Bidwell Park & Playground Commission - Regular Meeting

Meeting to order. Could we have a roll call, please?

Commissioner Nava. Present. Commissioner Nichols.

Here.

Commissioner Paiva. Here. Commissioner Scheer.

Here.

Commissioner Thomas Petty. Here. Vice Chair Blatchley.

Here.

Chair Willis.

Here.

Thank you.

Okay, anyone wishing to address the commission on any matter listed on the agenda should first complete a speaker card found at the back of the chamber where that young lady is standing. All right, Susan. Once completed, turn in your cards to the clerk and the speakers are taken in the order the cards are received. Once the first speaker begins, no additional cards will be accepted. Persons demonstrating rude, boisterous, speaking on matters outside the jurisdiction of the City of Chico, or engaging in otherwise destructive behaviors will be called to order by the Chair. If such conduct continues, the Chair may call a recess, requesting the removal of such persons from the Council Chambers. Adjourn the meeting or take some other appropriate action. It's never happened and I hope we continue. Consent agenda, item number two. All matters listed under the consent agenda are considered routine in nature and can therefore be enacted with one motion. We've got the minutes and we got any items. Does anybody want anything removed from the consent agenda?

Move approval of the consent agenda.

Somebody, I can't.

Second.

Okay, it's been regularly moved and seconded by Commissioner I'm drawing a blank, I'm sorry.

Nichols. Nichols.

And seconded by Commissioner Megan Thomas, Thomas Petty, that we approve the consent agenda. Can we please have a

Commissioner Anava?

Yes.

Commissioner Nichols? Aye. Commissioner Paiva? Yes. Commissioner Shearer?

Yes.

Commissioner Thomas Petty? Yes. Vice Chair Blatchley? Yes. Chair Willis?

Yes.

Motion passes.

Okay. Now we move on to don't have any public hearings. So we will move on to the regular agenda, item 5.1. What? On? On item three? Oh. Okay, do we have any public comments? Members of the public may address the commission at this time. On any matter not already listed on the agenda and within the jurisdiction's authority. Comments will be limited to three minutes or as determined by the chair based on the number of speakers. The commission cannot take any action at this meeting on requests made under this section of the agenda. Do we have any public comments?

Not for this item.

Okay, well then we will move on. We have no public hearings. We have the regular agenda, item 5.1, Bidwell Park Electric Powered Recreation Device Regulation Municipal Code Update. You're up, Lindsay.

Good evening, Commissioners. This is a staff report and it's proposed an update to the city regulations for electric bicycles and other motorized recreation devices in Bidwell Park. The scope of this is specific to Bidwell Park and does not address the broader subject of motorized vehicle use throughout the city and it also does not address enforcement. Hold on a second. Lindsay, will you speak up a little bit, please? Sure. Thank you.

Currently, you're soft spoken, so yeah.

Okay. Currently, the municipal code regulates where bicycles can be used in the park, but it doesn't distinguish between traditional bicycles and the three different classes of e-bikes, e-motos, scooters, and other electronic devices that we're increasingly seeing out on the streets and in the park. We reviewed how other land management agencies are addressing these devices, particularly on natural surface trails. And based on that review, we are recommending that Class 1 pedal assist e-bikes be allowed anywhere traditional bicycles are currently permitted in Bidwell Park. Class 1 e-bikes require the rider to pedal for motor assistance, and that assistance stops at 20 miles per hour. So their operation is generally similar to a traditional bicycle. Class 2 and Class 3 e-bikes, along with e-motos, motorized scooters, and other motorized devices would be restricted to roads and trails that are open to public motor vehicle traffic. Importantly, this proposal does not open any trails of bicycles that are currently closed. Existing restrictions such as the no bicycles on Yahi Trail would remain in place. The goal is really to provide clear and enforceable regulations as technologies continue to change. Well balancing recreational access, visitor safety, protection of natural resources, and the shared use character of Bidwell Park. Staff is recommending that the commission recommend these proposed changes to the city council. That is my report and I am here to answer any questions.

For the record, the commission received written public comments via email for agenda item 5.1. These have been provided to all commissioners. We will now open the floor to live public comments. Do we have any speakers?

Do we have staff questions first?

Okay, we can do commission questions, first round of commission questions first.

Our little notification thing is not turned on. Yes, we recognize. Mr. Chairman, first of all, Ms. Adams, thank you for your report. Why do we need these regulations? Safety concerns? There have been incidents where people got hurt. Why do we need to add additional regulations?

I would say all of the above. A lot of things have changed. Right now the municipal code reads just as it defines bicycles and it defines motor vehicles. And the amount of calls and input we get from citizens in the city is significant when they're, what are you going to do about the scooters and the e-motos? And lots of people in the bike community that ride the trails are having a lot of issues with these e-motos on the trails. So it's really coming from the public reaching out to us, asking us. Right, and the trails themselves, especially the natural surface trails, which is another definition I'm proposing to be added to the municipal code, they're not built for motorcycles, which is what an Emoto actually is, it's a motorcycle. So it's basically motorcycles being ridden on trails in Upper Bidwell Park.

These regulations have been reviewed by city attorney and are allowed under state law?

Not yet. So the first move was to talk to you guys and ask you guys to recommend this to city council, and then they would take it from there.

My last question is, are e-bikes allowed on roads where cars are allowed? It's not clear when you read that.

Well, technically, so there's e-bikes and there's e-motos, and right now there's no regulation on e-bikes. So that's what this is proposing, that we do define what an e-bike is and define what is allowed where.

But would they be allowed on the paved roads that the cars use? Just the same as a regular bicycle would.

Yeah, so the idea here is that Class 1 e-bikes are allowed anywhere a traditional bicycle would be allowed. Class 2 and 3, which are throttle assist or pedal assist, I can get up to like 28 miles an hour. Those would be allowed in any place that a traditional motor vehicle would be allowed.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Okay, Megan?

A few things in response to... We considered regulations about three years ago and recommended a subcommittee, and then that was not followed through on. And we're just following precedent of other state parks, other city parks, other national parks in the country. So we're not reinventing the wheel here. We are actually behind on these types of regulations. And actually, the city itself is considering They've considered at a meeting citywide e-bike, e-moto, scooter regs. So I'm assuming that these are going to work in conjunction with the citywide regs or municipal code additions when they get those done. So, I mean, lots of cities and towns are regulating these citywide, too. So right now, these just apply everywhere. to our parks, to Bidwell Park. And again, this is not something that's unusual. If you do some research, we're actually a little behind on this. It's not only pedestrians who have expressed concern about e-bikes and a lack of regulation in the park. It's horseback riders, too. It's other cyclists who are on traditional bicycles. So this is kind of a growing concern. I know at least one person has been hit by an e-bike in the park, had her hip broken in Lower Park. So this is something that is necessary. I know people are worried about more regulation. You know, why do we need this? This is a public safety matter. Basic, you know, at the bottom level, this is a public safety matter. So, And just a little clarification, not all people riding e-bikes, e-motos, are teenagers wanting to race through the park as fast as they can. A lot of these riders are people who would not be able to ride a traditional bicycle. So these e-bikes are actually helping them to be out. on the trails and they're observing all the rules, going the proper speed limit. That's one thing I did not see is just a reference back to the speed limit in the park. I would like to see that in the ordinance, just refer to the speed limit that's now 15 miles an hour in the park. So I would like maybe to have that added in somewhere as just a referral to to the speed limit that exists now. But thank you. These are well written. I wish we'd had some input before now. We'd asked to be kind of looped into this and have public input before now, before they were already written. So I think this is a little backwards in the way that we're doing it, but I appreciate staff's hard work. And otherwise it looks good to me. And the classifications are such that they jive with the ones that I've seen elsewhere in the state. So thanks. Good job.

Thank you. If I could just chime in, Commissioner Petty, the speed ordinance will be brought forward with the recommendation from this commission, and that's in a separate section of the municipal code. The commission's already recommended that to council, and so it'll get final adoption.

I think it's already been approved by council a couple of years ago. I'm fairly certain it has been. I think the signs just haven't been put up or... But I'm pretty sure that's already been done, so I may be wrong. I have some pretty good institutional memory as far as that goes, but thanks.

Okay, I've got a couple of questions. I read Mr. Horvath's question. comments written comments that he submitted and i think he's got a good point because the way i read these instruct these uh this proposed ordinance as written is that class two and three e-bikes would not be allowed to use the paved entries to the park would not be able to ride south park drive past caper acres would not be able to use the tunnel, the paved tunnel, through Annie's Glen to downtown, and would not be able to ride anywhere in the park after you close the gates. And that seems unduly restrictive. I mean, if you limit it to paved trails and roads... But there's an awful lot of places in Bidwell Park where public vehicles are not allowed. And he's got a very good point there that, you know, before 9 o'clock in the morning, you would not be able to ride an e-bike in Bidwell Park anywhere. And that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.

That's fair. You know, looking at these regulations from all over the country and from different parks, it was a very strong precedent that where motor vehicles were allowed, these other type of vehicles were allowed. And so it makes it easier to enforce when you start bringing in like, well, this little spot is allowed and this one is and this one's not. That makes it a lot harder to define. And so I did a lot of research on how different places address this. And the most clear way for them to do it was to say where motor vehicles are allowed, these e-bikes and e-motos and e-scooters and all these things are allowed. And where traditional motor vehicles aren't, they're not. And, you know, you guys can make amendments, right, to my recommendation. This is just my recommendation from doing a lot of research from many different places on what other places have done.

Well, I'm particularly concerned about you're blocking off, you're forbidding these bikes on four miles of South Park Drive. And you're basically limiting them to the entrance at Peterson and

Well, perhaps that's an amendment.

And there's a number of paved trails off of Alambrosia that certainly real motorcycles can traverse. But basically, you're saying that these e-bikes can't. And that seems a little discriminatory to me. Maybe that's just the lawyer in me.

Yeah, I don't disagree with you. You know, if you have a better solution, again, I'm just going off of all the research that I did, was especially e-motos, I think, are the biggest problem that we're seeing out there. And those are technically motor vehicles. They're defined as motorcycles. And they should not be allowed in places where traditional vehicles aren't. Maybe there's some wiggle room there, but just as, like, a very straight, overlying thing, this is what I've found in other places that have put in these regulations.

So by... Public motor vehicles, do you mean cars? Okay, well, I can see a lot of problems with that because you're basically shutting off the park to these vehicles, these motors. If you limit it to paved trails and roads, that I can see. But when you're just banning them from the park, I think you're gonna run into problems. I'd love to have the plaintiff's side of that one.

I'll just jump in that we have a number of paved areas that are quite narrow and the speeds would be, I would consider them a safety hazard to have these higher speed electric vehicles encountering pedestrians and strollers and the like. You mentioned the tunnels in those areas. So it makes sense to keep those higher speed electric vehicles where other traditional vehicles will also be traveling as well.

Of course, if you enforce the speed limit, then you don't really have a problem, do you?

We're setting the policy here. The enforcement would be what staff will handle.

Yeah, well, a lot... Question. Okay, any other questions from the commission?

apparently it's uh i think on yours okay all right well it sort of is but the current speaker queue is empty so okay have you got it um uh mr lipsky basically spoke to uh what i was going to raise as a concern is um i think You know, when it comes to public safety, it would be good to kind of land on some kind of consistency and approach, because if we're, you know, a lot of this conversation occurred with some of us and others about vehicles and being allowed past like that past caper acres exit. And there were safety concerns raised. And that was why the need was when some of us thought, well, maybe we should have cars for accessibility and people that really enjoy doing that. But people pointed out, well, there's the other side of the park. So I think I'm more landing in the we need to hear out those public safety concerns of people have been contacting the city and kind of. I my understanding it was some good numbers. I myself have been privy to those excessive speeds that they are utilizing in the park. I even have it on my own street. I actually forgot I was going to bring snippets of video that I have of people zooming by and it is not good. And one of the people that was seriously injured in the park was a friend and it was very traumatic um and i just think we have to kind of look out for the liability concern i do appreciate and understand i think the letter uh from mr horvath was very well written i know i've heard other concerns from other writers like that too that well i'd like to be able to have be able to still traverse the park Well, you can, but you would need to be on a type. What is it a or one or be on a regular bicycle and you can go where motor vehicles go outside the park to get where you need to go. It is just a different type of motor transportation and to. make it easier to enforce um i think i'm kind of more i'm interested to hear public comment about this but um to me initially right now hearing the feedback reading the report i think i'm landing on more of public safety standpoint of people have good reason to be concerned and it does get narrow we walk that side quite frequently and you have a lot of blind spots and they're hauling around and most don't even ding the bell that are on a regular bike so that's a concern too so that's

Any more questions from the council?

John?

All right. First of all, to do some studying on this situation, I did to kind of get with your question. And that question was, is there a problem out there? And the they're called the National Library of Medicine did a recent report. From the years 2018 to 2024 in they took the California Highway Patrol and they took their traffic accidents that ended up in trauma care. And what was very interesting is that the under 15. To 19, there were 18,000 in California incidents of trauma care individuals. That was by far the largest age group, by far doubled the next age group. So probably some of our issues has to do with these younger people that are driving these things. My other question would be to you is these rules that you propose, they're ordinances. So are they misdemeanors or infractions? Would they be considered or do we know? And it has to do a lot with if you're going to make this enforcement and they are misdemeanors, you're going to be. trying to take them down to the court and dealing with misdemeanors that are DUIs and burglaries under a certain amount, as opposed to changing them to infractions where they're just a simple ticket and they have to appear before a judge, that's it.

It'd be a lot easier to enforce them as infractions.

And... Oh, and the other thing, I noticed a lot of the bike paths are posted with no motorized vehicle signs. So those will have to be changed, I think. I understand from this gentleman that sent us this letter, but... I think that trying to enforce speed is very tough. First of all, you're going to have to have speed guns, you know, and that's some equipment. And then you're going to have to convince the court to take these. So that would be tough. That's it. Thank you.

