Parks, Arts, & Community Services Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening, and welcome to the March 13 meeting of the Parks and Community Services Commission. We will begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. And Commissioner Hewson, would you mind leading us? Thank you. Ms. Futura, would you do the roll call, please?

Yes. Let the record reflect all commissioners are present.

Excellent. Okay. This is my first meeting as chair, so bear with me. Will do my best to keep the train on the tracks. We begin the meeting with public comments on those items not listed on the agenda. Is there anyone in the chambers who would like to comment on an item that is not on the current agenda? I see a comment.

I would also like to state we did receive correspondence, and that's also available on the city website.

Thank you.

Mr. Taboda, your mic is on when you're ready.

I'm not sure. Is this maybe this is new business number two? I'm talking about capital.

Probably. Is there anyone in the chambers? Mister Glab?

Hey, guys. Remember me?

Welcome back.

So, I heard you guys canceled the January 19 meeting. That would have been my last meeting, and the rumor was is that because I had a real emotional saying goodbye, and they didn't wanna see grown men cry while I was saying so long. So I just wanted to let you know that I had a great experience serving on the commission, and it was fun getting to know you and seeing the the inner workings of the city and the parks department. And I just wanted to thank got to know mister Ryan, miss Fetua, miss Felizenor. I wish I would've got to know you a little bit more, director Gruner, and Sung Young.

I didn't mess that up, did I? But you're a good man. I love I love that guy back there. So anyway, I just wanted to say thanks. I just felt the commission thing wasn't in my wheelhouse. I'm more of an educator and a coach, and I'm gonna continue to stay on that pathway and and and serve kids. But oh, and by the way, Liz, it was great working with us side by side with you. It looked like we were the only ones left after four years of serving. So and keep me posted about the dogs off leash. Today, I was attacked by two pit bulls with my dog that were not on leash.

And I'll tell you, there was no kung fu moment like the movies. I was freaking out, and luckily, we got away without a scratch, but they both come after us. The guy was walking his pit bulls down the street, and I walked across them just in the wrong time, wrong moment. Anyway, keep me posted on that kind of stuff if you're working on it. Love to work with you on that. But anyway, thanks for everything you guys. I appreciate you, and and keep working hard. You're doing good things for the city. Alright. Thank you. Bye bye.

Thank you for that. Miss Fotua, is there anyone on Zoom who would like to comment? We have Zoom.

Yes. I have Cynthia McDonald.

Good evening, Cynthia.

Good evening, commissioners. Cynthia McDonald, Costa Mesa resident. For some time, I've been looking at the department reports focusing on what, if anything, is going on with Palorino Park, and the answer is nothing. The picnic shelter is rarely used by the public for special events, and that is why it never appears on the list of permits. My observation of park usage is that it is mostly used for a pathway between Paulorino And Cheyenne Street. There's play equipment, but it doesn't get used much. I don't take my five year old grandson there for one reason. It doesn't have any restrooms. It also doesn't have a water station. But here's a little history for you.

This is a small park next to Palorino Elementary School that originally had a low fence between it and the school. The higher fences around the school had some gates, but they weren't locked, so the schoolyard was also used by residents as a park and place for things like little league practice and early morning runs. Many years ago, the neighborhood was largely Caucasian. Gradually, the demographics of the apartments and homes shifted to a more diverse population. It was about this time that the Minutemen movement and its followers started popping up in Costa Mesa.

Xenophobia took over, and the principal at Paul Arena School at the behest of a couple local racist had a new taller fence installed between the park and the school and gates to the schoolyard were locked. The city removed the restrooms from the park. Yes. There originally were restrooms and water fountains. I asked the city reinstall the restrooms and add a water station.

The water and electricity are still there. It would also be helpful if the city would pursue restoring access to the schoolyard. This would make the park more usable. I wanna add that the sidewalk is heavily cracked in a spot near Cheyenne Street and that there is a tree that appears to be dead and needs to be removed. Thanks for listening.

Thank you. Are there any other participants on Zoom?

No other members.

Okay. Thank you. At this point, we can turn to commissioner comments and suggestions. And why don't we start at the end with Commissioner Dorne Parker.

Thank you. Great job running the meeting. Very awesome. So I just kind of have three comments, one with with mister Geb. It's one of the things that we really do need to work on is dogs off leash.

And I'd love to say that we're getting better with it, but it's actually taken a backward set. So one of the things that I think we really need to figure out is, first of all, we have to protect the children playing in the playgrounds. And I do know that there is a kind of a movement growing in urban areas to put low fencing around the playground space. So I'd like and I know that that's not on our CIP, but I'd like that to be added to the list and figure out, especially those parks. Harper, I think some of the other parks, Wilson, have a lot of dog use.

Lindbergh is the one I know. And to to get an analysis of which parks and we can start with a temp you know, like a template and figure out which parks have the most need for it. Because the other option is to figure out mini dog parks, that takes a lot more time, and that's a lot more effort to try to figure out how these fences would work with sprinkler systems and things. But I really would like to see that start small, smart one demonstration area, and then we move because I do know the dogs off leash is in my community and now the one I represent. Every time I go places, people are always saying there's so many dogs off leash.

And we have a dog park, but we also know that a lot of dog residents don't want to use the dog park for a lot of reasons. So dogs off leash, the other one is I'm really excited to have participated in the pickle bar, Enlighted Quartz. As all you know, was pickleball, dogs off leash. So I'm really excited that the residents have been really the priority and not necessarily out of the area, out of the city people. So that was really good. So I just wanted to let you know that I know those of you who worked me a while, that that's been good. But other than that, that's it for me today.

Commissioner Kamala.

All right. Busy first thirty days. Just I want to say thank you to everyone who's helped me get onboarded. Definitely, director Gruner has just been super accessible with anything I need and just partnering on things that have kinda fallen on my lap. And Councilmember Pettis, Councilmember Bewley, Mayor Stevens just forwarded any concerns that they see to follow-up on.

And I think Jen Tanaka brought up Harper Park last week. Had a chance to meet with her, walk the park, walk through some issues. She sent me a lot of stuff about the joint use agreements. And Commissioner Parker, thank you for taking time out to chat with me and get me up to speed on all those things. So I have some ideas.

I think we have a a chat session set up with council member Pettis as well to brainstorm and see what next steps are there. I also wanna say thank you to Matt Garcia from Harbor Storing Society and Kim from the Fairview Park Alliance. Met with them, spent some time watching some planes, checked out the park. Kids are cool, they're upset that there's no slides at Fairview Park, so had to take them somewhere else. And then for Moon Park, something that I saw was on public comment too. Got to spend two days there. Thank you, Councilmember Bewley, for bringing that to my attention. I know it's not in my district coverage, but it is in District 1 where I live. So got to see some things there, took some pictures. My kid climbed the moon.

I don't know if you can, and I don't think you're supposed to. But I was able to test out the three eleven app of some things that I saw in there. So just a lot of learning this first thirty days. So thank you to everybody.

Thank you. Commissioner Ledger.

So kind of ironic that we're starting the meeting off talking about dogs off of leashes. I spent the last month visiting the parks in District 2, and at every single park, there was dogs off leashes. And at one park, there was dog training there. Don't know if that is allowed, but there was an actual business there training dogs, and some of them were off the leash. But other than that, I thought that the parks were looking pretty nice. I was really happy with how clean they were, so appreciate the city staff for that. That's about it for now. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Let's go all the way to the end. Commissioner Houston.

Thank you. I wanted to say it's a pleasure to be here, and my first thirty days have been full of a lot of learning. I want to thank my colleague for pointing me to the open space master plan. That's been good for me to dive into. It's very very rich with information and candidly I didn't really have a good understanding of the parks and the recreation center and really all the inventory, let alone the management, service, funding, all of those things.

While it's been a good learning experience, I clearly still have a lot to go. As part of my learning process too, I've been making it a point to try visit the parks all throughout the city, especially the ones I don't normally go to. So my two boys who are two and four, they've been enjoying that process a lot. And I've been getting some good feedback from the insiders on the good park equipment and things like that. A couple of the projects that are upcoming that I'm very happy to see going forward are the Ketchum Wybolt Park.

We had a chance to go check that one out, and I think that that park is definitely in need of some love. And so I'm very excited to see that project going forward. I also know we'll be talking tonight about the skate park expansion, but that's another one that I'm very excited about. Spent a lot of time skateboarding as a kid and not so much these days because I get hurt too much. But anyways, I'm very excited to be part of the community that's pushing that forward. And then lastly, I want to thank the community members that show up regularly and give the comments. It's really inspiring to see how involved everybody is and good for me to get feedback as a commissioner too. Thanks.

Thank you. Commissioner Garcia Arcos.

Just an update for Know Your Rights. We have passed on the date to instead of April 4, it's gonna be April 11 from six to 9PM. So hopefully, if anybody's interested in seeing how that empowers the community, I would invite you all to come out. We have space in, Shalimar in Wallace where we'll be hosting. We are currently working on the flyer and really excited to work with, OC Resilience who have been partnering up with us to take care of that.

I had the opportunity to also meet with Mr. And as part of the board for Bright Youth. We're really excited to collaborate with the city and see how we can reconnect the community that is in dire need at this moment to connect in different ways with the youth as well as community members and hopefully we can bring different alternatives and bring that brightness in Shalimar and other neighboring communities hopes that we can duplicate that throughout the city. So yeah, thank you.

Thank you. Vice Chair Wright.

Good evening, everyone. Happy to see you all. I had a good month since our last meeting. I really enjoyed our agenda prep meeting, first time as vice chair. So thank you for joining us for that.

Without touching on anything we're going to discuss later tonight, something I've been thinking about is how our commission we serve at the pleasure of city council. We're each appointed by a city council member. And I think we could all do a better job of just reporting to our respective council members and really making sure that they are aware of everything we're working on, what we're talking about. And I think the onus is on us to be looking at the city council agendas to make sure that we're bringing information relevant to our commission to the forefront of their minds as they're being presented. It's not always sometimes it's months apart that we have learned about something, and then it's finally coming to them.

So I'm really grateful. Mayor Stevens and I, we get breakfast once a month. I feel like having something recurring on the calendar is really helpful. And so I would encourage you all to schedule some type of recurring meeting with your council members to make sure that you are keeping them on the loop and being proactive keeping them in the loop and being proactive in that relationship. And a perfect example of that is they just had a study session on the budget and the city's finances.

We will all be better commissioners if we stay on top of things like that that they're getting presented as well. So that is my kind of more general comment for today, and looking forward to our meeting. Thank you.

Thank you. Just a few comments. One is definitely unrelated to really what we do here in PACS, but I just want to note it. Was really and Director Gruner, can help me with the name again. I've been really pleased to see the social media, some changes in the city's social media of late. It just feels a bit more it has a bit more vitality. It feels a bit more just kind of of the moment, which is me not saying youthful, but just kind of of the moment. So I just really want to appreciate that. And his name is Matt Vito. So I just want to say, if you haven't noticed, check it out.

And they even just posted something about the skate park that I just really appreciated. It felt different. And so there was the video, but there was also just a flyer. So I just want to note that. And I think that's great. And to go further, to be edgier, to push more. So love that. I'm really excited about the skate park. I will hold my comments until we get to that point in the agenda. But Vice Chair Wright, in response to some of your comments, I think you make a good point about staying in communication with our city council members.

Ran into the mayor last night at the skate park meeting, and he just encouraged all of us commissioners to reach out to him on an individual basis, to talk with him. He's very interested in that. He wants our engagement. So I would take that as an open invite directly from the mayor. You should feel free.

And I'm going to take him up on that offer at some point as well. I did tune into the City Council budget session on Tuesday, and if you get a chance to listen to it, it actually was fairly short, worth tuning into. Heard a lot of different things, but just a couple of the things that I want to highlight for this meeting is that one the through lines through a lot of the comments that I heard the city council make was that they wanted a bit more understanding of the context for certain projects, for certain CIP projects, and they wanted a reminder of the history. And so I think that's something that I'll speak for myself. I personally am interested in for CIP, so I won't get into that.

I know we're going to talk about it, but that was something that came from the council. And there was a specific call from one city council member for commissions and committees to weigh in on priorities around CIP. So I just want to point that out that at the city council level, they're really interested in grappling with options and thinking about priorities. And that there is also an interest in getting commissions and committees involved in that as well. So I think that will come up later, so I won't talk too much about it.

The last thing I would say are just two very gentle requests for city staff. I'm thinking about Ms. Tanaka's comments from last meeting about the minutes and wondering if we could prioritize getting the older minutes online. Because especially and I'm thinking about this in terms of a conversation the vice chair and I just had. Is helpful for those of us who don't take notes electronically and then can do a keyword search.

It's helpful to actually have those minutes to go to and to look through. And then my other request and I know we've talked about this, but I think I need the agenda a bit earlier. If I could get the agenda the weekend before so I have the weekend to prep. And I'll just say that as a working parent, it's really helpful to have the weekend to do that work. So just a gentle request as we can, and especially for those meetings where there's a lot of information, that would be super helpful.

I think that's it. Any final words before we move to the consent calendar? Okay. We're going to move to the consent calendar, which includes the minutes and the department report. We typically just receive and file unless someone has questions or comments or would like to make edits.

Anything from any of the commissioners? Okay. Do I need a motion? I need a motion to receive and file. Would someone like to make a motion and a second? It looks like we have a motion and a second.

Commission may vote on your dice. Motion carries seven-zero.

Thank you. Okay. We can move on to monthly reports. Director Greener, mic is yours.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and good evening, commissioners and community members. I do have an update. And here we go again with the clicker. Is it I don't see the It's not up. It's not up on the screen yet.

