Parks and Recreation Commission - Regular Meeting

And chair Maldonado.

Here.

Alright. I will now lead us in the pledge of allegiance. You wanna rise? Alright. Are there any department updates from staff this evening?

Alright. Good evening, chair, vice chair, and commissioners. As we've done in previous months, we do have a department update. We do have all of our supervisory staff here, in attendance to share, their programs and the updates. This one is a little longer since we did miss you last month, and we've been doing great things here in Fullerton. So, we'll get started.

Alright. Next slide. Alright. We're gonna start off with CIP. We have three projects currently ongoing, and the first one is UP Trail. So the UP Trail is currently under construction. As you can see, they're cutting they're printing down the curb for the bike trail. The grading is still ongoing, and they're currently putting down irrigation as well. The project is running on schedule right now, so we are expecting to have a ribbon cutting before the end of the year and have this trow being used before the end of the year. The next one is Kaboom.

We have our build date coming up on the thirteenth in partnership with Kaboom and Pacific Dental Services, which is the funder. This park has been closed for over twenty years, so I think the neighborhood's getting pretty excited. We still need volunteers. So if anybody would like to volunteer, they can just email me, and I can send you the link to sign up through Kaboom. This park will be done in two phases.

So the first phase is the playground. The next phase, will occur starting in October and, again, hopefully be done before the end of the year because this will go along with the UP Trail project as the trail runs along the north side of this park. The Fullerton Golf Course, our contract with American Golf is up at the November. So we went out to RFP. We are down to four finalists, and we have a panel of city staff that's gonna make a decision soon.

We're looking to go to council. We had put September here, but sometimes there's a little back and forth with, with getting the contract settled. This is a pretty large contract for us. So it might get pushed to October, but we're definitely gonna have a new contract soon. Independence Park, mitigation is complete, and they've done demolition as well.

This used to be the old kitchen, so they've demoed most of it. Depending on which way the plans go, this could become a new restroom in the future. Currently, there is an architect that's been onboarded. He is trying to figure out the scope of work, just making sure that the roof's in order, the foundation's in order, plumbing. So once they get that all settled, we'll have the scope of work and then be able to come up with a game plan. This project is expected to be completed sometime next year, tentatively for the summer.

So we are in the second two and a half months now that we've had the throne, installed at Independence Park. With this throne, we've actually had the opportunity to move back to Wednesday Farmers Market over to Indy Indy Park, and they're really enjoying that. We have a call with, Throne Company in the upcoming weeks to as there is a survey. If you visited the Throne, there's actually a survey there now that we're gonna review the results, and as promised to commission, we'll bring that back kind of at the three month mark, to see the high how how it's been utilized. We've had maybe two staff one or two service calls, but Throne is pretty pretty responsive, and I think it gives that park another amenity, and it's and it's being utilized.

Good evening, commissioners. I'll be talking about a little bit of about our parts and trails and our sports leagues. First thing, we had Pop Warner opening ceremony. This is our our football league, our our one of our partner leagues. They had their opening ceremony on August 16 at Lions Field to kick off their season. All teams were introduced, and the kids had ball drop fundraiser, with collaboration with our fire department. We also had a Fullerton City Football Club opening ceremony. This was actually their first, opening, ceremony that they've had. It was on August 23 at Bass And Jerry Park to kick off their season. And similar to the Pop Warner, they had kid activities, food trucks.

It was a really great time for for our partner leagues. And we just wanna wish everyone else a great season again.

Good evening commission chair and co chair. First of all, thank you guys for letting us, present here a quick recap, especially for events. I get very excited. We worked really hard this summer. So I also like to take the opportunity to thanks all thank all the parks and recreation staff on supporting all these great events we were able we were able to put on. So we did complete our Movies in the Park first time offering them here in Fullerton at various locations. It was quite a success. It started from maybe, like, 50 on the first one. It ended up, like, maybe a 150 attendees all throughout the rest. As soon as the word started spreading, we started getting more attendees.

So that was just a really great event to put on and seeing just the families come together and have something to do in the summer. We also just completed our Friday night live concert series last week. Was that last week? Two weeks ago? It feels like last week. And we were able to offer it all at the sports complex, which was amazing because it's open space. We had five bands, sponsors that supported the events along with some amazing, amazing food trucks. So the peep families got together and were able to enjoy the live music throughout the summer. We also offered the community yard sale in August. This was on August 2.

We are continuing to offer these. Our next one is on October 2 I'm sorry, October 4. So that could be the last one for the year until bringing them back hopefully next year. So it's been a great outcome. We've been getting more and more vendors, people interested in getting spots, and then we've been getting more shoppers. So that's what we really enjoy seeing. The downtown market, the farmer's market, we do have three weeks left, so you guys haven't made it out there yet. You still got time. So this is the first time we've extended it on up until September. So we're able to incorporate the NFL kickoff game last week on Thursday.

We had a entertainment trailer playing the game. It was Jersey day, so we really are trying our best to, incorporate it with some fall in there. So, you know, we have some pumpkin pie out there already. So, it's great to see that we were able to incorporate it, till September and seeing the fall vibes coming to life. So, we really encourage, families to enjoy it while it still lasts three more weeks left, with it ending on September 25.

And as Christian mentioned, the Wednesday certified market, did move over to Independence Park, and that was on August 8. After many years of being at the community center, they finally moved back. The market is every Wednesday from 08:30 to 12:30 and offers fresh fruits, vegetable, eggs, honey, plants, nuts, and bread, and they're gonna keep expanding their vendors.

And now we're gonna share our upcoming events. I'll go ahead and go over the ones that I have details for, and then I'll let all all the other supervisors step in for the rest of them. So, moving on with the, actually, who wants to do food bash? Okay. Thank you, Miriam.

Hello, chair and commissioners. First up, we're gonna discuss our boots bash. I'm really excited that this is happening in a couple weeks on September 20 from three to seven. So we are incorporating activities for our kiddos and for adults. So we'll have a mechanical bull, bounce houses, face painting, and a line dance instructor that will be teaching line dances before our live band plays. It's a band called Outlaw. So really excited if you guys could come out and join us.

And then Fullerton Cup Park Golf Tour. So I know Christian had mentioned this in a few meetings ago. We are going to host our first tournament with the organization. This is going to be on September 20 from around 10:00 to 01:00. They're going to have food. It's going to be a really good time. They're going to have 18 course set up, and they're gonna have the equipment for anyone that wants to participate. And they're and they're gonna also have a contest as well.

And like I previously mentioned, the last community arts of the year, it's gonna be on October 4 at Independence Park from 9AM to 1PM. And slide. And then we are gonna bring back the Puptoberfest taking place on October 11 at the Hunt Branch Library from twelve to four. So a lot of the same activities we offer last year, so a lot of pet, dog friendly event environment. We have a live band, a dog runway show, a lot of dog vendors, so pet friendly vendors.

We're gonna have dog races, and then we're gonna be having a beer garden as well. So we we're really encouraging one of our biggest dog lovers event of the year. Moving along with our Oktoberfest taking place on Thursday, October 30 from 04:30 to 08:30PM. We are going to have a mini parade that's gonna expand outside of the market. So the kids are gonna be able to trick or treat and parade around the sister local businesses, where they're gonna be receiving some goodies from from those businesses and making their way around back to the market where they can, enjoy live entertainment, vendors, farmers, and photo booths, mini art walk, and some more stuff for, kids activities.

And then we do have a couple save the dates. So we do have Veterans Days coming up on November 11, and it's gonna be a parade all the way up to Hill Hillcrest where we will have a ceremonial event. More details to that are to to come still, so we're still in the planning on that. We're trying to get that out as soon as possible. And then we also do have our Fullerton first ever Fullerton fit five k taking place on November 22. And that's all that's gonna be at the Fullerton Sports Complex. So we are wrapping up our details to get the registrations and information out to the public because it's coming up quickly. So and that's it on my end. Thank you.

Okay. Next up is our Peanuts Spooktacular. So we did host this event last year. Was very popular, very well received. So we're gonna do the event again. It's very similar to last year where we're gonna have contests. We have snacks, crafts, and face painting available for the kids, and a very short truck or treat for the kiddos to get some treats. Okay. Next up, we're gonna go into our rec programming. So starting off with our summer camps.

So this year for our our Camp Hillcrest, we had 927 participants. So our total revenue for this summer for Camp Hillcrest was $170,823. So very excited. It ran for ten weeks. We had on-site entertainment, water days, and excursions. Some of the excursions that the kiddos were able to go on were to the aquarium, to Knott's, Adventure City, Angel's Game, and a few more. But overall, it was a great summer. We didn't have any injuries. It was great. And then over at our Hunt Branch Library, we also hosted another camp.

This camp ran for eight weeks. In total, we had 271 participants. So this is more of a reduced, sorry, camp. Revenue here was 27,100, and the activities here are similar to Camp Hillcrest where we have water day, crafts, but no excursions, but they did get on-site entertainment. So we had a magic show, face painting, a bubble show, and a mini digger came so then they were able to, like, dig over.

It's a really cool setup. So sand, they get to find treasures. Some more pictures of the kiddos over at Hunt. Okay. Next up is our Richmond outdoor equity grant.

So the kiddos and families that participate in this grant were able to go to Catalina Island. On August 30, they were able to explore the island, get they got to snorkel, which was really cool because a lot of the families here have never experienced this and, just enjoy the beach. This upcoming weekend, we're having an overnight camp out at Laguna Lake. So we're getting there in the evening of Saturday. We get to do, dinner and then sleep there overnight.

And then in the morning, we'll get breakfast, and everything is free to all of these families. So the purpose of the Laguna Lake Camp out is in preparation for an overnight trip to Chino Hills State Park. So everyone's really excited. We wanna give them a good time.

For this fall season, we have, probably over 300 classes to choose from, for all ages. Up here, we just have a couple so that you guys can see some of the things that we offer through, 27 different different instructors that we have. And then classes are held at some of our facilities, including the community center, Hunt, Hillcrest. Some of them are outdoors. Some of them most of them are indoor. And then we also have some outside on outside locations as well.

And I'm back. So over at the community center, we have hosted a lot of workshops and classes, programs for older adults. So these are a list of the things that are happening in September. So we really try to offer a variety of classes so that everyone has something to pick from. We're excited. The big hats and tea party is an awesome event. We've been doing a few of the tea parties, and it's very well received. Okay. And we did host our very first older adult camp for the summer, so it was a lot of fun. It ran for one week, Monday to Friday, from 9AM to 12PM.

So each of the days, we try to do one health related activity, whether it was physical activity or, like, trivia and then a craft and an educational lecture, and then we finished the day with lunch and socializing. And this program, we got quite a few sponsors. We had Alignment Health, Providence, St. Jude, UnitedHealthcare, Altamir, and Sunny Crest Senior Living. K.

We also just hosted a volunteer appreciation event for all of our senior volunteers. So this is anyone that volunteers with the Puente Community Center senior programs. So this includes our grocery program, our dances, if they lead a class. It was really cute event. They got lunch, and we had a DJ, so there was dancing.