All right. Was there an answer on the misdemeanor or the infraction?

This isn't meant to talk about enforcement. That would be a different thing. So basically what this is asking is to define these different vehicles and then our suggestion after research of where they can be. As far as enforcement, that's outside of the scope of what this is.

Can I jump in real quick? Infractions and misdemeanors would be violations of the California Criminal Code. This is actually an addition to the Chico Municipal Code. So you're not talking about misdemeanors or infractions. That's part of the California Criminal Code. They're asking for amendments.

The council can make the misdemeanors.

OK, well, I mean, they're asking to amend the Chico Municipal Code, not the California Criminal Code. So I think right now, if you're ticketed in the park for dogs off leash, you know, whatever that again, that's not California code. That's municipal code. So you're just it's a different it's a different thing.

So you're saying that they have civil penalties and not criminal penalties?

Yes. I didn't know that.

They're asking to amend the municipal code, not... You can have criminal penalties under municipal codes.

Yes, you can.

But that's not what they're asking to do here, is my understanding.

They're not defining it. As a matter of fact, I believe there's some, this is a little bit off topic, but I think there's some talk about upgrading some of the homeless laws to misdemeanors. And from my many years as a public defender, if you have charged somebody with a misdemeanor, they are entitled to a public defender and a jury trial. So I think if there's going to be a recommendation, it probably should go to the council, recommend infractions. If you make the misdemeanors, you're opening a real can of worms.

From my experience, it was in Palm Springs, but they had municipal codes and they did have, they were misdemeanors and they did have criminal penalties to them. In fact, they can carry up to a year in prison. So we need to find out what are these codes.

Yeah. Well, the city has the option to make something a misdemeanor. They do not have the option to make it a felony, but they do have an option to make it a misdemeanor. And it should be a ticket just like any other vehicle moving violations.

I'll just jump in here. My understanding is there are infractions by default unless called out as misdemeanors. I don't see that in this section, so I believe it is an infraction. However, if the Commission would like to kind of embolden that in their recommendation, they can.

Any more questions from the Commission? Okay, speaking of can of worms, is there anybody in the audience, do we have any speaker cards on this issue, Kathleen?

We do. We have five cards for this item.

Okay, well, who's first?

Okay, so if we could have the first person come up and then the second person waiting in the wings, we'll go a little faster here. So up first will be Thad Walker and followed by Jim Brobeck.

Good evening. Chair Willis, commissioners, thank you for your service to the community and to Bidwell Park. Thad Walker, I serve on the board for Chico Velo. Although I'm not representing Chico Velo in an official capacity this evening, I come here because this is an important issue for me and something that I also observe in a lot of time in the park as well. So I serve as a PALS volunteer through the program, and our TrailWorks program through Chico Velo contributes about 1,000 hours of volunteer time annually to helping maintain trails in the park. I just want to compliment staff first on their time. I can tell I've read a lot of these policies from other places and serve on the e-bike safety committee here locally as well. And so I really want to compliment parks. I know it has been a long road to kind of get here. And I remember a number of years ago when this was brought forward, although I will say there's been a lot of changes, a lot of evolution in a short amount of time with types of devices that we're seeing and the policies and everyone trying to kind of catch up. So I'm glad staff here really took a thoughtful approach to it and are providing solutions moving forward. So I just want to say that I support the recommended regulations, and I feel like it's a really great balance of recreation access, but also balancing that with public safety, which I think has gotten mentioned here. I do want want to say, I think with these new policies or however we're titling these, it really needs to come with education and enforcement, because I think we are dealing with a lot of challenges with, say, parents who are buying their devices for these kids and not necessarily knowing the rules or knowing those laws, which are serious. And I will say, I understand what you're saying of council taking action and CHP being involved and that side of things, but we have to remember a lot of these kids also go through the park in order to access those routes to school and to use those other roads. And I would say the other thing that's really important with whatever goes forward is the signage piece, so that there are things that can be pointed to of when you're entering the park that you know that. And so for PALS volunteers or Park Watch Out, they're able to help educate versus not having really anything to point to to have a respectful dialogue. And then also, I think coordinating with the e-bike working group and you were pointing out there about the number of injuries. And so that committee is kind of ongoing and low. Surgeons are involved in that. So it's a it's a really hot topic. Chico PD, a lot of the other local groups are involved in that as well. So I think any of those policies would be great to make sure that's cross collaborated with just so those things get relayed across the board. And I do want to say also really appreciate Section 4E in here because we see new types of devices every single day and who knows what's coming down the road in a sense. So I really appreciate the thoughtfulness here that would allow proactive management and allow that if our things future, we have our leadership that can have adaptive changes to that and consider all those. So thank you for your time.

Yeah. Sorry about that. Quick question. You mentioned that group. Do you happen to have the contact for that group so that, you know, per Ms. Petty's point, we could maybe loop around if that's allowable at some point where we want to ask questions or get input? I think that'd be good if you could leave the contact information for that group.

Yeah, I'm happy to share it with staff. And I think, like I said, there's... ongoing conversations and then in-laws involved from that public health and injury point. I think just the more we could coordinate all of it would be.

Thank you. Thank you for your comments.

OK, our next speaker.

Up next, we have Jim Brobeck, followed by Randy Souza.

Good evening. I've written several comments to the Bidwell Park and Playground Commission about the failure to enforce some really critical things. Enforcement is a problem. The parking lots up in Upper Park suffer very expensive damage by motor vehicles. repeatedly so, and the amount of money that's spent to fix that has not resulted in any enforcement. And so now parking area B is being paved, and I know what's going to happen. It's not going to get torn up, but there's going to be the donuts up there. I live close enough to that to have that be a real public nuisance. These motor vehicles that are violating laws, they're not being enforced. There's a 25 mile an hour speed limit. That's not being enforced until you get to the speed bumps. And even then, sometimes people rush in. So enforcement of this will be an issue. I spend a lot of time riding a bicycle up to Parking Area B and climbing the hill and hiking up the North Rim Trail. I just love sharing the trail. with other pedestrians and bicyclists. Lately, there's been some class one bikes up there. No problem. I personally do not drive a motor vehicle anymore. I get around town on an e-bike, a class one e-cargo bike. I understand that people have some antagonism toward e-bikes. Even bicyclists have antagonism toward e-bikes. Even I have antagonism for e-bikes that are being misused, that are being driven too fast. And these Class 2, Class 3, and motorbikes are particularly egregious. At least the Class 1s have the pedal assist system. which is what I generally use unless I'm on East Avenue when I have to go fast. And then I go, I hurtle down the street at 20 miles an hour, which is as fast as my e-bike will go on my cargo bike. I think that this effort by staff to set some parameters is an excellent compromise. would like to see it enforced if we start having problems with motorbikes up on the north rim trail and on the other trails and of course i'd like to see enforcement on some of the other more critical things i think that uh that motor vehicles are violating so i compliment staff on coming up with this proactive compromise and uh hopefully i'll be able to continue to ride my class one e-cargo bike around town and not have that be taken off by ordinance. Thanks for taking my comment this evening.

Does anybody have any questions for this speaker?

Okay, our next speaker is Randy Souza, followed by Marty Dunlap.

Hi, how are you today? I didn't plan on coming to this meeting, but I just thought it was important. I do ride an e-bike. I ride it in the park. I go shopping. It allows me to go downtown. I can't ride a regular bike because I have a back injury. I think what you need to do is have people just follow the laws. There's a 15-mile post. I mean, before I watch, and there's people that are on road bikes, they're going way faster than 15, 20, 30. They're just as dangerous, but not politically incorrect, right? The last deaths I've seen were people on road bikes riding their bikes. You're going to push more people onto the street, which makes it more dangerous. Just enforce the law. Those kids shouldn't be riding those bikes. You know, I'm trying to minimize my carbon footprint. I'm responsible. I mean, a lot of issues, like when I ride in the park, I notice that people have earbuds and they're not listening. Then all of a sudden they're upset with you because you're behind them. I try to be responsible, you know? And it's made my life a lot better. I get out. I go to the park. I ride up and down the park. I go at a normal speed limit. No, those kids on those bikes shouldn't be riding those bikes, but there's already a law against that. They shouldn't be doing it. And so I just think... It really needs to be thought through because it does better people's life. Not all people on e-bikes are jerks. And I'm actually super more responsible on the e-bike than I am on when I used to ride a regular bike, because I'm aware of it, you know? You just need to enforce the rule. It says 15 miles per hour. You're supposed to stay on your side of the lane. And it's a solvable problem. And those kids shouldn't be riding those bikes. Yeah, everybody agrees upon that. It's dangerous. They're on the streets. They're everywhere. Just enforce the rule. Not punish the people that are just trying to enjoy life, you know? I mean, I see people that are reckless on regular bikes, homeless people, everybody on regular bikes, just as much as e-bikes. But all of a sudden, e-bikes are the villain. It's on the news, everything. It would definitely affect my quality of life because I can go shopping. I go to the farmer's market now, ride down there. I'm down there in two minutes. I go to Upper Park. I'm up there. You know, it doesn't take very long. You just... cruise and be safe. So that's all I have to say.

Does anyone have any questions for this speaker, Megan? Mr. Sousa?

Well, I don't have a question. I just wanted to thank you for your comments. But also, one aspect that we haven't talked about and why the e-bikes are more dangerous is because they're heavier. So even though a road bike may be going as fast or faster than an e-bike, when an e-bike is involved in a collision—and I've read a lot of studies about this, too— Since they're heavier, the collisions tend to be more serious. I am an e-bike rider, too. My e-bike, when I've run out of juice, is so heavy I can barely pedal it without the pedal assist. So that's just one thing we haven't talked about and why these regulations are necessary. It's just the severity of the collision tends to be higher. It tends to be a lot worse just because of the weight of the bicycle itself. So thank you for being responsible and hope you continue to enjoy riding your bike around Chico or Bicycle City. So it's one of the great things about Chico.

I do have a question in that I think his talk just brought that up and it's for Lindsay. It's would the scooters that you see and there's even a guy with a wheel, a single wheel, would that fall into class two and three? Where would we, because I've seen those very, especially the scooters, very dangerous. So where would they fall in under your rules?

Yeah, so if you look, I think it would be... Section 4C, so electric motorcycle, motorized scooter, other motorized device may be operated. So I was trying to do a catch-all to whatever else they're going to come up with, because as we've seen even the last few years, it's been quite a few creative different things. And then also defining the difference between that and a wheelchair, something that is used for mobility assistance. So that would not be included in this. So it's trying to be a catch-all. for all the things that they come up with.

See, so they would fall under the two and three because it says only where motor vehicles are allowed. That's correct. Thank you.

Okay, our next speaker.

Next speaker is Marty Dunlap, followed by Carol Myers.

Hi, I wasn't planning to speak to this, but I'm an e-bike rider. So when I heard it and I said, oh, I have I have something to say here. I ride my e-bike every day in the park and I really don't go on the streets because I find it to be too dangerous. And so that's the place that I feel the safest. Obviously, we know the world we live in right now with the electronic gadgets that have been brought forward, that this does need to be regulated in some ways. Certainly, myself and all the people probably in my age group have been talking, wow, we need to do something to promote safety. So I'm so glad it is before you, and thank you for your attention to this. Though I was looking at my bike the other day and it has the number three on it. So I don't know if that means it's a class three. It is a pedal assist. I pedal. But I think that that particular, using those classifications, we probably want to have more detail so people know, do I fall under this or not? Obviously, having a speed limit is really important. I'm really glad that there are other bike groups that are talking about this and providing input so that you're getting a broad range of information. Of course, with the young riders, they don't know the rules of the road. And, you know, you see the 12- and 13-year-olds, they haven't been in a car. They don't really know what's proper, what's not proper. They haven't been trained. And so whether or not that's something that needs to go forward in our schools or with the police department or somebody, I mean, the young riders don't know the rules. I don't think we want to make them criminals because they go, you know, 30 miles an hour, and we're not going to say, oh— You got a misdemeanor, you're, you know, I mean, that won't work, but maybe community service for people who are repeat offenders. They don't understand, but I do, and I do think it's very important to feel safe in the park. But I also want to be sure that, you know, I ride my bike to the farmer's market, so I go under that bridge, and then there's that little part when I'm, you know, exposed to cars. I think so many—since I'm in the park all the time, I know all the different trails. I mostly ride on the pave, but I will ride on the— dirt as well when I need to get to a certain location. So I think it really requires detailed thoughtfulness and really being out there to make sure that you don't exclude people from doing things that are a really important part of their quality of life. Thank you.

Megan?

Thank you, Marty. I just wanted to speak to that. I had a child at Marsh Junior High last year, and Chico PD has done some extensive outreach, at least to Marsh and the middle schools in town. And they came, gave presentations, sent info to parents about what's allowed, what's not allowed. And I know that Chico PD has started impounding some of these emotos. It's been on their social media quite a bit. I know this summer they were fairly busy impounding 12-, 13-, 14-year-old kids taking their emotos. Well, first clocking them using radar guns and then impounding their emotos. So I know that they've been posting regulations, and I know they're trying. I think we have four. Traffic officers now, so they are quite busy, I think, with regular traffic duties. And then to throw this Emoto e-bike situation on top of it, I know makes them even busier. But I can just say as a parent, they've been trying and the schools have been trying also. So that is happening.

Any more comments or questions from the council? Okay, our next, do we have any more speakers on this?

Our final speaker on this item is Carol Myers.

I'd like to start off with before they put in the new sign in Upper Park, which was maybe within the last year.

Could you get a little closer to the microphone, please?

