Parks, Recreation & Open Space Commission - Regular Meeting

Right. Are we waiting for start could Joey. Oh, we give another minute or two. I just want Okay. Yeah, mine is We'll give another minute.

My I don't hear it coming from your computer. I think you're good. I think we had an echo. We're trying to I think I just fixed it. It was echoing on my computer. We do have two absences. Um, Commissioner Kent is going to be absent and Commissioner Trinkle is going to be absent. Okay. So, we might go ahead and get started. Let's go ahead and get started then. All right. Call this order. Have the roll call, please. Sure. Commissioner Chan here. Commissioner Changf Frank here. Commissioner Logan

here. Um, Commissioner Martin is walking in as we speak, so I will say here for him. And Commissioner Abbott here. Um, Commissioner Kent and Commissioner Trinkle are both absent tonight. Good.

All right. I'll read the land acknowledgement. City of Albany recognizes that we occupy the land originally protected by the Confederated villages of the Jean. We acknowledge the genocide that took place on these lands and must make strides to repay the moral debt that is owed to this indigenous people, specifically the Aloney tribe. We thank them for the contributions which have transformed our community and will continue to bring forth growth and unity. The city of Albany commits to sustaining ongoing relationships with the tribe and together build a better future for all that now make this their home. Right. of the minutes.

Anyone want to make a motion to approve? Make a motion to approve the minutes. I'll second. Okay. Commissioner Chan, yes. Commissioner Chang Frank, yes. Commissioner Logan, yes. And Commissioner Martin, yes. and Chair Abbott. Yes. Minutes approved.

All right. Very good. We will now open the floor to the public for public comment on items that are not on the agenda. So, either if you're at home or you're here and you would like to speak on something not on the agenda, now is your opportunity. I'm not seeing unless there's something else you want to speak on, but okay. You'll get your chance. You'll have your opportunity. No hands are raised online. All

right. Closing public comment. Uh presentation now. Item 51, the open space master plan addendum. I believe we have a presentation. N Good evening, chair and commissioners. Um I'm back again on the park master plan. Very excited about where we always happy to see you.

I am so happy to be here at you know and what I wanted to just say we are at sort of the first phase is done. Um we had a great collaborative effort with public works, community services and community development and our consultant team of groundworks with sh Sarah Pashelle and Tiger Suie and they will be speaking giving you more in depth. Um what I just wanted to kind of talk a little bit about is that um you know we think that what we did was go out to the public as much as we possibly could. We had a survey of over 640 people responding, which I think is a pretty good um hit. We also decided that when we looked at the demographics, we needed to reach out at the younger set. And so we did go to the high school and had a day there where we presented the project had pizza because that always brings people together. And we had about 40 respondents from there which I thought was a good showing for a lunch hour. So, I think what you're going to see is some what we thought were surprising results. I'm not I'm not going to there's suspense here. So, you're going to get to see a surprise with our consultants as they go through where we are. And so ultimately what we hope to do tonight is hold a public hearing obviously have public comment and then hopefully we can get some direction from um the pros commissioners to move this forward to city council to accept the report and move it to city council. We hope to get to city council in July. Um, and so with that, I think the best way to do this because the meat of the matter is our consultant team is to bring Sarah up um from groundworks to go through the PowerPoint and then I'll be available along with Mark for any other questions.

Hi everybody. I'm Sarah Pel, partner at Groundworks office and as Dena just explained, we have been working with the city on an addendum to the open space master plan. little closer just so everybody can. Okay.

So, we um we approached this addendum as with the strategy that we were going to begin with a community outreach component and then move into analysis of that data and come up with a proposal to bring to you and then to city council. So, as part of the community outreach, our goal was to understand how residents are using the parks and open space and to get their feedback as to what they think might be lacking in the parks and open space and hear their hopes and dreams for new programmatic elements. So, we started with an online survey, which we were, you know, thrilled to get over 600 responses to that. And we had the two in-person meetings. the one that was um for the general community and the other one at the high school. And as part of that, I'm going to run through the survey results and show you the results that we saw because they're not quite what we were expecting to see. Um which that's not a bad thing. It's just was a surprise to us. Next slide, please. So, this is the meat of our online survey. Okay, so we asked 12 different questions and I'll run through the six that you can see displayed graphically on the screen here. Um, let me know if you want me to go through all of them, but the first question was, do you visit parks or open space in our community? And you can see a lot of people do visit daily or at least weekly. So, the parks are wellused and loved. Then the question about which park or open space do you visit most often? Memorial Park really stood out as very highly visited. And then, you know, a couple of other things that jumped out at us. Peggy Thompson Pier Street Park, very low visitor rates. The tot also low, but

that makes, you know, a lot of sense. And then Oloney Greenway, that also did not show as much community visiting on a regular basis as we might have expected. So the primary reasons that the survey respondents say they choose to visit the parks in question, the main one is proximity to home programs or other activities that you know was much lower than we had expected to see. And then the

sorry I can't um natural beauty and other facilities those showed up in much smaller frequency than the proximity to home. So that was clearly the driver for the parks that people choose to visit. Then how do you typically most visit your or how do you typically use your most visited park and a lot is other which we found out is just kind of walking and hanging out recreating. So, walking, jogging, that's the main reason that most of the respondents go to the parks. And then everything else was more of an even distribution. Almost all of the respondents live in the city of Albany. And then, which amenities do you use most at the park? We've got the playgrounds, sports fields, not so much. Um, walking paths, that was the most used. the open lawn space and picnic areas. So, it's a lot of passive type of recreation and the other shade structures and um restrooms were the most common uses. Uh next slide, please. So, this is where we started to look at the survey responses and the comments that people were allowed to fill in and how those related to parks within the city of Albany. We know Golden Gate Fields, Albany Bulb, and the Beach and the area under I80 are not owned by the city. People still wanted to comment on those areas. So, we've included that information, but I'm not going to run through it because it's not part of the master plan. So, looking at the areas in the city that could be better used for recreation or park activities, Oloney Greenway, which we saw on the previous slide was

not heavily visited. That just jumped right to the forefront as people do seem to think that there's a lot of missed opportunity there. the same for Peggy Thompson Pier Street Park. And then this is where things started to get interesting to us is Key Root Median popped up as a place that people would like to be able to use and visit more often. So, we decided to focus mainly on the top three parks that came out as the areas that people would like to have more amenities and then look at what can we propose or what can we take into consideration to propose some ideas for improvements at those three parks. Um, next slide. So this shows you the breakdown of the survey results, the online survey. And so you can see the participants by age group. And as Dina mentioned, we noticed that it was skewing I'll say older and I consider myself part of that age group. So it's not meant to be a disparaging comment. So we did reach out as was discussed with to the high school to get some more feedback from the younger users. Okay. Next slide. So this is starting to get more granular like breaking down the improvements that people would like to see based on age group response. So from under 18 the main request was for more sports facilities. Then 18 to 24 there was a desire for additional recreation programming. 25 to 34 was asking for more shade and seating. 35 to 44 again more shade and seating and also improved playground equipment. Then 45 to 54 more shade and seating. 55 to 64 more shade and