K. Last Friday, we did host the grandparents day. It was very cute. We had about 20 people participate participating. We got to do have, like, refreshments, and they got to decorate flower pots and wooden and cardstock frames.

Okay. And from July to now, our senior transportation program has served 1,491 trips. So currently, the what we offer in transportation is free trips from the participants' home to the community center and then back home, and eight trips to medical appointments within Fullerton and some satellite locations for free, and then eight trips of recreational locations for cost of either 3 or $7 depending on the location.

For our Fullerton Community, Center rentals for the month of July, we hosted, 30 rentals. Within those rentals, three were weddings, one birthday, three baby showers. The total attendees for the month of July is 1,696, and total revenue for July was 54,146 and 25¢. And for the month of August, we hosted 42 rentals, including six weddings and two bridal showers with a total of 2,470 attendees, and total collective revenue was 23,750 and 50¢.

Okay. And over at the branch library, we did host of our very first quinceanera expo, so it was very well received. We had about 50 families attend, and it was nice to see we just the whole families coming out and getting to talk to the vendors. We had about 23 vendors that attended, and the feedback we received from the vendors was positive. They enjoyed that it was a smaller scale show, so they were really able to connect with the participants and get leads.

Overall, it was a great show. There was food tastings, examples of, like, table settings, decor. It was it was a good show. Then we also hosted a k pop night in collaboration with the Fullerton Public Library. We had about 250 people attend.

They were able to do crafts and decorate, photo sleeves, and it was a good show. I learned a lot about k pop. It was it was a little bit of a challenge making sure that we were doing it justice. So I think everyone that attended was happy with the event. Then this was another camp that we hosted.

This camp was a smaller camp. We had 26 participants attend. It was led by our education coordinator, Amy All. She taught the kiddos about, like, music, instruments, and different crafts and, like, art medias. And we were also able to bring in guest performers and instructors. It was a good overall really good camp. A lot of positive feedback, and the kiddos were able to do a end of the week show for the parents. So was sweet. And that wraps up our presentation.

Thank you, staff, for a really well constructed presentation over these last two months and just of the different programs that we have going on. Absolutely fabulous. Right now, we're gonna move to any commissioner questions for staff.

If you attend this meeting every month, you'll hear me say, I'm so blown away by the work that you guys do every month. And certainly this was we're talking about the summer months here, so certainly it was compounded by camps and everything else, but really great job. I think it's important to connect to the community and and you are the work you're doing certainly does that, so we appreciate that very much. Questions I have, the park golf venture that we're doing, is that solely an event or will that stay on-site after the fact?

So we're working with an organization to host the event, kind of welcome it. Mhmm. It's I think we're the we're gonna be the first city or even in The United States to host this. It's very popular in Korea, if I'm not mistaken. So this is see how it's received and then potentially do a course. This is gonna be at Emory Park Mhmm. And do possibly temporary, more permanent. That's still kind of for discussion and or go to different parks within the city and see what best fits. But Emory was chosen because it's very linear and they're able to fit all 18 holes there.

Great. Okay. Look forward to seeing how that turns out. I know I've talked to a lot of people in the community that are looking forward to that event. So we're excited about it. As for the RP at the Fullerton Golf Course, are we at risk of anything changing in terms of operation? I mean, I assume we're hoping things improve. But would anything change from their business model perspective depending on the group we pick?

So we've had talks about about that. And if we do pick a new contractor, obviously, if we keep American Golf, nothing's really gonna change. They'll keep things the same. But if we bring someone new, we're we've talked to them about potentially keeping staff, keeping not only part time staff, but also full time staff and keeping the same, rewards program they they currently have, which is pretty popular with residents, and then keeping the prices stable for at least a year. And then, you know, then we can kind of slowly work in changes, but, we've told them that we're not looking into, you know, making wholesale changes the second a new vendor gets in there.

Great. Okay. Thank you.

You have anything? You have anything?

No. Again, amazing. I know we've this is a two months' worth of information that we were able to hear today. Just food for thought for Pacific or for Union Pacific Park to do some outreach towards volunteers. I know Love Fullerton is a big event that happens once a year, but it is volunteer kind of driven.

So I don't know if you guys can connect with whoever runs that website to, you know, do some outreach to volunteers that do come out, you know, once a year, you know, if volunteers are needed still for that Kaboom project. I loved the movies movies at the park and the community yard sale. Just hoping to see that stay consistent so people know that that those things are happening. Oops. That think that those things are happening at the at those sites.

I think it'll gradually start building some momentum in that sense. And I definitely love seeing the entertainment truck at the Thursday night farmers market. I think that kind of drew some attention as well too. I know people were commenting a lot on that post with having the TVs out on the first Thursday night, you know, football game type of deal thing. So I think it it attracts a diff a certain population in our community that, you know, that love love that stuff.

So one question that I did have with the Farmers Market, the certified Farmers Market, were were they limited in space before when they were at the community center? And then when they moved back to Independence Park, they were able to expand back to their vendor population, I guess you could say.

I think it's well, thank you for the comments, first and foremost. But I think in regards to the certified farmers market, it was a combination of space plus vendors and foot traffic. So can't speak for the organizer, but just in feedback is the the day to day foot traffic and visibility didn't really, require additional vendors or they would come try it out. Maybe their sales weren't the best, so then they kind of rotate out. But in space wise, it is the parking lot.

And with the community center having senior programming, Wednesdays are very popular. And then in the summers, especially the baseball field was utilized pretty much every day, Monday through Friday with camps and different activities. So it created some challenges. I think now being over at Independence Park, there's much more freedom, and the parking lot, it's definitely larger for them to expand. So we don't have a limit of how many vendors or the space. They technically are renting out the front and the L of the parking Yeah. Adjacent to the homes.

Awesome. Thank you.

I do have pretty much just one question, but it's of the amount of reservations. Were they exclusive to the Fullerton Community Center or was that between Hunt and the Community Center?

Those were the one numbers that I gave you. They were only for the Community center.

Wow. Doing fantastic. What is do you have the hunt numbers as well? Or

Unfortunately, I do not.

No. That's good. That's fine. If we can have them next time, kinda just for analysis. Okay.

Well, that is my end of questions for staff. Before we move this to public comment for the audience, I I wanna address a few things. First, I wanna thank everybody who is going to speak tonight and acknowledge that both tennis and pickleball are very important for this community. I did wanna note that because of kind of our rules of kind of of setting these things up, tonight, we won't be making a direct response to the inquiries that were brought up into the paper that was given or the letter that was given, but we do invite the whole group to come back for the next session where we're gonna be addressing a lot of what the community has voiced in concern.

Okay.

With that in mind, I do want to open move to open, the public comments portion of the meeting. This is the time for members of the public to address the commission on any item of interest, to the public that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Parks and Rec Commission other than those those listed on the agenda. If anyone here would like to speak, please come forward, state your name and the address for the record.

Commissioners,

it's good to see you, staff. It's been a while since, I've been on the parks and rec, on the dais. But, I'll be brief. I'm not gonna hear about, tennis or pickleball. And, specifically, I'm here about, the community, garden that's gonna happen in Union Pacific Park.

I know that's on your agenda, but, specifically, what I wanna address is the, the opportunities that, that we could have at the at the, community garden, specifically the volunteers that we're looking for. There's a lot of interest of, from individuals, organizations, nonprofits that wanna help organize this community garden and look into the from the layout to the the workshops, what kind of activities you wanna have, the amenities that you might have, funding the the amenities. So if you could maybe possibly put this on the agenda in the future or maybe have a separate, meeting, it's something that hopefully you can take a look at, and we can make it successful a part of the Union Pacific Park. And hopefully, I can see you guys this Saturday at the, Kaboom project. So thank you.

Good evening, commissioner chair and co chairs. Thank you for having me. My name is Christine Ontiveros. I am currently the president of the Friends of Fullerton Tennis Club. Our membership roster is a 130 members and we've been in existence for ten years at Fullerton Tennis Center.

I'm here to talk about the proposed conversion of the two tennis courts to eight pickleball courts at FTC. First of all, the commission is to be commended for attempting to address the growing need for the dedicated outdoor pickleball courts at Fullerton. Many of us at our club, we are also pickleball players. We support having more pickleball courts at Fullerton. It's just that we don't believe that converting two courts at FTC is the best way to meet this need either short term or long term.

In fact, this will significantly exacerbate existing problems at FTC while not meeting the needs of the ever growing pickleball community of which I am a part. So parking is our number one issue making a support decision. Fullerton's, Tennis Center shares the already shortage of parking with St. Jude Hospital. This includes staff, patients, guests, and vendors in addition to the tennis players.

FTC's 11 courts now may have up to four players per court. Currently, if you do not arrive early, the fact is you'll be driving around fifteen to twenty five minutes waiting for someone to leave and causing you to be late for your matches or your lesson. USTA and competitive women's teams, seniors, coaches, high school teams, Fullerton City classes for children and teens, and other general players have all experienced this parking crisis. Parents picking up their children from classes also have no place to park for just a quick pickup. The parking lot has already been reduced in size on the Southwest section for expansion of the YMCA patrons, day care, and the homeless shelter office parking needs.

Adding eight pickleball courts, which are 32 players and more waiting to play, will make the parking situation unbearable. Why would you exacerbate an already bad situation for your constituents? The current, proposal for the two court conversion is a band aid at best. It will cause additional havoc with the current parking problems. It will never be a viable long term solution.

There's no close safe alternate parking now especially in the dark evenings during winter which I've experienced personally over the last ten years I've been there. The impact of court reduction availability has already been noticed by our club's usage due to city classes being offered with two less additional court tennis programs which affects our USTA leagues. So the expansion is needed to make, the growing problem, the demand of pickleball. The right solution is not conversion. We need a win win situation for both of us and a better solution alike. Thank you for your time and consideration.

I don't have a pickleball hat on. Okay. But pickleball is fine. Play tennis in Anaheim a lot, and there's a they converted a one of the six courts there to pickleball with movable nets. So it can be used both for tennis and for pickleball. So depending on who shows up, it can it can happen. I'm kinda thinking about, the growing sport of pickleball, kind of like skateboarding. You know, I think in Independence Park, is there a little skateboard park there? I'm not sure. I think there is.

I haven't been on a skateboard for a while. But the beginnings of skateboarding, the skateboarders are looking around for where can we go? Well, we'll find some abandoned swimming pools and we'll ride our, you know, skateboards in there. And so you can do that. But it wasn't really too practical.

So now we have, you know, the little parks and all. So what I'm my main point is that, you know, the the tennis courts were built for tennis and so, you know, that's what I think they should be, you know, geared for and maybe construct pickleball courts somewhere else in the city. I don't I'm not that prepared to go on. So

Thank you for your time. I also want to talk about the tennis pickleball situation. But first, I want to thank everybody over on this side. It was very impressive to see all the work you guys are doing in the community. I wasn't aware of all of that, some of it. So it was really encouraging to see, so I appreciate that. Obviously, you have a lot on your plate. I play at Fullerton Tennis Center. I also played pickleball. I enjoy both sports.

