah. So, uh what CALR has told us is that in order to break the fence here and have an access control break, uh we are going to be need to put up at the very minimum guard rails that's not very comfortable for people. And so this project would be looking at doing kind of concrete um either concrete walls with fencing or some other configuration that we're still kind of figuring out. And that would be at the very western or this the the lower part right here right right below the purple

um in order to separate. And so whatever we separate for this this process and it it could it benefits both the B park facilities and the bike way. It really is going to happen at the same time because we don't want to go through CALR process twice. What's going to happen at the same time? The the fence relocation and any kind of buildout of safety improvements along the freeway. We're going to do that one time. That that I sorry I don't mean to it it's so complicated. We don't want to have to touch it again, right? So whatever we do there has to benefit both projects. So, but then the next thing we program there, uh, it won't be this thick stack of CALR. Is that what you're saying? Documentation.

The goal is to make sure that we don't have to Okay. Okay. Good. Absolutely. Um, and then uh let's see and then important bike skills. Okay. And okay, that's it for me. Thanks. Couple questions. So, you again quite clear. So, right now there's no concrete barrier between the freeway and that Yeah. Let me let me see if I can grab a image. I kind of scrolled by maybe a little too quickly. Um, this is what it looks like right here. Uh, right now uh the fence is actually right here for the park. It's hard to a little hard to see. Uh, yeah. All right. Yeah.

Um, so could you go back to the plan again? So, yeah. I think a comment about people getting picking up speed as they're going down there and hitting that sharp turn is really something to be reckoned with. Why wouldn't we just abandon that straight shot and join it up with the big curved path that loops around? I

mean, that's that's a great question. I if you have specific kind of desires to see that, we want to go to transportation commission as well. the main the main focus on trying to get um a separated path is that you're they're going to be going at some speed regardless and kind of from a kind of balancing this of taking up potential recreational space and having a separated space for pedestrians. Yeah. It causes other issues, doesn't it? Yeah. Interesting. Um the other thing when you open um you're applying for active transportation grant or you're

so we we are in discussions on whether we're going to apply for both uh so a variety of active transportation grants. Yes.

One of the things I think you mentioned was that it connects the community of Albany the apartments to the waterfront but actually the original idea behind this is much bigger connect BART to the wall. You don't want to miss that connection from Elsto Bart coming down through the walk the path that goes along the creek next to this. So absolutely that one um there's been some movement on El Certo's part. Um so we're aware of that. That is part of our conversation um when we go out and get grant when we go for grant applications for this given this kind of local attention. I was focused more on the kind of local community but

also Richmond and yeah that whole 100%. Yeah, we just saw some some preliminary plans for what the connection from uh up Pierce might look like on the Elserto side and how that connection on the very north end of Albany um might look like. Um and so they're they're actively working on things as well.

Right. Other uh realize I need to say something. Any other questions? it we can open for public comment. Is there anybody uh present for public comment? Not seeing any. All right, we will then close. No hands raised online. Okay, very good. We will close. And now time for the feedback. I know we asked a lot of questions and I I think that's valuable in um just real quick the airway like um pierce down to the park. Is that like part of this plan or is that being built? We get a present about that on in February.

Yeah, that's a different project that's a little further along. Um, so that one I believe is the contractor's search right now. I think we're outing right now. So that's something that we should I would say by the end of summer might be complete. I I I can say that um I'm a little concerned about bikes zooming down there right next to um

so I was going to ask the railing clearly a railing is is planned of some kind on the west side but it seems like one might also be needed on the east side at least as it goes by the playfield which does complicate it as a as a pedestrian path for access to the park but it's simple So, I I will add though planting might work too. Yeah, planting might work. And I I would probably I would recommend that we try to do planting um railings. I've worked on I've been on projects where bikes um their handlebars. Oh, I know. Yeah.