All right. Here we go. Okay. So as the vice chair has mentioned earlier as well as the chair, in regards to the workshop that occurred last Tuesday with the council and really focusing on the midyear budget. So for the fiscal year 'twenty four, adopted expenditures for citywide services was about $189,900,000 The general fund year end revenue projections are estimated to come in at $183,500,000 So that is a shortfall of about $6,400,000 And primarily the cause of that is a decrease in tax revenue from retail stores and car dealerships.

So I am thankful that we are being very, very proactive and trying to be on the forefront on this and come up with some strategies to obviously minimize any type of impact that the shortfall could have on the operation here in the city. And so what we're doing is a temporary reduction in capital improvement projects, so the CIPs, in addition to street sweeping costs deferred to the gas tax fund. So those are the primary measures that we're going to be utilizing to offset that shortfall. And then, of course, we're going have to continue monitoring it. It's actually in regards to timing, I mean, are going through the budget process right now so we can preplan our budget ahead of time for next year.

But I do want to make the commission aware as some of these impacts will affect, obviously, some of the potential construction projects or capital improvement projects that we're looking at for the future. And moving on. At the last commission meeting, did highlight that we were offering free swim lessons. And we started a pilot program with the Newport Mesa Unified School District as well as the local YMCA. And so it's now our turn on April 14 through May 23 at the Downtown Aquatic Center.

We do have 48 students already registered, which is great, which is actually the maximum that we can have. And we do have a waiting list in place. So in case something happens to some of the students that are registered, that we can fulfill that or fill that roster to the fullest capacity. So it's going to be I think I'm very excited for it. I think it's going be a great program.

It's kind of like a pilot program. And then this will kind of be providing us some opportunities to expand the program even further to more elementary schools. So I know it's something that we've been working on for quite some time. And we are very, very excited to be hosting this program. So there was a parent meeting last night or yesterday, I should say just to kind of discuss the expectations for the parents so that they're familiar with the protocol.

And that was held over at the aquatic center. And they were able to take a tour of the facility and get a better understanding of what the process is as we transport the students over. And then obviously, they would have to change into a swimsuit and also go into what programs we're going to be offering, besides the in water teachings, as well as doing some land teaching as well in regards to swimming. So I think it's going to be a great program. I know that a lot of kids and a lot of parents are really excited for it, as well as the school district and obviously the city.

Another update I want to present to you guys is a Wi Fi update. And this is very exciting. I know it may seem not that exciting, but it is exciting because now all of our facilities have Wi Fi capabilities, which we did not have before. And the last one to have that Wi Fi update is over at Belarick. And we do have some classroom programs that will definitely utilize the WiFi system that we weren't able to do before.

So that's why it's exciting to us that we can really kind of elevate our services over there to the community. And then moving forward, just a quick Fairview Park update. So right now, the Fairview Park master plan is tentatively scheduled for April 1 to go to council. And there will be provide some of the technical findings in addition to the present recommendations that was provided by the Fairview Park steering committee. And then also, obviously, there will be a discussion in regards to the HSS flyfield.

And that's been a very controversial topic. And hopefully, can find a resolution to that. We've been working quite extensively with HSS and the president, Matt Garcia, and really trying to see what resolution we can come up with that's going to be acceptable for not only them, but also for the park, and really provide that activity or continue providing that activity to the community. And then following that, just a quick update on the Mesa restoration project. So we kind of have to kind of postpone it a little bit just because of the nesting season.

So nesting season is pretty much from February until September. So our goal is to award the contract in August and then start the restoration project in September, October after the nesting season. And I do want to just provide a quick some highlights on some community outreach programs that we're doing. So the first one is going to be on Tuesday, March 25. And that's going to be the Balearic Blacktop, or the asphalt improvement project in the back in addition to getting some community input about adding some pickleball courts there as well.

So we're looking at adding two pickleball courts, but we do want to get some feedback from the community. So we did send out a mailer to the surrounding residents there. And we're hoping that we're going to get a good turnout. Again, it's Tuesday, March 25 at 6PM over at the Beleri Community Center. We'll have some light refreshments available for those residents who come out. Next up is our bike skills workshop. That's going to be held on Saturday, April 5, as well as May 10. On April 5, it's going to be at the Harbor Trinity Church. And then on May 10, it's going to be over at TeWinkle Park. And again, bike it's skills course.

We'll have some freebies such as helmets and also provide some bike repair services to those who are coming out and attending that program. And then last but not least, we do have our Safe Splash Bash that's going to be on Saturday, May 17. And this is really open to the general public. It's going be over at the Aquatic Center. And it's really just kind of kicking off water safety month.

And May is typically the water safety month. And just getting people ready and more thinking about the risks of water in general and when they're out there with their kids and what to look for, the signs of drowning, for example. As we know, drowning can happen within five seconds. And if parents aren't vigil, then that can happen really, really quick. So it's important that we try to educate the community as much as we can.

And so this is going be a great event, and hopefully a lot of people can come out for that. And again, I just want to highlight again our senior social services. It's a year round, no cost mental health service to seniors aged 50 and older. If you need more information, please visit the Costa Mesa Senior Center or give us a call at (714) 327-7550. Then last but not least, I do want to just highlight a few of the upcoming programs and events.

So the Color Rush teen event was actually rescheduled. It was supposed to happen this Saturday. But due to the rain, it's gonna be rescheduled to Sunday, March 30. And that's from twelve to three over at the Downtown Recreation Center. And then we're gonna have our Spring Fest on Saturday, April 19, from ten a. To two p. M. Over at Lions Park Event Lawn. And then, as I mentioned earlier, the Save Splash Bash event on May 17. So that concludes my presentation, and I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have.

May I start with Commissioner questions and then open up to the public? Is that okay, Ms. Fadua? Okay, thanks. Are there any Commissioner questions before I open it up?

Yes, Commissioner Ledger.

Oh, I was looking

to see if I had one.

Sorry. I actually

if there aren't any questions, I have a question a couple of questions. Actually, just one. How many kids are on the wait list for the swim lessons? Do we have any sense?

Yesterday, I know we had five, but that may have changed by today. So I can follow-up and get a more accurate number.

Okay. Good to know. Commissioner Ledger.

Sorry. So for the events like Walk More, Bike More, are you reaching out to the schools to get the word out? Or how are we inviting kids to that?

Yeah, I mean, that would be something that we would definitely be reaching out to the schools and trying to promote that activity or that event. And we do use PeachChar, where we can also reach out to students and families directly. So we do try to utilize whatever social media or whatever type of marketing avenue there is.

Are there other commissioner questions? Vice chair?

Yes, I do. Was wondering if you could so I think the SWIM program is a perfect example of us collaborating with the school district and addressing a really important need, especially in a beach adjacent city. So, was wondering if you could explain what a joint use agreement is to everyone, and especially with the comments about Paul Reno, and Harper is on all of our minds, and even Dogs Off Leash, which has caused park closures or not park closures, but contentions with the school district. My end question is actually just where are we at with the school district and joint use agreement for our parks or just a Harper solution, and how often are we meeting with the school district in various ways? Because in some ways, it seems like we have awesome collaboration, and then in others, we're still catching up.

Yeah, that's my broad question.

Yeah, yeah. A joint use agreement is basically an agreement between two entities. In this case, would be the city and the school district. And the benefit is they would generate some additional revenue, and we would have access to their sports fields. So that way it kind of opens up the sports fields to user groups to utilize, you know, whether it's soccer, lacrosse, you know, whatever, just additional sports programming.

And that's certainly something, obviously, that we have a high demand here in Costa Mesa. We have a lot of sports user groups. And so that collaboration is very, very important in that we really kind of keep that relationship in a positive manner. So we do meet pretty much on a monthly basis. Actually, there's multiple meetings depending if we were meeting with the superintendent or meeting with the maintenance manager, for example, of all the different fields that they have.

So I would say at least twice a month we meet with them, we have a very robust discussion. In addition to that, they also come to the youth sports council meetings. And that's where we collaborate with all the different user groups, such as AYSO, for example. Again, that's very important that we maintain those relationships and that communication line. Otherwise, it can get pretty ugly out there.

Some of these sports user groups, they're very, very territorial and demanding. And so it's important that we maintain those relationships. In regards to the contract itself, Monique, maybe you might know exactly. I know I think we have four years left until the renewal.

Yeah, our joint use agreement is renewed automatically unless either party chooses to. We do have an end date, but usually it's a verbal extension is usually how it's communicated. Our joint use is mainly, like Director Gruner said, for fields. It doesn't really apply to park space, so if that makes any sense. So parks like Harper, Lindbergh, those are all separate agreements that we have where the city negotiated at some point in time city to be able to utilize school district property as city park space.

So the joint use agreement does not pertain particularly to the park aspects to it, but more the fields and some other amenities that a user group or a city would a multipurpose room or a classroom where we have a joint need for something and vice versa. If they had a request for a room at NHCC, that we have that collaboration there. But it's mainly initiated because of the sports user groups.

That's so interesting. See, I just learned something new, too. And yeah, I just want to say to all the commissioners that that relationship is so important, because a lot of our neighborhoods don't have park space. They merely live close to a school that opens up their space to our residents. A lot of Harper is a perfect example of that. And a lot of schools in Westside as well. So, I think that's a really good topic to keep revisiting, especially with Harper still kind of up the air a bit.

Thank you. Are there any other commissioner questions? Yes.

Not so much a question, but in regards to the joint use agreement. I had a chance in the last thirty days to just kind of go through that as well, from like the original 1965 agreement from the public records request, the 2,006 updated agreement, read through Measure AA, just did a lot of digging. So there's a lot of gray area with the joint use agreement, I think. But as my kid just started AYSO two weeks ago, They are a vicious little four year old terrorist, so I understand the fear there. So there's a lot of information to unpack and I think specifically with Harper, there's a lot of dynamics of what we'll need there.

And transparently, like, getting to know district six a little bit more, I always assumed, you know, it's you know, it's it's got space. Right? But then when I started looking a lot at the residences in District 6, there's a lot of multiunit homes there that don't necessarily have the green space, and it needs that benefit and it needs those parks. So there's a lot to unpack I think in all those documents and I think if you guys ever want to I have those I can send them to you. It's some fun reading.

I think we're ready to open up to public comments on the director's report, if there are any public comments in the chambers. Are there any public comments on Zoom?

There are currently no members on Zoom.

Okay. Any other final thoughts, comments on the director's report?

Yeah, I have a question. Are your presentations, do they get attached in the minutes? Or can the public basically retroactively find your reports? Can make them Great.

We can make that available.

I'd like to request that. Thank you.

Okay. We do not have any old business on the agenda, so we will move to new business. Item number one is the conceptual plan for Costa Mesa Skate Park expansion, and I will turn this over to Director Setharaman.

Thank you, Chair Brown and Commissioners. We are excited to be here to talk about skate park expansion. So with that, let's go to the next slide. So, just a brief history on the skate park. So, it's built in 2005.

And, so, it's a 15,000 square foot existing facility. And, it has several features including a pool, a bowl, and street course with with sort of the small, you know, different elements within that one. So, couple of years ago, we Orange County supervisor fully contacted us about potential opportunities for grant funding through county ARPA and that that's American Rescue package funds. And so we got $2,000,000 allocated towards the skate park. She's very passionate about skate park and and we would like you to get that for that expansion.

So in 2023, we late two thousand twenty three, Consul awarded a contract to David Walls Design, DVD, and Spawn Ranch for design of the skate park. We are happy to have Brian from DVD here, and he'll be joining me in the presentation shortly. So, the design of this expansion project was initiated in early twenty twenty four. And so, we had two meetings to date. The first one was held on May 11 and it was very well attended with about 110 attendees.

And we got very good feedback from the community members, from the skate park users on what they want to see. We have a very passionate group of people and they wanna see different elements come know, other than what's already in the existing skate park. And and some of those elements are listed below, listed in this presentation. With that, so then, so the the consultant went back and did the design preliminary concept plan for the skate park. And we held the second committee meeting yesterday actually at at Davis Magnet School.

And the reason we are advancing so quickly to parks commission is because we want to get going with the design very quickly too. Because we have a deadline for this grant to get everything completed by late next year. So, it did the it was marketed well during various methods as chair Brown noted. We we did video present video of the meeting. We did different flyers and and again again it was the the proof is in in in the pudding when we had 95 members showed up for yesterday's meeting.

So it was the design was very well liked. A lot of people appreciate it. With the way we are headed towards the skate park. With that, let's go to the next one. With that, okay. With that, I'll have our consultant come over, Brian, and we'll start a video presentation, and then we'll have a discussion of the concept, and then we'll be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you. I get the fun job.

So,

this is in Calabarashian with Spawn Ranch. We start off at the street course here and we get an over bird's eye view of the entire site and how it marries into the existing playground, the skate park. We start off with the street course here. Then we start seeing the shot of this the snake run and then the pump track. And one of the features of the pump track, which was largely largely requested, is that it's concrete and not asphalt.

As we go through there, we see the Clover Bowl. This was another very requested feature and amenity that was developed that's very popular. We start heading north into the site back into the street course where we see flat bar mani pad. Here we see again what the pump track looks like. Here we go into the snake run and it has three sections.

The first at three feet, the other one at four feet, and the deeper end at 5.5 and it allows us to come to an end and transition right into the street course. This Clover Bowl again has a nine foot nine and a half foot deep end and the shallow end will probably be at six and a half. Here, we're literally firsthand view of what it would be like to shred the punt track and be able to transition out. So you can keep looping or you can transition out into the other amenities. Again, we have the manning pad, we have the the flat bar, the round rail, and a big emphasis was elements that don't currently exist in the, skate park.

So we wanted to make sure that there was beginner friendly elements. You know, we see the apron, the bump to bump pad, the pyramid hit there, and a long quarter pipe that stretches for many uses.

Great.

Yeah. So, like I said, the four major paths would be the clover pool, a pump track, a snake run, and a street section. Usually in these types of skate parks, we see one, two of these features, but we're able to really kinda combine because we got a lot of the feedback from our outreach. The proposed expansion is approximately 17,000 square feet. The existing skate park right now is just north of 15,000.