The concern I have and my hearing is not great, so maybe echoing what others have already said. Concern about just the adverse impact it'll have on the existing tennis players. Parking is I'm sure people have said is a real issue. Not always. There are certainly times where there's available parking, but particularly during league play, which starts, I believe, this week and will continue on for a good part of the year, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday mornings, it's very difficult to park.

I'm not I don't plan leagues, but I know I gotta show up a good fifteen minutes early. I don't wanna drive around or park across the street. It's an ongoing problem. I think it's just gonna be exacerbated if you suddenly have pickleball courts where, you know, considerably more people play than you've just had tennis players, four players on a court versus say like 12 or 16. So the big concern for me is I would like to hear that there's some sort of feasibility study being done or some analysis.

Is there alternatives? Maybe there's not, but there are other parks, maybe converting basketball courts, other areas throughout the city of Fullerton. Clearly, you guys have your hands full. I'd be willing to help volunteer if that is possible to do an analysis, look at what other alternatives are. So I just want to know that as a community member, we're doing everything we can to find the best possible solution. It turns out this is the only solution. We just have to figure out how to make it work. But I'd like to think we'd at least do some diligence first to make sure that we have the best solution in play. Thanks for your time. Appreciate it.

Alright. If oh, no. Please.

Hi. Good evening. My name is Joel Paretta. So I live in the city of Fulton. I go to the courts here in, at FTC. They're already really crowded, guys. They're really crowded. I know we need a place, and we need a solution. So we play sometimes at Tustin. I think it's Tustin Legacy, where they have courts that you can go online and you can reserve the courts, you can pay for them, so you don't have to have an employee there.

So I think that would be a good solution if we put Independence Park or another place where parking is not going to be an issue. We've lost courts in Anaheim, like the Anaheim Tennis Center. We've also lost courts. My wife and I belong to I Tennis in La Habra because we already have a hard time finding them in Fullerton. So we spend about, I don't know, I think it's 80 or $100 a month to belong there. There's a lot of people who come from other cities to Fullerton because we don't have any other place to go even though we live here. In the past, we used to be able to go to Western High School or Savannah. Those places were open. They're no longer open. So that's something, that for tennis players, we don't have.

We don't hate pickleball people. We love pickleball people. My wife is pickleball. She's not tennis. I do tennis. But at the same time, we are cannibalizing our courts. So we would love for you guys not to take those away from us. Thank you.

Hi. My name is Steve Clogrove, and, I appreciate the opportunity to address you guys today. So I know there's been a lot of discussion around pickleball versus tennis, and I don't really see this as an issue of one versus the other. To me, I played at Fullerton Tennis Center this morning, for example. And to me, this is really a matter of of three things. One, a couple of people have said there's a lack of tennis court facilities in North Rhond County in general. I actually have to play three different places. I play some in Yorba Linda. I play at Anaheim Tennis Center, I also play at Fullerton because there aren't a lot of courts to choose from here in North Orange County. Several centers have been shut down. Anaheim Hills was closed. La Harbor courts were reduced. Can tell you that Mike Nelson, the owner of Anaheim Tennis Center, converted four tennis courts into 16 pickleball courts, and the parking there is a disaster. I mean, I belong to that club. I pay dues, and I can't park.

I have nowhere to go. In a private club situation, that's up to the owner to be able to do that, and members can choose whether they wanna stay or not. But in a public facility like this, members don't have a lot of choice. And this really isn't about pickleball, as I said, or tennis. If you were wanting to build some and develop this land and take courts away, this is a capacity issue in my in my opinion. I was out there this morning, and I was watching a clerk who's being asked by the city to walk around and count parking spaces that are open at 10:00 in the morning. After the clinic's emptied and all that, a lot of parking spaces opened up, and she's out there writing down open parking spaces. And she's gathering data to I know what she's doing. She's gathering data to help make a decision here, I think, for you guys and for city council. But I'm wondering if the right questions are being asked.

First of all, are there parking issues already? I think you've heard a couple of people say there are. So there's no doubt about the fact that reduction of courts in here and adding more people per court anytime during the day is gonna exacerbate an already existing parking problem. Second of all, is there a tennis player capacity problem? I don't know that anybody on this commission or anybody in the city and council is actually polling the tennis players to see if there's a difficulty getting court time. I've heard players say we can't find courts. We can't get on when we need to play. There's no availability. Well, if that's true, are are you guys or is anybody asking or polling existing players saying, hey. Are you guys experiencing difficulty getting on the courts?

Is there a capacity issue already? Those are the right kinds of questions to ask. Instead of walking down to some of the lower courts during the day and saying, oh, look. Courts are open. They're they're being underutilized. There isn't a sporting complex in the country that's busy twenty four seven. Right? There are always openings, but if you permanently convert two courts in this case to something else and you already have a capacity problem, you're going to make it worse. If you can permanently convert two courts to something else and you already have a parking problem, you're going to make it worse. So I think the questions that should be asked are, number one, is there an existing parking challenge?

And number two, is there an existing tennis capacity challenge? And if you really got data around those two questions, I think this whole decision becomes a lot easier, particularly when I believe the city has options of building courts in other locations. They've already been talked about. Some I've heard are already budgeted for. And that to me is a better solution than reducing capacity that's already a challenge. Thanks for your time.

There's nobody else in the audience. Then we're gonna move to online public public comment.

I do have somebody online. Patty, go ahead, please.

Hi there. Can you hear me okay?

Yes. We can.

Okay. Great. Hello, everyone. My name is Patty Oh. I am director at COLO C. We're an Orange County based environmental nonprofit focused on climate change and sustainable living. We're very excited to see the progress on Union Pacific Park and wanted to congratulate city staff and residents on their many years of hard work. We understand a community garden is part of the project and would love to support it. I've heard from a community leader about the many wonderful residents and volunteers who have long advocated for this park, and we would be honored to join them as a nonprofit partner. At CoolSea, we've hosted numerous workshops on healthy living, composting, food waste diversion, all as part of our sustainability programs.

We've also partnered with the city of Irvine, worked with have a lot of experience working with other municipalities, service providers, community leaders, and residents on other community initiatives. From this experience, we've seen how collaboration can really create a vibrant, resilient community space. Looking ahead, we can bring additional resources to this project. We've connected with UC Agricultural and Natural Resource Center for technical support on another community garden, and we have two climate action fellows who can dedicate time to greening and food waste diversion projects. Combined with the expertise of city staff, we believe this community garden has the potential of being a thriving hub where residents can grow food, learn together, and enjoy a shared space.

We would love to connect with you all on this. Please feel free to reach out to me at admincoloc dot org to discuss further. Thank you so much.

I don't have anybody else.

All right. I will now close public comments. We will now move to the approval of the consent calendar for the meeting of July 14. Are there any commissioners that would like to pull an item from the consent calendar?

Yeah. I'd like to pull, item for the parks master plan from the consent calendar.

Alright. So, is there a second for that motion? Second. Alright. Secretary, please call roll.

So we're approving it with

just pulling that item?

Yeah. We're gonna pull that item first, and then I think we have to approve that afterwards. Yeah. Sounds good.

Okay. So we're gonna pull item number four. Yes. Commissioner Kim is not here. Commissioner Salovere?

Yes.

Commissioner Freeman?

Yes.

Vice Chair McHenry?

Yes.

And Chair Maldonado?

Yes. So

that item has been pulled.

Can move

to approving.

We can move to approving the consent calendar. Do we have to take a we have to take a vote on that one as well. Okay. Cool.

I'll motion sorry. I'll motion to approve the consent item as with item four pulled.

Yeah. I'll second.

Alright. Okay.

Commissioner Tolivero?

Yes.

Commissioner Freeman? Yes. Vice Chair McHenry? Yes. And Chair Model Nato? Yes. The minutes have been approved.

All right.

We're now going to move to the regular business portion of our meeting and bring up Item five. Is there a staff report?

Sorry. Good evening, Chair. Yeah. For Item five, Union Pacific Park project update, we do have a presentation that will load. As you know, we'll get into the details, but this is in regards to a little bit, elaborate more information on our Union Pacific Park project, which has a kaboom build this upcoming Saturday.

Alright. So I just wanted to give you guys a little update and as well as a little background on this project. So it's a 1.2 acre neighborhood park Originally scheduled to be open in 2003, right before it was gonna be open, they found that the soil was contaminated. So, unfortunately, there was a back and forth with the city for several years, and it turned out that the DTSC was responsible for cleaning it up. I think somewhere around 2011, it was finally cleaned, and we got a, you know, report saying that the soil was clean.

But at that point, the the project was out of date. It had been fenced forever. There was illicit activity going on. In order to clean the soil, they had to rip out part of the playground, part of the basketball court. So it was not in good shape, and there was no budget to to make those repairs. So it ended up being closed for a really long time, over twenty years. And finally, in 2023, we secured some CDBG funds just to open the park. It was gonna, at that point, those funds were gonna be used to open it and kinda repair what's already there. And then in 2025, we were able get a Kaboom grant to build the playground. So now it's gonna be a park with all the amenities that normal parks have.

Like I mentioned, it was closed for many years. So in 2021, city council formed a Union Pacific ad hoc committee. In 2023, after several meetings with the ad hoc committee, we conducted a survey. And through that survey, we found that the neighborhood mostly cared about safety and programming, and I think those things go hand in hand. Typically, the more programming you have at parks, the less illicit things happen there and the safer it is.

The other things that they ask for are recreation activities and neighborhood pride. So I think we're checking all those boxes because the neighborhood pride, know, the fact that we get to build this with Kaboom this weekend, I think, shows that the neighborhood really cares. The final design of the park was approved by the ad hoc committee, Parks and Rec Commission, and the city council. So it is a fairly small park, but we are trying to get as much activities in there in order to program the park. And like I said, keep it safe and and keep the neighborhood entertained.

So there's gonna be a new playground that's going in this weekend, and then the rest of this will be going in in October, which is the picnic area, the park benches, the renovated basketball court area, repairing the trail, the bike trail, the pedestrian trail. There'll be two new pickleball courts out there, a community garden, and ADA upgrades. So like I mentioned, the the the funding for this comes in two stages. The Kaboom grant is specifically for the playground purchase and installation. That will be going in September 13.

We're trying to do our best to just let the community know that because the playground's going in, it doesn't mean the park is open. So if you've been out there, it's basically a dirt lot with basketball court that has holes in it. The you can barely tell where the trail was because it's in such bad shape. So this prod this phase of the project will be done on September 13. The next phase, which is gonna be funded by CDBG grant as well as park dwelling funds, That will cover the rest of the renovations, the sports courts, the trail repair, the turf installation, the picnic tables, and the park benches.

The city council approved that contract at their last meeting. So the contractor is currently trying to get their insurance and paperwork in order, and we are expecting construction to start in October. It's a fairly straightforward project, so we do expect it to be done before the end of the year. This is the timeline. So in August, the Kaboom grant does not cover the play the play pit, so we had to get the playground pit constructed out there. Later this weekend, we're gonna do a playground installation. And then in October, we expect the construction to start. And before the end of the year, we hope to have this open to the public. Alright.