Um and so the design around those and the loca locating of them is quite complicated to make sure it's we maintain their safety. I imagine it also depends on what activities we put in the the park. So some might be better managed with pickle ball court would have fences around it anyway, right? Yes. Well, I was sort of thinking about it where so so it might be as as our ideas develop that would inform what we need to do on that on that side.

Yeah. Well, just on that topic, I think I'm sure the transportation commission would have some feedback for this too, but I can imagine there's other like uh what is it called when you make something slower slow, you know, calming calming, sorry, bicycle calming measures that you might want to think about now. Well, I mean, as you're looking at design, right, because it's always more expensive to put in. So, yeah, upholstery. Yeah, I would kind of agree. It seems like really encouraging them to go full speed with a ramp down straight

and even if they don't swing around and go in front of the um structure, maybe they it's a bordered at some point and loops around somewhere else. Yeah,

maybe we're we're blowing it. Maybe there aren't that many people using it and the interface between the play structure isn't that much. Maybe look at some precedents where there's a paddic. I I do want to just kind of clarify while this is continually downhill, uh it does flatten out in this purple area. Um so it's it's more like 2% slope. Um but it is continually downward straight. Um this is a proposed path. Anything we make longer is perfectly fine from a grading perspective. That's not going to make it challenging. I see. Um it just takes away from park space.

Yeah. Right. And then I also I do appreciate that this path is staying away from the yellow path where presumably most of the pedestrians will be and the kids will be. So I think that separation um is good even if it does provide a runway there. I mean I would suggest that that um once this is in place this would be the preferred access to the park from the Pier Street. Yeah. It's a straight you don't have to go out. Yeah. There's no sidewalk on that side. Yeah. It'll it'll cut the corner. Yeah.

I'm not seeing this as a a bike highway versus a pedestrian trail. I'm thinking why can't we incorporate as part of the tri whole thing? So, if a if somebody goes out there with a small bike, they can circle the big circle. It's connected and it's not so scary to be on the purple line because that's only where the serious high-speed bikers go. But it's all one kind of family event. slow down when you know this isn't a this isn't a high-speed access to the the Yeah.

Um so the calming the whole thing down speaking of kind of some of the calming measures that you do for cars is that you divert them from their straight paths. Um, so there's if we're worried about this, you know, kind of interaction around this area wanting to slow them down, this this is absolutely going to slow everyone down. Um, hopefully unless, you know, unless they they're mountain bikers. So part of the railing sounds like a challenge,

but there's there's room here to look at and of doing other measures. It's going to be a balancing act between how far we take that desire paths that develop and then also just park programming. And so this feedback right now is perfect because understanding where this balancing act makes the most sense to the community is is exactly what we want to look at. Um and so if this if it's a balancing that we would prefer to see kind of less of a straightway in the bicycle path um and more meander um at the kind of expense of continuous programmat program programmable space I mean that's something that we want to hear about

especially if you put the steps right there where the path kinks you imagine the temptation to jump

in. Yeah. are already like, you know, on the what is it at the Buchanan um the the loop-de-loop that you you take to um get off Buchanan straight on a bike and go down to the towards the Bay Trail. Um there's a lot of people that go cut the corner and go straight down that rocky, you know, patch that's 10 times shorter. Um but uh so I mean so part of me thinks it would be pretty fun to build in something where people could cannonball down, you know, put like double black diamond or something sign on it or something like that. Uh uh but um I think at least having a pedestrian shortcut will will be important for that. Um, and be mindful that the bikes may try to, you know, to cut the corner. Um, but and but I uh not too too worried about uh