So we would essentially be more than doubling what we currently have. Here we see the overall site plan, and one of my favorite things about it is that you see how we marry both skate parks, the existing, and what the proposed would be. One of the things that I want to call attention to would be number 16. If you see it in the middle, this whole design input that we received from the community and really our professional expertise in this was protecting the existing trees and really capitalizing on the existing shade that they provide. So a lot of these features, including the pump track, the snake run, really kind of curve around the trees and their root zones so that we can protect it and utilize what it's already giving us in shade and a good microclimate.

The fence is only around where we would need it, so adjacent to the street. But other than that, it'd be an open skate park. Excuse me. Here we see another aerial shot, and, again, you're able to see how we would really transition what is the existing into the proposed. Here we see the shot of the pump track, and like I said earlier before, you see how you can keep looping or you can exit out into what would be the clover pool or into the snake run.

So, we wanted to make sure that a big emphasis that we heard and a big emphasis in what we designed was that there was good flow to the skate park. So, you can be in one amenity and just keep using it or transition into the other amenities. Again, we wanted to emphasize and really expand beyond what was already existing. Here we see some views, but again, we're emphasizing the street course and we really emphasize a lot of beginner friendly elements, but mostly unique elements that don't already exist.

So, the next steps of the project are we want to get to the final design of the project. We want to get approvals and from our building and other utility companies and we want to repeat advertise the project by summer, initiate construction by 2025 and complete the project by mid twenty twenty six. So very aggressive schedule, but I think we can make that happen. And, looking at the support that we received yesterday at the outreach meeting, the very minimal number of comments that we got mainly some minor requests. Other than that, the the design was very well liked.

I think they even clapped at the end of that video. So, it was it was really a home run for the design team to get this to this stage. With that, we're ready to answer any questions.

Thank you for the report and the presentation. I appreciate it. We'll start with commissioner questions and then open it up to the public. Commissioner Doran Parker?

I think the one question I have because the reveal and the final input was yesterday. And it sounds like it's minor input. Can you explain what you think minor is? Because I I know if you can help me here because when I was at the original one, there's some very strong feelings. I have to admit, I'm not a skater. My kids weren't. So I didn't understand a lot of what they were looking for in conceptual. So I was unable to attend yesterday. So I'd love to understand what changes and how easy or difficult it'll be to incorporate.

Absolutely, if I May. So, a lot of the comments that we got were typical preferences that I would say. So, instead of a square rail, we'd like a round rail. Instead of pool coping here, could we extend pool coping there? Things that we can easily develop as we go into the construction documents.

This is like a preliminary design, but we really kinda get into the finer details of things like that in next step. We received Like the director said, we received a lot of positive feedback. We received a lot of positive feedback on the flow, on the amenities, on the features, But it was mostly comments of that nature. Like, I'd like a square rail here instead of a round rail. Or can we extend this feature a little longer? Right? So, those are things we can easily develop as we get into construction documents.

So how are we going to let those that have been very invested in this process know that those that, you know, here you requested flat versus round or I guess round versus flat. So how are we going to be reconnecting? Because I know this now moves to us and generally that's conceptual, but they're going to be looking to make sure that their comments and I assume just because one person wants it, but it was more collaboration and a comprehensive that everybody said, yeah, we want round, not square. So that's just my question because I know that's been a challenge sometimes when we come this close and we have such a huge deadline. Is that great, that would be nice, but we're too fast. So how are we gonna confirm? And it sounds like it's fairly minor construction related. So, yeah.

So we look at all these comments very carefully and and make sure that what we do represents a majority opinion and not not not addressing just one person because there may be one who asked for that, but then there will be three or four or many who might say no, keep it as it is or don't do anything. So, we are analyzing that carefully to make sure that the changes we make are what the majority wanted. And, that's kind of how we're going. The good part is there's nobody who said, oh no, you know what, this design is garbage or they throw do do something different or I I don't want this element altogether. I mean, that that didn't happen.

They wanted everything that we shown was liked. So, so that's a that's a big win for us. And these minor details, we can address.

Thank you.

Questions? Yes, Commissioner Houston.

Thanks. Thank you for the presentation. I had a couple of comments and then a few questions for you as well. But for starters, I love the overall concept and there was kind of this talk about flow, but the pump track and the snake run I think. Anyways, I think you guys just did an outstanding job. Very cool.

I'm I very happy with

did to voice one concern, and that would be for me the nine foot bowl. I guess in my mind that's clearly an advanced feature. So one thing that I'm thinking about is the use that that area is going to get. Plus there's already an existing bowl in the Volcom area. And then lastly, my attorney brain can't help but think, Liability. For a huge nine foot bowl. So anyways, was just wondering if you could give a little feedback on that decision, and maybe if you had received any comments from the public about the nine foot bowl wanting that size versus wanting something a little less advanced. Thanks.

I'm going go ahead and chime in real quick. So, existing skate park, if you've been there, we have a couple bowls already there. And if you know them, they're the peanut bowls, medium sized one and the mini one. And so, those were really when they are addressing like what kind of bowl size for that type of amenity. You look at what we already have existing and not duplicating.

That was a really big request. And, this clover bowl was beyond by almost every single participant in our outreach meetings and on our survey. So, and it really addressed some of the more because you have advanced skaters currently skating in these mini peanut bowls that you have the little ones trying to skate in, and it just didn't work. So, we're trying to separate the skill levels with this Clover Bowl. I don't know.

It was there. Oh, the risk factor. I've just from a little bit of experience, I worked at a skate park at for ten years of my life. And, we went over risk very in-depth in-depth. Because, the trend now towards skate parks is whether you have a fenced, staffed park versus an unfenced, unstaffed park.

There's an inherent liability with skate parks in general. Skate parks and pools, right? Those are the bigger liability centers that you have in parks and recreation departments. The second you put a staffed member, you fence a new staff member, a municipality takes an inherent more risk because your staff is supposed to be checking your rules, your regulations. Once you not staff it, not fence it, it's on the public's, you know, own accord to follow their own rules. And that's why it's posted rules, you follow the rules, and now the risk is on the participant. So, just a little bit of backstory about how the risk works in terms of skateparks.

Great. That's super helpful. Thanks a lot.

Other questions? Commissioner Ledger.

First one's simple. What's a euro gap?

A euro gap is just basically a transition where it kind of splits, you're able to kind of gap it or jump it. Yeah.

Okay. And then for the outreach meeting, do you have a good split of youth and adults since they're both using it? And then another question was, in the past, the skate park has had issues with fights and drug use. So, does it get more patrolling than other parks, or is it just reported when you see it?

In terms of our existing skate park right now, there's a mixture as I talked about with little baby bowls, would say that kids and flat ground. Have that. Our street section, I would say is not really a beginner street section. And so, our new street section, while it still caters to all levels, be utilized more by a beginner level as well. So, now you have two street sections where they can be separated a little bit more.

We hope to program that in terms of the skate park a little bit more than we have in years past. So, we have a little bit more oversight of what's happening there, get some lessons, camps, contests. So, this is gonna this expansion is gonna make our skate park very well known in the county, if not this whole state. And so, we're looking to really capitalize on the programming there. And so, that hopefully we get the lessons and the camps going for the kids, but there's also room for adults to still participate and skate at their own risk, if you will.

Our outreach meeting, our first one, was held out right outside this fencing of the skate park, and we have a really good mixture of both youth and adults. And our outreach yesterday, we had a lot of parents bring their kids with them to see how the outreach I know for little kids it might not be as interesting. They got to see the video, which was cool, you know, but we provided some pizza and that was a good factor for them. So But, yeah, in terms of the both of the areas, we're really trying to hit both age gaps with the amenities that we're going to offer. I think there was a second part to that question. I'm not sure.

Yes, sorry. It was in the past, I know that parks had issues with fights and drug use, mostly with teenagers. So, there any like stepped up patrol compared to other parks? Or is it just like people call it in when it happens?

So, obviously, we encourage the public to call in things when they see stuff happening at parks. As terms of how frequently PD and Rangers patrol, I don't want to I couldn't speak on that. That would just be speculation at this point. But, TeWinkle is one of our biggest and largest and most active parks. So, that would be a good question for you to ask on your ride alongs when you go on them with PD.

Other questions? Yeah, Commissioner Garcia Arcos.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. I did have a question, and if it's not applied yet, maybe a suggestion. So there's this thing in the arboriculture industry. It's called anti standard z one thirty three. It's basically like the safety bible written in blood. So there has had to be an accident in order for it to be applied. Is there active signs that can be they use the term shall and should. Is there any way we can put signs that can recommend that they wear helmets, or is that already applied?

So California state law here with skate parks, helmet, elbow, and knee pads are required. As I said, when you staff a skate park, it's the staff's responsibility to ensure that. When it's an unstaffed skate park, it's the participants' odds on them to ensure that they're following state law. There is signage posted at this park to let them know that, but it is on the participant to follow those laws.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Vice Chair, right?

Hi. This is very exciting. A lot of work to get to this point, so thank you so much for the presentation. I just want to say, first off, a thank you to Supervisor Foley. I was thinking about how much vision it takes to invest in a skate park of all projects.

As we're talking especially about the demographic that it reaches, I just thought it was important to note that this will be a destination. It already is, if we're being honest. I personally know a lot of people drive a long way to come to our skate park. Excited for what it's going to bring to our city and to that community specifically. And I'm really grateful to her for seeing that vision in this project.

People are really excited about it. So going to be great. A few questions. So to start, I remember previously we had received feedback on more of a beginner area. Do you guys remember that, and how did we transition from that to where we are now? Do we still feel like it's meeting that criteria?

Absolutely. The street course is something that we emphasize for beginner friendly. Again, different from what was already existing. And then even other bowls are meant to kind of learn into them and other features as well. So, yes.

That's great. Yeah, I remember that. Another question I received from someone of the public is the sidewalk on the left hand side, if we're looking at the aerial view, it just stops. Do you guys know what I'm talking about? It's on here. Could you help me understand why it stops and why we're possibly leaving it that way? If we want to look at page nine of Skate Concept Design, you guys can see the sidewalk on the street on the left.

So I just believe it's conceptual. We wanted to focus the modeling on the skate park itself.

So that is actually how it looks in real life.

Yeah. I understand.

Do we have plans to not maybe as part of this project, but just ever in the future complete that walkway?

We'll take a look at it, and then we'll

finish Thank

you so much. I just want to highlight the really appreciate that the actual feedback was delivered to us in its original form of Post its and drawings and handwritten notes. So I'm just going to share some of my favorite with you guys. All caps, No Fence Please several times. Yeah, can we talk about this philosophically?

So are people just talking about an entry fence and not wanting that? Is that the problem right now? People want no fence to just get in. Would we ever entertain I

don't think the fence is necessarily what they don't want is just the enclosure of park. And as we see now, we only have fence around, again, through public safety would be adjacent to the streets and to keep boards from going over. But mostly, this is an open skate park.

Okay. So we're actually being quite generous in that sense of not completely fencing it is what we're exploring. Awesome.

Correct.

That's great. A lot of requests for either 20 fourseven access or 20 fourseven lighting. What do we think about that? I'm just reading the post its guys. Okay, but for real, can we just say why we wouldn't do that?

That's not a standard, and even on field lights, because they are field lights you know, skate park lights are the field lights we would have to really petition a neighborhood, because TeWinkle is surrounded by homes, to leave on sports field lighting 20 fourseven overnight. That would be a whole different subject and topic and approach that we would take in terms of hours of usage.

What are the current hours of operation?

It's open until 10:00, right?

Every night? Okay, that's pretty good.

Yeah.

Save the trees, all caps. It looks like we're doing that, which I'm really happy about. Request for mural art, and we also got a public comment about that. So can we talk about that, art in the space of some sort?

So, we have talked about that, especially in the Arts Commission, about eventually adding that into all future that we do in the city. The skate park, we were trying to just focus on design. Something in my past experience, we have done art in skate park expansions, but that is something that can be a later phase where we do it intentionally. That way we can bring it to the Arts Commission as well and they could weigh in on what kind of projects we can do. And it can be a variety of methods.

I've done art tiles, glazed tiles, and incorporated into concrete wheel walls, which are a really unique feature to skate parks. I know director Seth and Robin and I were just talking about, you know, even doing metal posts on the fencing, and it can be mural art. So, would be something that we can definitely discuss after it's built to see where the best location is, what kind of art we would. We would definitely take it to Arts Commission for them to weigh in on what they would want to see as public art.

That's great. It sounds like you have a lot of previous experience with skate parks,

don't

you? That's perfect. Yeah, I'm definitely in support of that. I would love to just voice to the arts commissioners and to I think it was Ochoa yeah, the chair that we're supportive of that and want to make sure that remains a priority. To quote another comment I really liked was replace all existing rails with round rails. Ain't nobody like that square stuff. And I saw that got edited. So that was really good. Stuff.

Yes, correct.

Stuff got edited. And yeah, just going to close with one more request that stood out to me. Was requests for snack bar, food, coffee, just some type of food activation. And I think that that's going to be part of this project, but it reminds me of how we're adding a cafe at Lions Park, and I just want to share my personal vision and bias is to welcome mixed uses like that in our park spaces. It brings a practicality to parks.

Opens it up for a lot of different groups to enjoy recreation and sharing a meal or a drink. If you have small kids, you know it's basically impossible to go to a restaurant with your kids. So I just wanted to touch on that, that that was requested. And I know it's probably not going to be able to be part of this. But when people are asking for food, beverages, snack carts, it could be revenue generating for us, as well as being innovative in the way that we view our park spaces. So I just I really liked that comment as well. And yeah, that's it for me. Thank you.

I have some questions. But before I do, is there anyone else? Any other questions? Commissioner Kamala.