I'm I'm gonna touch base on a little bit of the community garden options, as we are looking for the commission to give direction on the kind of approach that we wanna take on community gardens at Union Pacific Park. We there's three types, and I'll go individually through each one, but just in addition to what Edgar had shared on Saturday, part of the Kaboom build day, there is going to be the opportunity to build, garden plots. So that's part of the, like, the volunteer phase two. So those plots will be built on-site. They're about, four feet high, and then we ended at, like, eight feet wide, four by eight, which is to one of the public speakers' comments.

So we are looking at first option being individual plots. This is your, you know, normal residence rent or reserve the garden plot, on an annual basis. They grow their own vegetables, fruits, or flowers. This approach does foster some personal investment. There's some responsibility that comes with, having your own garden plot for the year.

The eligibility requirement, these are all, like I said, just kind of a framework, but we're looking for direction from the commission, but it's over the age of 18, being a Fullerton resident, there'll be a nominal fee annually, which would help subsidize cost of water and general garden maintenance. The plots would be assigned by staff on a first come, first served basis or at a random selection and would not be transferable. And the garden plot maintenance will be the responsibility of each individual. There'll be community workdays for the entire garden, and the hours of operation for the community garden will be similar to those of the park hours. The second option is a community based model.

I think, what was alluded to earlier is a group approach where residents from the area maintain a larger shared bed. They work together on planting, maintenance, and harvest. This fosters more of a collaboration and reduces the need for assigned management. So it's not a specific person. It's more of a group approach. They'll still have to be some supervision over, the community based model that can go multiple ways. It can be a group of residents that work directly with staff as liaisons. It can be local organizations, master gardeners, etcetera. Right? Or the neighborhood group.

Then the eligibility requirement can be the age of 18 and also be Fullerton resident. Again, there would be a nominal fee to help subsidize the cost of water and general garden maintenance. The organization or group of individuals will be responsible for the overall well-being of the garden, and they'll work with city staff maintenance and all garden related items. In addition to that, sorry, all the produce would be, harvested and given out to the community and the gardens. And that's the success to that is the responsibility of everybody.

The third option is kind of a hybrid model. We do have the possibility of having a combination of allocated individual plots with additional shared spaces and educational areas. Some of the feedback that we've received is that they wanna learn how to how to plant. They wanna learn how to harvest. So we wanna designate a few plots for that purpose where it's more educational community, and, again, with some some dedicated, like, allocated beds for individuals.

So that's what we call our hybrid model that that'll meet the flexibility and the community needs. In the city of Fullerton, there's a few kind of stand alone gardens, in and around the area. There's no public community garden for the city that is city operated. So this is the first time, that we're kind of going on this endeavor. We did get some feedback from some of the volunteers and local residents of different gardens.

So Buena Park has one. They have kind of a stand alone with some additional shared spaces, if I'm not mistaken. The city of Tustin has a nonprofit one in Old Town Tustin where it's a community based model, where it's they have a they have a plot of land, multiple garden beds throughout, and it's, like, weekly workdays. So Saturdays, once a month, twice a month. So we're just, again, looking for direction from the commission on what type of gardening option you'd like to see so we can bring back some more established policy as we prepare to open up the park. So with that, we're happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you, staff. Okay. Do the commissioners have any questions for staff? We can go from them. Sure. Yeah. I'll start.

I guess the first off thing was is is budget of time, staff time, and actual budgeted funds. I know there'll be nominal fees, but will that be, we've done analysis now, or do other cities do where it'll be enough to cover the full cost of this program, with the watering fees and maintenance fees and and ongoing maintenance of any one of those the three plans? And then two, who takes the lead? Is it is it community services? Is it public works? And is there enough staff and and staff time to go around to be able to serve the gardens properly?

So I can we've our landscape team has been part of these conversations about the community garden. They would they would kind of incur that into their daily workload in regards to park maintenance. The fee would be nominal to subsidize the cost. We in front of me, and I don't know if Edgar has some hard numbers, but in general, the operations and oversight administrative would be community or parks and recreation. We would allocate depending on what model we choose. We would write the policy and implement the policy and be the point of contact for the garden And landscape would be the maintenance arm similar to any other of our other parts.

Okay. So you're more the administrative programming side and then other works would be the maintenance Okay. Side of And then, I guess who would once I know that we're probably not there yet, but, like, as far as who will manage, I guess, enforcing the policies and I I've had some experience with with other community gardens with other cities I've worked for, and they get very, persuasive and, oh, and they get very they get a lot of ownership because it's they've put a lot of work into it. I get it. I understand that part of it, but, it can get, very difficult to manage sometimes.

And I've seen it where it's city staff run and then also, kind of in tandem with either nonprofit or, like, community garden board themselves. Like, they have their own nonprofit board that kind of enforce and police themselves a bit with city oversight.

Right now, it's been part of the early discussions. We have some staff on-site. We actually have a staff on-site who got their PhD in, like, community garden area. I don't recall specifics, but how in the general environment, how that benefits lower lower socioeconomic areas. So he's been helping a lot in the drafting the policy and has some experience.

Okay. And then in addition, in our parks and recreation team, we have our parks and trails team who oversees parks and and trails, ultimately sports fields in general. So so we have kind of a multi pronged approach administer that, but you're absolutely right. There's guardians who police themselves, and we'll definitely know when someone's not following the rules. Yeah. Because since there'll be limited amount of plots, everyone's going to wanna be looking to be able to join. So something we didn't add is that the community garden, I think in the plans is to be fenced off from the park area, so there'll be a gated access in and out.

And then one final question. Sorry. Is there, I know it's still early in development, but is for individual plots, is there a number on roughly how many plots with the public could have access to versus the the hybrid and this the the group plots?

Yes. So, I recall the space itself and so it's gonna be in the northern as you're entering the park, side adjacent to the alley, it's about a 100 feet by 25 wide. So that's where the plot size is. They're four by

eight? Four by eight.

Four by eight. So we're looking I think we're looking about 15 plots that would fit just yeah. One five. How we kind of sorry. Angle them. And, that's gonna be part of, like, our build day and seeing seeing how much space it it requires.

That's it for me. Thank you.

How do you determine if we go individual plots, how do you determine who has preference that you know, who's the preferred owner of a plot, for lack of a better term? How do you decide in 15 plots you have 100 applicants, who wins?

We do I mean, some of the framework idea wise is first come, first served and or a lottery system, but that would be part of the policy we present to you if that's the way we direction we go. But as of right now, there's multiple approaches that we can explore.

And then how long does someone have rights to a plot? Is it one harvest?

Usually, it's done on an annual basis, so calendar year.

For the just for the record, I'd I'd be in favor of of a hybridized approach with a real lean in on the educational component of it, not only for the residents of the of the community, but the surrounding community, but maybe even more geared towards the youth. We have high schools that have, you know, farms on them and farming programs, and I think it would be something that we could lean into.

So I'll start off by saying I really like the hybrid model. I want to minimize staff time and staff involvement over a community garden. Many, many years ago, huge advocate for building gardens in and around the city, primarily in schools. But this would probably be the first city on city property in a sense, right, more public component. So I like that to be able to bring in nonprofits to help kind of lead, be one of the co leaders alongside the community because it is a community garden, so you do want the community to take ownership of it.

So that's why I like the hybrid model to my fellow commissioner here sharing. So I'll just stay there, but I wanna minimize staff involvement and staff time.

Yeah. And this is I think this is one of those things that people are very passionate about. I think it's comparable to the Pooch Park. There are people that are very into their dogs, and the Pooch Park Foundation helps us run the Pooch Park. They're there. They're making sure that everyone's following the rules. They're we we meet with them fairly regularly, usually at least once a month just to go over any issues they're having. So I think the community garden is another thing where people are very the people that are into it are really into it. So we're hoping to get some community help and help run this thing because the reality is we can't dedicate a full time staff to this or anything like that. Not not even close. Not even half probably.

Yeah. I mean, that's what I definitely wanna avoid.

Alright. Thank you. Well, if I were to voice my support, it would also be in the hybrid format. Hybrid or community, I think individual can get kind of messy, specifically, like, if someone were to stop taking care of their area and the enforcement of, like, that mistreated area. So in a hybrid, at least, you can have some sense of, like, community understanding with if you're sharing it with an organization. But I wanna just keep it short. So we're gonna move this to open to the public comments portion for this. So if anybody would like to speak on this, you may come up.

I have no one online.

No one online? All right. Is there any commissioner that would like to make a motion to, like, direct staff on what type of

Do you need a motion?

Sorry, chair. The motion for the agenda itself is receiving

file. Oh, yeah.

However, if there's a general consensus of the direction you want us to draft a policy, which seems to be more of the hybrid model, we can draft the policy based on that

Okay.

And then bring it back at the next next meeting, and then that's where we can have full discussion and vote on a policy

Yeah.

If that's okay with you.

I believe we have unanimous consent. So, yeah. Please.

Let's do that for the hybrid model.

Okay. Yeah. So we will Pull up the

policy looks like.

Absolutely. So what we'll do is we'll drop the hybrid model approach, and, we'll also share that information with our, some of the Kaboom leaders or volunteers within the Kaboom because they are very interested in the community garden so they can, join us at the next meeting to share their support or, details on that. Awesome.

Alright. Well, if there are no speakers, I think we've concluded this one. Let's move to item number six. Is there a staff report?

Yes. So, chair, we do have a presentation, for item number six, and this is the Lions Field Turf Replacement Project. It's, something we're very excited about. It's been about twelve years in the making. Definitely, in the last couple of years, it's, as we'll get through the details, the lion's turf has been, installed for the past twelve years.

And the last couple of years, it's had some challenges, and we've had to do a lot of patchwork. But, before you, it's the Lyons Field turf replacement project at Lyons Field. It's located at 1440 North Brea Boulevard adjacent to Hillcrest Park. It is our city's primary synthetic field serving thousands of youth annually between multiple sports, football, softball. We even have like, a row community groups that utilize the space and since the stairs have opened, that facility has it has always someone there either working out, doing lessons, practicing.

Mind you, there's there's multiple permitted and unpermitted activity there or just people taking a stroll. So, the existing turf was installed in 2012 and has exceeded its recommended service life. Multiple service calls for patchwork have been made in the last couple of years, including most recently in July, primarily in the hot use areas, which is the batter's box and the pitching mounts, and our project budget is $2,000,000 coming from our, capital improvement, fund, our park dwelling fee fund. So this is an overview of you know, I'd like to say that it's probably just this the aerial, but that's how it looks. It's a it's a darker, green and red because of the the rubber, pellets that are there.

You have four softball fields. You have one right on your, I guess, the bottom of the picture adjacent to the Hillcrest Park is your Field Number 1 along with there's a snack bar there and a Lions what we call Lions Field Conference Room. North of that is Field 2, which is field and there's restrooms and a storage and a cement space there. And then you have Field 3, Field 4, and you also have a football field that's primarily that's at this time only line for football. So the turf replacement project staff did seek three proposals using the California multiple award schedules, CMAS procurement framework.