No, I I agree. Just angle it so they don't it's not lined up with that. Yeah, I think some kind of dog leg uh landing with a turn is probably something that would would help with that and and likely something we would need just because of how steep the grades are anyways um in this area. It's going to help with being able to to match up the top and bottom

and I for my part I would be willing to sacrifice a little space min you know as little as possible but but just something's needed that would effectively slow things down. It is exciting that the city is going to move that fence and go through all of that effort and paperwork and is trying various ways to make this happen. And I think we're all going to benefit you know from it once it's done. There are a lot of challenges here. But um you know once once I found out a few years ago during the parks master plan that that that little triangle at the north is actually city-owned land, I was like wow that's that's great. let's um let's actually, you know, program that. And and now, you know, we're hearing all the all the challenges. I'm so glad you guys are actually looking into what the challenges actually are. I'm sorry that they are so steep and uh um but once that's um once you guys have taken care of that with this retaining wall or whatever you with this uh sound barrier safety measures then that'll open up not only this path but you know other like bike skills park or whatever people are thinking of and so that's uh that's exciting. It's definitely a nexus of two wants. Um because if we had found a different way to go for the bike way, we would still have to figure out how to relocate that fence for the park.

And so this this really benefits twofer. It's a twofur and from a kind of grant funding source, it's one that there's kind of more availability of grants in the transportation realm than there are in the parks. I was also wondering if if that same sort of logic can work for inc imp improving lighting in the park general. Use some of that same argument there. So a lot of the kind of funding sources for something like this are appropriate for lighting. We would already be doing that on the bike path or the shared use path and it wouldn't be much of a stretch to explain why we would need it on the rest. Okay, good.

Um so yeah, we Ideally, I would if if I had my way um with how this could get delivered is that we would have a general sense of what the programmatic needs are in the recreational space and we try to go for a one big one fur

um and get through this. This is a complicated project. There's probably ways to subdivide it and try to do it in even smaller phases, but given what we're talking about here with how compl complicated these two are, that's where we want to look for grant funding. So there was a a company a guy that came in um I don't know five t years ago that uh designed bike skills parks for example and um he actually had a a plan drawn up on pretty short notice at different price levels. At this price level it would look like this. At this level it would look like that. Um on I think it was on the CALR land or

it was under the freeway. was under the freeway like at the bottom of that embankment with with the bear with the with the problem with the pillars. Apparently Calrans didn't like that and um so that would be I think easy enough to if he's still around and still doing the work he could knock something out and or I guess if he has to go out to bids or something it goes out to bids but um somehow he was signed on as a consultant pretty easily. I actually I reviewed that a little in a little bit and one of the struggles with that proposal is we didn't do this foundational work to make it a developable site. Yeah.

So once we do all of this and define that box then we can turn it over to someone um like that and it's it's relatively straightforward. I think Allison uh Miss Korea was saying that the the proposal is her suggestion was to I think was to do the the park um planning like skills park for example at the same time as all this other stuff is happening. We can we can plan that out on our own. Well, or use them and plan that out, define what the space is, build everything else, and then they can come in just like a playground equipment, install the install the facilities. And so it it leverages the sort of cost efficiency of that approach because it was it was actually relative, if I recall, relatively inexpensive. No,

it's it's all this other f foundational things to to get it through CALR to do all of this that especially on the very northern end there has all of that. Correct. So, so once we define the space, I think it and and do the lighting and do all these other things that would support that use, then it becomes um a relatively straightforward process. Some of the things that really benefit even if you know from a construction perspective, doing everything at once is is often great, but sometimes with specialty work, it's better to leave the space and have that specialty contractor come in on their own. M

um and so there's there's going to be some decision points here on how we go through it, but the important thing is knowing kind of on a we talk about programmatic decisions on a park scale. Knowing where your circulation is and where your access points for various things is going to be part of making sure we can deliver this in whatever phased fashion, whether it's one phase or more. um is is really kind of identifying where we're connecting to things, how people are going to use it, where stairs, where where we need stairs, where we need um drinking fountains, how many drinking fountains, you know, there's all these decisions that are going to come um that don't come up right now. It's the this part is just how do we even make it a usable site? Um

have the community engagement um sessions started yet?