So just great job. Obviously, I wish every project got as much thunderous applause as this did. So it was amazing. Thank you for the trees. That was actually already my question. The fact that you guys are working around the existing mature trees is great. And I love the art idea. I think when I was on the art committee years ago, we partnered with Josh Madrid. We did that mural on the utility thing. And I think just adding the art element is going to really make this project pop.

So I love that. I think my question on the fencing is on the existing skate park with a fence, are we taking that down? Yeah, perfect. And then in terms of parking, I know right there on Arlington in front of the utility shed, there's that dirt area. Is there enough parking? Because I know at times I've gone into the dog park and there it wasn't, or it was just kind of tight. And I have parked on that dirt kind of lot ish area myself in my truck. So is there any thought of expanding that into actual parking? I mean, I don't mind. I don't need lines. I'll go on the dirt. But just the thought is is parking was parking played into any consideration here?

Commissioner Kamala, we did look into parking and there is a concept out there to redo and the the whole parking area. But again, with this funding, it's not part of this particular project, but it's something that we have in mind for a future phase.

Thank you so much for fielding all of our questions. I just want to first give you guys props for a great meeting last night. I missed the first public engagement meeting, but last night was really great. Super well attended by older folks, would say, like 20 and above. But I really liked the structure of it. I loved the food. I loved the presentation, way you did it. So kudos. I thought it was a great

Thank you.

Truly a great meeting. So I guess just some clarification. I have a question around youth involvement, both youth utilization, but also specific outreach to youth. And so that's where I'm headed with some of these questions. Are there adequate spaces as it currently like, the sense I got from reading some of the feedback was that youth were kind of it was overrun by youth, right, like by lessons and younger folks.

So as we're thinking about this development, is there plenty of space for those little ones to be able to do what they're going to do, to be in the way, if you will, but hopefully not in the way? I'm trying to understand what the development means in terms of those youth. And I'm really talking about 17 and under.

Let me jump in real quick. So, we did have a lot of youth taking lessons and camps. There was we're going able to And And these lessons happening and active skateboarders, whether they were intermediate or advanced, getting in the way, I would say, interrupting, you would say, these skaters' runs. And it just wasn't feasible. So, that's why the development was, hey, we need another street section.

Leave the baby bowl alone, and that's where youth can still participate. And the street section can cater more towards little ones, while not interrupting the more, I would say, intermediate to advanced street section where you don't have the older guys popping up, their skateboards come up, and it kind of becomes a danger dangerous factor. And so, was, I think, the way that this concept, it really gives the opportunity to separate some of these age groups. And not just age groups, because I've met plenty of five, six year olds that are way more advanced than a lot of people. So, it blows my mind.

But it does give an ability level. It gives you the opportunities to separate those a little bit. And those will naturally find themselves once the skaters start utilizing the new areas. They find their areas, and then it will be very apparent once everything opens up together, it's going to be cohesive.

I take the point that ability is not equal to age. So, So, I had a question for Director Gruner over email. I was trying to get a sense of demographics. What is the demographic usage of the skate park? I don't go to skate parks, so I just don't know.

And it turns out correct us if we're wrong we don't actually have demographics for our skate park. So we don't actually track or know in a statistical way who's using it. So provided we all agree with that, that we don't actually have that statistical knowledge, unofficially, what's the demographic of the people who use our skate park from your observation? And if we don't have that, I would just be curious to know what are the demographics that use skate parks generally. And again, I'm really actually interested in like 17 and under because I'm concerned that they're not repres they have not been represented in our public outreach or our public engagement.

Because I was there last night, and I would not I disagree with your assessment. I would say there were 10 kids that were under that age. I don't know what the first meeting was like, but for me, that's not substantial or significant. So do we have a sense, like who goes to the skate park here in Costa Mesa? And if we don't know that, who goes to skate parks generally, like percentage wise of users?

So just chiming in on my experience in skate parks, and I actually grew up going to the Costa Mesa Skate Park well before I worked here. And it varies. I'm gonna tell you that our Saturday outreach meeting had a lot more of the demographic of, I would say, between 13 to young 20s, and it was on a Saturday. And that's who you're going to find younger participants on the Saturdays and Sundays. They not so much.

We don't have a lot of kids that come, and I say school aged kids that come after school, even during the weekday, you get a few here and there, but not as much as you get on the Saturday and Sundays. Or the school breaks, I would say. During the weekdays, in the mornings, you're going to find a lot more, say 25 and up. This is and this is just an observation. I go by the skate park probably once a day, at least during the work day.

I take my walks around for my little lunch break. And so, like I observe that park a lot. And you have an older demographic during the weekdays, and you have the youngers on the weekends. But the demographic, really varies. And it varies depending on who skates.

It varies. And who skates our park, it also varies. Our park is, I would say, very not say famous, but it's very central to skateboarders in general. So, you have South Orange County skateboarders, and you have North County and Central. But, our skate park is very the way it's currently built, is very accessible to all skate levels and all demographics. And so, that's why our skate park is very popular to all age groups. Not every skate park is built that way. Some are geared more towards littles. Huntington Beach opened one a couple up. I would say they have a skate park, but they also open skate spots.

These little concrete areas, just like a rail and a curb here and there. And you know that's not attracting intermediate to advanced skaters. So, it really depends. Our skate park is visited frequently by semi pro and professional skateboarders all the time. And, they're always posting on social media. And, that's how you know that our skate park is just visited by every demographic. But that's just my observation of what I see there.

Sorry, something to add is I would call some of our repeat customers from our first workshop that showed up on our second community outreach. On that first Saturday, they had brought their kids. And I asked about it yesterday, and they're like, oh yeah, not today. I came in representing. We did have a lot, and that was I think something that's so unique and actually kinda brings such a good nature and beauty to this skate park is that it's multi generational.

And you can really see it shine of like, know, father and daughter, father and son kinda coming in and skating together. I think, and that's what Monique was talking about, of bringing a lot of skaters from South Central and Northern, kind of meeting up at this skate park.

And I don't mean to be pedantic, but I'm gonna be pedantic. Can you quantify it for me in terms of so on Saturdays and Sundays, what percentage of the people skating are 18? And then for that first Saturday meeting, which I did not attend, what percentage of the attendees represented that same demographic? Because I mean, think you so I am actually, I'll just ask that question and then wait.

Kelly, you know what? I was at the meeting the entire time that Saturday. And so it started with a lot of young kids who I would think of. I would say it was 10 with their parents as the meeting. And they also had the was it a burrito cart? So that was huge. They also were surrounded by, I would say, mostly men that were in their late 20s and 30s that were not attached to families. I was really impressed how many littles there were and how many littles were multigenerational. So being there, I'm not as concerned their needs and their families that are also like literally, I had no idea they're like a 40 year old man with their three kids. They're all skaters.

And I saw it was just anecdotal, making sure their kids were able to go up and put things, and some couldn't even write. And so I saw parents were literally writing on because we had tables out front, So they were writing and then putting things up. I wasn't there last night. Actually, the director and I were talking. He was surprised that it was mostly older. But it's a school night on a certain time.

Totally makes sense. No, I appreciate that, Liz.

I'm just

trying to get a sense. Like, so for me as a commissioner, it's hard to know if we're reaching people if we don't know who's using the space. So this is just something that I would like to log for future projects, which is that it's really helpful if we don't know the demographic. It's not something that I frequent. I can't actually speak to it. So I think just having that as a baseline bit of information would be helpful. Cause then I can look at what the results are and say like this aligns with it, or this doesn't align with it. Brian, I see your light on. You want to jump in? I do. Before I keep going, go for it.

No, I just want to say, based on our discussion yesterday, one of the things that we can probably do is put up a QR code where people can scan it and then we can get some data information and we can start tabulating that. And I think that will be part of this renovation project that we can incorporate something like that. Okay.

Don't know if I should I think that's it for my questions. But I do have a couple of comments, and then we'll open it up to public comment. Does that sound like a good plan? I think my one comment would be, I am in support of this. I think it looks great. I'm really excited. I think we need some more youth involvement. And if we haven't connected with local schools, I think that we still have time to do that, even if it's just to get them to weigh in on the plan as we have it. So I'm going to suggest, for example, Costa Mesa Middle School and High School is just a few, like half a mile down the way. My daughter goes to Costa Mesa Middle School.

There's a skateboard club. Did we reach out to them? Did they know about it? Those are the types of things that I'm wondering. They're not going to come to a 6PM meeting, right, because they've got school or they're in volleyball, or whatever it is. Those are the types of things. I don't think it's too late for us to do that for this project. I think we could, in targeted ways, reach out to even just a few clubs and get them to look at it. That would really satisfy me. Like, Okay, we had really great public involvement from 20 and up. We did targeted outreach to these few skate clubs. Okay, we covered it. So that would be my one strong suggestion. I think it's a doable kind of ask. And the second thing is, I actually disagree that we wait until the end and do public art.

I think that's not the way to go. And I'm just going to emphasize the line from Chair Ochoa, who says now is the perfect time to discuss how art can be intentionally integrated into this project. If we wait until the end, it's not intentionally integrated. Art as ornament, right? And I just, as somebody who really appreciates art and actually the integration of art with various aspects, I would say we have a great plan that's based upon some pretty good data that we've gotten from these public engagement sessions. Now is the time to do that. It's not yet done. Because once it's done, that ship has sailed. You're just adding art on. I think art is, especially if we're the city of the arts, art should be integral to what we do.

It shouldn't be added on. It shouldn't be until the end. So I would also emphasize that we bring in the Arts Commission now, so that they can look at this, right? We're not asking for them to approve the design necessarily, but we are asking for their input. How can we start thinking about how art could be built in? And just as an aside, we could actually think about doing those two things, youth and art, together. So maybe there is a way to integrate youth and art for the skate park to reach a variety of demographics. There are additional comments or questions, and then I'm going to open it up to public comment. Vice Chair Wright?

Yeah. I was listening to the whole time. I was just looking up what we have sorry, my computer thinks I'm talking to it what we have in the draft open space master plan on the skate park, because there are demographics on it in there. Amazing. If we worked backwards, it's listed as one of the top uses for the survey participants.

So you could look at the demographics of people that participated in the survey. And then we also have usage. So peak day demand of participants is three forty four people a day at the Skate Park 16. So you could probably apply just like the growth rate of our residents to that. What applies to other parks, I wouldn't say it applies to this park because it is a destination park, was we were looking at in the open space master plan, you can look at the surrounding demographics of the neighborhood and kind of assume that's the usage of that park.

I'm not going to say that that applies here, though. So yeah, just the word skate is found 70 times in the open space master plan. So, I didn't have time to read every single keyword highlight of it. But if we want to know more about that, I'm sure there's information in here that is relevant to your questions, too. Thanks.

Thank you for that. Okay. Shall I open this up to public comment, if there's any public comment on this in the chambers? You can take that one. Mr. Taboto, if you want to.

So I think this is the first time I've been to a meeting where 20 year olds were considered old. What what does that make me? I'm not sure. So I'm a I'm a former finance guy, so I've gotta ask the question, I guess, probably of staff. It was mentioned the Katrina supervisor Foley had the, I think, $2,000,000 grant. I know the city contributed some money. What's the total budget and what is the estimated cost of the current design and whatever else is involved in addition to the design and construction? Thank you.

Are there any other public comments? Anyone on Zoom now? Okay.

I have David Martinez.

Mister Martinez.

Hello, madam chair and members of the commission. Yeah. I I really liked all of your comments, and I just want to echo them to make a point. I definitely think youth outreach is very important, especially for a skate park. Just even considering, I don't know, going to Mesa and going on the announcements and saying, hey.

There's a skate park meeting going on. You should attend it. Or telling the Gov teachers, like, hey. Instead of going to a council meeting for your for your civic credit, come to this PACS commission meeting or this skate park outreach meeting, and that'll account for your civics credit. I'm trying to get the Gov teachers to do that instead.

Getting more youth outreach would be great. I also wanna agree on having more arts in in the park. Having it as part of the plan from the beginning, I think, would really help and would really showcase us as city of the arts and that we're not just doing things, like, once they're already built. So, hopefully, we can do that. Thanks.

Thank you. Are there any other Zoom participants? Okay. Other commissioner comments? Vice chair, right?

I have a question about the construction process. Are we going to keep the existing skate areas open while we're under construction? Or is the entire thing closing during construction?

I can answer that. Typically, we would want to, but it does become a safety for the site and making sure that everything There's safety for the people working on it, and safety that there's not anybody crossing into the working zone. So, I think most of it would have to be closed down during construction.

Again, to the extent possible, we'll see what areas can be kept open, and as long as it's safe to do so, we'll make sure that it's open.

I'd like to follow-up on Mr. Taboda's question. What is the total budget for this? Is the are we within budget for the cost of this design?

Yeah. For the design phase, we are within the budget. We have $2,000,000 available for construction. And at this point, without adding any further elements, think we are in that ballpark. But we'll know more when we go through bidding close to the bidding phase.

Would it be possible to get this before the Arts Commission for them to take a look at it and to think about how art could be woven in?

So, to me at this point with the budget constraints, I'm not sure how much of art can be incorporated within the project. It's something that we can evaluate once we know what the final costs are. And it's again, I understand what you're saying about adding art later on. But if we cannot do it now, it can be different. That's an option that we will be considering.

Commissioner Ledger. I'm sorry. So, I know it's off the side from the art, but do we have any type of contests there? If you're saying that we have a lot of well known skaters and famous skaters coming there, if we held contests there, it might be a good way to raise funds for art or other more expansions or whatever.

So, we currently permit at least one or two contests there a year as private permits, and we allow the skate park to be shut down either a day or two on the weekends for Orange County Skateboarding League to have an annual contest. In the past, there have been some. I know back when Supervisor Foley was on council and she had children that skate, she also ran some little more on a regional, not regional, but smaller local contest. But this will definitely expand our opportunities to have them. Also, the fact that a fence will allow us more opportunities to kind of program it.