seating. 65 plus more shade and seating. And we found this really interesting and I'll tell you why. because a large part of this project was spurned by the notion that there were a lot of people in the community who were desiring certain specific active recreation programmatic elements and that's not what we heard. So it was quite interesting to us but also you know pleasantly surprising because it shows that people are for the most part really satisfied and happy with the parks. Okay, so next slide. So this um slide is showing what we presented at the community meeting and then also at the high school. And so we went through the open space master plan and we identified the parks that do have some space that could be used for additional programming just you know knowing that Albany is pretty built out and it's not like you have a huge selection of options. So we also included on this on the upper leftand corner you see the little icons for sand volleyball, flex court, climbing wall, skate park and soccer fields. And we included those because a lot of people have a difficult time understanding scale and what can fit in a park space. So we also provided these templates clear acrylic that people could move around on top of the park so that they could better understand, oh, this would fit here. No, we we definitely don't have room for a soccer field anywhere. and then working with that and the images of the park plants that are on this screen. We can jump to the next slide. And so this is where people took colored dots that and each colored dot had some sort of programmatic element assigned to it. And so the dots were stuck up on the city's site plan with the different parks so that people could suggest what

they might like to see at different locations. So this is what we heard from the students. And so the students, you know, as noted in a previous slide, were very interested in more active physical recreation programming, primarily sand volleyball, a climbing wall, and soccer, which realistically doesn't really fit in any of the parks. Um, and the locations that the students were drawn to were a Memorial Park, which you know makes a lot of sense. It's right by their school, the area under Interstate 80, which is, you know, large vacant open space that could actually accommodate quite a bit of program, the greenway and Jules Terrace Park. Okay, next slide, please. Again, this slide is the it's the same exercise, but this is what we ran through with the community outreach event one evening. And so the parks that people responded to, it's all the same like in terms of which parks they were looking at and proposing program with the exception of the community seemed to have more interest in what might happen at Peggy Thompson Pier Street Park. So again, you'll see a lot of like active physical really kind of more recreational exciting type of programming underneath I80. And then it starts to get like quieter and more passive as we move to some of the other park areas like the greenway. Um, next slide, please. Okay. And so this slide here explains what we heard from all of the residents. This is based on all ages and user groups allocated across the different parks in the city of Albany. And we'll, you know, exclude Golden Gate Fields,

the bulb, and under I80. And this is where again the Greenway, Peggy Thompson, Pier Street Park, and Key Routt Median jump to the forefront as like these are the three parks that people would most like to see new improvements. And so those improvements are sports facilities, shade, seating, and play equipment. Next slide. So we took a look at those three parks and these are just diagrams. We're not saying like these are the things that need to happen in these specific locations, but it's just to give you a sense of what we heard and how things might be able to be laid out and we can start to look at this in greater detail, you know, with your comments and feedback. But looking at the Aloney Greenway, there are opportunities here to have some sort of a a dog park or maybe think of it more as a dog run because it would be more narrow and linear than a traditional Bay Area dog park. There could be opportunities for climbing walls possibly. We could work with for BART to see if there's a way to do something on the columns that support the elevated BART. Super graphics and signage could be something that would be really fun that would provide some more identity or wayfinding along the length of the greenway. Then we heard loud and clear that there are members of the community who really love the existing community garden and we were looking at opportunities to have additional space on the greenway. And then the last item is restrooms. People seem like they would like to have some more restrooms. So Peggy Thompson Pierce Street Park here the main desires were to have some more active recreation program like sand volleyball or it also shade structures and more shade seating across the board. We heard

that people want that in all of the parks. And then something else that we were thinking about, you know, as a group and then in discussions at the community outreach meeting is creating some sort of a buffer between the park and the interstate. So there could be an opportunity to do something like a Miwoki forest which is highlighted in the darker green along the edges of the park that would provide screening and also add urban forest. Next slide, please. And here's key root median. And so for key root median, you given the fact that it's rather narrow, we were looking at how to make this more of almost like a linear prominade and incorporate some opportunities for some more recreation with a bike and running path that might run along the middle of it. Some resting areas with seating and possibly additional shade. And then also there could be some really good opportunities to do some storm water management landscaping which would be you not only beneficial from an ecological perspective but could also have educational value to them. Next slide. And then the last few pages are taken directly from the open space master plan. And this is to reiterate what had previously been looked at as ideas that could be used for seating in the parks across the city of Albany. So these are just examples of different types of seating elements. They could be standard park benches, something that's non-standard and feels more like natural, kind of in keeping with a lot of the natural playgrounds that are in vogue right now. Or we could have volunteer built benches or reuse materials. So just responding to the very loud and clear request for

additional seating. Okay, next slide please. So these are some images talking about urban forestry. You none of them are specifically Miawaukee forest which I spoke about on the Peggy Thompson Pier Street Park slide, but these are all different things that apply in Albany. We already have these existing conditions with the LA at Memorial Park, the Redwood Grove at Ocean View, then the another LA at Key Routt and nice shade trees at Dartmouth Tatot. And then I believe this is the last slide and these are examples of different types of shade elements that could be introduced for more shade seating. I think that's the last one.

Oh, one more. Okay. Oh, yes. Thank you, Tiger. Okay. So, lastly, and possibly most importantly to some people are the playgrounds. So, the playground equipment, you know, most of the parks is older. So, it does seem logical that people are asking to see something new. And these are different examples of there's the nature play on the far left, which that's becoming more common. a lot of city parks. Then in the middle, it's an example of inclusive playground elements. And then to the far right, something that's like more challenging and just kind of like cool for older kids. And at the bottom, we're showing different examples for outdoor exercise equipment. And that's something that although we didn't show it on the Key Root slide or on um the Aloney Greenway, that would work well in both of those locations, too. Okay, that the

excellent. Well, thank you so much. Um I think we can um bring it back for uh commissioner questions. Any clarifying questions open for public comment?

Go ahead. Yeah, I I just have a question about when you said that you'd bring this to city council. Is it just informative the way this is informative? And then I guess my question is is what's the act what's the next step um that you know you're hoping to get our input from and the city council input from? So what we hope to get from bringing it to the city council is for them to accept this report and to integrate it within the master plan. So it will be an action to approve what we have here. But you're recommending to them once you decide if you decide to accept the report. I want to be clear everybody understands we're not approving projects. This is just a report.

Correct. We don't and and once it's in the master plan, who knows? Maybe somewhere down the road, but but

it will inform capital improvement projects is what it will do. And Mark, do you want to say more to that? Yeah, I think we have this will be a good starting point for a number of projects that we have um in our current CIP to further develop um different parks. We have one for Peggy Thompson and Pier Street Park and one for the green greenway where we're going to look at um this very you know what what amenities and new new things do we want to do in both in both those areas. there's a lot of things in flux including pathways and so forth and this gives us some good information to go from uh to start developing that in in sort of a more concrete way.