Not yet. Okay. So, there's been kind of outside of the project focus I would say um so ATP has community engagement they've talked about this path many times the park uh master plan has talked about this um but that's been on a a very high level kind of desire this is a goal this is the first time we're having kind of more actionable discussion in this kind of configuration sorry in this specific location we've had outreach and engagement also on um the bike way here uh where I'm showing on the south side on Cleveland Avenue. So that that's gone through transportation commission and is uh we got a grant actually for that one. Um so the bikeway is getting constructed in that one with a grant uh in 2027 spring. um the park specific for this particular project and where we are uh this is actually the first kickoff meeting for that. One one question I had was um guess is uh like how would people gain it seems like the only say there was a bike skills park or something that people want to actually get to um and certainly if you're at the Pier Street condos or apartments it's easy enough to just go up that the path when it's built and then if you're south of the park I guess you connect from Buchanan up the the green part of the trail. Is that the idea? Right.

And then but like I live on the other side of Albany Hill like near the bowling alley for example. So how would people um basically in the northern part of Albany north of No. Yeah. Northern part of Albany east of Albany Hill up from this slide. Um how would they get to it? There's probably an assortment of ways to get to it, but the hill makes a straight direct path challenging.

Uh so the way that from an access to the park, the way that it if you're in a bike and you want the flattest possible route, uh Buchanan bikeway is going to be that route. If you're it's very securities, you have to go way past the park and then back back up. But um if you're a pedestrian, there's more access um in you can go on sidewalks uh Washington. Uh you can go to we're working on connections with Elserto so that there's hopefully eventually pedestrian connection to the to the path that um um commission the creek you can also go to the creek. Um,

if there's a bridge across Adams Street, a bridge across Adams or just if you get into Creekide Park and parallel the south side of the creek till you come out on Pierce Pierce Street over there. Uhhuh. Um, and then you can also on San Pab from San Pablo go to the orientation center from the blind. They have a path there that goes into Elerto side of the creek. Um, so you could take that and come around. It's the hill is a challenge. Okay. Okay. For access from from where you're where you're talking about

as far as resources that'd be valuable. I mean I I would ask folks to think about that. I think a sitewalk walkth through would be valuable part of public process. But what do you folks anything that document well or or design document or something that you wondering you think would be helpful question out in the future? Well, I um think of several different configurations of that trail as it goes through the park ways that keeps it from being straight. Yeah, if they're separate by separate. I can envision a few right now. I'm sure

this is something also hearing these are a little confusing. I really appreciate that gray detail with the switch back, but I think something more that understand didn't quite understand how I think we need a mckette. Yeah, the grades next to the oval are something I didn't pick up on from looking at the presentation, but hearing your presentation and have you explain it some more. I eventually figured out I think that the the proposed bike path is several feet below the level of the the turf.

Oh, yeah. This this is part of a So the we do have the full path. Um let me figure out how to open this up in a way that's more usable. Um I think edit go edit. It'll let you Oh yeah, there we go. Probably want a password. Oh no, it's um we're gonna it's going to take a while to figure that out. So, I'm going to try to piece meal this out in a in a better way, a faster way.

So, I guess there there be we just have to weigh the conflict between separating fast spikes and slow parking or combining. Yeah. Um and this is something that I'm I'm certain will also come up at transportation commission as well. um because they've been receiving a lot of the concerns from citizens about um some of those interactions, especially with ebikes. Mhm.

So, I I think it's been very helpful for me to hear that there's also similar concerns here and that there's a b there's a desire to balance kind of the recreational space with the kind of making sure that that bikes are maybe slowing down a little bit. Okay. Any other final suggestions, comments, questions? Yeah.

Um, well, I was looking at the like what am I looking at? Google Maps and like so if the path is like well I feel like I just want to see in the future like like a rendering of like where the trees would be or if like the fence the the new fence has like trees like where are those trees cuz I know like at some points is like pretty narrow so like where would the trees go and stuff?

Yeah. Uh that's uh if I were to suggest some places where I probably will be bringing or some of the places where I plan to uh bring sections and renderings. So again uh we have a single place where I definitely want to render which is um excuse me I'm not as adept in so I I definitely think there's a a need to understand what this area looks like. Um, so I definitely want something kind of over here. Um, the other one that kind of going back to some of these site challenges, I think is these arrows. Although pointing at um where this challenge is, I think those are places where it might benefit from being rendered in three dimensions.