Without a fence, we just there's more opportunities with this design. So, definitely, we can consider contests and how that works out. And I think there's a lot of endless opportunities in terms of the action sports industry. We used to do and before my time, but there was used to be this thing called the Action Arts and Parks. And it used to be held at the skate park at TeWinkle. So, we have been discussing that in the arts division of what that looks like in the future. So, once this park is done, we may reinvigorate that program or reimagine it to see what we can do there.

Madam Chair, just to chime in a little bit. So we can certainly bring this to the Arts Commission's attention and start the brainstorming process and kind of seeing what could be incorporated. And we can certainly kind of go through some of these conceptual designs, drawings, and kind of have that dialogue, at least kind of get the ball rolling.

That would be great. I mean, I'm not asking for like Richard Serra art piece in the skate park. Some of this art is low cost. And I think that this is an opportunity for the city to actually hear the commissioner's request for engagement. So that's what I'm certainly expressing. And that's definitely what I think the chair of the Arts Commission is asking for is we would like to be a part of the process earlier. And there are major budget constraints that are just constraints, right? And we have to work within them. But there could be some creative ideas around this art. We're not talking about big price sculptures that are there.

So I would really appreciate that. I think that would go a long way. Commissioner Doran Parker.

Yeah. So what I'm hearing is we can't implement any art right now, but what I think the chair and I would love to see is, like, the fencing is an art spot. Some of the ideas so so the idea would be to incorporate in the design where art would go and what would be imagined so that it can be put in. I know right now the city's a little bit under revenue, as you're saying. But I also believe, because it's going to be a destination, if it's identified what would be the art, it's kind of like the boxes, the art boxes.

It started the imagination and then it grew to being sponsored. So I think that's what I'm thinking. We know it may not be constructed the exact same time, but if it knows, for example, if the fencing material can be something that they can hang murals from that could be, you know, maybe interchangeable murals or if some way the concrete knows that later you'll be putting stones around it. That's what I'm talking about is planning ahead of time and having the arts committee and also because we have an art director now that they've really been imagining what they call outside art, public art spaces, and this is a perfect one. So that's what I'm hearing that it would be really critical right now to make those decisions so some of the material can maybe change and would not increase the cost, but they could have the potential in the long run.

If I can just kind of chime in and respond to your I think that's definitely something that's doable. I just to give you a little bit of context about where we are out in the arts commission process. Lorette Gardner is our art specialist. She is brings a wealth of knowledge in the arts field. She's been doing great.

And, our arts commission is still kind of getting off the ground. And, what we've been doing on that side of the house is bringing up policies and procedures that the city has lacked regarding art in our history. And, it's kind of been like here and there, and she's really kind of wrangling the art world around us. And, that includes public art policies, donation policies. But, especially, we have the mural permits now on Tessa, because we're really trying to get an inventory of how art works in our city, where it's at, how intentional.

And that has been one of her very intended direction towards our commission, and working with our commission, is that our art in the city is intentional. Whereas, prior years, it may have not been, and it just kind of popped up, and it's here and there. And so, when we look at incorporating art in the future into some designs, we would wanna be intentional with it. Where it's not just, hey, that fencing is artistic, or this is artistic. It's that Laurette and the Arts Commission bring request for proposal for artists to intentionally design something to put in a park, or a sculpture somewhere.

Or, whereas we kind of have accepted art in the past, and we're just like, where can we put this? And I think she's really steering that with the base level of like, let's get some policies in place and be intentional, and then we'll work our way into it. It's very much in the still the baby stages. But, get we totally that is totally direction that they've been talking about at Arts Commission is how do we start incorporating this into projects. And I think we're getting there.

And we've been working with Public Works and Director Seth Rolliman to try to find those ways. And, but we definitely can bring that to the Arts Commission with this project. And we've kind of preliminary, like, said, hey, this what we want to do. And that's why with this project and the funding strategy, was like, okay, let's look at this maybe out of the phase two, but in future projects, maybe we can, you know, do it simultaneously. That makes sense.

Thank you. I appreciate the interest in taking this before the Arts Commission, because I think even just starting there and having a conversation would be great. I know I would appreciate it if it was reversed.

So thank you. Sometimes when you're

not Commissioner Dorne Parker.

I'm sorry. Sometimes when you're not realizing what your policies are doing, sometimes when we have before you the concept that you can understand why this policy is important to go forward or these procedures are so, you know, this project may be a really good example of what our director is really trying to do and understand how it would actually go from concept and policy to actual implementation.

I think, you know, the other are there other yes. Sorry, Commissioner Kuznet. It's so hard when I'm focused on one direction,

so I my had a quick question for staff. Can I just get an understanding what the relationship with Volcom is, if any, for that park?

There's currently no relationship with Volcom. It's technically called the Costa Mesa Skatepark. The Volcom many years ago paid for naming rights for a period of time. That period of time expired.

Yes.

I was going add to that. I believe that Volcom is actually currently out of business. I believe that they've filed for bankruptcy. But nevertheless, there are some other options out there that we're certainly going to pursue, you know, potentially and and see if that could be a sponsorship type of opportunity.

Commissioner Kamala.

Going back down to the art rabbit hole, I think the the arts commission still has like an arts grant, but it might have just closed. The art that's on there now and the utility that's on the presentation, that was part of the arts grant program a long time ago where we, at the time we just used the grant, got the artist supplies, found a local artist. And so the cost, obviously, it's not integrated into the design of the skate park, but I think that might be something where we can help local artists and build those bridges together. I do remember Action Arts in the Park. I think we took an old city ban and gave kids paint and let them go at it.

So that was kind of fun. But yeah, I think it's definitely a great opportunity for us to bridge with the Arts Commission to do something there. Actually, I think the grant just closed like three days ago, so never mind.

Any other comments or questions? I really just want to say kudos to you. It was a great meeting last night. And Mr. Volz, the presentation was really, really great. I'm excited about this. I'm hoping that we can get some youth involvement, maybe just like a little sprinkle of it. But otherwise, I need a motion to receive to approve. So actually, I need a motion to approve the adoption of the Costa Mesa Skatepark expansion, with the note that we will try to get this before the Arts Commission and do some youth outreach. I have a motion and a second.

You may cast your vote. Yes.

So we'll have to wait or Oh,

just without her? Oh, okay. We can add her in after.

Okay, so we will add Vice Chair right after? Yes. Okay.

Currently the motion carries six-zero.

And we will revisit at the end?

Yes, for her vote.

Okay, that sounds good. Thank you. Thank you all. Okay, we're on to number two, the capital improvement program, park projects. I hand the presentation over to directors no, to Mr. Ryan. Sorry.

We're tag teaming this. I'm gonna start out. Thank you, Chair Brown. Good evening, commissioners. Just a brief introduction. I apologize for missing the last meeting. To the new commissioners, I was out unexpectedly. My name is Rob Ryan. I am the maintenance services division manager, which is one of four divisions under the public works. We oversee the maintenance of the park maintenance, landscape maintenance in medians and parkways, the urban forest, as well as streets, which would include street maintenance, sidewalk maintenance, graffiti abatement, signs and markings, as well as street sweeping.

So welcome to the new members, and it's a pleasure to be before you this evening. Look forward to working with you. I have just a brief update on some ongoing CIP projects. It's it's kind of an overview of of what we have reviewed in the past, starting with Ketchum Lightbulb Park. I'll I'll probably provide a little bit more detail for the newer commissioners.

So this is a project that is gonna expand the existing footprint at Ketchum Lightbulb Park. It's gonna remove the the wall right now that separates the park from Victoria Street and just have some much needed open space to that area that that is much needed. It's CIP and grant funded from state. Right now, the consultant is preparing construction documents. Those construction documents are being reviewed by our building and planning division as well as various utility companies.

We anticipate that being completed and it being released for bid April. With the awarding of contracts soon after, starting construction in probably late summer, early fall, taking into consideration summer and school being out and the kids that need that open space will be working with the recreation side to make sure that we're still be able to provide open space, especially during the summer. Next project is Shalomar Park. Again, this is a redesign and a slight expansion of the existing park at Shalimar. This is state grant funded.

And again, the consultant is preparing final construction documents. Those will soon be reviewed by our planning division, planning and building division. We anticipate the release for bidding late May or hopefully late May or even early June. So that awarded the contract, summertime, and that construction we'd anticipate starting sometime in the fall. Next project is a two way call it that a complex improvements.

There's two projects here. The first is to add batting cages to this complex, which is highly desirable, and user groups are very excited about that. Just one minor change to the document that was provided. These aren't state funded. These are are funded through city CIP funds.

So I'm I'm happy to say that the award of the purchase for materials has been approved, and we've received the approval for the construction. That company is ready to begin. They've submitted a preliminary schedule to begin in April, towards the April. Obviously we'll run that through the recreations team with miss Visenor and the user groups to make sure it's not gonna impact the user groups. Just through verbal communication, they're excited to start, and they're they're already saying that there's not gonna be any issues.

So as long as that's still the case, we'll we'll start there. The next one is the drainage at those fields. Obviously we've had some heavy rains, not this year, but the year prior, and experienced some water ponding that has led to closures. So we have a design to resolve some of those issues from a local engineer. We're looking to start drafting some construction documents to be able to put that out to bid.

So we're looking at hopefully bidding and awarding contracts sometime in maybe 2025. Next project is Teeminka Lake repair. The project is set to replace a damaged shoreline and lake liner, provide a water treatment system, upgrade the pump system, and perhaps enhance the landscaping and surrounding environment. This was some CIP funds and grant funding from the state. The most recent bid is currently under view, potentially award the contract in 2025 and look at construction in maybe fall of this year.

I'll kind of skip over this one. Think we already gave the update on the skate park expansion. Brentwood Park. This is a project that will upgrade the play existing play equipment, perhaps provide some additional play elements, provide some walkways, replace existing shelter, and upgrade the park existing park lighting to LED lighting. We're looking at having an April outreach meeting that would include the new council member and and commissioner will be invited, And we'll present some preliminary concepts and designs at that April meeting with the hopes to kind of conclude the design phase in spring and go through the bidding process in summer and hopefully begin construction in 2025.

A few projects at Fairview Park. I think director Gruener may have touched on on some of these. The Mesa restoration, again, waiting till after the bird nesting season completed. So I think that that work would begin in in fall two thousand twenty five, and it's it's a it's a seven year concept and plan, so that'll carry over for many years to come. And then Fairview Park West Bluff stabilization RFP for engineering designs was released in 2020 in spring will be released in spring.

That design should take up to about one year or could take up to about a year to complete. Just to highlight some completed projects from last year. So the LED lighting improvements at the tennis center, convert the existing lighting to LED sport court lighting. You can see the before picture on the left and the after picture on the right. I know for the existing commissioners, this is kind of a repeat from November if that was important to highlight to new commissioners what we've accomplished in this last year. And that project was completed. Jack Hammett. Again, these were funding from state senator Dick Min's office. State senator at the time. So this is Jack Hammett Sports Complex.

You can see the lighting on the left. The old upgraded lighting. It's just an amazing difference. You can see that curtain just stops at the edge of the fields. There's no impact to the houses there, which is really impressive in that design. You can provide that kind of lighting without impact to the surrounding area. Here's the team with athletic complex. Before and after, before on the left, after on the right. So these are grant funded. They're site specific given the type of sport played.

So tennis center lighting received a different treatment than the softer fields and the baseball fields. The lighting focuses on minimizing light pollution. It focuses lighting directly on the playing surface, increased efficiency, minimize downtime, and maintenance and energy costs could be reduced by as much as 85%. Next project was completed. It was a court resurfacing. Courts at the tennis center. Courts one through 10 were resurfaced. We changed the color scheme up. I think they they came up looking really nice. The users are very happy with the aesthetic appeal to it now.

And we were able to convert Courts 11 And 12 into eight regulation size pickleball courts, which is highly requested and was a great addition to the tennis center. It's been really well received. That was another one we were able to complete last year. Luke Davis field improvements. The city took over maintenance of these fields this last year.

We started by doing some some huge improvements, decompacting the infield dirt, added 25 tons of infield mix. We laser leveled everything, rebuilt pitchers mounds, installed new batters boxes, catchers box, and replaced the entire infield turf and the outfield arc, reducing the lip that was there in the infield to outfield transfer. So it improved the quality and the playability of the fields overall. Then I think this is the last one. Wimbledon Park exercise equipment.

This equipment was originally installed in 2008. The project replaced the aging equipment with new equipment, greatly improving the safety, usability, aesthetics. We added some accessible stations to each place. And that project was completed in November 2024. I'll turn it over to We can Actually, and myself over here to answer questions based on the CIP projects.

So we can do two parts. One is if you have any questions on what's presented so far by Mr. Ryan, we can go there or I can get to the next part of the presentation.

I think I'd like to take questions on what you presented, because it does give a really good historical view of the projects that are already in the works. And I think where you're going to go is maybe more future facing. Questions from commissioners? Commissioner Ledger.

I just wanted to acknowledge taking the, kids' summer schedule into consideration on these projects. As a parent, I appreciate that. So

Commissioner Doran Parker. I had a clarifying question. On one of the slides about catching libel, I know it's been a little more delayed. It said that construction would start in, like, late twenty like, 2025. But I think at the very end, that bottom bullet, did you mean 2026?

No. It should say it should say it was missing the word fall.

Fall. Okay.

It just says early twenty twenty five.

Because I was like, wait a second. But this is going here to there. Okay. So so construction will start you're anticipating sometime in the 2025 after the school year, kind of after the summer break happens.

Yes. Okay.

Thank you. Sorry about that.

No, that's okay. Questions?

Hey. Pleasure. I have a question about putting the lake repair project out to bid and how we only got one bid. Just high level, are you concerned about that for other projects? Or is there a different approach taking when we go out for the bidding process?