Excellent. I did have a question about uh the uh potential planting at Peggy Thompson Pier Street Park. I mean I I'm I'm sure you're aware of of the very very poor quality of the soil. Now they've amended it many times and nothing grows. Is that still is that was that taken into consideration or Well, I think yeah, I think where we have been thinking of the plantings would be further north on the the part where the fence there and that is where there actually things growing. Well, there's things are growing there and it's less of a um uh the issue with the the park, the main part of the park is that it's it's really

built out of the old highway and there's a lot of rubble and things of that sort. There's not really soil. I think that's not what you're talking about. You're talking about be further up. Okay. And um just for the picture there, the yellow uh pathway coming down, we're playing with alignments that move that further to the east, so there'll be more space between the okay pathway and the uh and the edge of the highway. And that that's helpful for a number of reasons. And some sort of um plantings there would really help us uh make a separation between right between the two.

Okay. Okay. Very good. Very good. All right. Um, yeah, I had a few questions. So, staying on that slide, I think, am I correct that the the dark green around the around the lawn is where you're were proposing or suggesting this um called the Miwok forest where it's which as part he says green buffalo. Yes, the darker green, but again, this is at this stage diagrammatic and that can move around on the

site. Okay. And uh all right and the suggestion of that kind of forest am I is is the idea that you've got things that stay low to the ground medium and high and then together they form a a barrier kind of. Yes. And they that type of forest planting design is intentional so that it grows quickly and then you get the canopy the layered canopy effect which would help with the screening.

Okay. Um and I had a question if you go to the slide about the age groups the pie the two pie charts that are side by side. So it says the online survey and analysis survey participants by age group which I assume are all the participants is the lefth hand one and on the right it's just the Albany residents. Is that is that right? That is correct. So, so one something I'm wondering about is it looks like there's dramatic changes there, but if you go up a couple slides or one or two slides, if you go to the bar graphs, go up right. Uh go down. Um the one middle one on Yeah. The one in the middle on the right,

it says, "Do you uh live in Albany or something?" Currently reside in Albany. Yeah. Yeah. And it says 95% of the people reside in Albany. So how So my understanding is with those two pie charts, the one on the left is 100% of the respondents ages and the one on the right is take away 5% of the responses. That's what you get on the right. So Tiger, correct me if I'm wrong here. It seems like way too big of a change for that small of a pie chart on the right. Is that city of Albany in general versus the responses on the left? Yes.

Okay. So, it's city demographics. I misspoke earlier. City demographics to the right and survey participants to the left. Ah, so on the right it's like from census data or something. Yes. Ah, okay. Okay. So then, uh, I see. So, so then some groups are over represented and some groups are under reppresented based on who's actually living here versus who responded to the survey. Exactly. Which is why we included this and why we made the additional outreach to get to the high school because it was skewing to the 65 plus.

Okay. And then um another question was um the um you said you went to the high school. We've had students um girls from the middle school come and present to us about how the um nons volleyball is totally taking off or has taken off and um they have to kids are getting turned away because even though there's many teams um at each grade level, they're getting turned away because there's still not enough capacity and they have no places to play in town. So, um were any of the middle school students uh approached uh for this?

Reach out.

Okay. So, that would be lack. So, because those are some of the few youth that have ever, you know, come here and and spoken uh to us and kind of laid out what seemed like a pretty compelling uh case for that kind of recreate, not sand necessarily, but um court, what whatever you call it. Yeah. Okay. So, so that's missing in the data. All right. So, what so what we did do is um we had a an event at the um high school, but we passed along information about the survey and the event through the athletic director um for Almond Unified that got pushed out to all the coaches. Okay. So, that's helpful.

And and I believe that's how we have some responses to the survey that are below that, but we didn't actually physically have the same kind of meeting as we did with the high school. Okay. Thanks. I think that's it for me. I have a question about the survey because um did you all do the survey yourselves or did you like hire a survey firm? Because I know there's like a art to doing a survey. Um I'm just wondering if this this is like a typical survey that you send out about, you know, the scope of park opportunities. We yeah we did it internally like we discussed it as a group and a lot of the questions were based on experience on you know former projects that are similar.

Yeah. Okay. Maybe this is a comment section so I can wait for some of that. I do I do wonder also did you present to the high school students um the same way you did to the community? Identical. Okay. All right. Claire. Oh, yeah.

As well as put the survey on all the tennis courts with the QR code to have a response. I mean, you know, I think having 650 responses or so is a pretty good representation. Yes, it may be skewed to 65 plus, but we did, you know, we do see some responses for 45 and below as well. And so, yeah, and I would assume, which is always dangerous, but that uh uh I'm sure we sent notifications out to anybody who was on the email list and that um the middle school would appear here as parents, probably not the students. That's correct. Right.

No way to know really. But I think that explains why sand volleyball does pretty well. The general survey. Yes. I think we news I can't assume that. No. No. I was Was sand volleyball even listed in the general survey? I don't It was listed in the general survey. I think that was a community. Those are workshops right in the What was that question? I'm sorry. That was a community. That was like the community mapping survey. Oh, yeah. That was in person. In person. Yeah. Because it seemed Okay. But we can we can talk more about that. You're right. You're right. Go ahead. Um, I was wondering about the Peggy Thompson Pier Street Park. Wasn't there already like shade planning like currently happening or something?

Excuse me. Uh, yes, we have shade planning both at um, Terrace Park and um, Peggy Thompson. Okay. Okay. That was included in the Prop 68 project. So, we didn't really make a distinction between, oh, we have this in process. So some of the things that um are referenced here are things that we have in process at various places. Right. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Other questions? Ready to open up to public comment. All right. We'll open the floor to public comment. uh please come forward and state your name and we happy to offer three minutes and we're closing public. Oh no, I'm teasing I'm te I'm teasing. I'm teasing. I have a broken foot. I'm not moving fast. Good evening everybody. I have a question for the survey. Oh, sorry. That's fine. No, we Yeah, you'll ask our questions and then and then we'll answer.

Is it true that the sand volleyball court will not be put in Ocean View Park? That's really not we're what we're here to discuss, but I wanted to know from seeing that it was all we're doing park and it might be in, you know, Peggy Thompson. want to know if there's any possibility of it trying to come back to Ocean View because all of us are against that. Are is that your comment or you have more to say or we we can respond once you've had your three minutes? We'll be happy to respond. I just have a question.