Yes, please. Does does Albany own a drone that it can legally fly along that route and show people like what the terrain looks like? Don't need a drone. Google Maps does that. Google Earth does that for us already. Um fly do a fly through.

Yeah. So I didn't. It was very rudimentary, so I didn't bring that up, but I actually did a Google Earth fly through um for this site. Um I'm still trying to figure out exactly how to make it less glitchy. Um, but it it does help. Um, so I'll be we're either going to be I'm going to maybe show the glitchy one next time or hopefully somebody who's more adept at figuring out how to make technology work um might help us with that. Um, but it once we kind of get that in there, it's going to help a lot with I think understanding what this is going to look like. Um, so 100% on my radar of things I want to bring back. Um, I also think that understanding kind of this portion here, the section cut, this is where it's squeezed the most. So, from a bikeway shared use path perspective, I think that's important to understand. Like right now, the grading here is actually you're going to be slightly above the freeway because it's pushing back into the hill. Um, but then over here where we're flattening out, we're going to be at grade. So, what does that look like? So there's probably at least a section cut here to understand and that's where some of the questions about where the trees would be in relation to the fence would be answered with a section cut. So we can see the path and we can see the trees and the walls. And likely my sense here is it's going to look something like this with a tree popping up somewhere in here.

We and we have to keep in mind how successful we have been with trees out there. Yes. Um this would be again probably importing of and moving of many things around uh for soil and making sure that um we have the best chance of successful trees. One uh with that picture there one question with uh lighting you mentioned lighting the path and and uh um do you know if does CALR have some regulations on the brightness or location of lights? Right. the certain a certain number of feet from the freeway. Calr has regulations about just about everything.

Um, specific to lights, they do uh this is it's part of standard lighting design. We do um a phototric survey. Uh what it does is it shows kind of the spread of light and you can control the uh where the light leaves sites by doing using louvers and and various kind of screens around light fixture itself. But maybe need to screen off from illuminating the freeway.

Yeah. So we don't impact what they they just put in. They just put in a lot of lighting there. We don't want to impact and overlight their freeway because the that kind of um comfort paradox is that overlighting is just as bad as underlighting. Um and so we want to make sure that we're at the right level. Um, and that would be 100% both something that we're looking at from a city perspective and we would have to vet through CALR when we when we're getting close to the freeway. All right, I think uh we ready. Oh, yeah, please.

Uh, I would also say like definitely I recommend looking into like vegetation separating the um lawn field. Yes. realize like balls also rolling onto the bike path is probably pretty dangerous. So veget also take care of that. Not to mention people diving after balls. Right. Right. All right. Uh ready to close the item. All right. Thank you very much. Very interesting. It is Thank you. I always say this, but it's always exciting to see these things coming together when you Yeah, definitely.

All right. Uh Expenditures of sugar sweetened beverage tax. The item I thought would be the big one tonight. All right. So, this is the our annual sugar sweetened beverage um sugar sweetened beverage uh uh item where we recommend things to be funded by the um sugar sweetened beverage tax. And for those of you who are new, this is a uh tax that the city passed in 2015 16. Um and um one of the requirements and it generates uh revenue based on uh uh sales of sugar sweetened beverages and that money um gets set aside and is used to fund um sort of healthy lifestyle type things. Um, and in the past it's done everything from things like what this commission has recommended like water bottle filling stations to crossing guards to bicycle programs at the school and um at the schools a swimming I think a swimming program. Um so in the past I've actually put together something to help frame our discussions. I didn't do that this time because we