I think this lake repair project is pretty unique with very few companies out there now that engage in this kind of work. So, that created some issues. So, we don't anticipate that for other projects. We see multiple people bidding on other types of projects.

And that project still includes all of the beautification components to it, right, as well, right? Or is that a different remember we got presented designs for the lakes?

Yes. Yes. Yeah. It includes enhanced landscaping, you know, different features. Again, on that one too, we have to take a look at the budget look a little carefully to make sure that everything can be completed within the budget that we have. Because we don't see too much additional budget that we can assign to these projects from other sources. We are looking carefully Yeah, at

so with inflation and what we were given maybe two years ago, we're gonna have to possibly reduce the scope of CIPs is what you're thinking?

That's exactly.

Yeah, remember poop diversion. That was a big purpose of that project. I'm talking bird poop.

Bird poop.

Got it. Not human. Waterfowl excrement, if I can recall correctly. That's great. And then, it's cool to see draft scope of Brentwood as well. Did I hear we're possibly doing a community input in April? Okay.

So we're gonna start meeting with council member, commissioners, and some interested residents, and then continue the outreach. There will be more outreach between April and June. We'll come back to commission with the concept or final plan that we want to implement and then move forward with construction.

That sounds great. Thank you.

I don't know if this is a fair question. But based upon those projects that are in the works, do you see us coming in under budget? Will there be any savings from any of these projects? I'm not asking you to commit to that, but just curious.

I think we'll be on target with most of these projects. I don't see, because every single project has additional elements down the road. For example, Shalimar. Let's say we finished the project, but we do have another project on Shalimar that's following. So, it'll be so, it's we need to make sure that you know, we look at these projects carefully. And, the goal is to finish them under budget. That's our part.

Yes. Commissioner Garcia Arcos.

Yeah, I just wanted to also thank the city for how they're approaching the purchase of I'm not sure if it's been I know it's been approved for the building next to the park. So it's really important to know and just like this presentation to celebrate when we can. Specifically for this, the idea is to either expand the park or have a community center. Because I'm not sure if you all remember, but December 20 was the last day that Chalamard Thing Together was there. And they've closed down after thirty years of being the hub of just where everybody gathered and celebrated.

And so it was really it's sad, but now coming to this approach, you know, for this construction, do you know when the construction will start, the phase of the demo? And do you would you say it makes more sense to do the demo of the park and the building just for budgeting reasons?

So, Commissioner Arcos, we will be timing this with the completion of escrow process. So, we don't know when that will occur. And if it coincides with our project, definitely we will make sure that they are aligned in that manner.

Thank you.

I think we're ready for part two.

So, I want to talk about a couple of other studies that are about one has started and one another one is about get started. And, that will lead into my next part of the CIP. So, we started a tree canopy assessment study for the city, entire city. So, that is well underway right now. And, it will give us a good indication of how the tree canopy is spread throughout the city.

What level we are at by district, by areas. And then, it will tell us and then, it'll help us come up with some kind of goals on where we want to be with the tree canopy. How much extensive we want to see, know, where the investments have to be made in that regard. So, that study is, would say, in the next two months, we should be ready to present to you the results of that draft results of that tree canopy study and then go from there, and then go to council too because it's some council members are very interested in that particular study. The second study that we are going to initiate is the park assessments.

So, we wanna go through every single park and this is not to look at new amenities at this point, but it's it's look at the parks as they are right now. And see if what improvements are needed and to the existing playground equipment to all the amenities that are out there. And, what stage are they in? Are they in need of repair in the next one to three years? Or, can we wait three to five years?

Or some are five to ten year time frame? So, that will give us almost like a blueprint. Because at this point, if you looked at our plan, we really didn't have a good sense of what's needed. I mean, we know from our experience or from our observations what are the next three parts that have to be done. I mean, we know that.

But, it's good to have a list of all the parts and kind of an idea of how we wanna program over the next ten years to make sure that all the parks get the attention they need. And we know what kind of investments are to be made for all these parks. So, having said that, so looked at, we started talking about the next year's budget. You heard about some of that and and that Gurunar mentioned about it and and and and chair, Braun and commissioners talked about some of the observations from the meeting that we had, the study session with the city council. So, the revenues are taking a hit this year and we proposed some CIP projects to be cancelled.

Those none of the park projects are on that list, thank God. And most of them are grant funded and they are proceeding with the same schedule. We wanna get them done. But, we do have some other facility projects that we are recommending to be canceled at this time. Now, going to next year.

So, if you look at this list, it's a little shocking. It's very limited on what we are trying to, on what we can do. Our projection for next year for is again going to be, is it we are expecting the current downturn to continue at least one more year or we hope at least we're thinking in that manner for the time being. We are planning in that way and if things change, we can definitely go back and revisit and we can add more projects. If we have more revenues, we can add more projects.

So, what you see at this point is more of a maintenance of effort right now, is keep things moving. Is to make sure that we don't have any breakdown of equipment. If there is a swing or there is a slide that needs repair, we'll replace it. If there is a lighting, as you know, we have been hit with lighting, copper theft at many of our parks. And we had to replace lighting multiple times at few parks.

So, we want to make sure that we have some funding to address lighting needs and continue our park sidewalk issues wherever we have uplifted sidewalks or repair of sidewalks, we do that. There are a couple of projects we did add. We added tree maintenance. Again, we realized we need to continue adding more investment in our tree maintenance, tree pruning. So, we are doing in the public right of way.

We identified gas tax funds to do this tree maintenance. And this is in addition to what we normally do with our operating budget. And for the Jack Hammett, fields one and two need work. We budgeted some monies in the current fiscal year and these are monies in the next fiscal year. Are putting aside some money for the next fiscal year.

So, this is our list that we are proposing for the next fiscal year. Having said that, I want to assure you that we'll be really busy. Because we have like, as Rob mentioned, we have nine major projects that are scheduled to be designed under construction all in the next year. And we wanna get a lot of that pretty much done in the next fiscal year. So, it's a good year for us to catch up and complete the projects and get ready for some new exciting projects as we move into the future fiscal years.

So, that's kind of where we are with respect to our CAP. With that, we are here for questions.

What do we think? Do we have questions? Shall I open it up to the public? Go to public comment, and then we can come back to ourselves? Okay. I'd like to open this up for public comment. Start with folks in the chambers. Mr. Taboda?

Good evening, madam chair and commissioners. Good questions on both the skate park and questions on the CIP. Last month, I addressed the commission and wanted to follow-up. I think my comments last month resonated with several of you, and I appreciate that. I also sent a letter to the commission with my comments, and

I hope you had a

chance to read it. Let me quickly summarize. My comments deal with the capital appropriation process. The current process is top down with staff presenting a list of proposed projects to PACS with very little or no additional information, as we just saw, in all due respect to staff. There's no other information provided, just a list of projects.

As my letter states, I believe the shortcomings of the current process are, it does not provide PACS a measurable baseline or context for proposed projects. Some projects in the already approved project excuse me. Some projects in the already approved capital improvement program do not get proposed as forecasted, and PACS does not know why. It does not allow PACS to understand the complete picture and hinders your ability to review, discuss, or recommend alternative projects. In order for PACS to make a more informed decision, I recommend that you request staff to also include the list of projects forecasted in the capital improvement program along with their list of recommended or proposed projects.

My includes a sample format for which I am suggesting, so hopefully a picture will is worth a thousand words. It should also be noted the list of projects shown in my sample are the actual projects listed in the CIP. So, this information is already in the staff's database. They don't even have to recreate it. Staff has this information, and any additional and and and any additional effort to include in their presentation will be minimal. All they have to do is cut and paste. In summary in summary, I believe the process should and can be process

a more

between you, the commissioners, with some public input, and with both the parks and public services director. Thank you.

Thank you. No one else is in the chambers who would make a public comment, I think. So, is there anyone on Zoom?

At this time, there are no members on Zoom.

Okay. So it's back to us. Questions, comments, suggestions? Commissioner Doran Parker.

Thank you. I recognize this next fiscal year was a surprise, but one of the things I know we've I've been asking for, and I think many of the commissioners is, when you go at the parks, the playground, somehow the city got must have gotten a huge amount of money in the same two years in nineteen nineties because all the park equipment seems to be all the same from the same area. Right? I mean, it's just it's kinda crazy. But and I was trying to go through and I'm not as diligent as you.

I gave up trying to figure out how did they pay for it and how did they get all these park equipment at the same time. But what I understand I heard is you're gonna do something that we've been asking, which relates to CIP, which is to do a whole assessment. We have in our packet a whole bunch of concerns about Moon Park, because we know some parks decay faster than others, whether it's like where we live on the East Side, the planes flying over disintegrate plastic quicker, or whether it's use. So is that your intent is to provide that's just one example to go through and do a whole assessment. And then since some of the concerns people have been expressing is the lack of available to have drinking fountains and possibly potential with bathrooms.

I understand bathroom access has its own political and concerns and safety, But that's one of the things, as we're talking about projecting CIPs, is we're doing a database assessment of what's really needed versus just throwing up, like, you think now we know Moon Park has an issue. I know that will be part of the assessment to define that. Is it complete equipment replacement? What is going on? Is it turf?

Is it sidewalks? Is it you know, what's going on? So that would be my humble request is that before we can build up because we know this year is going to be very limited to come up with a system and an assessment so we have database of what's going on in the parks, what the biggest concerns on docks off leash. If, as we're doing the playground assessment and defining for a year what the cost is we know the costs are going to change what the timing not just the pricing, but the timing of how long it would take to do those and the priorities so that we can have an idea to reach out to our communities we represent and our city council members, but also go out as I know everyone's so active now in the commission. I love it.

Everybody's riding their bikes, bringing their kids, having their name tags on so they can ask, what is it you want? So in my humble request is to not waste this assessment but incorporate it. So then also we have more input, but also so the city council can set their priorities, knowing that fiscally, it's gonna slide. But if you have a priority, the priority doesn't slide. The priority remains, and it just depends on the funding.

And like we had said early, many of us were on here early, there was no money, And now we have nine active projects. So there's ways that we can collaborate and you know, with grants and our representatives that we could maybe get some help. So that's my big wish that so it does so it slides less and so it doesn't arbitrarily move from this is a priority, but suddenly, it's not a priority. But I know we have we have a lot of parks that need a lot of improvement. I would love to see the data and then set our priorities with our outreach and then work with our elected city council members. Thank you.

Commissioner Garcia Arcos.

I had the opportunity to meet mister Ryan. This was, I wanna say, last year. And we were talking about that tree canopy study. And I believe the the general just the package was about $15,000. It was before, I think, you presented it to city council. It was $15,000 for that. And then any add on page would be $1,500 Is that correct?

I don't recall the exact pricing. It may be believe that's about correct. It just depends on the packaging and how much detail we wanted, but I think that's about right is what we're looking at right now. It would provide us exactly what we're looking for, is that 15,000 to $20,000 range.

Yeah, and my follow-up question for that is how much are you asking for the tree maintenance, what is the current budget? How much are you asking for and how much do we need for the maintenance, specifically for the tree care?

So our current budget is a little over $600,000 We do have some additional CIP funds for planting small tree care, which is helping with that. And then director Straumann mentioned, there's $200,000 additionally in our capital improvement plan. So that's going to help significantly.

Yeah, because I think we should see the big picture, and as mentioned, understanding is having an in house arborist crew would be long run ideal, wouldn't it? Just for if you can explain a little bit about that.

It is something we've talked about, having some extra staff to assist the arborist and maybe doing some of the small tree trimming, small tree maintenance, some of that small tree care. It'd be great to have additional staff. I think all in the same boat in every department. Ideally, yes, that would be ideal, but I think we have some good contractors that are helping us right now. Sure, it's always ideal to have additional staff to help in some of these things.

Yeah, my last comment. So two days ago, attended this course that came from Florida, from the Western chapter in Florida, and it was so successful that it came to the Western chapter. We they hosted it in the arboretum, and it's a new certification that is is fairly new. And I spoke with city arborist from Fullerton, Newport Beach, and just, like, we really it was really informative. It was a great course.

It was a three day course. And I just I just would encourage maybe adding a little bit of funding to have our city arborist out there put our city in the map in other terms. Because I think we can all benefit not only now, but in the future to get ideas. They talked a lot about municipality pruning and how it's very common that we are looking at outdated studies. And now because of all the research that's been done recently, practices have been changing.

I would kind of want to point a little bit of something. If you step out of this room, go turn two rights, you'll see that there are some stakes on these trees right here. The soil level is way above. The water is hitting the trunk. I mean, that's all decay.

So we're we're cutting the the lifespan of these trees, not purposely, but if we're not aware of these things, we're gonna be damaging our urban forestry throughout the, you know, throughout yeah, basically Costa Mesa. But I think that's something that we inherited, so it's not really our faults. But there are practices that could be addressed in the future. And the more we we network with different professionals in our industry, which we've already connected with, we have a connection. I've served as the as one of the presidents on the board.

So I I would really encourage more of our members to attend those classes. They're very informative. On, April 22 and April 25, we'll be hosting our ninety first annual conference in Tucson, Arizona. If we can budget for that, that would be amazing. We will be hosting our own Spanish for the second time in history in the Western chapter. So it'd be nice to have Vicente, who's stepping in for the city arborist, to come and join us. That would be great. I'm really excited. I don't know if you can notice, but hopefully hopefully I'll see Vicente. Thank you.

I appreciate how passionate you are about trees. I really, really do. Other questions, comments? Vice Chair, Wright.

Hello, yes. I'm kind of debating on where to start. So just set the I kind of just want to set the stage of your process to make sure everyone understands. How often are we doing a facilities maintenance what would you guys call it survey or assessment? Is it annually? So

when you talk about facilities, are you talking about like the city facilities in that manner or

Yes, park I know. High level, guys do facilities on top of parks.