Yeah, before they put in the sign in Upper Park, the new one, it read, no motorized vehicle on the trails. Then they let the cat out of the bag. But let me ask, just maybe by raise of hands for the commissioners, How many of you have been to the park in the last two weeks, Upper Park on the trails? How many of you have been in Upper Park in the last month on the trails? Okay, good. I go to the park at least twice a week. I've been going to the park for 40 years. The trails used to be this wide. Now they're, you know, whatever. But I go there a lot. I've ridden a mountain bike on the trails. I've ridden a road bike on the road, whatever. I've seen everything. I've sent Shane numerous emails. Last one I said I'm done because I saw an Emoto is out with the one wheel. And I sent him a picture of the guy. He had full body armor. Now, when a young man has chest protector, elbow protectors, a helmet with the neck and knee protectors on Yahweh Trail, you know it's dangerous. And I've seen six of these guys just ride on the trails. I've seen it all. I mean, I've seen sex for money in the woods there. It's anarchy up there. And it's a great park. But there is no enforcement. You had a ranger. His first initial of his first name was Jay. Now he works for the PD department. He told me he doesn't give tickets. He likes to, because they don't leave their truck, he calls them over on the bullhorn. And if they don't come over, he tries to humiliate them. And there just isn't any enforcement. There's one ranger for all the parks. This is absurd. There are things going on. If you're not there as often, you know, I'm a regular. I can, it's crazy. So the trail destruction that Ms. Thomas Petty brought up is so real. I've seen these Class 2-3 go up the meadow, go up, make their own trails. They can do it. Their tires are this big. And yes, there are people who have two, three who might follow the rules, but I would say that if we allow class two and three and all these other things with the expectation that people are going to follow the speed limits, and I'm sure a majority will, but we might as well just let every motorcycle go up there because it's not being enforced. We don't have the enforcement for that. And that this is a safety issue. I almost got hit. Anybody goes up there with some of the e-bikes, they just go past you so fast. And I was up there yesterday or the day before at 5. I can't tell you how many cars are going 25, 30 miles an hour. There's no enforcement. It's a safety issue.

Okay, thank you, ma'am.

Thank you for your comments. I will tell you that this is my seventh year as a park commissioner. And those who have been here with me that long can attest that we ask about and talk about rangers at almost every meeting. And that's all we can do is express. express the need to have more rangers, to have more enforcement in the park. And we talk about it and we ask for updates at almost every meeting. That's all we can do, and that's what you can do, too. Come here. Please keep going to the park. We need you out there, eyes and ears, but please keep coming to meetings, too, and letting us know what's going on. Some of us can't go in the park every day. I wish I could. But we appreciate you and your eyes and ears, and please don't stop that. And we really need... to keep talking about this and to let the city know that we do need a ranger program and we do need enforcement in the park because it doesn't do us any good to amend the municipal code in this regard too if we don't have any enforcement. I mean, if we don't have any teeth to these regs. So thank you for your comments.

Nicole? Nicole?

right sorry if it seems chaotic up here but our little things that qsf aren't working tonight um i wanted to validate what i'm hearing as the theme of enforcement because no matter when we heard some comments and support and some that were in opposition to this what seems universal is everyone is landing on enforcement is an issue and i concur with that assessment and as my co-commissioner pointed out we bring it up frequently I have heard, you know, it was a fairly recent meeting that they were trying to land on an approach to get us some people who would still be rangers and there's this plan and there would be more bodies and yes, it would be around the whole week. And so supposedly there's light at the end of the tunnel. I'm trying to keep the faith there because it's just as important to me as it is to all of you. And I do appreciate that we're hearing from you. I wish we heard from more people. This is more people than we generally have at our meetings. And so it's important that we get those firsthand reports. I encourage you also to reach out. to the parks department they do have information they put out there with an email that you could use that way it goes the letter will go to all of us you could always cc other you know departments that you feel it might overlap depending upon what your issues are um but thank you for that i wish we had better news yeah mr private

Thank you. As always, I so appreciate the speakers who come here and make me think more than I was when I walked in this door. And so your conversations and my colleagues up here today have made me think about this more. But two things. Number one, I spent four years responding as a paramedic on an emergency ambulance in Colusa and Glynn County, and I've seen things that I never want to see again. And That has made my life driven by the number one policy of keeping people safe, of making sure the public safety in all its elements is the utmost important thing that we have here. And I appreciate the comments about being able to access services and places more. I honestly do. But safety is my number one thing. Which is why a few years ago when Chico State was trying to address this, and I am an employee of Chico State for full disclosure, but when this gives me a little bit more background on this, when Chico State was trying to address this very problem on its campus of saying, what do we do? Because when we came back from COVID, suddenly we had all of these e-bikes and e-scooters and e-skateboards and they were racing around campus completely unenforced and without any guidance and without any education on how they were supposed to be used. I was the one who said we need to form a committee and we need to have something that is an education program and a signage program on campus. And so I came up with the first draft of the signs and the new signs that are up around Chico State today and then worked with the committee. Because safety is the number one thing. And these bikes and these skateboards and these e-motos, if they are classified as motor vehicle traffic, they need to stay on where motor vehicles can go. And if that means on those paved roads only, I agree with the recommendation to adopt this and move forward with this. And if there's no more comments, I'll make a motion to adopt the recommendations from staff.

Second.

I have a question.

Comments?

Well, I have one comment. And would it be feasible for staff to look at non-paved roadways for Class 2s and 3s, such as you mentioned the tunnel, such as we mentioned the area past Caper Acres? And I bring up Lindo Channel, too. That's under Bidwell Park. And the tunnel and then the bridges. Would that be a possibility of staff taking a look at those to include them specifically for twos and threes? I'm just throwing that out.

My comment was related to that, too, to say that maybe Class 2 could be allowed on paved roads and not specify where motor vehicles can access so that that area east of Caper Acres allows for a loop through the park. Because otherwise you can go one direction on Peterson, but then you can't get back on South Park. So that would make sense to me as an amendment.

Okay. Were you, did you have a comment?

No, I'm sorry. I just seconded the motion.

Well, I share Commissioner Scherz. I mean, as written, I have problems with this because there's a lot of roads and stuff in Bedwell Park that are suitable for traffic. that I've driven on when I was doing public service stuff that would be precluded from these because for arbitrary reasons or maybe not arbitrary reasons, their vehicles are prohibited. Cars are prohibited. So as written, I've got a problem with this one.

Yeah, I would be more in support of the original motion as stated, so I don't have really further comment other than when we do start getting to a deeper level. I think we should include public health, not just and low. I think that would be a key partner if they're not already blessed in.

Okay, now the question arises this. I'll direct this to staff. Do we want to vote on this?

We have to. There's a motion and a second pending.

I know, but I can also table it until the next meeting if that's the direction from staff.

Work your way backwards for the rules. What? You have to work your way backwards through the rules on what was thrown out.

Well, I mean...

staff's happy to execute the commission's will. So I think at this point we have, sounds like a first and second and perhaps a friendly amendment. I wasn't exactly sure if that was accepted.

Okay, well then let's just vote on it and take it from there.

Well, I was the one who said I didn't make the motion. So as far as if it's accepted or not, we need to, I think, deal with that on the table here.

Would you agree? We have a motion and a second.

Well, then I believe that the rules of order require a vote. Correct.

Okay, so voting on this one, Commissioner Nava?

Yes.

Commissioner Nichols?

Aye.

Commissioner Paiva? Yes. Commissioner Scheer? No. Commissioner Thomas-Petty? Yes. Vice Chair Blatchley?

No.

And Chair Willis?

No.

So we'll move on to 5.2. Okay, a couple of things. As those of you that have read the agenda know, the report that we're going to be discussing is very lengthy. First of all, the presenter will not be, as mentioned, Cami Loeser. It's actually going to be Laura, and pardon me if I mess up your name, but Folia, who's Dr. Laura Folia, Vice President of Larry Walker Associates, the Vina CSA Consultant Team. And something to keep in mind, This, while we recognize the authority of the VINA GSA, but it extends beyond the city limits of Chico and impacts many stakeholder groups. If you're wishing to speak on matters related to the Vina GSA on issues such as sustainability of groundwater, wells, or the future of family farms, et cetera, these topics are best addressed directly to the Vina GSA, and I think they have a meeting coming up. in Willows fairly soon. So tonight's scope is limited to the purview of the Bidwell Park and Playgrounds Commission, namely public landscape within the city of Chico, including Bidwell Park. So I believe our presenter is Dr. Laura Folia. Welcome.