haven't been super successful in in um uh um getting our our items selected. Um we can bring them, but it I think I'll I'll get into it. Um, I think what we've seen is actually the revenues have stabilized and actually trended down a little bit for their sugar sweetened beverage, which is actually a good thing because there's less of the um um um there's less of the beverages being um being sold. Um but that does create a crunch for the availability of funding. So, I do have a couple slides here summarizing how the money's been spent and how we could maybe make some recommendations and and whatnot. So, me jump into it. What should Okay, so this is a quick summary of uh last year's recommendation. So, we made recommendations of water bottle filling stations at uh Ocean View Park and the Aloney Greenway. Um this is that that linear park for those of you who are uh new. Um it has that nice decorative um uh drinking fountain, but it's not very useful. So, we wanted to put some um uh a more proper uh water bottle filling station and um uh drinking fountain. Um and then we also had our sand volleyball which um I think we all know what happened to that. Um none of those got got selected for um funding the the um so we ended up having 200 just over 200 almost $221,000 worth of funding and that went to largely the crossing guard program with then distributed to the bicycle uh bike safety program that that goes on at the school. this Albany swims program and

then the move and groove um event. One of the things that was on the prior year, so this would be the FY2 25 program was I think sponsoring educational programs at the Gilra which um we didn't have enough funding. So those those didn't get funded on that uh uh on that last last round. Um so this here we have an estimated of 225,000. Um I just just for for a beginning of our discussion I did put the crossing guard program safety the same items that were funded last year. Um and the first two uh crossing guards and bike safety program were recommended by the transportation commission. I believe it was last week. Um, and the funding levels are or two weeks ago, pardon me. Um, at 200,000 200 25,000. So that essentially covers what we expect our revenue to be. Um, I don't my guess is some of the other programs might get funded. So that may not those programs may not be fully funded. Um, so I guess what I was going to say is let's open it up to do we want to support one of these programs? Is there something that we want to put on the list? Um, and if so, what is it? And I can then put some numbers behind it and and um um submit it. Um I do just for the sake of discussion have um this is this is the full list of

what was presented to the um uh council from last year. So, it had crossing guard program, bicycle safety, move and groove, Albony swims. Here's our our items for water bottle filling stations. Um, so um again, this is just for context. Um, so really at this point opening it up to where do we want to take this for with this commission. All right. Um, I I can tell by your tone you feel about this about the same way I do.

Spend too much spend too much time talking about it. Little bit of waste of time. But I do have a question. But I do think that there's things we can s suggest. So please Yeah. Uh, I mean, one thing we did two years back, not last year, was some of the equipment, and I'm wondering if there's I guess my question would be, is there a need for upgraded equipment or any of the right, the Lona Greenway, is it key route or lo can't remember. So, we do have um the exercise equipment. Yeah. So, we actually have a and Andre is working on this a project in our CIP to actually replace that. And this is a pretty extensive project where we're redoing the safety surface, redoing all the equipment, and it'll really upgrade. So, we don't need it then. I mean, that's okay.

For that one, I don't think we need it. But we have been um and I think we got money maybe two years ago um for um a couple of the um inclusive swings that we retrofitted on a number of the um uh at Ocean View as well as as memorial parks on the swing sets. And I think things like that I think got some some traction but they were funded other ways. I think Oh, I think you're right. Yes. Think so. And we're the the drinking fountains are in the same situation at Ocean View and Green.

Yes. We haven't been we just haven't had the capacity right now. So part part of what I what I do and it on these types of things that aren't part of our core core work. I want to wait till the end of the fiscal year and see how much money we have available um so we don't pinch ourselves in other areas. And part of it is um we haven't had that ac excess both capac capacity to ex execute the work as well as funding. Well, I I I like the idea of including them again. I think those are Yeah, I I do too. I think the one particularly at the um greenway at the on the greenway is is is really needed. Yes. And and along with this other project that we're talking about. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. And then there's the Ocean View uh park water bottle filling station. That was one we proposed before. We haven't again we haven't installed it. We could resubmit those. Yeah, I think so. I think they're so worthy. I also wonder that picture we have. I'm looking at the old proposal. The picture we have of that water filling station with the water fountain. Is that what's currently there or was that which one which one is that? Sorry. I'm looking at the memo that we submitted last year. Yes, I think I have that here. I can bring it up pretty quickly. Yeah, like this. The attachment ocean view right next to the deck. Yeah, attachment three. Attachment one, ocean view.