This allowed us to work with vendors that are already kind of prescreened, preapproved, and have an agreement with not just our city, but a general scope in multiple cities. The scope of work is to approximately the removal and disposal of about two sixteen thousand square feet of turf, the regrading and inspection of the base layer to ensure long term field performance, Installation of a next generation synthetic turf with dual fiber blades designed for durability and natural appearance Selection of cork, coated sand, organic base fill to reduce surface heat and environmental impact and then a permanent inlay striping for football, soccer, and softball reducing the need for temporary paint or additional maintenance, and then contractor provided warranty and staff training to extend turf life span. And I do want to focus on the three proposals that we received. We did receive and review the following three proposals, and we've actually had the conversations with our engineer of every proposal to, you know, see what they would be looking at as parks and recreation is kinda leading the project. But the Kaya Group, was the lowest cost for a million $499,000.699, led by Shaw Sports synthetic turf, now about approximately $1,500,000, and then field turf at 1.6.

Just to note that the field turf, is currently what we have there, and it has, you know, like I said, up to this point, it's twelve years. There's been a lot of repatch work, but that's just with its time, and they've been they've been great to us, and we have a good working relationship. When we ask for the proposals, we we are very specific and kinda give us your best product. So that's the cost on the best product. You can we've also had the opportunity to visit different, facilities and city municipalities where the product that we're looking to install at Lions Field has been installed at their facilities.

The Kayak Group recently had one at Pico Rivera Smith Park, a full, football field replacement. Shaw Sports Synthetic Turf is someone that's worked at Orange County Great Park on their soccer fields, and then Field Turf has, like, Louis Pompeii and Glendora, Chino Hills. So it's very similar projects. So we've had and the Kaia Group too at sorry. There's a lot of schools and public public schools and their football fields.

So kinda going through. The next couple of slides just give you a a graphic of each proposal. One of the things we really looked at was the distinction between the infieldoutfield. It's to note that none of these pitching mounds have permanent in ground sleeves for the like concrete sleeves for the for the pitching mound. We're looking to purchase all, like, carpet with temporary bases.

If you haven't seen those, they're like they're like very heavy carpet material, it has, like, spikes at the bottom that hold on to the grass. So when you pitch and you're not creating you're not damaging your space there because of the pitchers dragging their feet, etcetera. The second piece to note is that and I forgot to mention, when we were starting to explore this project, we had multiple conversations with the kind of the primary user groups of the space and got their feedback on, like, what's your wish list? Right? And if we had x number of dollars, what do you wanna see?

And for softball specifically was, of course, the the four softball fields. But if you can tell at the top in your picture, the top left corner, it has a fifth softball field there. No back no background there, no turtle show or anything, but it does have the design for it for more of a six u field. So the idea is from the softball group, as their six u teams grow, they're giving them a space, versus taking up a field and that way they can finish earlier in the day versus kind of backing everything up. This the football field, again, previously, it was only a football field markings, and we added, I think, the dual use for soccer.

It's something that I think we need to add as the sports keep growing and the Olympics are around you know, in a couple years. We just don't want to miss the opportunity to attract different sports. And then in addition to that, just we wanted to add to Fullerton something that really said of who we are. We were thinking of the the end zones. But what do you do to one, not do to the other?

And then so we just kind of all of them doing a watermark right down the middle there. So this is the Kaya rendering, and we'll go to the next one. This is Shaw Sports Turf, and also something distinction is the color. It's based on what products they offer. Again, this is the same the same concept, same renderings.

The soccer football field has a a different watermark, and that's kinda based on their products and what they sell. I forgot to mention all of them are gonna have the, like, the cooling infield to their own product, but that's part of our proposal. So Kaia had if you if you don't mind going back. Kaia has a product called Tenkate with a geocool infield. So, ultimately, that geocool infield helps with the when you fall and you don't have to add a pad on the bottom because it's, like, concussion proof.

Not concussion proof, but it's rated for concussions, but it also allows for more you don't need to water it the entire time. It takes the the the precipitation into its rubber infills and then releases it throughout the day. So it's set to be cooler. And we we met with all the vendors too, and we went through full on discussions on all these questions. So excuse if I don't know the scientific specific terms, but we did do our due diligence with all of them.

The next one is Shaw Sports Turf. Again, this one, it's a game on technology, the two point o. Pretty much if you've gone to the Orange County Great Park, they actually did about staff actually visited. They did two fields if I'm not mistaken, and, they had the opportunity to walk on the field. And all these products are, like, perfect, you know, carpet once you're on there.

Right? So it's also kind of preference, but they have a game on technology with also a cooling element to their product. And then you can also see that at the bottom right on this picture. It has that softball field in black and then a Fullerton, they pride themselves on doing more of a the watermark on their actual inlay, so it's larger. So if Laguna Beach High School has Shaw, it has, like, this really cool wave kind of at the end zone, so they're they have that technology.

And then the third one is FieldTurf. Again, FieldTurf is the current, product that we have. This is the so this one is a a mix. The outfield is a Vertex Prime, Elite Prime, which is their top tier product. And then the infield's like a triple threat.

Again, they they provide, you know, the multiple markings, a little bit more in detail. There's actually in their proposal, they show this as their elite, and then they give us some different add ons or if we wanted a different product as well. But, this is current. And at the bottom again, you have the infield marking there for the softball field, the Fullerton through the middle, and kind of consistent. They have the current drawings, I think they added a little bit more just based on the previous install that you can see.

Those are the three different designs. In addition to the project itself, when I when I referenced that we spoke to all the all the organizations or the organizations that are primarily there, when we said, hey. What's your wish list? A couple of things they mentioned were new dugout benches. I think right now, they're they're wooden dugout benches. There's always graffiti. If it breaks, it's very hard to replace. And all the infields in addition, the field goalposts, so city staff has to install and remove field goal posts every season when football football versus softball. So we're we have to get a crane out, remove them, and so much wear and tear. I think it's time to replace those.

In addition, none of the scoreboards are actively working properly, so we're looking to install new scoreboards, kinda same same concept, and that there's definitely much better technology now, where it can be controlled from your phone. It can be controlled, you know, just via Wi Fi or a receiver. So I think that's an added value. As I mentioned, there's a Lions Conference Room there that is highly utilized by all sports groups for either registration, for their board meetings. Like, I think I I know we say that the Fullerton Community Center is our most busy facility, but the Lions Conference Room is definitely at least three to four days a week someone's in there.

So we're looking at doing office replacement, kinda bring that up to to standard. And then our big wish list item, if, you know, if budget and time permits is some of the feedback was to have a bleacher shade structure over the football field seating areas because it gets really hot, and then a lot of people bring in easy up, then it can fly away. Just different feedback that we received. So that is those are kind of the quote quoted prices. Again, we went through a cooperative agreement for all these so where we can do kind of a sole source purchase versus going through the bidding process.

These are just some pictures. So that's the current dugout. So as you can tell, it's kind of a it's it's all wooden. They're very long, so we'd be purchasing multiple for each dugout, but it also serves the purpose having that seating area where kids kinda sit down and instead of on the bench itself. Then we have so this is so that's the one that we remove all the time.

It's it's just a field goal post. It's nothing fancy, but there's also some technology with new sleeves that we would install it, kinda make it more protective. But that is the fuel goalpost that we remove. We kinda break it down, and then we store it on-site every winters or winter twice a year. So, and we get a crane out. Actually, it's kinda pretty cool to see. And then our next one is the scoreboard. Again, that's the scoreboard on field one on the light pole. It's it's a Daktronics scoreboard. Nothing super fancy, but it gets the job done of the guests, the runs, ball strikes out.

There we would purchase four for softball baseball, that's what they're called, and then one for football. So everybody would have a dedicated scoreboard. This is the Lions Field Conference Room, kind of the proposed furniture. If you guys never been there, it's actually kinda neat. We we host a lot of our department meetings there because it's kind of a way, but we do this design here is for about 20 chairs, and that's kind of the idea, the foldable chairs and the sorry, the chairs and then the foldable tables and and then a whiteboard is what we were looking to purchase for that facility.

And then this is a football bleacher shade structure. Again, this is with USA shade. That's the rendering and an estimate like I I included in the report, and is that only if time permits because the engineering and manufacturing of the shade is there's a tight timeline when, you know, after today's meeting, whichever the direction commission wants to go and approvals, we go to council, get contracts going, but this is kind of our big wish list. If, you know, we'll always explore if not in this round of project and in a future allocation, we can install these, but I think it would be a much needed, you know, shade shade structure there at Lyons Field. So before you today's some recommended actions for staff recommending that Parks and Recreation Commission recommend to the city council approval of the following.

One is awarding a contract to Kaya in the amount, of million dollars 499 what? 699. Sorry. 499,699 for the lines filter replacement project. And second to that is incorporating subject to funding availability and construct construction schedule alignment, the following amenities that I shared, the dugout benches, field goal posts, scoreboards, the conference room furniture, and the football field bleacher sheet structure. And I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Right.

Does the commissioner do the commissioners have any questions for staff? We'll start from our left.

Go ahead.

Sorry. Staff's recommendation of Kaya, which is the cheapest option from what I can tell, is that what the recommendation is based on is the lowest cost option or is there something else? Because I seem to remember when what was sent to us, there were some things that a couple of the organizations may have been throwing in as comped as part of their quote. So how did you arrive on that as your recommendation, I guess, is the first question?

Yeah. So we took kind of a holistic approach to where we can include a lot more of our of their amenities from the different sports groups because we're really seeing this as a once in a lifetime type of contract or at least in the immediate future. Right? So we're looking at Kaya who's who's a reputable company. We have no issues with Kaya.

We have different cities that use Kaya. And what we broke it down was very specific to the product, their infield, and we looked at a lot of the exclusions, so in their proposals. I sat down with our engineering and he said, I don't I look out not so much what they're going to do is what they're not going to do. Right? That's kind of the approach.

So we looked at all the vendors and the exclusions. We had some follow-up conversations to make sure they covered what we needed to cover, their warranty, their install. None of them are dealing with drainage or irrigation, but it's, like, surface level, what their prorated warranty is because something to take note of, some of these and you can see in the different proposals, there's different add ons. Yeah. We try to really get it apples to apples.

It's a little bit challenging because you can tell from their best product. So then that's where FieldTurf then gave us their additional and the final proposal you can see on the line item there. That's kind of the most comparable. Right? So some some vendors, there's add ons that we can we could have chosen, warranties, additional warranties, etcetera. But I think for for us as staff and for the community and the user groups, with Kaya and their product, we would be able to then also include additional amenities that would make just that facility better.

Gotcha. And then their proposal, Kaya's proposal, is that based solely like the the aesthetic of their proposal is very different from that of Shaw and that of FieldTurf. And I'm partial to one over the other, and and it's not Kaya from an aesthetic perspective. So is that something that we can opt to consider if if we if you end up landing on Kaya?

Are you talking about the the content of what is included in their proposal?

Well, the aesthetic of the the actual football field has Fullerton in a small, like, 20 yard or 10 yard, you know, stripe on the field versus a couple of the others have Fullerton spread across the whole length of

Understood. Got it. Got it. Yeah. So so the yeah. Absolutely. So We're looking is just based on their proposal. We can definitely work with Kaia. I think they're they'd be willing any of the the companies be willing to work with us, and we kinda just said, hey, want Fullerton in the middle. That was like the middle, no pun intended, middle ground for all of them. But some have a like you saw Shaw's is like the entire field.