Yes, yes, yes. So we do. So believe it or not, we just initiated the facilities master plan to assessment. We haven't done one as long as I remember and I've been here for almost twenty five years. We don't have, don't have, so we're really behind on some of those kind of planning and and and we are taking, you know, a different direction now.

So, we're doing this kind of studies to understand what are the needs out there. Our usual things are the projects are something is breaking, let's add a project to fix it. Right? I mean, that's kind of we are more reactive. Will give us, make us more proactive.

And that's the intent of this. So, the park assessment, we want to go through that and we want to come to you well in advance of our future year. I'm talking about 26, 27 CIP. I mean, I'm talking maybe in about four or five months come to you with that assessment. So, we can start thinking about what CIPs we want to start planning for in the next go around.

And and come up with not only the next year CIP, but again have a blueprint for what do we do the following year, following year. So, so have those things in mind and it also gives us an idea if if a grant comes up, which one do we go after? I mean, some some grants are unfortunately are, you know, you can go those projects in some neighborhoods and not in other neighborhoods. So, we'll target that kind of feedback. But, we talked about going after grants in a big way to fund some of these projects.

Because, unfortunately for parks, the funding sources are unlimited. You got you got general fund of course that can be used for parks. But other than that, the park development fees can only be used for expansions. So, I cannot use that. I cannot use park development fees to just go and renovate a park.

If I'm expanding it, I can use for the expansion portion only. So, are conditions imposed on that particular fund. But, we have other large developments coming and we are looking into development agreements that provide us outside funding that can be used for any park, any project. So, so the so we are looking at a different funding sources to do that. Other than that, it's grants. So, so we are really talking about going after more grants to implement some of our park projects, in addition to using all these other eligible funds. Yes.

So the park assessment process, that's in the works already.

We have proposals, so we're reviewing and we'll have a consultant on board soon. So then it will be underway.

And then what is the scope for how many years would that be good for? Do we think five years? Would we have to redo it every? What are you thinking?

I think five years is reasonable timeframe. I think it's yeah, we should have a good, I mean, yeah. I would say five years we can redo that.

That's great. The more that that could be shared with us, I think would be good. I'm saying that because certain for all of us to think about certain city council members want all of their parks prioritized. Certain neighborhoods or demographics are more likely to reach out to a government entity to have their part get fixed or looked at versus others may not. So I think it establishes an objective parameter of priorities, which I would say does feel like it's lacking, or at least we don't have one, right?

So we don't know. And I get the sense that maybe it has been historically reactive, and so I'm really glad that we're doing that. And to know even the parameters of how something gets measured and then prioritized. If you guys could educate us on that, I think that would be great. And then, okay, so that's for just general maintenance, which I think is really relevant for the things that are getting proposed for this year.

It seems like that's pretty much what we're boiling down this upcoming year's budget to focus on. But you talked about other projects. So now I'm just referring to the list that Mr. Tiboda provided, which is a historical list of CIPs. They're more specific park project related.

And I think you breaking down how those different funding sources, the roles that they play and what they're tied to, sort of gives me an insight into why they're not here being presented to us. But I would like you to kind of just explain your thinking of, I'm specifically wondering, like, what is the Jack Hammond fund? Why are we choosing to prioritize the field restoration out of all the other projects? Can you speak to also the price differences that I'm seeing here of the historical versus the current? And then we've said it in the past, but I know that a lot of projects often get featured here so that they're eligible for grants.

So if you could also expand on why just expand on why things do get listed. I think it confuses people or even gets them excited like, I want this project to come up one day. So that's a loaded question. But let's talk about this year, why we decided Jack Hammett, what is the Jack Hammett fund, and then all the other projects that are getting pushed off or were approved in the past. How are we thinking about the funding and the timing for these not being in front of us anymore?

Yes. So, the Jack Hammett fund was created when chargers moved in. So, they provided funding for the use of Jack Hammett fields. And and every year they were giving us $150,000 But that funding was specifically to be used in Jack Hammett. So, to make improvements within that particular field.

So, we cannot use Jack Hammett fund to do some other park. So, the the project that we have is to work on Fields 1 And 2, which you know has undergone significant wear and tear by the by the use of Jackhammer, by chargers and readers, but also by our sports groups. So, it's to re level and resort those fields. Our initial estimate on that is $800,000 So, we had 400 from the last fiscal year and we were supposed to, we were looking to get 400 this fiscal year. However, the Jack Hemet fund has only 200,000 and that's what we are budgeting right now.

So, we're using that too, and we are talking to our consultant contractors to see how much they can get done if if we can get the project done within that that amount. So, that's why you see the difference that 400 went down to 200,000. Some of the projects that are that are in here are actually under underway right now. So, the blacktop that this is a high forecast. We are doing it much cheaper than that.

The city council has budgeted $150,000 last year. We're doing the surfacing and there's a community outreach meeting coming up late this month to look at what kind of, we're proposing pickleball courts there for example and we wanna get community feedback on that one. So, so so that project is actually getting done very soon in the next few months we'll be done with that project. Butterfly Gardens, the top lot improvement, I mean, that's something that is going to be different for the future. Again, the park assessment that we are going to do will help us determine when it's needed.

Again, I just wanna point out on the assessments. Our staff actually does their own assessments too. So, we wanna make sure, that's how we make sure that we take care of any parts that need to be replaced, swings or slides or particular equipment, single equipment. We replace those using our playground rehabilitation project money that we have. So, we've been putting some money for that to make sure Exactly.

That And, it was part of the current CIP too. So, we use that to help with some of these playground repairs and stuff like that to keep things going. We wanna make sure things are safe. Nothing that's out there. We we don't wanna keep an equipment that's unsafe for anybody.

So, was Jack Hammett Field Restoration chosen because of its financial source or because of its urgency in need? Both. Both. Okay. Interesting. And then, yeah, if you could explain the other projects, then some of them are going to have to be from the CIP fund at a different time, or they would be eligible for a grant. And that's what you're envisioning for other projects that have been approved in the past.

Yes, yes. I few of these like the Victoria, just to go down the list a little bit, a lot of the Fairview Park projects are in the works right now with the master plan, the educational hubs. Those are all existing projects and we can provide a schedule on that. The Harper Park.

The Victoria Corridor development, does that count as an expansion?

It does count as an expansion. So, there is So, our park fees at this point are We don't have any park fees to fund any project. That's why you don't see park fees listed in our our funds. But, when we have park fees, that's definitely something that we can go after.

Is park fees from cannabis or from housing?

Park fees come from many projects. Comes from housing, from even non commercial developments too.

Okay. Yeah, I'm asking all these finance questions just because I really want to make sure all of us as commissioners understand. It's not well, one, it would be urgency and maintenance and safety. Sounds like that's an important filter. Yes. Kind of above all of them, which is what we're prioritizing this year as just a bare minimum. But then there's also what can be eligible for grants down the road, which might be deferred for a timing purpose. And then there's other projects that can be funded like the Jack Hammett, like specially funded.

Exactly. And even the, so the Victoria Corridor, for example, right now we are working on the Ketchum Leiboldt. We are actually expanding that towards Victoria Street. So, are making it larger. But, we are creating a template that can be used down the road for other areas along Victoria Street.

And, we talked about improving near Victoria and Pomona. There is a space that can be improved. So, there are different pockets that can be implemented down the road. And, we'll see some efforts on that down the road using some other funding sources. Again, there is savings in catch them live bolt that can go towards the Victoria Street corridor project.

So, those are some of the ways we can fund some additional improvements done. Once we know where we stand with some of these large projects that are underway, that'll give us an idea what can be done with savings or and that'll pay us a way for the next future wave of projects. The West Side part development, I know we didn't fund it last year or we, but when council saw that there was excess funding available and then there was an opportunity to buy a property on Shalimar, they went and budgeted that immediately using the surplus monies at that time. So, you don't see a project on the list, but when an opportunity comes up, our city manager or city council, they figure out a way to fund that kind of a project. It's not So sometimes you'll see those kind of surprises too.

Yeah.

And those are expected because they've been talking about it for so long. So I think we've talked about this before, but I think a special request for when we are looking at the bigger picture one would be some type of ledger or key that says this type of project can only be funded by this type of funding. Or we have this here because we want it to be funded by a grant in three years. And we know that. I think if you're not as organized as me, if you're just a member of the public, that's not transparent. And it's confusing and sad to see exciting project then

get pushed on explainably. Yeah, the number of funds that we have and then you got specific purposes for each type of fund. Some are very general and that can be used anywhere.

And I think there is what I hear is there's a lot of intention into how you're thinking about why projects are on here at different times, different years. It's just not visible on a regular P and L, on a regular sheet. So that was really helpful. And then just a final comment on the tree canopy assessment. It would be cool if we could cross reference that with the pedestrian master plan and areas of the city that we're trying to increase walkability and make sure that we're focusing on trees there.

Yes. Thank you. Hope that helped you all kind of understand what we're dealing with here.

I do just want to acknowledge thank you, Mr. Ryan, too, for doing that presentation of the projects that are in development. Thank you both. When I joined the commission, no such document like that existed. And it's really helpful to see it laid out in that way and to understand where we're at in the process and a little bit about it.

It's just like it's grounding. So I just acknowledge again and again, and for the new commissioners, it's really nice to have this. It's a tool, and I appreciate that. I don't have any questions, but I have some ideas I guess I just wanted to pose to folks, which is that I do feel the need to answer the call from city council, or at least what I heard as a call from the city council in their Tuesday budget session, which is that one specifically calling out our commission and commissions in general for some input in help prioritizing. So this is our chance to do that.

So that's what I'm thinking about, how we can collaborate. Some of the things that they are looking for is a sense of priorities, like a greater sense of priority, and then bigger picture options. Like what are other ways to think about slicing the pie? And so that's what I would love us to consider doing as well. And I'm actually working, because we're all kind of referencing Mr.

Tiboda's document, so I just want to acknowledge that throughout. So thank you for this. I'm going to critique it, but I think it's really, really helpful. You know, for me, seeing this longer there are budget issues, and I think that we will not be able to get around it, and actually just confronting that is really useful alongside a list of projects. And so you're actually making really hard decisions, but you need to see that bigger list of projects.

So everything that we're looking in Mr. DeVoto's document here is what was approved in the CIP and forecast for this year. I don't know if staff would be willing to work with something like this. As a commissioner, I find it useful to look at in a list format where I'm looking at everything, recognizing that all of this is not going to be able to move forward. I think the comment section is kind of what you are getting at, vice chair, in terms of, like, give us a little bit of background.

Let us understand. And I heard Council Member Maher say something similar in the budget session, which is like, it's hard to remember all of the projects and what we were intending and all of that. I think it would be helpful so this is where I critique this. I think it would be helpful to have a column, for example, so we understand the funding source. I think it would be helpful then to have considerations around I'm calling there evaluative modes, if you will, like health and safety.

I'd be curious now to know, are there certain projects that are easier to get done than others? We can easily get this project done, easy, medium, hard. That would help me try to prioritize it. Council Member Reynolds asked a question in the budget session on Tuesday. What are the anticipated costs by waiting on certain projects? So for me, that would be a way to evaluate priority. It's like if we wait on certain projects, is it actually going to cost us more? And then we have to have that hard decision or a hard conversation like, well, what matters to us in light of those costs. I mean, I'm just listing the ways that I would slice the pie or consider it. I mean, of course, particular interests matter.

And one of the things I'm just going to say is I live in an area where I don't have a park within a ten minute walk. So if I'm just looking at what's existing, my people in my neighborhood are never going to get represented, right, because we don't have that park. So I want to have a chance to advocate for what's silent, essentially, what doesn't exist. Anyways, just being able to have that conversation would allow us to do that. Still, we might not be able to afford it, but at least I could say something or people could say something. And I also think this is an opportunity for us to make, do we have suggestions? This is all just suggestions to city council. That's all. We're just trying to provide what we think as a commission. Do we think that there should maybe be a change?

Maybe Butterfly Gardens don't need 50. I don't know. And I know that there's a problem with making those recommendations. They're based upon figures for actual work. But we can at least look at that and see what we think.

So

I'm just thinking about, for me, how do we answer that call from city council for our input in a way that matters for their early May session, I believe, or late April? And I think my argumentation as to why we should be doing this, whether it's through a study session or through our April meeting, three members of city council specifically asked for it in the Tuesday meeting. I think it's an opportunity to catch all of us up. So I'm not just going to call out the new members. For myself, there are projects here where it would be super helpful to hear from staff your comments.

It'll catch me up. I also think it'll do the homework now so that we can provide better response for you in that four to five month period when you want to bring it back to us. Because we're going to be already caught up. We're going to hit the ground running because we have done this. And I also think something like this will help city council.

So I don't think the work put into it, I don't think it'll just be for us and just be for us in four to five months. I'm like, at least as I heard city council, that's something that they can use at that meeting too. So I'm just wondering how commissioners feel about this, how staff feels about this. I don't know if it's appropriate for a study session, if it's appropriate for an April meeting. This is all in light of the fact that there's not going to be much money to spend. But I don't think that's a reason to not try to provide recommendations to our city council people. So just thoughts. Yeah. Commissioner Doran Parker.

One of the things I'm very data driven. I know I'm a total nerd. Like, what do we need? How do we need it? So I know a priority for me would be to understand, which we may not get by next because you're doing this assessment, but what I heard from both our chair and our vice chair and we're so much more activist to go out into areas we represent and drop, like with our chair, that note that you don't have a park within a ten minute.

If because I'm hearing some circles that are actually coming together. We have an MOU issue with the the district. A lot of this green space in underparked parts of our city rely on that green space. So I almost think we, as commissioners, probably need to go out into our communities, do our own personal observations, and that would not be data driven because that's coming directly and consistent to say those things so that we have an idea when we come together what are our what do we feel our priorities were in our district and why? Because I know, for example, I have to go out into now my district, which is different than I used to represent, you know, the six, but the six has different priorities.