Oh, it's after the sand volleyball court pictures. It's um document is called attachment three, but attachment one and attachment three something. Um, so the memo is the March May 19th, 2025. Yeah. Um, let me see if I get into that. Um,

you can get to it through the agenda too if you Yeah, it's um This is it. Oh, come on. Don't tell me. That's the one. Yep. Um, and then it's let me get the pictures here. We'll skip by that very quickly here. Um, so this is this is the one we want to Oh, okay. This is the one we want to replace. So, this is on the other side of the pickle ball. It's it's okay. So, that's where we want to replace. But the next picture, what is that picture of? That is that is an existing drinking fountain on the other side of the pickle box.

This is an example of what it would look like. Okay. I didn't know if that threw them off to think like, "Oh, you already have one." I will I will I will I will take that out and just cuz I was just thinking, "Oh, do we already have one?" But that's not or Well, let's look at I think I I think I have a more of a without showing too much pain. Oh, no. I don't have it. Um, so this is this is the pickle ball. Yeah. Um that one that we're showing is right about here. It's up against the friendship club. Um as as you're walking in between the friendship club and the in the baseball field. Yeah. It's not close to the it's not super close. Um

it's not super far either. Then the other one it the other one would be on the other side of the um the pickle ball courts and and I think it actually would serve um the baseball teams too because it would it has you would have access for both sides of the of of the field. So I I I do like both of those. Yeah. Okay. I would say that um one of the actually might have been the first year um we got we got a lot of them got a lot of them on the greenway and around. Yep. And those I think are super successful. Yeah.

Yeah. And we even we even got one at um uh Peggy Thompson Pier Street Park after it was built. Oh yeah, we did. We we got one. So there was there were a number of years we got some and I think those are good. I'm happy to add those. other ideas or we giving up on water at the green at the Well, okay. Okay. Um I don't think I don't think we can go there. Okay. So, I think uh somehow put that actually

that has to be part of the East Bay Park's plan for Golden Gate Fields is to put water out at the somehow we have to fit that into our sugar sweetened beverage pitch. Um yeah, I don't I don't know. I think we if we wait one more year this time next year could be really interesting. No, you know, and you're also very confident about the timing. I don't Yeah. Well, the Well, there's a deadline on the organization to raise its funds of like January of next year, otherwise the whole deal falls through as far as I know. So

yeah, I think um getting in not getting too far off topic um getting a waterline to um uh the the ball barrier Albony Beach, it would be easier as if that property was all one piece because it already has substantial water service coming to it. So it's running lines out to it. We we had an issue where there there is no municipal service out there. So we would have to bring in a mainline for there's nothing on that side of the freeway basically or Right. Exactly. But there's plenty of water going to the grand stands, the restaurants, whatever they had there. Yeah.

So it's a diff different animal. It is. Okay. So I will I will hold off on that then. Yes. Don't get me wrong. I think it's great idea. I just think it's way beyond this budget. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Other uh questions? So, we're gonna do the the two water filling stations. Would you talk take I don't know if you have public comment. I don't know. Oh, I'm sorry. That's a good idea. We should accept open up for public comment. Is anybody present? Um no hands raised. Okay. Discussion.

Well, I guess my question is is um what's the deadline like? Are you presenting soon for the next meeting or um it is going to be presented to the council as part of um the 2027 budget update. So I'm not sure exactly what when it when it what the cadence of that is. And so um we had this similar meeting exactly, you know, exactly a year ago. It was the same same meeting. So I think it's not might be in May but not Yes, it would have to be in May because we're already doing staff reports for the next meeting. So So there's a chance we wouldn't meet for or

chances are we we we could but we may not either. Okay. I'm I'm comfortable with that at this. Okay. So I we've I've already written the report so it's it makes it more straightforward. Very good. All right. Great. I think we can close that item then. All right. Uh announcements. This is an opportunity for announcements and then to just talk about future agenda items. Well, how about that Golden Gate Fields? Uh when is that going to

So, so but yeah. So, one basic question is is um say that say that the purchase does go through and it does end up with East Bay Parks. Um what can the what can you say right now? Oh, it's everything's so early, but like what what because they've talked about having a public process to figure out what happens out there. Um do you have any sense of how much that would go through our commission or or what can you say?