That's fine. No, please go ahead ask your question and then we'll we're writing them down and and we'll respond. is um the sand volleyball court which will take up every single piece of soil in the area going to be in Memorial Park. Okay. So, it sounds like that's your comment and we will we will That wasn't my comment, but I'm

Well, you have two minutes left for your comment. Yeah. I am here to humbly ask everyone who has power to be mindful of the sand volleyball court project and how it's going to affect people's lives in Ocean View Park and the surrounding community. Having this o open space marginalized by removing every single parcel of soil from the Ocean View Park meadow and it's not just an unused space, it's a little meadow and it just doesn't make sense. This area is used by many families throughout the day and week. I know this because I am in that area three to four times a week growing food at Albanesey's community garden. Wild birds, lizards, and caterpillars are among many who depend on that nature's open space. It's not necessary to add a large expensive project when it would be utilized by a very in that area when it would be utilized by a very small group of people at certain times of the year. Memorial Park has a lot more open space where the sand volleyball court could operate more efficiently for the students who will use it. Please consider how you use your power on projects that you bring to our community. If many citizens in the community of Albany are against the project in Ocean View Park, we would look to you to take us seriously. Thank you very much for your Sorry. Right. Thank you for your time. Hello, my name is Mike Fletcher and I'm an Albany resident for 45 years and I would like to read a letter from another fellow Albany resident that's also a member of the community garden. Dear commissioners, my name is Joanne Weber and I have previously contacted you regarding the unused lawns at Ocean View Park. I have, like other concerned

Albany residents, submitted emails and signed petitions in opposition to the plan to develop this open space. This is not a simple undertaking that you're proposing. It's a microcosm of the larger disaster that Rachel Carson talks about. We wish to preserve the open space at Ocean View Park as it is the only remaining open space west of San Pablo Avenue that is accessible to residents of the area and visitors to the park. As we have demonstrated, lawns are used by many people at different times of the year for reasons ranging from family celebrations to meditation to participating in holiday rituals. All of these activities enrich our daily lives by providing access to the lawns and the redwood grove. I celebrated my 60th birthday there, too. Access to open space is not our right. Excuse me. Access to open space is our right and Albany residents should be proud of preserving a site that pres provides this access. It is difficult to comprehend the intentions of a select group of individuals who wish to who would violate the greater right of the community in of to fresh air and undeveloped space. There are already volleyball posts at the site and we welcome anyone who wishes to play there. We welcome everyone respects that this is shared land and that no one group supersedes the others. The lawns may be be small, but their contribution to our mental and physical health and to the health of our local environment is mighty. And I want toh end on this letter by or this quote by Rachel Carson. We stand now where the two roads diverge, but unlike the roads in Robert Frost's famous poem, they're not equally fair. The road we have long been

traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superighway on which we progress with great speed. But at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road, the one less travel by, offers our last and our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth. Thank you. Thank you very much. Hi, good evening. My name is Sulai. I'm also a Albany resident and a community garden member. We came here this evening full of trepidation thinking that you are going to just say yes, build a volleyball court at that particular site. Um I am actually and has spoken before about the trees there. Albany Ocean View Park is one of the very few urban parks that has a growth of redwood trees. These trees depend on fog and groundwater. If you do build a sand volleyball court there, the very efficient drainage system will divert water away from that whole area. the trees will eventually die. Now these trees anytime whenever you go on a on a busy Sunday afternoon and so on the whole area provides shade. We talked about shade in your presentation just now. We talked about seating. People are talking to each other, communicating. Kids are running around. So these trees provide um shade habitat. they store carbon surely they deserve to stay for our children and our children.

So we are just hoping that what you are focusing on Ocean um Peggy Thompson the other areas Jewel Park and Memorial Park and all that area please just do not develop that small area that we have currently. Thank you. Thank you very much. more comments. I thought we might see you up here, please.

Okay. My name is Joe Matra and I've been a Albany resident for about 10 years um with my family and um I'm going to pile on again on the sand volleyball uh which is um I'm really relieved seeing seeing uh these slides. I I see all these other locations that you have drawings for the Pier Street Park and the not the you have a Aloney. Oh, no. Under the freeway. Under the freeway. You had a drawing of a I don't know if you can show those again, but the the the climbing wall and

the uh San Valley Ball court underneath the freeway, which would be a great place for it. Um the the the Pier Street Park, which is, as you said, it's really underused. Uh, and that would draw people to a park that that uh that is underused right now. Um, same with Aloney. You say that's underused, too. So, you could potentially put it there, too. And I'm so relieved to see those drawings of the sand volleyball court in those locations instead of that Ocean View Park where I don't know. I don't have anything to add. It's so so so nicely put already. Um, so I just want to add my um support to uh keeping Ocean View Park the way that it is. There's even like you said, there's polls for playing regular volleyball and apparently there's a lot of interest in regular volleyball now what what Brian was saying. Um, so, um, let's let's keep it the way it is. And there's other places where the sand volleyball court could go. Thank you very much. Any other folks in the room? We'll have another chance. We're going to go on if there's any Zoom comments.

No hands raised online.

All right. Going once, going twice. All right. Closing public comment. Um I I I'm going to try to express where we are in this process and then if we get something wrong. So this is an addendum for the master plan and so this is just kind of adding some updates things have changed re-evaluating whatever and this particular due to data we received from the public we focused on three areas for this addendum. So it's the Peggy Thompson, it's the greenway and it's the Kroot median. So this the only things the median will really or the addendum really focuses on as far as program possible suggestions are those areas. So it's not we're not talking about ocean view at all really in this addendum except that where it appears in the data. Um now it doesn't take Ocean View off the master plan, right? I believe sand volleyball is still potentially in the master plan for Ocean View. So that's still there. It's not well then then it's then it doesn't change anything as far as that's concerned. Yeah. So it's so we're not approving projects. We're just kind of approving a report that will inform and update the master plan focusing on three areas, none of which are that's got that out. Is that that's my understanding. I'd appreciate a correction if that's

tell me about it.

It is I think it's somewhat correct. I think we did an evaluation of all the parts. We found out that the top three were those um of concern. So, we did evaluate the parks as a whole. I just want to make sure people understand that we did look at all these parks, including Memorial Park. Um I mean, including Ocean View Park. So, but it we're not proposing any programs as part of what we're doing here. We're just informing ourselves as to what's going on. And one of the things that I think we want to highlight a little bit more is that all of us were pleasantly surprised that most people here or most people that took the survey I should say and we there's very difficult to get a citywide you know numbers to respond but we did have what I think is a pretty good response to a survey and that most people were satisfied with what they were seeing but needed improvements to each park such as new seating, new equipment, new lighting, you know, things that uh public works has already pretty much got under their belt and then we would establish what we do next in each year's CIP. So I don't want to just say it's those three parks because those three parks definitely came out as the ones that were most visited and most used. So

right. Yeah. I guess I was expressing that um due to what the feedback those were the most interest. That's correct. And so that's why you kind of developed those three further. Right. We not that it's silent on the others, but those are correct. I just want to make sure that I think I didn't I wasn't clear. I don't want to lead anybody down the path that we didn't look at Ocean View or that you know I just want to make sure but there isn't a program that is proposed. Appreciate that. On on that point though, what would be the question that resulted in that answer that topped those three parks because because those were the three parks that people said they use the most. those the parks that are visited most often are the ones that Oh, I

I see it as are the there areas in the city that could be better used for recreation or park activities and the top three are these three those three too but also they did show up in other parts of the survey. So, right. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

All right. Well, I I I can just start a little bit by saying I'm delighted to see this. I'm excited to see all the the possibility. I'm I'm really excited at the activation of the Key Root meeting. I've been arguing that for 10 years. Um uh so I'm happy to see that. Uh I'm skeptical of planting it Spear Street Park, but but over time someday that will be usable again. Um

I think it's all I have right now. Yeah, please go ahead. I think the question that the where it came out was the question are there areas in the city that could be better used for recreation or park activities. So that's that's why those top three because the places where people visited the most often would be memorial which is not part of what they were digging further into. I just want to clarify that. Right. And yeah, what I would uh I think when before this goes to the city council, I think uh a few things should be clarified in the report, including what's confusing us right now is which why are these three chosen that's not clear in the wording on the on the page? Um, also, uh, the if you could go to the presentation and go to slide 10 where it says proposal.