Yes, thank you very much and good evening, everybody. So the goal of this presentation is really just to take you through what the GSA has done in the past almost five years after the first plan has been submitted and just explain how this process works because it's true that there is a new document coming up. There is a deadline in January, but it's just – The first one, there are so many more coming. So this is kind of a way to show how the road is being paved to try to understand all the issues that are happening within, you know, Chico is part of it, but it's the larger Vaina sub basin. So I'll take you a little bit through some memory for the ones that are following SGMA and the ones that are not. SGMA is full of acronyms, I know that. So please stop me if it becomes too much. And then the presentation is going to be mostly on what has been done in the area of Chico and the urban forest and which other projects are already kind of in the making for the future or can be planned for the future. So quick reminder, the Vina Subbasin has two agencies that are responsible for management. It is the Vina GSA and the Rock Creek Reclamation District. They both are official groundwater sustainability agencies. And within the VINA GSA, there is a joint powers agreement among three member agencies, the City of Chico, Durham Irrigation District, and Butte County. So there are five members in the Board of Directors and 11 members in the Stakeholder Advisory Committee. And the Board of Directors and the committees, they pretty much meet monthly right now. So what is the... the goal of the groundwater sustainability plan, even in 2022, was really to show what are the conditions in the area of the sub-basin, and which are the critical questions that need to be answered, and what needs to be done to eventually improve conditions. So this one is an example of an hydrograph for one of the wells within the sub-basin, and it's a well that kind of represents typical conditions. So there are Obviously, we have a lot of wells with a longer time frame of data, so we can go down back to the 1960s. What we've seen in the past 15, 20 years, which is really when most of the GSAs are really working on their plan and looking at conditions, there is a lot of groundwater gaining in the winter. Then in the summer, levels are going down. good weather and good climate in the wintertime, we can see that there is a response of the system. So compared to, if you think about the basins in the lower part of Central Valley, there is a continuous decline. Doesn't matter if it's summer or winter. Here is a different type of dynamic. The system is really responding. And so there are a lot of wells with this record of data in the new version of what we call the periodic evaluation in the plan. There are a lot more information with respect to what was there in 2022. So a lot of the work has been done on figuring out what was available back then, what is available now, and what are the new information that are being brought to the table. And in the last few wet years, it's true that SGMA started in 2015 because there was a big drought in 2015. What we found out is that 2021-2022 was worse, actually. So the actual minimum for almost all the basins in the Sac Valley was in 2022. But after 2022, the good wet years really made everything rebound back. So this is kind of a message that, unfortunately, there are a lot of things that need to be considered. And I want to point out, and I will say that again throughout the meeting, is the GSA has the power to manage for groundwater pumping. Obviously, the GSA cannot manage for what is outside. It's not controlled by pumping. So this is very important because it's not in their, really, in their power. Uh, to do anything, which is, let's say, related to them release or related to surface water diversion. That's not in the for you. Okay, so where we are in these, uh. GSP journey, I would like to say that basically this is a circle that goes from the plan submission and then reevaluate the plan and then goes to the periodic evaluation that you can see. The first one is due in 2027 in January, but this is going to happen at least three more times. So every five years, the GSA needs to redo this journey, let's say. and submit a new report to DWR to just show the progress. And DWR, the Department of Water Resources, has been very clear in saying that they don't want to see everything done by January 31, 2027. They want to see progress. So, SGMA is a 20-year process, and there is a reason. Groundwater moves slowly. And up here, actually, maybe a little less slowly because, as I showed you, it can go up and down kind of early. In other parts of the state, it's really moving very slowly just because it's very down deep, the groundwater system. Something to keep in mind, it's not expected that everything will be solved by 2027, by January 2027. The expectation is to show that some work has been done and progresses are happening and GSA has a plan on how to address whatever concern and issues. So important just to say in this context is that what we call groundwater, it's not really all the water that is below the land surface. Between the land surface and the groundwater, most of the time, not always, we have what we call the unsaturated zone. And the unsaturated zone is not really groundwater. technically groundwater. So we need to be careful. In some part of, even of the sub-basin, I will show you some hydrographs that definitely show that there is some kind of groundwater system really close to the surface. But in other places, we have to go down quite a few feet to find the real groundwater. And the trees, the vegetation, they can take some of the water that they need to grow from the unsaturated part of the aquifer, but most likely, in most cases, they need it from the groundwater system, so a little deeper. So in groundwater sustainability plan, the entire Vinal Subbasin has been divided into three management zones. So we have a north management area, a Chico management area, and a south management area. Why this? Because each of these areas are kind of different in the way they behave or in the way they can be managed. So it makes sense to have some kind of special concern and some special attention for the different parts of the sub basin. And in the way the requirements in the legislation are defined, the GSA need to define what they call representative monitoring points. The representative monitoring points are usually monitoring wells where groundwater elevation is monitored consistently. And the requirement for the GSA is to set what we call the minimum threshold and measurable objective for each of these representative points. And in a very easy word, the minimum threshold is sort of a red line down deep in the ground, which is the line you don't want to cross. You don't want to go below that line. And the measurable objective is actually the place where you would like to be and where it's higher in terms of groundwater elevation than the minimum threshold, and is the area where you would like to manage your sub-basin. So you would like to see your sub-basin in terms of groundwater elevation a little bit higher than what is in the minimum threshold. So these are the two main criteria that are defined for all the wells now that you see in this map. The wells are these yellow symbol with the red around. And there are also some changes that the GSA is making to add some more triggers, I would say. It's the LML is local minimum level, local monitoring level, which is something closer to the objective. So if groundwater elevation in one specific wells are going below that level, there is a sort of alarm system and the GSA will start thinking about projects or something or trying to understand why that level is going below the expected levels. And why doing all this work and setting all these limits? And SGMA requires that all the beneficial users and uses of groundwater are protected with the plan. So this really includes the four categories that you have on the right, which is homes and communities. So you don't want to see, let's say, domestic wells going dry. The farmers and the growers, which they want to keep using groundwater for their farming activities. And then fish, trees, and wildlife. And then municipal and industrial. So in the plan... The goal is to say that these criteria that I just mentioned that are really looking at the worst case scenario and the actual dream, let's say, in terms of groundwater level, these levels are really going to be protective of all the beneficial users and uses of groundwater. And this is really critical because basically what it's in the one of the requirements for the GSA is really to show that all the action also are not having a negative impact on any of these four beneficial users. So when it comes to Bidwell Park and the urban forest, and we understand I've been to different meetings, I heard about a lot of what is really in the interest of the community when we speak about this park and the forest. We really need to kind of look at what are the information that we have and what we can say on the condition, really, within the park. So this is a graphic that has been developed by U.S. Geological Survey back in the day, but the physics is not changing. So when you have a surface water body, in this case it's a river, it's a stream, you can have three different conditions. In the one on the upper left, the stream is completely connected to groundwater. So groundwater elevation is very, very high, and the groundwater is feeding water into the stream. So there is a lot of, when we think about fish, is like the cool base flow, good temperature that goes from the groundwater system into the stream. But you can also have two other type of connection. So you can have a losing stream, which is the upper right, which means the groundwater is still there really close to the river bed, but it's not quite high enough to be contributing water. So the river is losing water into the groundwater system. And then you have a third one down in the bottom, which is the groundwater system is kind of disconnected from the stream. So when we think about the impact of pumping, which is exactly what the GSA can manage, When it comes to the first two up, it's true, pumping has an impact on groundwater levels and how much water may go into the stream. But in the case on the bottom, then pumping is not really the driving force for changing condition into the stream and into the stream. vegetation around. This is something that a lot of the GSA really use to try to understand what is possible in terms of management and what it's not. So just to be very careful. And so under SGMA basically the two condition up are what is called either losing or gaining stream but still connected. And then the one in the bottom is a disconnected stream. So what has been done in the new version of the GSP, we kind of collected way more information than what was available in 2022. We have more groundwater elevation data. This is the biggest difference. So we can have a better sense of how far down deep groundwater is. Pretty much, not everywhere, it's a big basin anyway, but we have kind of a good sense. So this is the new map that shows connected stream and disconnected stream. And, okay, the Sacramento River, we know it's primary connected, and it's always gaining, and we know that. It's also true that there's not much that the GSA can do around the Sacramento River, right? It's all coming down from, the water is coming from the dam, so it's regulated by somebody else. Still, there is some kind of pumping that may have an impact on this water that is coming down, but still, it's a small fraction of the entire water in the Sacramento River. And the lower western reaches of some creeks, They are still like in the question mark. They may be connected or they are mixed, so they are connected and disconnected depending on the season. Many central and eastern reaches appear to be disconnected most of the time. And why is this happening? A lot of it is because as soon as you start going up gradient, really with the topography and the elevation of your surface, the groundwater system, it's also starting going up a bit, but it doesn't go up as much as the topography. So the disconnection, while you go up toward the hill, it's becoming more and more. So that's why all the red on the right side. And it's true, this is still probably a map in the making. It's also because the connection may change depending on conditions. So for sure, summer and winter. But it's also true that in some area maybe we don't have yet all the data that we would like to have. And why Bidwell Park is also important is partially because of this connection with the stream, but mostly because of groundwater, what we call groundwater-dependent ecosystems. And groundwater-dependent ecosystems are really ecological communities that depend on groundwater. And they depend on groundwater that is either emerging from aquifers or that connect to the aquifers through the ground surface. And what I would like to point out is that the vegetation along the stream is called riparian vegetation, but not all riparian vegetation are groundwater-dependent ecosystems. Some of them really depend on groundwater in some places, but in others, it really depends on where the groundwater table is just underground. There is also some confusion on groundwater-dependent ecosystems. Streams are groundwater-dependent ecosystems, right? Because as I said earlier, they can get this contribution from groundwater, and for example, it's critical for fish and some habitat. But also, some of the groundwater-dependent ecosystems are actually more like vegetation type. some of the plants, some of the plant communities, depending on which type of communities are and where they are. So wetlands are also groundwater-dependent ecosystem, clearly. And there are no clear guidelines yet out from Department of Water Resources on what they want to see in the plan and what is really considered the groundwater-dependent ecosystem and how this needs to be addressed by the groundwater sustainability agencies. So this is just something to put out there. I don't think these guidances will come out on time for these first evaluation of the plan. And that's why I was saying, you know, we are going to show progress, but then hopefully the guidance from Department of Water Resources will tell a little bit more like what's the story and what they want to see from GSAs. So I can expect that a lot of the GSA will be addressing, um, GDEs and interconnected surface water more carefully in 2032, actually. So, some questions that are out there that we would like you to consider. And I would start the other way around. One question is, does Big Chico Creek support really shallow groundwater? Or it's just mostly dependent on, everything dependent on the deeper groundwater system? Or just on perched layers that are there and are supporting the vegetation but not really We cannot really define that as shallow groundwater. And then another question that we were trying to solve is, is Big Chico Creek connected or disconnected stream? Our first study, based on groundwater elevation in the main groundwater system, is showing that Big Chico Creek seems to be a disconnected stream. And I will show you some data. Again, this is a preliminary set of data that we collected. And then if we look at... The third question is, if Big Chico Creek is a losing stream and the vegetation is not a groundwater-dependent ecosystem, so let's imagine that the GSA cannot do much in terms of management, but what information is needed to protect the riparian habitat along Big Chico Creek and within the park? So the question is, I think everybody in the GSA cares as much about protecting the park, but if it's not in their power to really do something that is really checking the management of these GDEs, probably there is just a need to figure out, okay, what are all the different type of management that can happen to really protect this system? And what we found out is also that there are some information that we have and that we gathered after the GSP was submitted in 2022. So I will tell you a little bit more of what is known about the shallow groundwater in Chico through the plots that you have in the presentation later. And then... Do we think, is it true that the streams within the Chico management area are really supporting shallow groundwater or supported by shallow groundwater? And how is this shallow groundwater connected to the deeper aquifer? Because this is the other thing. we see completely different behavior in the shallow groundwater and the deep groundwater, we know that most likely there is a connection. In the lower part of Central Valley where you have a big clay layer, maybe not, but up here it's a little more like there is a connection somewhere. So the important piece would be to fully understand how these two systems are connected together and what is really possible in terms of management. And this is to tell you what the GSA has done so far. There was one of the project we worked on was really about data gap. So to collect all the information that are eventually relative to shallow groundwater conditions. And there was not much in the GSP about shallow groundwater and groundwater-dependent ecosystems. So this is something that it's all new. So we found we have now four categories of well in what will be submitted in 2027, which is We have existing wells that are monitored by the Department of Water Resources. We have some existing monitoring wells with historical data from other programs, like a nitrate monitoring program in Chico. We have new wells that have been installed by the GSA, and a lot of them are shallow wells. And then a community monitoring well network has been developed. What we mean by community monitoring monitoring well is mostly domestic wells, so like well owners that gave us permission to put an instrument to monitor their wells. So if we focus in the Chico area, we highlighted six wells that are the ones there, and just to give you a distribution within the area. Some of them are shallow, some of them are deeper. And I want to show you some of the data that have been collected. So these are, for example, two shallow wells. You see the axis on the right is the depth to groundwater. So groundwater is found at something like 15 feet. And these data are from just slightly after 2000, so it's more than 20 years of data. And there is no real decline. It goes pretty much up and down with the season. There was a deep down in this point in 2022, but that sounded like it was a questionable measurement, and DWR is kind of checking all these questionable measurements in the data. I still think that the picture says that this shallow groundwater does not seem to be very impacted by any groundwater management. And if we go down in the wells that are a little deeper, this one, for example, goes down to 50 to 75 feet. And you can still see that even in this specific case, the well is completely recovering just after the last couple of good years. In this plot, I forgot to point out, so the red dashed line is the minimum threshold, the line that you don't want to cross that I mentioned earlier, and the green line is where you would like to be. So, for example, for these wells that are in the Chico management area, pretty much all the groundwater elevation are above the measurable objective, so the place where you would like to be. And this is another example, and it's pretty much the same story. There is some decline, but as soon as there are some good years, the levels are coming up. And this well is around 75 feet, with groundwater levels at about 75 feet. And this is another example. It's pretty much, what is really important is to see that there is generally always a good recovery with the good wet years. And this one is actually pretty flat. It's much deeper. You see a little bit more of bouncing up and down than in the shallow aquifer because of the years. The scale is just bigger, but it's just the summer and winter and then dry years versus wet years. So these are the data that we have so far. And we understood that maybe it was not enough, and it's not enough to understand the shallow groundwater system in the Chico management area. So what has been done, the GSA installed four new shallow wells to really understand even better this shallow aquifer system. And there were nine more wells, shallow wells that have been identified and used for monitoring. And then there are three community monitoring wells. And if you go to the map that you've probably got a copy of, it's here, it's just to tell you where these different type of new wells are. So these are all new information that were not in the plan in 2022. And these are really helping in trying to understand what's happening in the Chico management area. So on top of that, we have in the making, there's been a lot of work with Nature Conservancy, with the Audubon, and there are definitely suggestions on refining the mapping for groundwater-dependent ecosystem. So the original map for the 2022 plan was mostly based on what the Nature Conservancy put out at that time. So there was not a lot of local data. So now local data are making it into these maps. Still, these maps are really interesting. like living creature because we have to keep adapting. They are not fully done right now. So the idea is to keep working and trying. I think it would be important to understand also from Department of Water Resources and from Nature Conservancy which type of data they would like to see monitored to really understand connection or disconnection throughout different systems. And there is also the idea of another project still provided by the Audubon on really looking at the Chico Urban Forest Vulnerability Assessment. And again, it's mostly looking at a different type of data and how to combine all this data together. So it's going to be including also some satellite, NDVI, what is the greenness screening that everybody talks about right now, just because all these satellite pictures are always available at the moment. And the idea would be to start now as a baseline and have a formal evaluation only if the Chico area and groundwater-dependent ecosystem in the area and the wells in the groundwater-dependent ecosystem here are really reaching some questionable or some critical levels. So the idea is to keep monitor and see if these shallow wells are staying where they are and they are not moving, even if there are different type of management, then probably there is not much that the GSA can really do and it's a different type of discussion. And the third one is the Lindo Channel recharge. That's also something already happened in these five years, but I think there is much more in the planning for the next round, the next five years of GSP implementation. And I think this is a quick summary. So both shallow and deeper groundwater levels in the Chico management area are relatively stable. We identified shallow monitoring wells that are really helping fill in data gaps to assess potential impacts to GDEs if groundwater levels are going to decline over the next five year period. And there are already new other projects in the making. So the GSA realizes that it's good to have some plans in mind in case something happened. So far there was, we could see that there was a good rebouncing of groundwater level just because of the pumping never increased in the past year. And it was mostly all determined by critically dry years and then really good wet years, and it's good to see that the groundwater system responds so well, because it's also the reason why, for example, this part of the Sacramento Valley does not have any issue with subsidence, because everything comes back up with a good wet year. And I think, just question.

Looks like you got the commissioner in on it. Looks like you got the green button first.

Yeah.

So I had a question, a comment question that came via a resident. So the comment part is Chico was founded in 1860. So imagine a valley oak that was already growing here before that or whose parents were. Where did that tree get its water? Not from leaky pipes, not from irrigation, not from septic systems, not from adjacent agriculture. The climate was the same Mediterranean climate we have today. So where did it get its water from the ground from shallow groundwater? Fast forward to today, that same tree or its descendants still standing in Chico may now also use some modern sources of water. That does not change the fundamental point. Under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, a groundwater dependent ecosystem is defined as ecological communities or species that depend on groundwater emerging from aquifers or occurring near the ground surface. The presence of other water sources does not automatically make those trees not likely groundwater dependent ecosystems. So the question is, how does the current analysis treat mature valley oaks and the urban forest they anchor in Chico? Do we still recognize their historical and ongoing dependence on groundwater? Or are we classifying them as unlikely GDE simply because supplementary water now exists? And to me, that related a little bit to what you had on the monitoring assessment slide under that first bullet, so.

Yeah, and if the tree is in, I can understand the condition in 1860 or whatever were definitely different, right? And Sigma does not really ask to go back so much. Sigma has a 2015, like, you know, the starting point. And what we are understanding is that even in the past, we have data from 1960, so it's kind of, a good chunk of time, in 75. And if we have not seen any significant decline in this area since 1960. So I think this is kind of telling a story that, and the deep groundwater is kind of consistently down there, but we see some shallow groundwater. And probably the shallow groundwater was there also in 1860, and just because there are these perch layer, and I think Let me just go to a quick schematic. Just a second. Okay. So if it's, you know, there are always, there is a, what we are kind of figuring out is that there is a sort of general groundwater system that probably it's a little bit down deeper. And then there are a lot of these lenses of, perched groundwater that are much shallower, they really depend on the geology. And looking at the data that we have right now, this seems to be what is really supporting most of the GDEs right now in the lower part of the valley. When you start going up on the foothills, that's a different story, because there, really, the gradients is different, so there is a little bit more disconnection. But looking at the data that we have in the Chico management area, this seems to be probably what's happening. There is still a lot of... shallow layer that are not fully connected with the groundwater system and so when if you are pumping from the deeper groundwater system the regional aquifer let's call it you are not really impacting the levels in those upper shallow layers So I think what we can say is that data from the 1960s, they are pretty consistent, and they don't show the incredible decline like it's happening in other places. In the past 25 years, it's pretty stable. And I think these are the information that we have to start analyzing to try to understand how to protect all the system and who's the right entity and what are the right measure in terms of protection. The way I see it is that limiting groundwater pumping might be one way in some specific case, but it may not work everywhere. So just that we have to be sure that we do what is needed depending on the conditions. So the data are going to tell us what are the knobs to turn in terms of making everything move forward and survive.