Right.

I'm sure Kaya can do that. That's just what they quoted us on.

So then Kaya, the Kaya pricing is $1.04 $9.09 $6.09 9. The rest of it is roughly $2.50 for the second component of it, correct? As I saw it on the screen. So that's still an all in net savings of over 200 k to total proposed budget?

With all of the additional amenities, yes. Because we do include your first attachment, kind of our budget data sheet. We do have staff timing associated to the project and also contingencies. So we do it's usually about 10%, but but there is some room to work there. Yeah. So yes. And

then proposed timeline?

Yeah. So that was that's the most critical piece. Right? So there's never the right time for these sports groups. They they always got something going on, but we were able to kind of in planning for this project. And part of the proposal is making sure that everyone's aware of our timeline. We're looking at November through December and then being open for the spring season for softball. So you're talking about, like, January.

That's very aggressive.

Yeah. And they all so they're all pretty committed to it because they can so that was part of the questions, like, can they meet that timeline? And with the sports groups, Pop Warner right now ends, I think, the second week, they'll have last games. Thanksgiving's usually kind of their hard end date. We don't have any, like, rugby programs and then softball. We have some additional fields, but ultimately, their kickoff is January, give or take, depending on the dates.

And maybe only flag football rental groups that might want a lighted field, but that's Yeah.

So that's we haven't got into that because Yeah. Either it's it's a Pop Warner or softball or some, like, tournaments. Yeah. Softball tournaments at the end.

And I I can add to it too. When we went through our allocation, that was something that we considered too when we met with the sports user groups at our meeting. We kind of mentioned that timeline of, hey, November through January. That was gonna be our timeline for, this project. So Yep.

I'll just make a comment real quick. I've personally worked with the Kaia Group before, in Garden Grove, and I I can vouch they are a a good reputable company. They have a lot of good products, especially turf. That's even one of their kind of specialties. They've worked a lot more with that stuff in in a lot of municipalities and school districts and stuff like that.

So that that's actually the kind of the bread and butter school districts. And so, like, you think about how many schools there are in California and football fields and turf and all that stuff. They do a lot with that stuff. So I don't have any calls about that. I I did wanna just ask, is the is the option number two for the recommendation, is that are all those extra amenities, is that also through Kaya and their CMS agreement, or is it separate?

It's separate. So a lot of those vendors so what we did is we purposely looked through Sourcewell Yeah. Vendors or Omnia or not so much CMS but Omnia or Sourcewell. So all those fees are associated to a Sourcewell vendor and their Okay. Quote. We did not go through the so like Kaya Group is all encompassing. Can they can purchase all those items. However, in the case that Kaya was not awarded the contract, kinda starting into this, FieldTurf wasn't going to be able to do that. SHA possibly not.

We had to do it. We had a plan accordingly.

Yeah. Just to make it and again, like, the project itself would be terf specific, and then all the additional amenities were secondary.

Okay. And with that, it through Sourcewell and and Omnia contracts, are we are are the contractors doing the labor for the install as well, or is that a separate

It includes it in there.

Yeah. It is a Okay.

Dependent. So, like, for example, for the scoreboards, we want our first vendor couldn't do the install. Yeah. So we had to search a different Sourcewell vendor that would also do

the That had it in their in their contract.

Yeah.

Their source of contract. That's good because that's that's the hard part is getting the piggyback labor.

Yeah. So Get on it. Again, if once this kind of as we move forward in the case that the awarded contract, in this case for example, Kaya because we know they're all inclusive, we can have that conversation and they can include it in their final cost. Okay. So for us for us, the staff is, like, all inclusive in into one vendor versus multiple vendors. Yeah. Yeah. But, again, this was all purposely separated in case there's different contract awardees.

Gotcha. Okay. And then lastly, the for the field goal post, if you're able to move forward with that, it comes in the timeline. The one that's removable, is the is the proposed field goal post, is it one of those? Because I've seen some new ones out there where they're it's all done by you don't need a crane anymore. It's at the base of it, it's mechanical. It lowers down, and then you just unscrew bolts and pull it apart, and you just take it away on a dolly.

I don't know if

you guys seen those or that's what's proposed or what is proposed.

No. It would be the the exact same one, but I think that we can definitely look into that.

Yeah. I mean, I know we're in a super tight timeline, but that would be you you wouldn't have to have the heavy equipment come on the brand new turf Yeah. Every year to do that. I know that technology is out there. Just I don't know the price point on it. It could be ridiculous, but I've definitely seen it out there in a new product. So it's it's good. But I I think this is great. I think that field needs it, and it's a tight timeline. And if if you can pull it off, that'd be great for the users that use that field.

And to my earlier question about the aesthetic, like, don't let that slow anything down. The only thing I would say is, like, I think we we gotta be cognizant of which direction the word Fullerton is facing because I would think you'd probably want an Instagramable moment from the stairwell. But just saying.

No. Very true. So, yeah, we've we internally have made some adjustments like color schemes for that fifth softball field, what you know, we is it black versus white? So different things like that, which will be part of the final product.

Sorry. Had one one quick question. The infields, is that all turf as well? Is that dirt?

It is turf. Okay.

That's it. Thanks.

So definitely like the direction that Kai has gone with this and kind of what you all the feedback that you all got. With the second part, though, understanding some of the scoreboards that are currently not working, did they ever function?

Before my time, I'll defer to Etch to see if

he knows.

Etch? I think at some point, they did.

Just like all the other ones in the city Yeah. At some point. It's a little tough with the scoreboards just because I think a lot of the other user groups at the other parks probably would be asking the same thing for theirs to to be functioning. I know we had a conversation with West Fullerton Little League a few years ago, you know, trying to get that one up and going. You know, it being one, they're getting five.

I'm sure East Fullerton Little League would love to have a working scoreboard out there. I don't know about the Fullerton Sports Complex. So just thinking a little bit about not just one field, putting all our eggs in one basket. So maybe looking in the near future, finding ways, creative ways to kind of give some of the other, you know, partner leagues and and fields more more likely the fields some love when it comes to that. Definitely know the conference room gets used a lot.

The only question that I did have with the shade structure, have they done the study of, like, kind of where to make sure because I've been to some places where they have shade structure, and you don't get any shade under the shade structure the way the sun kinda comes down. So

Yeah. So it's a it's a really good point. Yeah. We had a walk through with, USH Shade, because they're part of the Sourcewell, agreement, and their vendor is someone that we know relatively well in parks and recreation. So we had that discussion, and that was based on kind of the recommendation. And I believe they do those studies as well as their proposal.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Sometimes they're just the way it's set up. It's Yeah.

Where the sun's gonna be at that time.

Yeah. They'll let you know.

That's that's, I guess Yeah. My only concern because I've been to some places where you're like, wait. There should be shade right now, and there's, like, no shade.

Yeah. And to your point

It's, like, behind you or, you know, I'm trying to I was trying to think the whole time, like, when I've been there, what does a shade look like?

So Yeah. And to your point, we the initial ask was let's look at every field. And just based on the greenery, the different trees, the space, that was their recommendation. They said bleacher on the football field is the best and probably the only option if then it gets too extensive and it's, you know, the cost goes up. So with the shade specifically, we're really trying to that timeline is the tightest to be completely honest because of the manufacturing of the structure.

And then also, we don't want heavy machinery when the when the synthetic turf is installed. So it has to be Done before. Yeah. Much more when there's either prior to the demolition of this existing turf, which puts us at the front November or seeing how that would work out.

Yeah. It is the probably the costliest item. Right?

It is. So that's the that's the initial quote, the rough order cost. We didn't require it's much more extensive. So we wanted to go through this first to then get a final hard number and see how that fits in our budget. Okay. Because it's also not fair to the vendor going through that process and then Yeah. No. Move forward with

it. Not moving forward

for quotes.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm good with it as long as, again, giving the department some you know, I'm sure, again, other dugouts probably need benches. I mean, those are not as bad as some of the other ones, Eche. Correct?

From some of the other baseball fields that we have around the city that probably need some new benches. So it's just I don't wanna get into this, hey. Why are they getting why is Lions Field, you know, especially if this is, you know, a separate item, you know, from this even though there is the budget in a sense, like, we can still allocate that into some other areas of the city as well too. So just I wanna be cautious with that that we don't have, you know, four other partner leagues coming in asking, you know, for for some love in a sense. But, yeah, I'm I'm I'm good I'm good with this.

Sounds like there was consideration about shade structures near the softball fields. And so then I it makes me wonder if maybe the monstrosity that is the shade structure that's proposed for the football bleachers might be too big because it's fully expansive, fully covering the bleachers, correct? And I wonder if there's an opportunity to consider tapering that down a bit and maybe covering the middle section of the bleachers and then potentially considering shade in some of the other areas of the facility. So

I think to that point, Commissioner McKendree, there's part of the conversation we have with USA shade is behind the softball bleachers, there's only a walkway. There's no additional concrete space, so that's where they would ultimately hang from. So it would be impeding the walkway, so it's not it's not ADA accessible at that point. Right? The ones on so Field 2 And 3, they were even considering going into, like, the Brea Boulevard sidewalk and then lifting it and building it over.

So in this case, with the football fields, that back I don't think there's a accessible walkway behind immediate bleachers, So that's where they're considering. So we're also looking at that as well, how much where their footings can actually fit and the scope of work, what's actually gonna take place.

I think as I think of the football bleachers and certainly a nice to have, but the football season is such a limited component of the year. And that particular facility is kinda dominated by softball activity most of the year from what I can tell. And most of those softball families don't sit there but for opening ceremonies. So, you know, I I would not one group over another, but total bang for our buck, so to speak. And, you know, first thing for me, if we needed to find some money, maybe we taper the size of it or think about eliminating it altogether. So

Yeah. And I think it's when you think about it is primarily for for football. Right? I don't think those bleachers get really used by any of the other sports. Maybe soccer. I don't know.

So commissioner, the goal of the project is to make it multi use as well. I know historically it's been definitely softball, but you also don't have No.

I'm saying the the shade

Sorry. Yeah. But the facility as a whole Yeah. Has been primarily softball. The football field has been primarily football. But we don't have the lining for soccer. And right now, we've actually had multiple conversations with different organizations where, like, we're trying to maximize the use on those non peak hours. So we're talking, like, Friday nights when everyone's playing flag football somewhere else, Saturday afternoons. After 04:00, 05:00 softball's done, usually, and then Sunday evenings. So we're trying to and then in the mornings. So we've had conversations with local colleges,

and

if they can actually host their matches there, then that brings a different element. So we're we're exploring how to ultimately maximize that space with the different lines. One thing you'll know is that it's just soccer and football. There's no additional sports that have knocked down our door and said, hey. We're looking to play this sport. So along the lines with every and we've shared this conversation with the sports groups that we're trying to really maximize the use of the space to different user groups.