Okay, give me a second to bring that back up because I shut that all down. Oh, one second. Um so basically everything before that was kind of preamble the survey results and and um and things like that and um which side which slide I believe it's 10 says proposal and it has a green bar graph, horizontal bar graph. Yep. There. There.

Yeah. So, I think the word proposal should be much bigger. Like what follows is what we actually recommend. And um it's not clear to me why the bar graph is there. It I think this is um okay. So, first of all, it says public space improvement priorities from residents feedback plus shared priorities and age specific needs. So, I'm not quite sure where all that's coming from. And then, uh, and then there's these three bullet points that it's not quite clear where those are coming from. Sports facilities, shade, seating, play equipment. Um, like is that the proposal? We're going to do sports facilities, shade seating, and play equipment. So, and then again, I don't quite know why the bar graph is there. What's that telling us? Um and and then what follows is uh the three parks Aloney Greenway, Peggy Thompson and Key Routt. So um and so I think it should be hopefully clear like I think those parks should be mentioned on the proposal slide as what follows are the three parks we propose the city focus on because of the reason that we've been wondering up here like why are these why were these three chosen, right? We don't know why these three chip were chosen. You're trying to tell us why they're chosen, but it's not clear. Um and there's some debate as to which question it is or is it some combination of questions that led to these three parks? Um and so uh so this proposal slide I I think should be completely redone. Um and uh

if I may the proposal slide actually answers all those questions. I think it could be much clearer. No, I don't know what it's saying. It could be. So so why those three parks? Well, because the they were the top three public space improvement from residents feedback. That's the the diagram or the graph shows you why it's those three parts that we're talking about. And then plus and and this is again poor layout, but shared parties, nation, specific needs. That's so where and what. So the the bar graph shows you where and the bullet points show you what. I just think it could be a lot clearer. Yeah. And then

and then took me a minute for sure. I I see what you're saying now that the the kind the left side kind of goes with the right side. I guess maybe that the shared priorities and age specific needs maybe are sports facilities, shades, seating, and play equipment. Um but also one thing about the green bar graph is there's three parks that are highlighted in yellow that it draws you your eye right to them.

And uh those are the three that you're not considering because they're not city property. So, um I get it that you that it's important to um so to say which ones are off the table because of that. Um but something should be clarified there for sure. Uh and then okay. Uh and then just yeah a simple statement of these are the three parks and why. Um and then another comment is you have highlighted the area under Interstate 80 and said that it's and then um if you could go to slide um this would be four. So, one up. Yeah, right there. So, that one it's um it's not necessarily clear what's what's happening here. We have the that's the first time we have the the green um bar graph and there's nothing no text around it telling us what we're looking at. So, 34 what about Golden Gate Fields? 34. What about Aloney? So, um, so that needs some clarification. Uh, on the upper left, um, I think that's pretty self-explanatory with, um, yes, no, not sure. Um, not sure, unfortunately, is huge. So, that's just that just is what it is. Um,

but uh, okay. So then on that same slide, the green rectangles in yellow below it, um there's nothing saying what what those are. So I after seeing it and staring at it and thinking about it, I think those are the if yes, please like responses people typed in or something or um I don't actually know what these are uh where this text is coming from. Uh so that would be good to clarify. Um, what are we looking at there with those rectangles? And, uh, the one that's under Interstate 80, it says not city property. And that is a true fact. But it's also a true fact that it's way easier for the city to work with Calrans to put things there than it is for the city to work with Stronic Group or whatever it is to put something on Golden Gate Fields property. Would you agree with that?

It's a different totally different tier of difficulty. Uh and then the Albany Bald Beach, the city actually does own some of the land out there. it doesn't own most of the land that people think of when they think of uh the Albany Bulb. Um I guess the bulb and the beach, those parts, the strict wording of those the city doesn't own, but there's other land out there that the city does own. Um and so uh so that's that's complicated. And so I I kind of get that, but there actually is some city property out there. But the thing that I think needs to be changed is the under Interstate 80 to change that designation um where it says not city property. I don't know what's what's something um I think we need to word smith this because uh there needs to be some because we've seen a private company that just they're using you know a bunch of that land or they've leased a bunch of that land. They just went and fill out some paperwork and boom, you know. Uh so um the so that's a totally different thing. So it should be a different category and I'd be interested to hear what staff think uh would be a category to call that that makes it clear that um it's way more likely we could get things there than the city building things at Golden Gate building putting a pickle ball court at Golden Gate Fields. And those are my comments.

Let me take that one. Yeah, I think I think we could probably put some context about the different Sorry about that. I think we can put some context about how we can better describe the the the hurdles for developing each of those sites because you're you're absolutely right. Golden Gate Fields. Who knows?

Not a chance. There's a It's sad that Golden Gate Fields makes CALR look process look easy, but I think it does in this case and and you're right, it's not that difficult if you have a compatible use that uh uh that CALR um will allow under their highways. Um so from that perspective, we we'll do something to to um clarify that. So So be asked, does the area under Interstate 80 appear in the map? I'm trying to remember that appears as potential space in the existing master plan. Not not in the as existing potential space or not in the existing map. Okay. Okay. I think well I think it remember we talked about it but

it does show if I recall the area under just below Pier Street Park if I Oh, right. Immediate immediate under. Right. Right. Right. Okay. Just Yeah. But not but not the broader. Okay. because I was just saying it might already be in the plan. This is an addendum. It may not be needed that much more explanation, but yeah. Okay, Julian,

I have one I have a few clarifying questions and then some comments, too. But the were all the questions that were in this survey listed in this report, the answers grafted out in this report because I don't see the answer to question eight types of maybe I'm missing it. And it would be helpful to like number, you know, just so because I see there's number the online survey questionnaire which I took also, you know, is very short. I just don't see the output for question eight. I guess that's a question. It's an actual question. Do you know is the answer to question I just missed I either missed it or I don't see it in there but the answer like the public answers to question eight. What types of recreation programs the most important to you? Some of these are write in answers and that's what appears in the green and yellow boxes that are unclear on slide.

Oh, so that was like a fill in, not a I see. Okay, that makes sense. Okay. Um I mean I know I've done just so you know I've I've done surveys before and analyzed and I know it's really difficult to do those um short answer questions but it's also really important to capture them. Otherwise, people kind of feel shortsighted because they put the effort into putting them in and then just a few few were pulled out. So, if there's a way to I mean, it takes effort, but you have to like kind of put them into categories and then just like broad strokes. A lot you know, a lot of folks did answer this and this and this. Yeah, we we did do that. They're summarized here, but maybe we should consider some sort of an appendix that Yeah,

that would be great because then we could it could be more illustrative of of what people are saying. We did have a lot we did sort of pull a lot of that out.