Thanks for your presentation. I do have quite a few questions, but I'm going to ask a few and then move on to Commissioner Paiva next to me because she's somewhat of an expert. I have worked very hard to educate myself in the past few weeks about this. I have looked at data gap update you presented to the GSA board on May 14th, 2025. In three hydrographs, they annotate a Valley Oak effective root zone of about 50 feet below ground surface. The maps show Bidwell Park and Chico's riparian corridors in green as likely a GDE. Ten months later, ESA's GDE technical memorandum applied 18.2 feet and moved 640 of 1,228 mapped ecosystems to not likely GDE. These are two very different numbers feeding the same periodic evaluation. Can you help us understand what changed?

So the first number was from the old map in 2021, 2022, and that map was really not, was not, was developed mostly by Nature Conservancy and it was a statewide scale. So it was completely different condition and it was not really, there was no time, there were no information back in 2021 to really nail down details on that map for each basin. So that's why I would say all the basins in the state have redone the GDE maps after 2022 because now more groundwater data are available. So I don't want to speak much about the rooting depth. That's not really my thing. I look mostly at the water. We can also suggest some sensitivity analysis and see how much... things would change in terms of polygons removed or kept into the analysis if we move to 30 or 40 feet. I think 50, it's really a stretch. The original TNC study was actually 30, so I'm not sure. Maybe 50 was a typo in the presentation because it might be. I don't know. Or maybe it's there. The original TNC report was based on 30 feet. And then TNC came, Natural Conservancy came up with different numbers later. So I think the study that it's in the new periodic evaluation is just based on actual depth to groundwater. So that, and it's not everywhere. That's why there are more data that are being collected. But the idea is really to say, if I talk to some expert and I was asking, if the tree needs to go down to 50 feet, it might be it might be already so stressed. So probably it's not going to grow because 50 feet is, 30 feet, sorry, it's already too much. So, and again, I don't want to speak for the vegetation expert, but I want to say that the main information that is important the type of information that has changed into the new study is really more local vegetation maps and more local groundwater data that were not available in the 2021 report. So the new report would be different.

So are you saying that the May 14th Valley Oak depth of 50 feet was a typo?

I don't know. I think I have the slide right here. Okay. I'm just saying that maybe it was an example.

I don't know. Ryan, do you remember? I think it was a graphic that Jason made.

Yeah. There is a lot of uncertainty.

So I guess to simplify things, are you still planning on declassifying Bidwell Park as not likely a GDE?

So not likely is not declassifying. It's just saying that there are more data that need to be collected. So right now, the data that we have, which are what I showed earlier, they don't really show a clear... a clear connection with the deep groundwater system. So that's it. And I'm not saying that they are not, they still probably use this surface layer, but not the deep groundwater because if the groundwater system is at 50 or 70 feet, that doesn't really help the trees anyway. So they probably get their water somewhere else.

I'm going to look at my questions. I'm going to pass to, is it okay if Commissioner Paiva? We move to Commissioner.

I have questions as well. No, not a quick one. Yep, whatever. You're the chair, whoever. Shall I go next? Go for it. Okay. I had just a question about that. I do recall from the original development of the GSPs across the Sac Valley that GDEs were one of those areas, along with interconnected surface water and interbasin coordination, where there was waiting on more guidelines from DWR. And a lot of folks just kind of took the TNC map and ran with it. And that was the extent of it. I know of at least one neighboring subbasin. that used Chico State faculty to remap their GDEs, and the early estimates was that they were going to reduce by actually about 50%, which is what I'm seeing here. My recollection was that there were three flagship species they were looking for, and oak wasn't one of them. It was like cottonwood, and I don't remember the other couple.

And I know what you're talking about.

Yeah.

I know the study. I don't remember the other two, but I know the study. Okay. Yeah.

Okay.

Well, then my next actual question, Richie, I don't know if you were involved in the original GSP. Were you around at that time for city staff in 2021, 22?

Yes, I was, but I wasn't heavily involved.

Okay. Just curious. And Richie, you are urban forester. And what exactly is your background?

Well, my background is in trees. I have 30 years experience in what we call traditional forestry and the last 15, 20 years urban forestry. So I have a good mix of study of natural ecosystems and then community and municipal forestry. I have a degree in ecological science from Edinburgh University, so I do have a good background in natural systems such as Bidwell Park.

Perfect. Yeah, I'm hoping that I could get some clarity on actually the question that I walked in with, which you addressed in your slides. But it's whether oak trees want soil moisture or whether they want groundwater, whether they want standing water. Because I would think that an oak tree wouldn't want its roots to be in saturated soil. I know oak trees get flooded out sometimes and die. I saw it just a couple months ago. So that's really a source of confusion for me, whether they want their taproot to be in groundwater or just in moist soil. And then I wonder whether part of the difference in how deep that taproot can go is related to that. Is it looking for more soil moisture, but it won't go so deep as to go into saturated soil? So could you address whether they would want saturated soil, like they would want to be in standing groundwater, or just where there's soil moisture from precipitation or that kind of thing?

Yeah, and that's a great question. So I don't want to use too much fancy scientific terms, but the term you're describing, it's called a facultative fritotype, which means that's a plant that does depend on groundwater but not – all the time. So you could think of a valley oak as obtaining water from a variety of different sources. One of those is the deep groundwater. It will also take up water from example, precipitation, stream flow, things like that. One way you could think of access to deep groundwater is if You know, you think of like, you know, the emergency strip lights on a airplane, right? When it really only light up red when there's an emergency. So what would typically get a valley oak through the droughts? And we've, as we've all seen living in California, we have periodic drought periods. Our trees don't die. They're getting water from the deep ground layer. That's where they get the water from. They don't draw on that root system 365 days a year. It's only seasonal. It may be used more more emphasis on it during drought periods, but it's not a full-time source of water. To answer your question about do they prefer, I guess to paraphrase what you said, do they like to get their feet wet? No, they wouldn't grow deep into the actual saturated zone, but they will draw moisture from what we call the capillary rise. I think the term is the... Vedos zone. So it's that moisture level. And, you know, one way to think about it, if you think back to, you know, the high school experiments when you dip some blotting paper in some coloured water and you watch the water rise upwards against gravity, that's what water does also in the water table. So it also depends on the substrate as well. So that capillary rise will be more pronounced in more porous dirt. If it's heavy gravel or coarse gravel, it's not going to rise as much. It's kind of intuitively, you know, seems to make sense, you know, to a lot of people. I think one thing that we haven't factored in, and I've never seen it discussed anywhere, is just that, that, you know, we need to consider the soils that we have in our area. You know, they're mostly, you know, viner loams. And as any agriculturalist will tell you, you know, we have some of the best dirt in the world. You know, after all, You know, we do have a robust agriculture economy here, and that's because of the dirt. So that's the same dirt that sustains the riparian woodlands that we see. One thing I would just add is that The city of Chico has a 36% tree canopy. That is one of the highest tree canopy percentages in the United States. There are a handful of cities that have up to 40%, but really in California, the state average is around 12%. So 36% in a city is pretty exceptional. City of Sacramento, their percentage is only 19%. Roseville, I think it's 15%, so that's around about average. One thing I would not say, and I would love to take credit for it, and it would be great if Public Works could take credit for that percentage, we cannot. It's really just down to the natural conditions that are found here. riparian oak woodland that was Chico before Chico was founded. All the climatic and geological and hydrological processes are still there, and that is what gives us that percentage, such a high percentage. It's not because of irrigation. It's not leaky septic tanks. It's not because, it's none of that supplemental water. Not a million miles can that be explained away, how we have such a high percentage of tree canopy. To me, it seems intuitively obvious that it's all connected to the groundwater. So that's what I would like to see studied much more extensively. We're just coming out of the five-year periodic evaluation, and we seem to be hearing that we'll study it for another five years. I struggle with that.

Thank you, Richie. That's my only question for staff. Thanks.

Commissioner Paiva.

Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Foglia. I appreciate the report that you've given. I'm a bit disappointed that VINA GSA isn't here tonight to answer some of the questions. And so, because a lot of the questions I have are for VINA, but specifically for Bidwell Park as well. which is the purview of this commission. One of the things that I'm concerned about with your report is the number of times that you use the word seem or seems like or we don't know yet or we don't have enough data. And yet we've set these goals, we've set these MOs and MTs at levels that have me very concerned about the ability for the deep groundwater wells to be able to maintain an aquifer level underneath the city of Chico and in our urban forest that would sustain the vegetation that we have. I'm particularly interested in the decision, and maybe this is something you can answer. I'm particularly interested in the decision of how Each MO and MT was developed for the city of Chico. And I understand that was a projection out based on dry years. But I'm wondering exactly how we came to MOs in the city of Chico that are very close to our record lows that we saw in the most recent drought. I'm just wondering questions like, why did we choose 2030 to set that level? Why did we choose dry years to get to that point so that we have MOs where they are? That's my first question.

Yeah, and so the way minimum threshold and MOs are set is really looking at the data.

Excuse me, one second. You mean the way that VINA GSA chose to set the MTs and the MOs? Yeah.

Yeah. Sorry, the Vina GSA. And so the minimum threshold is there sometimes. In the Chico area, they are really not much below the measurable objective. So that's why we have free, the Vina sub-basin is divided in free management areas because they are very different. So in the Chico area, there is not a huge difference between the measurable objective and the minimum threshold because, again, the goal was to keep these levels higher. The measurable objective are, in SGMA, remember that these measurable objective are from the 2022 GSP. SGMA requirements is not to be worse than 2015. This is in the legislation. This is the law. So the goal from the GSA perspective was to try to keep things above 2015. keep things better than in 2015. And this is what most of the, actually, the other GSAs really went way lower than 2015 levels, but in this specific case, and mostly for the city of Chico area, the idea is that that's where we want to be and actually want to be above that. So the conditions are very different with respect to the other wells in the other two management areas.

That's an interesting point that you just made, that Sigma said that we have to stay above the 2015 levels. Because by my count, and I'm counting five wells that are labeled as Chico, even though one is outside Chico, and is labeled a little bit differently. But of the three of the five wells, the lowest levels are number one. The lowest MOs, number one, are below the level that we've met in 2021 or 2022, which are also below the level of 2015. We see in one well, I'm just going to randomly grab one here. In one well, we see that the MO on well CWSCH03 is 108, 108. And the lowest point was 110 in 2022. So we've set the MO lower than the lowest recorded value that that well in the city of Chico has ever seen. And we have two other wells that are like that. So that's below the 2015 level.

Yeah, which is, honestly, so I'm just saying that it was, the 2015 is kind of the reference for the legislator. So that's why you don't go, you don't deviate much from that 2015 level. Obviously, the GSA could not know that in 20, these are still the data from, could not know that 2021 was going to be a worse drought. And it's still two feet in the worst drought. So it doesn't account it doesn't account as an undesirable result anyway.

So if you look back at 2021 and 22, I'm not sure how many people remember that era or what we were doing in 2021 and 22. Number one, you said, here's the thing. Number one, you said in this that the MO is the place where you'd like to be in the water table, correct? At least, yeah. But Vina GSA is planning to manage the aquifer down to those MO levels.

No, to stay above. That's the way it's written, also explained in the GSP. And no other GSAs, I can tell you, most of the GSA are really monitoring and managing at the minimum threshold.

Actually, our neighbors to the north, Corning, are managing so that their MTs are just above the low of 2021 and 22.

They just redid their plan. In their original plan, like in the 2022 plan that was not approved, it was very different.

But today?

Yeah, today. But that is because they had to completely change the way they approached it, not because they wanted to. And they were not saying that they were going to manage at the measurable objective. Here in many wells, the measurable objective, the levels are way above the measurable objective right now.

Mr. Chair, can I just ask a question here? Just a point of order. There's so much in the GSP and so much in the periodic evaluation, and you said early on about kind of like targeting our comments to what's relevant to the Park Commission. I'm wondering if this discussion should be had in another venue, like the GSA where they set the MOs and the MTs, rather than in this one where we're mostly talking about its impacts on the park and park features.

I concur.

And my question is, will those well levels that they've set be able to support the GEDs in the city of Chico and in the urban forest?

Relevant question.

Great. Maybe I misunderstood something, but I thought they were going to remove the GED designation from Goodwill Park.

No, it's just more data to better understand if they are really GDEs or if they are getting their source of water mostly from more shallow groundwater systems. So it's not removing, it's just trying to understand better how to manage these ecosystems. Because if we can find out that, let's say, let's imagine, and we don't know that yet, if there is really this disconnect between the shallow system and deep system, and the GSA, I don't know, manage in order to, let's say, reduce the pumping, it may not have any impact on the shallow aquifer where these plants are taking most of their water. And we don't know that yet. I'm just saying, it's like what it was said earlier, that there is a lot to understand also in terms of where these plants really take their water and how is the geology throughout the system.

Who does?

I do.

Oh, Meg, go.

Okay, so we're talking about... Your organization and your contract with VINA and one of your tasks, I guess, I read the contract, task five requires your organization to analyze existing Chico area data and data from new monitoring wells to define the relationship between of the Chico urban forest to the shallow groundwater and principal aquifer, which, by the way, our urban forest in Chico were not even in the contract, the original 2024 contract. We were added by amendment in May 2025. Thank you to whoever recognized that was important. But I guess my question is, Where does this analysis stand? Your task five analysis. What is the relationship between the Chico urban forest and shallow groundwater and principal aquifer? Doesn't this research have to be done by early 2027 and incorporated into the. into the plan. So what is the status of this research, I guess is my question.

So the status of the research is that we analyzed all the data. We suggested new wells have been, new shallow wells have been drilled. I mean, it's still better. We started from zero. So we had more location, but we had to also drill wells throughout the entire basin, so not just in the Chico management area. And we really collected all this information from the wells that are in your presentation. They were not available before. These shallow wells were not available before. The one that you have in front of you now, they kind of say... The shallow system is not really changing much. Now what we need to try to understand is what's the connection between this shallow system and a deep system. So I think from the perspective of having more data and more information, there is a lot that the Vina GSA has done to fulfill the requirements and There is a new groundwater-dependent ecosystem map that probably will be revamped again, but it's there and it's based on this groundwater level data that were not available in 2021. Commissioner Nichols.