If I could ask, with the maximizing of of the user, are we looking to modify any fee structures or anything like that or your fee schedule to be able to accommodate that? Because the more the more you use it, the I mean, the more it wears down quicker it wears down. Right? And and if we're gonna have college groups and private groups or any of that that coming in, they they're gonna have more money. And, like, I don't know what our I should know this, but I don't know what our fee schedules are and where the classifications are for those groups. But, you know, that should, at some point, be enough to recoup some costs for the wear and tear of it all.

Yes. So that field has a higher fee structure than your normal

Yeah.

Sports field, like, at a local park. And then the yes. The non or sorry, our partner groups have a minimal cost. And then ultimately, all of the adults or private until, like, Cope International, for example, they've been renting a lot of our fields. They pay a higher premium, and that would be kind of the expectation for those nonresidents, nonpartner groups. They're paying a higher premium for field space.

Okay. Good. That because if we're utilizing that time, I want them to help pay for it.

Before we take a motion, I believe we have to check online to see if anybody's

I have no one.

Nobody? Okay.

Would anyone like to introduce an emotion?

Do you need two separate?

Yeah. How does that how does that work for for one and two?

So they're they're separated into so ultimately one is to order to recommend to city council for the approval and then two incorporates it's written it's written in a way that subject to funding so you can do the recommended actions as a group and of course it's subject to funding and timeline. So then we would take that into consideration, but you can approve them in one motion. Sure.

Yeah. So I'll I'll move to motion the recommendations as is with one and two. Is that is that is that good?

I'll second. Yes.

Yeah.

Commissioners Dallavera? Yes. Commissioner Freeman?

Yes.

Vice Chair McHenry?

Yes.

And Chair Maldonado? Yes. The motion passes.

Alright.

So now we're going to bring this back. And are there any matters from commissioners? Commissioners are limited to no more than five minutes per commissioner.

Chair Mondonal, I believe there was an item pulled from consent that we'd still have to it was the parks master plan.

Oh, yeah. My apologies.

Parks master plan. So we still go over that option? Okay.

Yeah. So I don't have a presentation, but wanted to give just a little background. It was brought forward by Commissioner Freeman at our last meeting to bring information in regards to a park master plan for the city. As I shared in my report, what we're looking is for staff for the Parks and Recreation Commission to recommend to the City Council to the city to formally initiate the process of developing a parks master plan by authorizing the release of request for proposals. We've previously done this.

I think 2021 was the last time, if I'm not mistaken. Yes. We went through the RFP process, and it was, not none of the bids were accepted by city council. So for us and, we'd like for that recommendation knowing that there's some, city council support and commission support to move forward. I did reach out to a couple of firms.

We have 53 parks, which is a lot. Depending on how extensive, detailed we want the master plan, their range is from 300 to $450,000. Recently, kind of in researching some of the neighboring cities that have master plans in the last couple of months, maybe in the last year or so, It was between 300 and $350,000. So we're looking kind of more on the safe side, but that is just a range of potential costs. So the master plan will definitely help us in the development of our parks as we continue to get park dwelling fees, where to invest it, prioritize, and actually give us a hard cost of what, a park project may look like in the future at all of our different parks.

At this time, we don't have a master plan, so a lot of the discussion is from the commission's direction, city council's direction, staff's direction, on what's, you know, what's the next project, what's the next priority, or what's you know, if it's not CDBG grant grant funded monies or some of the park dwelling monies that we've already have pre allocated. But it as our community grows, there's the needs are different, access to parks and equity, and then community engagement. But ultimately, when we're looking for grants and funding in that competitive aspect, having the master plan, having the document that says, you know, if we get those $2,000,000, we know where to allocate it right away. Right? We're ready to go.

So so that's part of the some of the benefits, that we're looking we're looking for that. And, again, it was in 2021 when it was last presented to city council. It was, at that time, it was awarded to RJM, design group from San Juan Capistrano, and it was not approved. So we're happy to answer any questions.

Sure.

Well, let's bring it back to the person who brought it up first.

Thanks. Yeah. So I just I I felt it was kind of important to pull it just simply because it it because in 2021, which wasn't that long ago, that it was it was rejected. All the all the proposals were rejected. And I felt that if we were going to, as a commission, recommend it to our council members, that we we owed it a little bit of a discussion at least to understand the value of this.

And like Christian said and also put in the staff report, the the true value of how this can really shape the Parks and Recreation Department for for 10 to the next ten to fifteen years. And, you know, it's we if we're gonna recommend that, we need to be able to tell our council members what it is that we're recommending for something that, you know, could, in theory, be rejected again. And I think it's it's wise for staff to have it be for have us to have us recommend a council to approve the initiation of it as opposed to approving the the RFP or the other proposals because that's a whole process that takes takes a while. And then if it nothing happens, then, you know, it's it's doesn't look good for the city. It kinda doesn't look good for the the the developers or the the the firm.

Excuse me. And I just wanted to to put it out there and and see if there's any questions that you guys had for staff and and just to bring it up so you guys know fully what it is that we're gonna be proposing, because it does shape our community. It will shape this department, and it really does affect the community for a while. And it gets us, gives us a competitive edge, like Christian said, with grants. We in in the city of Garden Grove, I know I referenced that a lot, but we've we did ours.

We did a fifteen year master plan in 2019, and it it's been invaluable, for us. And we've been able to get we have been able to get grants. We were awarded one of the Prop 68 grants, which was $6,000,000, to redo one of completely renovate one of our parks. And we're currently under construction right now for that park. And it's it's part and and due to the park's master plan. And those opportunities come about every so often, and we don't wanna be late to that. So it's imperative we have something like this for them. So

I'm a little naive to the topic, so good around the conversation. But ultimately, where my head goes to is on all things where we spend money is to play the other side of the fence a little bit. And I know that council consistently gets questions about simple things like, when are my streets going to be paved? You know, when are our sewer systems going to be functional so that we don't have a water main break that's now on local news throughout the city of Los Angeles? When are those things going to be funded?

And so where I think there would will still be pushback will be around the idea of a 300,000 to $450,000 expenditure to create a plan that some might argue and not necessarily me by playing devil's advocate here that we as an organization, you know, as an entity of the city should be thinking about building internally. I understand the benefits totally. And I don't think there's harm in going to RP necessarily because there's no cost to us to do that. Correct? So maybe minimal cost.

But ultimately, where I could see push back and I would understand push back is the cost versus outstanding maintenance cost that exist in the city. And number two, truly, like, the arts team has been resourced a little better over the last couple years coming out of COVID in terms of headcount and staffing. So where I also quest wonder is how does a master plan potentially impact staffing of a parks team in the future. So there's lots of things to consider. Right?

And I think we have to consider both sides of the fence there. Not necessarily against the idea of a master plan, but also knowing the world that we live in and the city that we live in. A nearly half $1,000,000 expenditure seems like a lot.

No, for sure. And and I think this is a great opportunity for for staff to be able to kind of market it and inform the community of the benefits of having a master plan. I think I think one of the things that that a lot of the community members don't also probably realize is, right, that there isn't a master plan. So they're putting out fires or they're, right, chasing dollars to be able to, you know, improve certain parks or certain things that come up, right, where people start. It's kind of like when you're doing home renovation and you're just like, well, let me let me focus on the kitchen and then wait till the bathroom needs to get renovated.

And then you're kind of just putting Band Aids over Band Aids. And I think in this sense, I think staff can do an amazing job of, like, sharing that information with the community, but I'm also getting, right, community input, right, on what kind of needs to what needs to be included in that master plan as well too. And I think that's that's one of the elements that I think, especially for the Parks and Rec department since I've lived in Fullerton for the last, you know, sixteen years, really hasn't happened when it comes to Parks and Rec, hasn't really asked the community, hey, like, what would it look like, you know, ten, fifteen years from now? Or what would you like your city to look like when it comes to Parks and Rec? And I think this is a great opportunity to hear that feedback, but then also be prepared and ready to, you know, access those grants or funds and not being out there chasing or saying, well, we don't have money to make those improvements and let's wait till we save, which is always really hard, right, to save and build up that to to build up those fees and then, you know, now gear that towards something else.

So I think I think it'll really kind of give the community a really good sense of of where the parks and rec department is going, but then also the city at the same time. So I think I think it's a great opportunity for for for the department and and staff to be able to really market that to the community to have a better understanding of that. And I think council can hopefully really, you know, support that as well too knowing that, you know, this is going to benefit, you know, all their constituents across the board, not just, you know, a certain group.

I think the point that commissioner McKendree brings up is excellent. I'm sure it will be brought up, but I think that's on us to kind of make sure and make it clear in the report that this is park dwelling money that will be used for this and park dwelling money cannot be used for streets. It cannot be used to infrastructure for other parts of the city. This money is specific to parks. The argument I think that can be made is, like, hey. You could go replace another playground instead of doing this. I think that is a legitimate argument, but I think it's the way we write the report is is gonna be important. I think it's gonna be key.

Yeah. You know, I would very much agree. It's it's like taking an inventory of everything that we have at our at our possession, the status of it, and then kinda giving a full written report of what needs more attention than another place. You know, and one of the issues that we're having right now is, like, the whole pickleball versus, tennis. It's just whether it's an actual, whether we know, like, the usage rates and issues like that, you know, until our eyes are on it, we don't really know the full extent of the problem.

But if we had kind of a master plan, then I guess we would know of, like, what what the given outsets are for a lot of these issues. There's been a lot of, like, projects that have come up. I remember commissioner Talavera bringing up the sign by Hunt Library and that it was kinda decayed or it was kinda falling apart. And, you know, while you guys are there all the time, it's not that you guys have constant eye on that particular sign that is being eaten by termites. But with, like, something that's updated from '77 to now, I feel like we can we can kinda bridge that gap, do can set up for the future, and kind of, you know, go from there.

When I do talk to when I talk to some of the councilmen here, the a lot of them are very supportive of the idea of updating the master plan. And it's encouraging, but the number one thing, like, that some of them bring up is cost of the master plan. But I feel like it's more of an investment on knowing what we have and, like, developing an action plan from that on how do we improve our systems by saving money, by, like, allocating grants from one area to another effectively that I would think an updating or at least recommending the approval of, you know, this kind of work to the council. So I would I would definitely be in support of that.

If I could just add a little bit to answer some of the questions that was proposed as well is, you know, I I think the education the education and marketing of this is key, right, when it comes to that, making sure council is fully understands what the benefits are and how it can benefit the community so they can answer those questions, like you just said, with the the, park dwelling funds, or fees. That it can only be used for parks. It's not gonna fix the sewers. It can't fix the playground. Yes.

But it can also, show which playgrounds are actually in more dire need from an from an expert, who studied the city and does those kind of things and can give you guys a road map. And I think it's it's really this is gonna even comes down to a a price issue, a cost issue. There are multiple layers of things with a parkmaster plan that you guys can can add, reduce things like the we had the same similar issue in Garden Grove where we didn't we didn't include programming in it. We only included our parks and our amenities and kind of an ADA and walkability study. Those are our four things.