For example, you know, they already put that Harper Park has three unique issues I know you brought up, one of which is playground equipment. So I think that would that help? Is that what you're talking about so that we can go out and observe, we can figure out in the park commission packs community services? Because even the chair you brought up, we have the skate park and your concern, the lit I call the littles 17. Maybe what is it that you're concerned about that would be putting on, community services now? That is a camp that could be spaced there. And and same with, like, pickleball. I mean, you know, that's now my area. So it's like, do we need to have pickleball camps for littles and olds? I mean, you know, because we have seniors and stuff.

So is that what you're thinking about? Because that appeals to me to kinda go out, spread out, put my little badge on, go out in the community and say you know? And then just do our own observations, which may not be scientific. You may come back and say, you know, I know the playground equipment at blah blah blah playground was just replaced two years ago, but that would then turn into a maintenance because I saw broken swings or, you know, something that goes on because we we know our community better than, I mean, staff does a whole review, and they try really hard. But I would charge us individually, not just staff, to come back with a list and observations.

You should do that as the exactly. That should be a part of all of it. So that could be one piece of that's a piece of a conversation, right? It's like your lived experience in terms of, I'm always going to talk about how I need to park by my house, right? So yeah, I think that would be a part of it. I'm really advocating for that we have an opportunity before the city council meets to talk about priorities so that we can provide some of it. And that's like a piece of it.

Can I say specifically what I'm hearing would be practically helpful for prep study session would be the draft CIP document with the labels of the source broken out over three years? Total disclaimer is a draft. And for us to just get presented on the nature of the projects so that we can just ingest it. That's the purpose of a study session is that we don't make any decisions or recommendations to then prepare us to do that after or around the same time that counsel will be seeing it. That's what I think the nature that's what I'm hearing.

What do you think, Chair? Did I summarize that?

Yeah. You're proposing a study session to take in at the April meeting. And I know that you would need to run this by the city manager for a study session. Then what I hear you proposing is then for an April meeting, a robust conversation that builds upon that kind of presentation and our own analyses.

Yeah. The only other thing I'm thinking of, though, is that it would kind of be nice if it was timed when the park assessment is already done. But that is going to be in like six months or something.

We have limited funds this year. So it's like that will Yeah, be this is settled. Well it's not settled, but it's limited. It's clearer, yeah. Other thoughts from commissioners?

Commissioner Garcia Arcas.

Yeah. Think it's a great idea if we can go each individual into our own district and get some feedback if maybe the city can maybe suggest some things we can focus on to bring back to you all, see if it's helpful. Because there are many needs that we encounter all the time. And so, yeah, I I would love to go and get more involved and put my little badge. I haven't put it on in the community, so that would be pretty cool. Yeah. Thanks.

I did visit all of my parks this last couple weeks, and I was just going to email my observations to the city staff. Is that something we should be bringing up in meetings instead?

It's a very good question. Director Rooner, from everything you've heard, what would you propose? And I know we've been talking about this offline in terms of does a study session make sense? Do we dive into all of this in an April meeting? Commissioner Ledger's point of how much personal observations because we are here working with the CIP projects that have been approved by city council. And I think that's something important and maybe a little different, maybe, but maybe not different than kind of personal observations. Don't know.

So, Chairwoman, if I can start, maybe Doctor. Gupta can chime in, too. So one thing I want to correct myself. When you talked about Butterfly Gardens, I remember, yeah, we had Butterfly Gardens in the list of projects that we are eliminating. So, there is some funding of $100,000 for Butterfly Gardens that we are recommending to be deleted. That is something that is going away. Another one related to parks is a portion of funding for country club. It's a restaurant that's out there. There is a modernization of that one. So, a portion of that funding also is being recommended to be removed.

Again, nothing is set in stone. So, council hasn't approved anything. Those are staff recommendations. So, we'll we'll know what ultimately council decides maybe in in May time frame, but but those are for the existing. Now, with respect to your question on how we should go, I think I think we can agenda this for the April your meeting.

I think I think it works well because the console CIP session is on April 22. So, we can again this the same list. We will we'll bring back this. But we'll also bring to you the five year CIP also as it stands right now. Knowing that it's going to get adjusted based on the park assessment, based on your input.

We'll come up with a revised five year plan down the road. But it'll give you some basis of discussion at least. To kind of, okay, look at that and okay, these are the list of projects that we envision on doing and and and how it's going. And and we can fill in the comments on the ongoing projects. So, that way it's it's a one sheet that you can look at. Okay, this is a project under design construction or where we are with the project. So we'll bring that list also to you.

The first this that you referenced, was it the this, the much abbreviated? Why wouldn't we want to look at a slightly a longer list like we got from Mr. Taboda that actually had all of the CIPs? Because that's actually what was approved by counsel, if I'm understanding it correctly. That was forecasted for this year. These are directly drawn from the forecasted CIPs, as I understand it, all of these. So I'm wondering why we wouldn't start there. Because once we start with the original one, you've already it's kind of like what I heard coming out of the study session. Like we would like to understand like more options.

So Chair Brown, not all of the projects that are on that list that Mr. Taboda provided are approved by City council. They like for example, the Gisler light is not approved project. It's in the five year CIP, which is what I was saying. I'll I'm gonna bring that to you.

So so, the five year CIP has a longer list of projects that you can look at. That's is approved by city council, but there's no funding associated with anything beyond the current fiscal year. So, what I'll bring to you is the five year that will be presented to city council on April 22. That'll show what we are proposing for '25, '26 and beyond. And, it will be a very long list of projects.

Again. Just park projects.

Just park projects. Again, that particular list, I I just want to let you know, is not, it's something that can be modified by, I mean, again, has to be approved by city council. But, it has to be, but when we get the park assessment, we will come up with a revised priority list over time. But it's a starting point of dialogue for the April 10 meeting.

Is that list that you would come with, is that that's based upon your recommendations or that's based upon the approved CIP from this past year?

Yeah, it's in the approved CIP in the past year.

Okay, so Mr. Tiboda looking at Mr. Tiboda's list, Gisler Park would be one example of not something that wasn't part of that approved CIP?

It's in the five year CIP. It's not approved for funding in the current CIP. So, it might show up as potential funding in the in the next year CIP last year.

Right.

Like like in the current It might show that way. But, based on our current budget situation, we are not recommending that project. So even though, you know, back in June, you know, we thought we'll have enough money to fund more projects. The reality right now is that, you know, we need to pay it back on the list what we can do next year. And that what that does is it pushes the projects out a little bit more. But we'll give you we'll bring the whole list so you can take a look at it. And, it'll be longer than this list actually.

And, we'll be able to get your valuable comments?

Yes. Okay.

Cool. I mean, comments on the projects that are ongoing right now. If a project hasn't started, we won't have anything to say. That's just a future project at that point.

One thing, though, I think the word I've been searching for is like the analytic. I think that would be helpful for me. So thinking about health and safety costs impacted by waiting, right? Because those projects haven't started. This was Arliss' question,

but I thought it was

a good one. Just like, are there certain projects and it might just be no but are there costs that are impacted negatively, significantly by waiting? Are there projects that are easier to get done quickly or that speak to particular important interests, however we define important? That would be useful because that's the kind of analysis that then puts us in a position to make recommendations. Director Greener, I see your light on.

Yeah, I just want to add to that real quick. Just a clarification. The five year CIP plan is essentially a plan. So it's not funded necessarily. The first year is funded.

And then anything after that is not funded. It's just part of the plan. And projects and different projects could be moved around and shuffled around depending on the need of the city and also what the city council's objectives goals are and priorities are. So it's constantly going to be moving and I can see where the confusion comes from and people look at and say well it's slated here for next year to be As we go through the budgeting process and especially for CIP funding, council will obviously set their priorities and determine which projects will be funded. If the projects are not funded, they'll tend to be pushed down to the next year or maybe even two years down the road, just depending on what the objectives are of the council.

Just for clarification, I think we're kind of really all over the board regards to what people want and so forth. So I think what might be easier if maybe if each of you would email us kind of what your preferences are and then we can kind of collaborate and kind of put something together that we can present back to you guys and see if that's suitable for the commission to move forward with. I don't think we need necessarily a study session moving forward in April. I think we can address all this at the next April meeting. Then we can also finalize what the procedure is moving forward into the future. But if you can send us any type of feedback, then that would be great. And then we can kind of analyze it and come up with something that could work for everybody.

And even just knowing sorry, one thing and then I'll even just knowing why staff made particular decisions about pushing projects, that opens up the process in a way that both gets us up to speed with what you're thinking and then positions us to be able to think about the future. So even that sort of commentary is super useful, just a note as you brought that up.

Sorry, Mr. Ryan.

No, no, no, no. I just wanted to kind of circle back with Commissioner Ledger's kind of general question. For me, if it's a maintenance need or something that you see out in the park, I would love to hear it away. It's so much easier to address sooner rather than later in some of these maintenance needs, and whether that's through a direct email, a phone call, the 311 app is great. We as staff appreciate that feedback, and we look at it as a partnership with the community to help us maintain our parks and keep them beautiful and safe. So if it's that type of thing, I would love to hear about it right away. I hear from Commissioner Garcia Arcos regarding tree laid issues, and I appreciate those comments, especially when they're done in a timely manner. Can address them.

Chair Braun, especially if it's a safety issue, we need to know right away. And appreciate you letting us know. But while we are out looking out for things, we might miss too. So if you find anything, let us know.

Commissioner Ledger, why don't you go next? And then I know Vice Chair Wright has had her light on.

Okay. So just along those lines, so maintenance issues would be you, but what if it was issues like I said I saw a dog trainer in the park with several dogs, some off the leash. So would that be like an email to you then? So each issue gets emailed differently?

Sorry to interrupt. If you see that, you're welcome to call non emergency or park rangers. Let them know that that's not an approved use of our park space. We do have a dog obedience training class that only takes place in our DRC backyard. So, at any other park locations, it's not permitted.

So, along those lines, so I would email you with that kind of question, because when I saw it, I wasn't sure. And then you mentioned at the skate park, an unauthorized guy was training people uncontracted, and it was causing clashes. So our business is not like, do they need a permit to be using I mean, ice cream man is fine.

Just like our dog obedience class, like we only permit that one location, the DRC backyard. Right now, we only have one skate park contract instructor, and they have a sign up there, and they identified themselves. Anybody else is not permitted by us. So, but any issues? I mean, yeah, you yes, you can email director Gruner. But immediate issues, I would always advise to call non emergency and they can get their park rangers out there. Or if it's a worst case scenario, they call PD. But I would always call non emergency, whether it's ranger issue or a maintenance issue that's outside of working hours, please call non emergency.

I I would say not. I don't you don't have to focus on who you send it to. If you get we work very closely together. So if you send it to myself, and it's not necessarily under my direct purview, I'm gonna get it to the right place, and so will each one of the people here. And that's true of any staff. I think the important thing is just to get it to someone's attention.

Vice chair, Wright. Hey, yeah. So, just to summarize, because I know it's getting late, I think an April meeting going over the five year would be incredibly helpful, all with the disclaimer that it's a plan. It's a draft plan. It's an ever evolving document based off of the priorities of counsel and just our financial situation each year.

The thing that I have noticed is lacking is just some sort of ledger or commentary that others could view. So without watching our very long awesome meetings or council meetings, someone could look at it and understand, oh, this is on here because it was assessed as immediate need, it was assessed as a council priority, or it is eligible for a grant, and it just has to be on here so that it can get funded in three years. I feel like those are the three that I'm hearing that I don't know when I look at the list, and that would be super helpful, even just color coordinated or something. So I'm really looking forward to digging deeper into that next meeting. And then kind of my opinion on our role and want to address you guys is are to be an engaged resident and commissioner is to go to your parks, to engage with our residents, and to report back.

I think that is definitely expected, encouraged. Honestly, most of us are probably already doing that, and that's how we ended up here. We all know our council members that appoint us. But I feel like what's missing in this conversation is me, I can say it, that there is a higher calling for you now that you're sitting here, which is park projects and kind of the future of the direction of the city and how recreational space is used and where we're getting money and how we're allocating hundreds of thousands of dollars is getting brought before us. And so it's exhausting, it's confusing, it's a lot to remember, but I want to challenge you all.

That is the opportunity that is being given to you. And so that, in my opinion, to shape the process of how we're doing this and shape the format so that future commissioners, future city council members can make better decisions on serving our residents and better spending our tax dollars, that is kind of the bigger challenge that I want all of us to possibly rise to. And hopefully that sets the stage for our meeting next month. Thank you.

Any last comments, questions from commissioners? I just want to say, you've been baptized into the long meeting. We could go even longer. But this is like a long meeting for us, so kudos to everyone. I see Mr. Taboda up. This challenges what I know in terms of whether I can accept a are you up to make a public comment, Mr. Taboda? That would be a no. But thank you for trying. And that was jokingly, but no. Thank you. You. Thank you for your contributions too. Any last commissioner comments or staff comments before we adjourn? Oh, we need to return to voting.

I would. Madam Chair, I have a point of clarification regarding new business item one. The approval of conceptual plan for the Costa Mesa Skate Park. The item was approved six zero. So majority votes and no additional votes are needed.

Okay. All right. Thank you for that. Any last comments? Commissioner Doran Parker, do I see you yes.

So I think we need a motion to receive and file. So is it ready so we can make a motion? Thank you. Someone can make a motion. Second, are we ready for that?

Thank you.

Noted.

You may vote on your dice. Motion carries seven-zero.

Thank you. And before we adjourn, would just note, since we're already up and it's 09:00, there is going to be a full lunar eclipse tonight. Be prepared at like 11:20. It should go from about 11:26 for about an hour.

And if I can do a promo, OCC Planetarium has an event tonight that if you want to go, they have all these they have in the planetarium and they have all these telescopes out at their telescope farm in front. Rad. Super rad.

So it is 09:00, and we adjourn the Parks and Community Services Commission meeting. Thank you all.