Do you work for her? Your contract is with the GSA?

Yeah.

And what is the role of the County Water Commission and the Board of Supervisors for this study, if any?

Butte County is one of the three agencies in the Vina GSA.

But this plan will ultimately be adopted by just the GSA? Yeah. And this is the interim evaluation that's due in January of 27? Yeah. Okay, thank you. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Bannon had a lot of concerns about this, and we ought to hear from him at some point in this meeting.

Who did?

Richie had some concerns about this plan, and I think we ought to hear his report.

I think that's an excellent idea.

Thank you. So if people had further questions that they felt needed to be taken into consideration for that January draft that you're submitting, what is a date that they should hit to submit further questions? Because I think there's been good things raised here.

So I don't know if it would be useful to have – the GSA will be publishing the draft version of the periodic evaluation. Maybe that document altogether will help with some question, and it's coming up in the next 10 days, two weeks. And otherwise, I assume that the best is to send question to the GSA.

Mm-hmm.

But the plan is coming out as a draft for comments. So that might be a way to bring everything together.

Mr. Chair, can I ask one more clarifying question?

Go ahead, Commissioner.

So our SAF report says that there are 1,200 GDE polygons that were studied, and about half of those were reclassified from likely to not likely. So there isn't just one polygon. overlaying Bidwell Park. I'm assuming there are multiple polygons and maybe some remain likely a GDE and some were removed as likely a GDE. Is that right?

Yeah. And most of the ones removed are actually really to the east. So as soon as you start going uphill. Okay.

Like maybe east of Manzanita or something. Richie, did you spend much time looking at those specifically? Was there any information to relay which ones got removed i saw here that you said many of them had valley were valley oak dominated but in terms of their geography within the park was there any

Dr. Foyer referred to a new GDE map. So I have a question. Are you referring to the research that came out of the ESA technical memorandum? Yes. Okay. That's the paper that really was the basis of bringing this to the Commission. We've heard a lot of concerns about that research from the public, from other agencies. I know that The Viner GSA has received a lot of commentary, for example, from the Audubon. Our city of Chico itself has raised concerns. I wasn't able to get her on record, but we do anecdotally, we've heard from the research scientist that the work was allegedly based upon and she's claiming her work has been mischaracterized. So I do want to try and nail that down because that would really form the basis of our argument that we do agree with the method, the intent to, you know, kind of try and simplify how you classify a GDE. And it boils down to comparing two numbers to each other. And that's the rooting depth of the tree and compare it to the groundwater depth. And if the roots reach the groundwater, they classify it as GDE. And if the roots do not reach the groundwater, it's classified as not likely GDE. Some of the mischaracterizations we found in that paper is that the depth to groundwater for Valley Oak has been greatly, we believe, mischaracterized. And the methodology, to be frank, is just flawed. It's just wrong. It doesn't hold up any scientific scrutiny whatsoever. And as we've heard, The results from that research are just being carried forward despite all the concerns from the public, from other agencies. They're just marching forward. And we're seeing things like Bidwell Park being classified as not likely a GDE, which I cannot... I cannot agree with that. So I would like to see that work scrutinized. We did get some explanation as to how they derived rooting depth. So we looked at that and we tried to reverse engineer how the number was arrived at. And we could not get that number by using the methodology that was described to us. So it seems like a very pedantic thing to be hanging on to this rooting death, but it's such a fundamental number that drives so much in this plan. It does not pass scientific scrutiny. at all and there's a lot of good things in that paper but this this one aspect is just deeply flawed um and i have i'm greatly concerned that we seem to be marching on using the results of that flawed methodology to reclassify hundreds and hundreds of groundwater dependent ecosystems i i Time will tell. I don't know how the Department of Water Resources is going to accept that finding. We shall see, because it looks like it's not going to change. But that's, I guess, the next step that we'll take that we'll need to... take our concerns once the periodic evaluation is completed. As Dr. Foyer said, it will be out in the next two weeks. We can then take our concerns to the agency that reviews that plan and hopefully they will agree with us and we'll take it from there.

Maybe one suggestion for the comments would be if you really feel like this is still a draft and even the ESA report is a preliminary study. It's not saying that this is the final. It would be good to know, okay, what are... really the changes that you would like to see. And that would be very helpful because, you know, the GSA gets comments from a lot of different parties, so having a little bit more direction on why you don't agree and how you would change the methodology, that would be very helpful.

We'll see if we can get Melissa Rohde to reach out to you. Because her methodology was followed and it was followed incorrectly.

Okay.

Okay, anyone else on the commission have questions?

The bottom line is you're concerned about how this plan defines groundwater sustainability levels as adversely affecting the health of Chico's trees. I mean, that's the thing that the public has to understand about the significance of this plan.

Right. So if the groundwater dependent ecosystems are classed as unlikely, that means in the eyes of the law, they are not groundwater dependent ecosystems. That means they are not protected under SGMA. That means the water table can drop to whatever you want and there will be no repercussions legally under SGMA whatsoever.

Can I add something? In GDEs, all the GSA are using likely, unlikely, but this is not yet kind of like a legislation process, because GDEs are not fully characterized in SGMA. They are part of the interconnected surface water, but they don't have their own sustainability criteria. So likely and unlikely or likely connected, likely disconnected is more of terminology that the GSAs are using to try to understand, but it doesn't mean it does not have any formal legislation support. It's just to help how to move forward in the study and how to keep working on refining the information so it's not that unlikely gdes that not does not mean that they are completely discarded it means that there will be more data and they will that's the reason why there will be more data and eventually they will be reconsidered That's not what the data are showing yet.

Thank you. I had a specific question. I'm looking at the slide 11, possibly. The location, big strides in identifying where ISW likely occurs and doesn't. I am wondering how this reclassification will change. Essentially, right now we have 36 percent, Richie, 36 percent of the city of Chico is considered to be an urban forest. Is that my understanding?

Correct. 36 percent tree canopy.

36 percent tree canopy. And do you have any idea of how much of that changes? canopy is currently classified as a GDE or an ISW and how much will be taken out, essentially, if we're reclassified and we remove some of those GDE designations.

I don't think anything will be taken out because the data are not changing in the past 10, 15 years. So if they were not taken out in the past 10 years, the levels that I showed earlier for the shallow aquifer and also for the deeper aquifer, they did not change significantly. They just went up and down, but there was no decline in the past, I'd say, more or less 20 years is kind of a good number. And so I don't think this does not mean that they will be taken out. So that's really, and this is the interconnected surface water. There, it's really, if the riverbed is not connected to the stream, there is not much up on the eastern part of the basin. There is not much that can be done to really connect it if it's not connected. Because some is volcanic, so some is geology. And it's not really because of management. So we need to keep in mind all the different conditions and really like geology, topography, and really together with the climate. But in the hydrographs that we showed, it's not that you could see a significant decline in that. CHICO management area in the past 20 years. So if something needs to be changed with respect to earlier than that, but it's still, it's not an overdraft. And the shallow aquifer since 2010 are pretty much stable. So, maybe the question would be how many trees died in the past 20 years. That would be a good way to kind of connect the dots, right? If somebody has a map of where the trees died, and maybe ESA can revise that. The work that they did. Just an idea. I don't know. I'm just saying, you know, I'm not the ecosystem person. I'm more just a water person. So I can look at the water level and say, water level are not telling me that things are going so bad. But maybe the reality is different. And maybe you guys have seen a lot of trees that died.

Mm-hmm.

And this is something I don't know. I'm just putting it out there as a question. Because it would be very useful to eventually connect the dots of the groundwater level in a certain point where a tree died. So that's just... And nobody says that there is no protection just because of the type of... This is, again, preliminary location pattern. It's based on better data than before, but this does not mean that there will be no reconsideration if we get the actual information.

One follow-up question. You said... So it sounds like from the report that the MOs and MTs are pretty set at this point, and yet there's a lot of data gaps here. And I know that this next report is due January 27. But I guess I keep coming back to the question in my mind of there is so much unknown, and yet we're setting... Your expertise, the groundwater level. So we don't know if the trees and the GDEs, we don't know what is a GDE or not in the city of Chico. We don't know if the valley oaks are dependent. We don't know those things. And yet we're setting the water levels for the MOs at pretty much drought conditions.

So I understand the unknowns. And actually, I had this type of discussion with Department of Water Resources last week. And their suggestion is that they know that in this basin, actually, it's kind of complex in terms of the amount of data gaps for some specific type of data. But it is pretty rich. So that's why now things look a little bit more complex. and there is some understanding on the groundwater condition. But the GSA needs to set something. And this value can be, if really the magic amount of data are collected, let's say next year, the GSA can decide to amend the plan any time. It's not that the five years is just for this periodic evaluation. The plan can be amended any time. It just needs to be really strongly supported by the data to be amended. So this is where we are. But DWR understands that the GSA has the duty to set some levels. And all the GSA have been very conservative because of a lot of unknowns that are still there. But things are, you know, even in this plan, I think the GSA is going from a small number of representative wells to a big number of representative wells, which means there will be a lot of more checking throughout the entire basin. And that's a big step forward also because more wells means more funding to monitor these wells every year, at least twice a year, and usually more than that. So it's a progression. And there are a lot of more streamflow data that were not collected before. It's also true that you cannot, it's difficult with groundwater and streamflow to make a big story out of six months or just one year of data. So this data needs to keep coming in and to refine what has been done so far. But I see the fact that the number of representative points used to check this level is growing so much. It's a really important message from the GSA perspective.

Thank you, Dr. Foglia. I know we have lots of people here who would like to speak in the audience, and so that will be my last question.

One last thing.

I just have one quick, one last thing. You just mentioned that to go into the report that the numbers, the information has to be strongly supported by the data. And that's what bothers me about this whole, not the whole report, but parts of it, that there's data that comes out in May 14th of 2025, and then some of it's contradicted 10 months later, or there's no settled rooting depth for a valley oak. There have been a number of of levels thrown out there and none settled on and the methodology for even establishing it is not even settled upon. So I think that's what bothers me the most, not the most about this, but we should turn it over to all of you that have been here and waiting to speak.

Okay, I guess we can open it up to the public. Kathleen.

We received eight speaker cards. So first up would be Robin McCollum, followed by Patricia Hieronymus.

Good evening, commissioners, and thank you for taking a good hard look at this. let's keep it simple the parameters of the gsa are that we protect groundwater and the environment and residences and wells domestic wells etc in between the environment is a co-equal responsibility of the gsa so whatever you call an oak whether it's a gde or not is irrelevant It depends upon groundwater, whether you call the shallow aquifer groundwater or not using the USGS definition of groundwater at 90 feet. Wait a minute. Our aquifer has an alluvial fan, all kinds of mixed up materials, like a big bowl of spaghetti. So yeah, there's perched aquifers here and there's isolation here, but it's all connected. And when you draw it down from below, whether that's happening in Nord or whether it's happening over in the GCID where they're pumping as fast as they can to sell as much as they can, and it's connected to our aquifer, it's pulling our aquifer down right now. The last guys that are going to get hurt by that are the farmers around here with deep wells. The first people that are going to get hurt by it are the people with shallow residential wells. and the park and the ecosystems all throughout the GSA. I don't want to see Chico end up like, as I said in the May meeting, that I don't want to see it end up like Bakersfield. If it wasn't for these trees, it would be. So I think that it's ironic that the... GSA is so picky about how we're going to protect or if we're going to protect the environment, but no problem securing the really deep wells that are the ones that are going to threaten the shallow aquifer for everybody else.

Thank you. Any questions or comments? Next speaker, please.

We have Patricia Hieronymus, followed by Susan Schrader.

Patrizia Hieronymus, thank you so much for your time tonight. First, I wanted to apologize that you've been left out of this process for the periodic evaluation for so long until the 11th hour, and it's going to be done in 10 days, two weeks. That's very disappointing. As somebody who goes to the stakeholder advisory committees, the technical advisory committees, the water commission meetings, I was trained by a Butte County supervisor to call well drillers to see how long it would take during a drought 2021-2022. It takes a year and a half of wait time to get a well drilled deeper and wider when we're in a drought. So you're right to be concerned and thank you for all of your questions. I would say listen to Richie, he's an arborist, arborist knows about trees. So let this be the for alarm fire to really get involved, get deep with the arborist. I have a couple of points I just wanted to point out. I read through your packet and I'm sorry I marked it up, I probably shouldn't have. But I was concerned about a few things towards the end. that this board has control over, which trees and our urban canopy seems to be the main theme tonight. So in summary here, it says both shallow and deeper groundwater levels in Chico management area are relatively stable. I'm going to direct you back to page 214 of the staff report. DWR's prioritization considers population well density, irrigated acreage, reliance on groundwater, and documented impacts to the resource. FINA's high priority designation reflects both the population it serves, roughly half Butte County lives in the sub basin, and long term hydrographs showing groundwater level decline. The designation is what obligates the subbasin to be managed under a GSP at all. So if you're sensing a little cognitive dissidence in this presentation, it's because there is. There's a lot of it. And the data gaps are on purpose. There have been public comments over 150 on August 12th. I'm sure you've seen the video of how public comment was reduced to one minute and then ignored. And we have been saying for five years under this periodic evaluation, we want the minimum thresholds raised to where our tree can actually tap that groundwater because as Richie so expertly said, Where else would they get their water? It's not urban drool. So I just wanted to thank you for your diligence tonight and urge you to dig a little bit deeper because you will find some truths that are very ugly. And I want you to uncover those truths because that's your job. And we don't want widow makers in the park. We don't want people dying from limbs. And that is your job to protect people. And I heard the e-bike safety thing, and I just want to encourage that same sort of vigilance. When you're looking through this GSP, you're asking these questions. Please bring it to your board of supervisors because the GSA is getting away scot-free, making decisions willy-nilly, ignoring beneficial users, and public comment. Thank you for your time.

Any questions? Next?