Actually, at this point, um I don't know much more than the um you know, the mayor's statement that that you made on on Monday. Um it's a great opportunity. I I'm sure I'm sure there will be a public process. I don't I don't know what it what it would entail or how we would fit in. Um and it probably depends on what's being discussed. Um so I know very little. Okay. You still have to go you still have to have a land use change. You have to go through the vote of

I you're getting way outside my Yeah, I think there is some of that, but I'm not sure exactly what what that process is. All right. Other uh announcements? Any announcements? Mayor, any announcements on your end?

Yes. Um I just was making sure everybody else had their announcements done before I went. Um so I have four announcements starting with the first. We invite you to participate in an upcoming community workshop focused on the future of our parks. Share how you use local parks. what programs and activities matter most to you and what improvements you would like to see. The workshop will be held at the community center on Tuesday, April 14th from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. Your input will help guide future planning and decision making for parks and recreation space spaces. A second workshop will be held at the high school during lunchtime to ensure youth in our community also have an opportunity to share their perspective. If you are unable to attend in person, you can still participate by completing a survey. Surveys are available on the city's website and hard copies can be picked up and submitted at the community center. Um, Friends of Alman Parks Cleanup. Looking for a meaningful way to give back and connect with your community? Join us for a rewarding morning of community connection and outdoor stewardship at our upcoming volunteer cleanup event hosted by the dedicated friends of Albany Parks. This hands-on event brings neighbors together to care for our shared spaces, build community pride, and help keep Alby's parks beautiful, welcoming, and thriving for everyone. You can join us May 2nd at 10:00 a.m. at the Aloney Greenway at the corner of Masonic and Maran. This special cleanup is held in partnership with the Albany Rotary Club. So, you'll be joining a great group of volunteers who care deeply about making a positive positive local impact. All are welcome. Bring your energy, your friends, and your love for the community. You can register on the city's website or simply drop in that morning. We hope to see you there.

Um, movie in the park, a night under the stars. Join us on Saturday, May 9th, for one of our favorite community traditions, movie in the park. Gather your friends, family, and neighbors for a magical evening as we transform Memorial Park into an open air theater. This year, we're featuring the beloved musical hit, The Greatest Showman, filled with unforgettable songs, high energy performances, and an inspiring story that's perfect for all ages. The movie will begin at sunset, approximately around 8:20 p.m. So, come early to grab a good spot and settle in. Pack a picnic dinner, bring your coziest blankets or low back chairs, and enjoy a relaxing evening under the night sky. Whether you're singing along, relax with loved ones, or simply enjoying the fresh evening air, this is an event you want you wouldn't want to miss. And last but not least, you asked, so you shall receive new portable portable pickle ball nets at the Ocean View courts. We're excited to share that the two new portable pickle ball nets have been added to courts five and six at Ocean View Park. With this addition, the facility can now accommodate up to six pickle ball games at the same time. Courts are available for reservation on a first come, first serve basis when not reserved. Court hours are 8:00 a.m. to 10 p.m. For rental reservations and additional information, please contact the recreation and community services department. Thank you.

All right. Great. Thank you. I want to thank the public for pointing out the issues with the portable nets at the pickle ball court. Uh very eloquently and very very uh you know, nicely laid out as far as what what was going on there and for the staff really jumping on that. That's that's a really tribute to um what you guys have done there as well. Good. All right. I think that's it, folks. Great. We'll close this. You have time to catch the show tonight. She's tired. She's been in training all day. All right. Good night, everybody. Good night.