Yeah. I mean, the only thing I'd say about this survey, and again, I' I've written surveys before, is that um it it was very broad, which is maybe the intention, but some of the specific questions I specific things that I would want to know as a parks and recreation commissioner, I didn't feel like I got a concrete juicy answer to because for example, um if you the question What improvements would you like to see at your most visited park? Maybe different than what what more, you know, would you like to see at your parks in Albany period? You know, may doesn't have to be your most visited like my most visited park is because I'm the closest by, but I you get my point. It's so specific that the it doesn't necessarily illustrate like all the sports. I did have one question about um the map, the community map that you provided that you had the workshop around because I see that people got to vote on like soccer, sand volleyball, flex court. How did you determine which ones of those to include on that map like versus like you could have put ping pong or botchi ball or something like that in there? I'm just wondering how that how those were. So we came up with a variety of different active recreation programs that were different sizes in part to get people to understand scale. They also had the opportunity to take postits or dots that didn't have colors assigned to a program to add other elements.

Okay. And just sorry one feedback because I talked to one student who had attended that workshop and they they thought that they were just supposed to do the online survey. Somehow the person I don't know who if you were there but they just went and did the online survey and I don't recall I mean I'd have to talk to them again and see if they were offered to go to the map and do that dot but it looks like if you said that there was 40 students that came by there's only like 15 that actually you know use the little dots. So, I just want to say that there might have been some o uh sort of oversight in in the students not knowing that they should also do some of this mapping exercise. They were all asked to please get up and participate on the

Yeah, it might have been that one student. I have no idea. Teenagers didn't want to get up and participate. They ate pizza. Um, a lot of them didn't want to do that part, but they did come and um do the survey. And interestingly enough, um about 15 of them did it handwritten and not QR code. So you inputed them. Okay. Oh wow.

Um the other thing I'd say is like I want to kind of step back again and understand how this is going to be used at our level at the city council level because um I feel like the master planning process was such an indepth community process where there was a lot of funds put towards it and then also a lot of community engagement. And I'm not saying that that what you all did wasn't useful, totally useful, but I just concerned that this small addendum is going to like inform what we do an outsized imp

an outsized impact when we all went through this process like it was a you know several years long process and got some good data. I just don't want to throw that throw that out and or or whatever decisions we do make mo going forward like okay this is the sketch of what we're do you guys know I mean like Todd said we've been talking about this aloney greenway development or for so long we want to do it for so long and we thought okay that's down the road we'll have to do a whole community engagement process and I for one felt a little out of I didn't feel like connected to the process of the community survey um appreciate that you did it but I guess I'm just wanting to pause for a moment because here we are at this place and I don't want it to you know you know Mark how this can go right like oh here's city okay this is what we're going to do oh here now now here's I just want to pause and say like what do we want to do here and how do we want to use this to make better informed decisions

I can I can answer that so in our in the parks master plan and included in the um our current CIP are further planning efforts at Peggy Thompson Pier Street Park and the greenway. So we have those projects already lined out. I look at this as narrowing like the starting point for that study. So that would be a commu community engagement more in depth more focused on that park. But this at least provides some some guard rails or some starting point for that analysis. That's not to say things couldn't come into it, but um it's a starting point.

Okay. So what is a start? So is a what is a starting point then if like you give me an example of what this informs in terms of what the car we would we would when we start scoping that that project out we would use this information as a basis for start starting that analysis. Okay. I would just say for the for the sake of like Peggy Thompson Street Park neighbors or the community that we want to do a little bit more robust process of what we'd want to see there just in just in case there's more because I just feel like this was very broad that if I was if I lived next to Tom Street Park I'd want I'd be like oh I don't know I want a lot more input into what gets

I think we're contemplating that in these sub subsequent analysis and this this just helps us along with that. Okay. So does this I guess I'm just wondering does this guide us in like okay our commission because you know it's going to come back to our commission city council then says okay thanks for this report therefore you all should now focus right now on Oloney Greenway and Pier Street Park right and um key route which we've been dying to do so that would be nice but do you see that as an I guess on some level this is very confirming of the things that we already have in Okay.

So, I'm and and the other major theme out of this that I I took was there's a lot of people um interested in sort of the the maintenance and level of service of the things that we currently have. So, that that to me is is great information.

Yeah. I because I would say that I would want to see a lot more from the community about what they might want to see at the Looney Greenway. like like I said botchi ball, ping pong d all these different things that we could put that are cheaper and what you know ticket plus space but we just didn't have it on this addendum and so maybe we don't consider it just that's a whole another sounds like we this is not the limited consulting budget to get community outreach for development of future okay all right

I'd like to piggyback on that just a bit and ask if we're considering um in increasing the number of respondents. Are we going to to broaden the question? Is it is this going to happen again? Are we going to involve more people in the community? Are we going to have more people responding to this question? This this type of this survey or another in the future

another survey that's going to inform this process of what we're doing now? I don't I think we're I think we're going to inform the process a little differently based on projects because this is not a project that we're proposing. It's simply we gathered information kind of wanted a starting point of where where are we? Do we really need to do a million other things? How many other programs do we need? What are people doing at the parks? I mean, I think it's an outreach process that we did and not necessarily in any shape or form projectbased. So the project base as Mark was saying is part of the CIP process, part of what's already ongoing and you know he's been very happy with this because it says you got to do some maintenance but we don't have to do you know as much as we thought. So

can I just ask for clarification? Are you asking or maybe getting at should we try to get more feedback from the age groups that were under represented? Yes, exactly.

I would definitely agree with that because I think that um especially that I feel like the sports fields question got a little a short shrift in some ways. And not to say that we didn't get some good data out of it, but if um like one of the concerns I've I've had is like Memorial has a huge baseball field that's shut that's closed all the time. And somebody even mentioned that, right? And I guess we just we do these community surveys, but I I want to be able to like respond to community community needs. I don't know how we do that. I know that's a whole different baseball field interest question, but I just think that there's there what I didn't see, what I didn't feel out of this is what I feel, which is yes, we lack space. How can we develop more programming with the limited space we have for the different sports fields because we didn't get a full robust sports fields question. But maybe that's because we need to do that further. Maybe that's another further inquiry. I just wouldn't want city council to feel like, okay, we got what we needed in terms of what the community feels about what the young people in this community feel about their sports um field satisfaction.