And it was significantly cheaper because we had budget constraints. But granted, that was six years ago, so the price we paid then was not the price we paid today. But I think, know, for staff to note that when you do bring this forward to council, that you do your pre homework and and educating your council members or having your your, city managers or directors and those those assistant city managers address that with them so they fully understand what what this is that we're asking for and that you have the proper input. And it's on us as well to reach out to our our fellow council members and and tell them to and and explain to them what this is that we're recommending. I know I've had the this conversation with councilman Charles about it, and she seemed to be in support of it.

And and she wants to actually meet about it next week after today's meeting just to kinda give direction and stuff like that. So I think that's a progress to us to be able to do something to that nature to to to educate our council members on what it is and and to play devil's advocate. Think it's it's wise to do that so they can answer those questions because they're gonna get as as we might. So I think it's it's wise to have those ask those questions and have answers for them to be able to to find that sweet spot of price versus quality and quantity. So that's it. I'll motion to approve that item.

And then just a quick question. So would would it come back to us or would it go to council to figure out kind of what elements we wanna include in that master plan like commissioner was talking about? So like the certain elements to it like how in-depth do we want it to get into? Would that come back to us or would that just go straight to counsel and they would give direction or would you propose kind of where you see the benefits for the master plan to be or what elements would be included in the master plan?

So we can so after this how this vote is for council to ultimately approve starting the RFP process, then we'll have a, I think, with staff and bring it back to commission kind of a more focused approach on what you'd like to include in that RFP or what you guys would like to see in the community, and then we'll take that feedback to draft the RFP.

What will running the city cost what will running an RFP cost the city?

I will defer to Edgar because he's just going through the gulf.

In terms of additional expense, nothing. It would just we would use our current staff. I'm assuming Christian and probably, you know, take the lead and and use the time use our current salary. So we wouldn't it would be no additional expenses. We wouldn't use a contractor or anything like that in the beginning.

So it'd just be your staff time, just your time?

It'd be our staff time and our purchasing department to work together to put the RFP out there.

And worst case scenario, council says we're not interested right now.

We're not out any money at that point.

Okay. So what's the next step for Parks? Do we start to develop our own forward thinking plan in a little more robust way?

So in the case that we don't move forward within our our master plan, yes, staff have, to this point, kind of identified based on feedback from commission, the residents, kind of the needs. We do our own studies and and really kind of seek out what a rotation of parks and playgrounds. And when was the last time? You know, unfortunately for us, a lot of the parks are kind of at the same timelines of park replacement for playgrounds. So then create some of the challenges of identifying which park, which playground to replace, allocate park dwellings, that's where a master plan document guides us and saying, hey, like, you know, we were in in my research here, we were looking at Corona.

Right? Corona has a recent master plan that identifies needs the most attention to needs the less attention in other words. Right? So that then helps us provide direction to staff and share with commission. Based on this master plan, we have these two playgrounds. Playground a is fifteen years. Playground b is about ten. This is the recommendation. And and also creating our CIP seven year five year, seven year plan.

What's the risk of not doing this?

Plan. Not doing the master plan. I think we get into some challenges of just identifying future projects. We're expecting a large amount of park dwelling fees to come in with the development and we're gonna have, let's say, $3,000,000. Right? Park dwelling. It's probably gonna be less by the time it's all said and done, But if how do we allocate? How do we equitably allocate those funds to the different areas of the city, to the different districts, to the city? Which playground we might have a playground in South, you know, Fullerton saying we really need that neighborhood adamant we need to replace that playground. But then in North Fullerton they might say, hey, this playground also needs replacement.

How do we allocate the funds? I mean, what we've been doing right now is staff have made those decisions based on just general feedback. Commission has given input and then council, but it's it's also like where do you spend those dollars? Where do you replace a park? Where do you add amenities? And where do you not? Right? And where do you wait for the next cycle? And I think that's what we've seen in some of our park approach where we start a project, we're looking forward to finish it, and then the funding may not be there to complete the final project. Right?

Right now, we're Independence Park is a perfect example. We're looking at the gymnasium. We're looking at the open space, seeing what options we have, allocating some funds. We have some earmarks. Unfortunately, things change. We don't have the same allocated funds. So now we're kind of back to plan b. Okay. Let's we have a $1,000,000 allocated fund to reopening the gym. And then when's the park coming, you know, once we get some additional funds.

So at least having a master plan will give us some direction and literally give us a plan of what's next that we can show to the community that we can, you you as the commission can also show like, hey, like, Independence Park is next on the list based on the plan. That's what staff is advocating for. This park in your neighborhood is, you know, on year three based on what the proposed projects and park dwelling fees are looking like.

And I'd I'd just add to that. You literally could lose access to grants and funding by not having that, because it it's you're you're that much closer to having, like, plan ready plans to ready to go to to throw out to those those grants when they come along. And sometimes they come along without you knowing, and plans take a long time to to we applied for that grant in 2019 and and just broke ground a couple months ago. It takes a while, so you you gotta be ready to go. And another part of it is the ADA liability.

You know, you have you have I would highly recommend that we do an ADA study at all or parks if we do this, have that included as part of the the park master plan because there's there's liability there. And if we don't have that documented and we're just naive or ignorant about it, it doesn't that that doesn't help us in any any court. Like, just because we didn't know about it doesn't mean we're not gonna be liable for it. And that will give us a way to to really prioritize the higher risk ADA liability issues. So those are just two things that literally will affect the cities if we don't do that.

I guess what where I'm conflicted is, like, grants we still have to apply for whether we have a part willing or a part master plan or not. Right? Like you still have to have a staff that's applying for grants and putting that forward. And I think with every park that we do, we do some sort of ADA survey, do we not?

Yes. So it it does include with new construction to plants. Yes.

So I guess just where I'm conflicted is truly the monetary component. Now if you're telling me that it costs us nothing but labor of our staff to bring the RFP to life, I'm okay with bringing that to council and letting them decide, but if I had a dog in the fight and it was about dollars and cents, like, my vote would be no. But I can get on board with a motion to bring this to council for sure.

And and sorry. Just to add, one element that here in Fullerton, really that you hear it through the user groups. It's also it's a field availability, field space, sports fields, and having some actual data on because they also go through the process of identifying all the sports users in the city, how many participants they have, what's the actual need for sports fields. Does the city have sufficient sports fields? Do they not have sufficient sports fields?

So it's a it's a well rounded approach to a lot of the questions that we get, a lot of the questions that you get. You brought up tennis and pickleball. Do we have pickleball courts? Do we not? Aging facilities, that's also something that's important. But, yeah, RFP process for staff time. This is a range just based on kind of the ongoing price. It's not a set fee. Hopefully, it's less than $450,000, but that is kind of the going price right now in that range. So

I I motioned a while ago to I can

say. Yeah.

Sorry. Sorry.

Yep. I'll second. We got a motion to second.

Okay. Commissioner Salavera?

Yes.

Commissioner Freeman?

Yes.

Vice chair McHenry?

Yes.

And chair Maldonado? Yes. Motion passes. Wonderful.

Awesome. Alright. Now

I believe this is

the final comment. Is there any commissioner oh,

wait. Sorry.

Are there any matters from the commissioner? Commissioner comments are limited to no more than five minutes per commissioner. We can start with Mr. Television. No. Yeah. I'm

good. We

had quite the attendance tonight. And definitely, I appreciate the interest in, you know, the future of the tennis center and what that could hold one way or the other. I believe that will be on the agenda next month. Correct?

Yeah. Vice Chairman McHenry, that is the goal. So we did have a community meeting in August. We also did express that we got everybody's information. There's an ongoing survey. I think it was too premature to bring it in September with not a full month's worth of data. One of the speakers alluded to staff doing some parking lot counts and that is part of our kind of our general study. So we are looking to bring it back in October. We've also informed everybody that's giving us their email address that we will share it once we have it on the agenda. So we're we're trying to be very transparent and give everybody the opportunity to attend and either, you know, ride in or speak to the commission.

I'm curious. I guess my question is how did this become an initiative? Because as we've talked about parks and, you know, designing parks as they're being renovated or, you know, we've talked about potentially pickleball courts at some of these parks but and maybe it just escapes my recollection but I don't recall talking about specifically converting two courts at the tennis center so how did that come into conversation?

So pickleball has been kind of a hot topic for some years, just in general, in different municipalities. It was a lot of, is it a fad or is it here to stay? Right? It's here to stay. The city of Fullerton does not have any public courts.

They don't have any public lit courts for pickleball. Nonetheless, we we have pickleball availability at the gym at the Fullerton Community Center, I believe twice twice a week in the mornings. So based on just the feedback that staff continues to get, kind of the programming at the tennis center, it was kind of the best approach that we felt. Granted, there are some limitations as you've heard, parking, programming, but us as staff in the last year have really taken a look at the tennis center and the operations, who are we serving, who has priority, who does not, programming, etcetera. So we kinda wanna bring a collective approach and just based on the ongoing community feedback.

I know it hasn't been brought, to commission, previously, but staff get emails all the time of, hey, pickleball would be great at the tennis center. Let's expand our community center, and let's expand the hours. Let's do this. So we are incorporating some pickleball courts into, like, Union Park. Yep. But those are all kind of a drop in approach. There's no lights, still park hours. We're just giving some alternative options.

I have a few. For the next time, can we have the guidelines ready for the community garden, like, at the next meeting?

Yes. That's the goal to bring back a draft policy for the commission.

And then as well as the Thorn Research data. And if we can, like, kind of look into an expansion if the results are a hypothetical, like, cost analysis of if we were to expand at other parks. For the tennis club, you know, a lot of questions. I feel like a lot of questions are gonna be answered next time. You know, ADA stuff, I would say capacity issues.

If we can have any kind of information on that in terms of actual usage of it. I don't know if it's possible to get that kind of data, but if we can have that next time as well. I wanted to also highlight the Kaboom Playground Building on Saturday. I will be there. I'm trying to bring in as many people as possible. I'm a lot of pushback, but I'll do it. I'll I'm getting people. And then just a random thank you to the Fullerton Coyote Club because they spent their Saturday cleaning Lemon Park with another councilman, and

it was really cool to see.

That was it. That is essentially all I I have.

Chair Maldonado Yeah. In regards to the throne, I actually have a a meeting to look at the survey on the October.

Okay.

So if you're open to it, we can bring you back some results in November. Is that okay?

Yeah.

Yeah. That's perfect.

And then, sorry, for the tennis center, yes, we'll have staff available to we are tracking all of the uses throughout the week throughout the day each day on all the courts. So we'll have much more robust data for you to review.

Awesome. Thank you.

Speaking of the throne, the permanent thrones at FSC have been down for a while. Is that an ongoing maintenance issue or there's restrooms there that they've dropped off some porta potties for. Do we know what the status of

that is? No. They they they should have been picked up a while a week ago, I think. So I can I can follow-up? Yeah. But we did have some issues with those restrooms.

Sorry. Again, Chair Maldonado. I'm looking at my calendar, and I apologize. I think the November meeting falls Veterans Day, if I'm not mistaken, the tenth. Okay. So we'll we'll bring you back the throne before the end of the year.

Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. That's fine. That's fine with me.

Alright. If there are no more items, this meeting is adjourned at 08:47.

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