Susan Schrader, followed by Jim Brobeck.

Hello, I'm Susan Schrader. I'm a domestic well owner, as well as a member of the SHAC, or the Stakeholder Advisory Committee for the GSA. And I had prepared to go over the number of GS, the number of GDEs we used to have, and now the numbers we don't. But you folks have covered it, so I'm not going to repeat that. I'm just here to say, I read Mr. Bamlett's report, and it's excellent. It's detailed. It goes in depth. And I think there's a lot of good information in there and a lot of suggestions. And I think that you are wise to follow his direction and what he says. And I agree with Ms. Hieronymus, too. About we have tried to get a lot of things happening on the GSA, you know, raising the minimum threshold and stuff. And it's just always the same thing. We're going to leave them. We're going to leave them where they are. And that's it. So but I'm heartened because I can tell that you folks are you care and, you know, the urban forest and. the Valley Oaks you know they're just such signatures of Chico and if we allow them to be degraded that will really disturb our quality of life and people will be up in arms so I'm glad to see that you all are very interested and supportive and thank you and thank you for all your work so anyway that's it anybody have any comments or questions for Ms. Rader okay moving right along

Jim Brobeck, followed by Marty Dunlap.

Hi. My name's Marty Dunlap. I'm a public interest attorney. I've lived in Chico for over 50 years, and I've been watching what's happening with our water locally for over 20 years. I have been participating in this process the whole time, and I started a group called Citizens Water Watch of Northern California. I worked with Cal Water on their Citizens Advisory Board, and also I was a citizen representative on the Lower Tuscan Coordinating Group. So I kind of know what's been going on, and... It's really important that you are here because, as you've heard from the other speakers, we've been paying attention to this and going, oh, wait a second, this doesn't really make sense. But regarding the ESA study, the GDE study on May 18th, We were all very concerned about that, the methodology, and had started to really inquire into it. One of the things that I think I came up with and have been trying to promote We heard from the authors of that, we don't know where the water comes from for these GDEs, but it's not groundwater. It's other sources. And so my question to them and what I've been trying to promote is, until we know what those other sources are that keep these GDEs alive, I don't think that this information that's coming out of the study should be used for significant decision making. Because what's the other source of water? How are they staying alive? I'm not a plant person. We do have plant people. And so I'm encouraging you to really look closely at what Richie Bamlett has put together, some of the other speakers, but then also what Marianne Piva has put together. Really important information. For three years, I've been asking the Department of Water Resource and Conservation, we want to sit down and talk with the other stakeholders. I represent the public. We've got the domestic well owners. We've got the farmers with small acreage. We've got the people, the environmentalists, people who are paying attention to groundwater-dependent ecosystems. And we have agriculture. And it's like, can we just all sit down and talk about our groundwater? In the last three months, we've had three meetings, and that was over the June, July, and August. And we finally did have ag people at the same time as those other stakeholders. And what we've heard is that the ag people really want flexibility. They are concerned. And They don't seem to be too concerned about the other stakeholders. And so the risks really have to be measured. And I encourage you to use your authority, the extent that you have. I know you don't have a lot of power, but don't let Chico get siloed off by the county where you're over here and it's not our issue. It is. It's all of our issues. I just want to make one more point. The property owners in the city of Chico, over $11 billion. There is value here that needs to be paid attention to. Thank you.

Commissioner Thomas-Petty?

I just want to let the speakers know that this whole item really is not an action item for us. The only action we can take is to recommend that staff send some of our comments to the VINA GSA. So that's the only action we can take. and I'm hoping that we will move and have some comments that we'd like, kind of consolidated comments to send to VINA, GSA, but that's the only action that we can take. So just a little reminder.

Thank you. Kathleen?

Next we have Katie Hawley, followed by William Haley. Thank you.

Hi, cousin.

Hello, my commissioners. It's so exciting to see you all in action. I'm Katie Hawley. I'm a Chico City Council member representing District 5. Especially thank you to the person I appointed, Ms. Thomas Petty. Thank you for serving. Just a couple of comments here as I am the City of Chico representative serving on the Vina GSA Board of Directors. First of all, after observing some of the questioning, I do want to point out that staff is beholden to the Vina GSA Board of Directors. And electeds love to use their staff members as a punching bag for the decisions that they have made. So although your reactions are completely valid for the presentation that you received, I do want to recognize the people responsible for these decisions are the Vina GSA Board of Directors, which includes myself. Secondly, the GDE analysis conducted thus far has severe limitations. I really appreciated Commissioner Nava's line of questioning that was passed on from a constituent, I assume, because that is... extremely representative of the analysis that's been conducted so far. A lot of other sub-basins used a more interdisciplinary approach using field ecologists looking for GDE indicator species, implementing that into their GDE analyses, and that's a methodology that we elected not to take. that hopefully we could take in the future. And then I also want to point out that LMLs, local management levels, are presented somewhat as a substitute for minimum thresholds, whereas LMLs are actually legally non-committal as minimum thresholds are committal. So I do want to create that distinction for you all. I also want to point out that the VINA GSA recently took action not to remove non-dry year language from their new GSP submission, although it isn't finalized. That's really concerning because it means if we surpass minimum thresholds during a non-dry year, that no action is taken. And that goes directly against the recommended corrective actions that DWR submitted to the VINA GSA. So I'm concerned that the plan we resubmit won't even be accepted by DWR. So my hard ask is to consider submitting a comment to the Vina GSA stating that they need to consider diverse beneficial uses when setting sustainable management criteria, especially shallow agricultural well users. They have not been considered nearly at all in the stakeholder advisory committee or in their public comment. Agricultural users are not a monolith, and a lot of them are on shallow wells. That's the extent of my comments, and thank you all so much for listening.

Excuse me. Sorry, Ms. Hawley. Sorry. Do you want to go ahead and leave that part paraphrased or however that you would like passed along as a recommendation that you just made that last part? Yep, sure. Yep, that would be preferred. Thank you.

Anyone else? Do we have more speakers?

Final speaker we have is William Haley.

First of all, thank you for letting me speak, and also for serving to protect our park, which is a huge responsibility and respect. Like I say, I'm William Haley. I'm a domestic well user. I grew up in Glen County, lived in Butte County for the last 60 years, Glen and Butte County. Basically, the purpose of my presentation today is just to share my perspective and to give plenty of time to listen to yours. This is my perspective. The GSE is controlled by big ag, we know that. Big Ag's the economic driver of Butte County. And I don't know the specific overall economic value, but I know in addition to hundreds of million dollars of subsidies, I think they're doing pretty good. They have and will continue to dominate any usage decision. And to tell you the truth, for now 100 years or whatever, large landowners, big ag, has controlled groundwater usage. And they've done not a very good job. And anybody can see, drive across the county, Butte County, whatever, miles and miles and miles of almonds and walnuts, even on the west side where it was a very dry area and wells are going deep. There's orchards and orchards going on. So there's not a concern that they're expressing. As we know, Oaks rely on that minimum threshold. I won't discuss it. It's already been discussed. But I do really want to emphasize that I really believe it's an existential problem for Bidwell Park. Climate scientists, many of them are predicting by 2050 that we will have Baja-like weather. Nine to 12 inches of rain, earlier onset of winter, later onset of spring. less snowpack, which means less groundwater, which means low water for everybody. And like we know, groundwater is flowing. And it's not, if you're sitting on one good pod, you're good, as you know. Anyway, I would urge you to do, of course, support the GDEs. And also, I think the only way we're going to impact Big Ag is to demand that they monitor their well usage and report. Imperial Valley, some of those areas have really been struck with them, just devastated. That's what they had to do. They had to adjudicate that. And, you know, not only does it give us a real-time data, no estimates, no trial wells, no spots like that.

Sir, you're getting off topic and you're out of time.

So that's it for me.

Okay, thank you. comments, questions from the commission. Okay, I think this is an action. This is not an action item. I think we've provided a quite a bit of ammunition for Richie to provide some input. I think he's We reinforced a lot of what he had put out there. So any comments from the commission? Good. Okay. So I guess we will move on. Parks Division report. I'm sorry, what?

I think that we did want to move to pass on some comments to Vina GSA. Can I come grab that?

Well, this is not an action item. No, it's information only.

We were requested to receive the presentation, take public comments, and provide direction to staff regarding any comments the Commission wishes to have transmitted to the VINA GSA in advance of release of the draft periodic evaluation. So I want to move that some comments come from the Commission and are forwarded to VINA GSA. But I want to grab... the little blurb that Councilmember Hawley wrote up to add to my motion, please.

Second. I mean, this may be a moot point. Is there any question among staff as to what the direction and the concerns of the Commission are?

I can see how it would be a little bit confusing because it does say information only. However, it was posted under the regular agenda, so the commission may provide comments as they see fit to be passed along.

Okay, but I don't think a motion is in order because I believe this was an information only item, and I would assume that, well, I won't assume anything because I know what that does, but is there... Any question among staff as to what the direction of the commission is?

We've taken the election. I'll also add that, of course, all of the comments tonight are public record as well. So all of the comments that have been said from the commissioners as well as the public are all available. Okay.

So I believe the motion is out of order.

I'm following the recommendation of staff that's in the staff report here.

If I can chime in, with the city being a JPA member of GSA, staff will be passing along the comments. A motion is not needed for us to do that.

Okay, I just had two that I thought maybe kind of encapsulated our main concerns, and I wanted to make sure that Councilmember Hawley's comment was included. She did read it into the record. This is assuming that the VINA GSA is going to go through and either watch this meeting or, I mean, I would not assume that. Well, I'm going to go ahead and make my motion, and if it's out of order, it's out of order. I want to move that staff forward these two recommendations to Vina GSA. Number one, that they, in their report, classify Bidwell Park and Chico's Urban Forest as GDE. Number two, I'm going to read from Councilmember Hawley. Consider diverse beneficiary uses within the City of Chico when setting sustainability management criteria in the GSD update, namely shallow well agricultural users, domestic well users, cultural, tribal, groundwater users, and environmental users.

I'll second it, even if it is out of order.

I'd like to suggest an additional comment. Richie, in your staff report, you mentioned a couple of projects, and I think that, Laura, you mentioned them as well, and it wasn't clear to me whether those, I know the designation of a project means something different now than in the initial GSP, and so I was wondering if VINA has indicated whether they intend to adopt those as projects?

I believe at the 8-12 meeting, those projects were adopted, but they were reclassified as other projects because they're led by other agencies.

Other meaning like compared to planning or implementation? I'm going to clarify.

Thanks, Cammie. Good evening. Cammie Loser, Director of Water and Resource Conservation. And I'm here as a member agency, just as you guys are also a member agency. So... David Keene represents City of Chico. So the other projects classification is just the way projects are working in the GSP at this time is if you identify it as a project or management action, it is something that is tracked at the state level. So we had the other projects that were identified. They will go into the GSP, so they will be listed there. We just don't track them in their project manual. So they are something that could be implemented at any time. So that's one of the things I would recommend as one member agency to another member agency is that you ask the GSA to focus on the implementation of some of those projects that specifically address the Chico management area, like the urban forest vulnerability assessment. Or the city should also be focusing on recharge projects or Focusing on the implementation of its stormwater resources plan, which has a lot of recharge projects. One of the things that was really demonstrated in that presentation is that there is a shallow groundwater system that the oaks are likely tapping into. Whether it's a GDE that's connected to the overall regional aquifer or if it's just a perched aquifer. So understanding that more will help be able to plan into the future the urban forest and the park. So I think that is something that the city should be focusing on the implementation of under the umbrella of SGMA as if it's applicable. It's very important. Actually, some of the pictures that you saw in the presentation are my backyard, which is Butte or Bidwell Park. So I just, I would... In Richie's summary of your comments and the comments received by the public, it could be a memo that is exactly like the way the management committee presents things to the GSA board, which is a summary of the comments that you received tonight, because many of the people here tonight that commented. have those same comments at the GSA meetings, in our meetings when we have, when the management committee has met with the different users, that way the GSA knows that These groups are moving from one commission or entity to another, trying to address their concerns, and this is another venue in which they have been able to do that with something that can come from this commission. Sounds like you support... some of those comments that have been said that can go into Richie's comment letter that can then be moved on to the board. And they can receive it just like the management committee summarizes in the staff reports that go to the board. And that's how I would characterize it if I were Chico's staff bringing something to the Vina GSA board.

Great. Thank you, Cami. I appreciate that. And it reminds me that, you know, we're taking a pretty narrow look at the GSP today. We're just really focused on Bidwell Park and there has been a lot of work done. And I think intense conversations, really deep conversations like this about a wide range of topics and a big body of work. A lot has been learned. A lot was learned in the five years or so that it took to develop the plan. A lot has been learned in the subsequent five years, the five years that we just wrapped up, and a lot will be learned over the next five years too. So yeah, Richie, I think those projects are important and that that would be a priority for Chico. I think with Prop 4 grant funding too, hopefully there will be funding opportunities to help offset some of the costs of those in the near future. So thank you for your work on this, Richie. Appreciate it.

Okay, we have a motion and a second.

Comment on the motion? Okay. I would like to offer a friendly amendment that our recommendations go to the city council, not the GSA. We're not authorized to speak on behalf of the city, and if we send them directly, it's going to be confused that somehow we're speaking on behalf of the city council and we're not authorized to do that. So our comments should go to the city council, not directly to the GSA. Okay.

How does that work mechanically, Richie?

I can follow the logic of that approach.

Okay. Do you accept the amendment?

Well... If our comments go to Council, what I tried to do is encapsulate the main concerns we had from this meeting. That's it. You know, so I don't know why that has to go to Council. All I tried to do was, again, condense it down to a couple recommendations. Okay, well, that's it. Well, if you don't feel like that's the proper, if that's the proper move, then you can vote no on my motion.

Well, that's what we're going to have to do. If she's not going to accept the amendment, then we're going to have to vote on the motion as proposed that it go directly to the GSA. Madam Clerk.

Commissioner Inaba.