Number one, I think 600 responses in this town is not bad, but um uh and I also I I mean this is this might inform things a little bit, but it's not answering any questions really. It's not making any decisions. It's just data. And I don't know what kind of timeline you're on. I don't know if it's even realistic to think that you have your contract can handle further outreach. It's it's not part of this contract necessarily, but um you know, I've done surveys in the past as well and

was pretty robust in what we got. I was concerned with the skewing of the demographics, which actually is not unusual because I don't think middle schoolers read the e-news when it comes across. I don't think they read the mail. So, it's a very hard group. And we did work with the athletic director in Albany. And we, you know, presented ourselves to the high school and thought the stuff went out to the middle school, but we didn't do an outreach to them in a physical sense. And I'm not sure it would change it because thinking about how many high school students, not to say that I'm not happy that I had 40, but thinking about how much time we spent trying to get the athletic director and the different teams interested in and doing it at lunchtime so we could feed them and not after school because then they have practice. I'm not sure that outreaching again I'm going to get any else, but it could be. Um, I also want to be conscious of the fact that now we're almost in summertime, so we're going to lose three more months. So, I mean, we don't have a tight timeline for this, but we did want to get back to the council with the response um to them instructing us to go forward to do this. So, there is that. I was hoping to get to them in July. I think maybe I'm I'm might be jelling on what what Commissioner Chung Frank is saying is that um we don't want this to answer questions it can't answer. We don't want this used to be saying something it can't say.

I don't think it will. I'm just and and I think that's more how it's presented as much as anything. Hey, this is some interesting data. It is what it is. I don't think it does for another reason which is it didn't focus on a project per se like right do you want a sports field here? Do you want this here? Do you want there? because then I think we would have been focused in on a complete project itself. It was more of a policy document to know like what should what what is really going on. Um we could certainly reach out again as we get into other projects. I think that that might be helpful. I think that makes more sense. I don't think there's more to do with this one because we don't have we should be asking people when we have when we need their input on something very specific. Exactly.

So if it's Aloney, then we really hash out what would you like to see aloney? What? And then give them a variety of questions, not just like what do you think, but like prompt them the whole thing. Um I guess though, and I agree with um Commissioner Martin too about like contextualizing because we we're in the weeds on this, but the city council isn't. So we just want to make sure when we give to the city council, they kind of know what to do with it. Um, no, I think the comments were very well taken as to how to make the PowerPoint make more sense to everybody, you know. So, I I do appreciate that. But I and I guess what what Oh, sorry.

Well, I guess so I just my last I know I keep going on, but this I guess my question would what is the staff recommendation to city council? Like adopt this, but then like that's it. What do you what does adopting it mean? Do you see what I'm saying? What does accepting it mean? or or could it be accept this and maybe think about putting this in the strategic plan for commission parks and recreation commission to act on? I think what we what I thought our direction was and Mark may have heard it differently was that we would present them this report and they would accept the report and integrate it into the park and master plan. So it would be an addendum to it. So, it's it's it's adopting it as part of your master plan and it informs some information but not necessarily addresses any projects similar to a lot of what the master plan does. It informs us so we can go forward with some support as to where our priorities should be. So, I look at it um like I I really like the master plan because it's a foundational document that we can go to to draw from. And this just gives us more foundation to draw from. It does it's not going to say specifically, let's say we're looking at Memorial Park. Okay, we need to find a place for this, this, this. When we start putting together the planning for it, we say this was in the master master plan. This was in the addendum. here's where we're starting it. We're framing it this way and then that falls into projects that we actually do to for various amenities.

Exactly. I think I think what I think what we're going to run into very quickly anytime we add something where it comes at the expense of something else and so it helps helps understand what those those trade-offs are. Um, I know this survey is over, but can I just make a recommendation that next time um in the student outreach, maybe you could also post the survey link in addition to just um the uh the uh attendance like meeting the QR code. What? So, I'm not sure I understand, but I want to um when I received an email on my school account, um I only got a uh flyer for it and I know like some people maybe can't make it on a certain day.

Oh. So, I would recommend sending a link out. Thought it did have one. It would be nice to see what email we got. You guys got this one. Did it Did it not have a QR code? It just had Oh, that was supposed to be what it was. I mean, there might have been some flyers I saw that had QR codes, but the email specifically didn't. And And can I ask you who the email was from? Oh, it's um from my vice principal. From who? My vice principal. Uh it's Laos. Michelle Laim. Yeah. Okay. All right. Um, it's a good point.

Oh. Oh, well. Uh, I had a couple more comments and a question. One, one comment was, um, just to make sure the righth hand pie chart on those two pie charts does say it's from US census data. I think that'll help clear things up for people. And then one question that I think Mark addressed to some extent a minute ago was uh, you know, how do we how do we use this? So, how does the city use this in the sense of um do we say in the future we're going to focus on this one park that's going to go here or do we say we want a small dog park or we want a botchi ball court or the the people have spoken and they want whatever although like you said botchi ball wasn't one of the things in the list.

Um where's it going to go? Which park is it going to go in? Um, and so how does staff does staff think of this data being used one way or the other as focused on one park? What can go here or focus on one amenity? Where's it going to go? I think we would we try to look at things sort of holistically. So there's things very specific on on a park, but if someone says we want another dog park, we say, "Well, where would that fit?" So I think we would use it both ways. Okay. of saying of, oh, if we were going to look at a dog park and there's a ground swell of, okay, we need we need one,

you know, just because it wasn't, you know, a, you know, pointed at, I don't know, the Peggy Thompson, that might be something we look at during that that analysis.

Okay. And then um also I did want to mention that I was at the April 14th um Albony parks workshop at the community center and um I found it incredibly helpful the uh the overlays that the city had put together um and I really wish I had one at home or or some kind of online version um because what they did if it's not clear from the pictures is they had well in person they had large color printouts of satellite views of the parks, each park, and then they had little like overhead transparencies that they had color printed on each of them. Um different uh amenities to scale. And so a soccer field was a big rectangle, a pickle ball court was a small rectangle, and so on. And you could just glide it over all these different, you know, open spaces in each park, and you say, "Oh, h yeah, that won't fit there, would you know, or if it did fit there, it would take over the entire, you know, it's just really informative. If there's a way to do that with um online tool or just or shared images um and everything was to scale, so the park and the overlay were were to scale. Um that that might be too much work for the city to do, but um I found it really really helpful. Isn't that GIS? Um, any other comments?

Yeah, some Okay. Um, thank you very much for your work and for your presentation and we will believe we gave you feedback as wished. All right, moving on. Um, we need a recommendation. Oh. Oh, do we need to vote on this? Okay. Yes. Um, are we prepared to make a motion to recommend this report to uh with with updates? Yes. I don't uh uh so the motion is to um uh accept the report with or re recommend staff submit this report to city council for review with the revision

with with with next draft. Yeah. Um I um burst it. What do you say? I I move I so move that we uh approve approve that. Yes. Do I have a second? I'll second that. Okay. Commissioner Chan, yes. Commissioner Chang Frank, yes. Commissioner Logan, yes. Commissioner Martin, yes. And Chair Abbott, yes. Motion passes. Thank you for reminding me. That was important. That was important. No problem.

You're always first with us, Brian. Okay. Uh item 52, expenditure of sugar sweetened beverage tax update. We have some more items to discuss. Short and no pun intended, sweet.