I usually like going first tonight, not so much. Wow. I was set to be a yes, but I would like to see it go to council first. You know, can you, are you willing to reconsider that one, Megan? Council, I mean, the commissioner.

Let's just move the procedure, Nicole. Okay.

If it was just questions, I would give it a yes, but because there's recommendations in there, I concur with Marty, so I'm going to be a no then.

Commissioner Nichols?

No, for the reasons stated.

Commissioner Paiva? I'm going to say yes.

This body has the ability to speak for Bridwell Park.

Commissioner Shearer?

Oh, sorry, abstain. I don't think we should make a motion.

Commissioner Thomas-Petty? Yes. Vice Chair Blatchley?

I think that incorporating Councilwoman Haley's suggestion, that is the City Council's business, not ours. So I would say we stick to specific issues that are Bidwell Park, such as Richie's memo and...

Unfortunately, that's not the motion we have. Okay. We can get there, but we have to resolve this motion first.

I'm going to abstain from that vote. No, I'm going to vote no.

And Chair Willis?

No. Should we try again? Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a substitute motion that the comments to the commission be forwarded to the City Council for their consideration and referral to the Vina GSA regarding the impact of this plan on the urban forest in Chico.

I can give that one a second.

Okay, it's been regularly being moved and seconded. This is sent to the City Council to be forwarded to the GSA.

Can I ask a clarifying question? I don't know what comments that means. I don't know if that means all the comments we've made or just the couple that Commissioner Thomas-Petty shared.

I believe that staff is going to distill our comments as the gist of the motion and then forward them to the...

In my mind, the principal point of this motion is to tell the City Council we're concerned about the impact of this plan on the urban forest and that further serious evaluation needs to be taken before this thing is adopted. That's my simplified version of it.

Okay. Okay. Any further comments? Okay, let's try a vote on this one.

All right, Commissioner Nava? Yes. Commissioner Nichols?

Aye.

Commissioner Paiva?

Yes.

Commissioner Shearer?

Yes.

Commissioner Thomas-Petty? Yes. Vice Chair Blashley?

I'm going to abstain because I still don't know what it is worth submitting to the City Council.

And Chair Willis? Yes. Okay. Motion passes.

Moving right along. Park Report?

Thank you, everybody. Quick report from the parks. Upper Park parking lot B paving has been completed. The striping will be taking place this week. At parking lot E, the new sign has been installed. It replaces the old wood sign that had to be removed to allow for crane passage for the Iron Canyon Fish Passage Project. The new sign was funded by Caltrout as part of that project. The Iron Canyon Fish Passage Project is looking to be complete with in-stream work this year. This includes moving the crane to the lower crane pad, dewatering a 150-foot stretch of creek, and making minor modifications to a few select boulders. In-stream work should be done by October 1st. After that, it'll be clean up the bluff with removal of all equipment and materials. with the rock and gravel being the exception. The crane pad will remain in place until next summer, and then that will be removed and the buff will be restored. We've been grazing goats in Middle Park. That is now complete, and now they have been moved to Lindo Channel. They will graze between Mancini to Avenue to Madrone. Transfer Depot Park to Card. The transfer documents are being finalized, and the transfer is on track to be complete September of 2026. In Caber Acres, the perimeter fence has been installed. Humpty Dumpty has been repainted and repaired. New signage has been placed at the entrance and at the bike racks. A new map has been placed in the kiosk. Repairs have been made to the birdcage. Improvements to birthday ring to continue. And discussion with Rotary and high school students are occurring to select a date for the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the new fence and display of students' artwork. For Sycamore Pool, the final pool cleaning for the season occurred on August 27th. Water quality testing will continue daily until after Labor Day and then move to a weekly schedule. For maintenance in lower park, the privacy screens were installed itself 1 mile bathrooms in front of the men's and women's bathrooms. Park crew along additional with additional help, remove all the pool spoils from the reconstruction area off South Park drive to avoid excessive wear and tear of the new road. They installed permanent updated E. coli signs on the lifeguard chairs around the pool. Park staff assisted with the repaving of the bike path behind Caper Acres. And staff fabricated the framework and installed new signage at the entrance of Caper Acre. In Middle Park, staff found and cleared a buried and plugged culvert and then built a drained inlet to keep the trails from flooding. They also found and repaired a large water leak near Five Mile. In Upper Park, crews set rocks along the perimeter of the newly paved parking lot B to stop people from driving in the grassy wildland areas. They also poured three concrete slabs in Upper Park and will be installing bear-proof trash cans on them within the next week. And the park staff also assisted and cross-trained doing asphalt on Lot B. The park staff also assisted in a homeless camp cleanup of Lindo Channel. And upcoming projects, staff will be installing new Bidwell Park entrance signs at the north and south one mile. Crew members will be assisting the setting of trail marker signs on Upper Park and North Rim Trail as well. FOR THE VOLUNTEER PROGRAM. CHICO VELOS IS SEEING A VOLUNTEER WHO HIS EAGLE SCOUT PROJECT IS INSTALLING THOSE SIGNS ON NORTHROOM TRAIL AND THEY WILL BE INSTALLING SIX NEW SIGNS SOON. CAVE IS COMING BACK AGAIN THIS SEMESTER THEY WILL WORK EVERY FRIDAY WITH STAFF THROUGHOUT THE SEMESTER WORKING ON VEGETATION MANAGEMENT IN LOWER BEDWELL PARK. We'll also continue our partnership with CSU Chico where the RHPM department has adopted a spot and they will come out three work days in the fall semester focusing on vegetation management, invasive species removal, and general restoration. We also had Upward Bound come out on July 10th and they had over 150 volunteers join city staff to work on vegetation management. PALS program is doing great. The volunteers continue to work on many projects. Recently, we had two retired carpenters working on various projects, including kiosk restoration, one mile and cedar grove repairs to the birdcage and cable acres, as well as bench repair in the world of trees. I would like to bring up that the Butte Environmental Council annual creek cleanup is coming up on September 19th. And if anybody wants to come and help with that or spread the word, all the information there is available on the BEC website as they run that event. And then the city supports that event by assisting cleaning up a hot spot over off of Bidwell Avenue. For donations, we got our annual monthly donation for $250 from Peter Washington. There was also an additional $10,000 donation for vegetation management and another $10,000 donation for trails that was received in August. Summary of volunteer hours. In July, we had 464 volunteer hours. In August, we had 446 for a total of over 910 volunteer hours. For cleanup totals, we had a total of 303 hours and a total of 43 tons of trash removed from the parks and greenways. And that concludes my report. Okay. Nicole?

Nicole? I have a few questions for you. Sorry. So on the part about the art installation at Caper Acres, I had heard there was maybe a little bit of a delay where they didn't know. We didn't know if they were like over the finish line to try to identify a date. So has that progressed then where we believe they are done with the fabrication and it would be ready for installation and you just are trying to agree on a date or are we still working on that?

I'm not sure.

You know, the welding that they've been doing for the kind of pieces that are going to be attached to the fence, is my understanding, or to the structures, are the high school students actually done with that work?

They're in conversation right now, and Shane's kind of the lead on that one, so he'd be a better person. Maybe send him an email, and he might have much better specifics than I would.

Okay, I was hoping it would move based off what you said, but maybe not. Park Ranger update, like tonight with hearing concerns yet again on enforcement, I haven't heard an update since I last heard the chief kind of allude to a plan he hoped he could advance. I might have missed something because I did not catch one of the recent council meetings. So apologies if this was covered, but is that coming to us?

You haven't missed anything. That's the latest update we have as well. Staff is certainly sensitive to all the comments and the thoughts around enforcement. And I'll just say that it appears we're in a bit of a transition period at the moment. So we will await further updates on that.

Okay. The other thing is Lindo Channel piece. So I know we had the emergency declaration have been cleared. And since that is our purview, because it is part of our area, I'm concerned because there was like literally a couple days after that was cleared, there was a fire there already. And someone I know actually had to call it in and live was seeing stuff. So Is there immediate enforcement that is happening because I heard eight people reoccupied it like literally two days later under the Holly Bridge?

Right, so any enforcement would obviously be subject to the Warren settlement.

Okay, it is even with the emergency ordinance that they just did regarding the fires.

Right. So, you know, the emergency ordinance doesn't subvert the Warren settlement agreement terms.

Thank you for that. Interesting. Last is a positive with a question. Love, love, love. Like, oh, my God, for the repaving, it's awesome. Striping, awesome. I hope all the ballplayers are extremely happy or will be when they're reoccupying it. One concern I have is on the pathway that runs between Cape Breakers and the creek. Before that pathway would take a beating when they would go to collect the trash, which of course is a necessary service. Could we maybe pivot and use like an extended golf cart or something to collect so we're not putting so much weight on a sensitive pathway? It's not super.

Yeah, they are not driving large trashed vehicles through there anymore. They're using a smaller vehicle. Great to hear.

Thank you.

All right.

Love it. Love all of it. Well, since I've been given the gavel, I'll make a comment. I was there with the crews at Lindo Channel when they were cleaning up, and my compliments to them. They had a very difficult job, and I just couldn't believe how well, how professional they were and what they did. So please let them know. Impressive group.

We will definitely let them know. Thank you.

Yes. Geez, I've never done this before. All right, so I think we're through there. Richie, it's your time.

Vice Chair Blatchley, thank you so much. My report's a little briefer. Over the summer, the tree crew, tree division... It's contractors. We've been working hard to get pretty much as much work done as we can while Chico State was out and the schools were out. So I'm very proud of the work we achieved. Tremendous amount of tree pruning and removals were done. to take advantage of the quieter atmosphere in the town. So our contractors, North Valley Arbor Management and About Trees were able to prune all of the cross streets in the south campus. down from 2nd Street all the way down to 8th, you know, Highway 32. So approximately 450 trees pruned. So the elevated deadwood removed generally just to increase the safety of that neighborhood. And 25 removals as well. And they were stump ground. So they'll be replanted in the fall or the spring of next year. In-house, similar line of work, our tree crews worked on safety work around all of the elementary schools in the town to improve visibility of crosswalks and stop signs and signal heads, just wherever vegetation was blocking access. those sight lines. So they did a tremendous amount of work. So that was really good to see. And we'll try and keep on top of that because obviously the trees grow back and block the stop signs again. So we'll keep on top of that. We also finished the tree pruning on the northern edge of the park. So that looks tremendous. And that was with our backup contractor. And they also did ongoing removals around the city. Approximately 60 trees were removed. that were either dead or dying. And again, they've been stump ground, so they'll be on the replant list coming up this next season. We also were involved with the Park Avenue beautification project. That's a project Caltrans funded project. Engineering is the main lead on that, but we did assist in helping to ensure that the landscape was installed correctly. And that's being done now, more or less completed. I think they're just finishing up irrigation. Things like that, and it looks great. So, you know, please take a drive down Park Avenue. And if only to see the new art that's been installed, it's tremendous, really nice. And that was with the local rainforest. Of course, I forget the name now of the local. a shop that does the the stained glass artifacts so there's some wonderful pollinator based sculptures and you know dragonflies and butterflies and things yeah the rainforest alliance is that right no rainforest project something like that we'll we'll put it in the minutes once i figure out the correct name rainforest something i just can't remember Upcoming, we will be doing removals at the Chico Nature Centre. So if you've been there, you will see the white Xs on the trees. That work was put on hold because there was that grey-horned owl that refused to leave. Now, thankfully, the young ones are all growing up and they've fledged, so... we have the opportunity now to do that work. We have had some questions why, and no doubt that will pick up once the work starts. So the explanation we're giving is that We've been monitoring that small grove of cedar trees that's directly adjacent to one of the buildings, and we've been pruning them. We did heavy pruning about four years ago. A tremendous amount of weight was taken off those trees. But some of them have a lean that I'm not comfortable with. So if they were to fail, most likely in a storm, they would come down right onto the building and that would be catastrophic. We did consider only removing some of the trees, but that then creates instability for the trees that would be remaining. So it unfortunately has to be like an all or nothing scenario. I'm talking about six trees, but they will make quite a big impact in the parking lot. It'll be very obvious that those trees have been removed. But those trees along with there's about half a dozen other trees in the Chico Nature Center campus that we'll remove because they're just dead, dying. So this is all in conjunction with the parking lot resurface that's part of the South Park Drive resurfacing that we already have. So later in the year, the parking lot will be upgraded. So with the tree work on the back of that, it'll really transform Chico Nature Centre. So it'll be great to see that happen. My ongoing work from the, like, regulatory point of view, we're having ongoing discussions with PG&E. The pendulum seems to swing back and forth between good relations and not so good, though currently we seem to be having more tension with regards to their communication and the information flow regarding trees that they would like to remove. In the past we have asked for a simple arborist report that just explains the rationale PG&E seem to have heard to be reluctant to provide that information. So I am looking to host meetings again with PG&E local leadership in the vegetation management field and just try and establish that communication because it does seem to have broken down again. The city is opposed to removing trees that do not need to be removed. You know, while we recognize that PG&E reports to the CPUC and has a job to do in terms of preventing contact with live utility lines, sometimes the methods seem to be more than what is legally required. So we're constantly... trying to walk the line with them and make sure that they do what is required but no more so hopefully I have a report for you on that perhaps at the next meeting that we once again have good communication lines and we all understand the work that needs to be done and plus I've been working on VINA stuff as you may have noticed it's taken up quite a lot of time That's the end of my report. I'd be happy to take any questions.

I just have one thing. I just wanted to thank you for all the Vina stuff. I hope that we were able to ask the right questions and speak well for the park and for our trees, but it's all due to you and your diligence in helping for us, those of us that needed to be made experts. I hope we did the right thing, but thank you for all your hard work, really, very much. And just to clean up the record, it's the Rainforest Art Project. There you go. Thank you. Just to stick that in there. And Commissioner Paiva has an early appointment in the Bay Area, so she had to leave. But really, thank you all for being here. And Richie, thank you again.

Okay. The moment we have all anticipated has arrived. We are adjourned until September 28th.