Yes. Uh especially since I'm presenting it. very short and sweet. Um, so we have our um recommendation from our last commission meeting that we went over, our two water bottle filling stations, one for Ocean View Park and the other for the Aloney Greenway. Um, the one for Ocean View is going to be priced at about $10 to $15,000. It's going to replace the existing nonfunctioning uh drinking fountain that is there. Um, I have a picture of that. Um, based off Julia's recommendation, we did not include a picture of the water fountain that is currently there. Instead, we just have the aggregate fountain and then a picture of what we would like to replace it with. So hopefully there's no confusion about that going forward. And then we have the one for the Aloney Greenway. It shows the old decorative fountain that um is not usable and what we're going to replace it with. Um we're hoping to get this approved and this is what we would submit for the June 1st council meeting.

All right, short and sweet. Y thank you for the short and sweet. I always they will appreciate it too. Can we add a few sentences to justify like I was thinking maybe for the Ocean View Park we just say highly used park by pickleball player. Just a reminder pickle ball players but increased use by park users due to the upgrade slasht transition of the existing courts to permanent pickle ball courts right no I just like how's the highly used parks and then also for the ON greenway would that be the only it would be like the only water filling station on the greenway right no there's one down um near the Albany loop um down that way a little bit more where is that what streets would those be between Portland maybe is Portland

oh it's pretty far way. So, we could say something about this would serve people on Solano potentially too. I don't know. Just it's a highly used area. It's highly used not only the park there but up and down the greenway. Yeah, totally. So, just to kind of if you don't mind just adding a sentence about like highly trafficked highly high traffic pedestrian area um so that they know that it'd be a value. I think I really think it is a value. got to say it's a very different experience trying to fill a water bottle with a little water fountain versus just pushing. So I think I mean that's why we did it before but no problem. So add highly trafficked area for the Aloney Greenway and what was your um addition for the ocean?

Oh just incre just I guess it already says to increase but just it's a highly used park with many many park users kind of thing. Yeah, I'll try to take a look at it and pump it up a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. I like the idea of adding that it's near Solano Avenue for the one on the greenway. Is the Solano A one though going to be on the like close to the path or is it going to be like um been further like My thought it would be it it would be probably Yeah, closer to the path. But I don't think so then this one you think? Yeah. So this one's built into that little seat wall. This one's kind of far. Like it's like hard to see if even if you're on the trail, right? So my my sense is we would put it um kind of on the other side of that planter basically

on the other side of the planter and potentially even on the north side because that's the exercise equipment is over there too and that so I think I think there'll be some placement of and part of it where where we can get a water line without without too much trouble. Okay. Yeah. I was just wondering because it said replacement so I was like I don't know if this is the best like spot like if you can move it a few feet one way or another. So, you know what? We might we might make change this one cuz we're not replacing this one because that's a historic thing. There's actually a really that's going to stay um to the left of it there's a little plaque there that talks about um it was you know done no says install. Yeah. So, it could be new new fountain right here. Yes. So, I'll actually change that as well. Yeah, that's a good point.

It does say install to supplement. So, I'm not sure the language. You just get to add the Thank you. I see we just jumped into comments. Um I just realized Any other questions? Are there any online? Um, no hands. Just online. All right. Comments. Not back to where we were. Uh, the thing I comment a couple things, but but I think it should say drinking fountain and water bottle filling station. I know it's in the picture, but No problem. Drinking fountain and water bottle filling station with drinking. It's in the picture, but it's not clear. I'll even make sure that I mention that it has the dog filler, too. Good. Good. Yeah. Yeah, that is actually really good. Actually, that might

that might be a good selling point. That might push it over the edge for us actually. I kept trying to get my dog to drink from the wine on the greenway and she just wouldn't do it. Yeah, I like that model that's shown. It got all three um types and it's great. Yeah. Yeah. Um so unless there were Yes. The other thing was I I didn't like the word aggregate. I know what it is. Okay. Because I've talked about this before. Just say vintage or old or or non-dilapidated. It says non-dilapidated. Yeah, I can change it to dilapidated. Well, I think even just non-functioning drinking fountain. I think aggregate kind of sounds like aggregate sounds like Oh, is that include a water station or what what does aggregate mean? I know it means the material, but

it's the the aggregate trash cans. The aggregate there was there was maybe Yeah, there was a I'm sure that makes sense in your world. I think in the whenever the 60s or 70s that was all the rage I think I don't know it'd be tough to call I'd be I'd be hardressed to identify how old that was as old as me. Okay. Yeah. I think uh do you like enough to make a motion? I mean do you want to do you want to first it? I I will first I move I move that accept it changes. Right. Sorry. Okay. Commissioner Chan, yes. Commissioner Chang Frank,

yes. Commissioner Logan, yes. Commissioner Martin, yes. And Chair Abbott, yes. Motion passes. All right. Thank you. Will that work? Uh, no. Committee updates, announcements. Now we can have staff commissioner announcements and request for future agenda items. Um I I had a few just that I was at some workshops and also wanted to talk about a tree on commercial land. I was going to talk about the tree, but you can talk about it too if

I'll let you uh do that, but I did want to say I was at the April 14th Albony Park uh workshop at the community center that I mentioned earlier. Um and that was um where I liked the overlays and um the scale drawings and all that. That particular one didn't have much uh didn't draw many people. There were only two members of the public there, me and the mayor uh were there and then we were outnumbered by city staff and consultants I think. So um but the survey number of survey responses was high. So that was good to see. And then I was also at the um community no the Albany El Cerrito community wildfire resilience workshop on May 9th a few days ago. And there's going to be four of those. the cities, the two cities got went to together on a grant to um do outreach in these ways and this was the first um they uh the the city has a website that lists the other three. There's going to be eucalyptus reuse workshop uh number one and two where I understand they're going to be actually milling some of the trees into lumber and there's going to be some process of getting some of that lumber into people's hands and and then there's going to be one or two at the Elcerto as well um all focused on the natural habitats and um wildfire resilience. So, I thought that was really people should kind of keep keep an eye out for those and um I think uh that was mostly it for except for the the the city the tree on commercial property. People had other things they wanted to

announce. I just had one announcement and that is a week from tonight is the uh honors dinner for our citizen and youth of the year. Citizen of the year's John Dest who's been involved in a lot of things regarding the schools. He's also president of the community foundation. Excited to honor him. And then uh young woman Jasmine Louu is uh youth of the year. Uh she's an Alb High student uh and she's been very involved in in various services uh uh uh supporting literacy and and helping disadvantaged youth. It's it's really great. We're excited to have that. So next uh next Thursday night 6 uh on and I can give you information if needed.

I don't have any announcements tonight. I have turn my mic on. Um, so I have one about the um, what Commissioner Martin said, the tree in um, let me share this. Is it 419 San Pablo? Yeah, I contacted you last week to see if talk about this. Uh, yeah. So, it brings up some interesting issues.

Yeah. So, this was um, just for context, this is the area right on it's really an interesting conversion of parking lots because they're different properties. their different different cities. Um and um this tree is like right in the middle straddling all of it. Um so this is Wells Fargo's on the just to the north of this is right across the street from the Sutter facility and the car wash and there's and uh it's in between uh San Pablo and Canes. Yes, that's it. No. Uh yes, Canes. Yeah. And real close to the plaza,

right? And so this is a big it's actually a um eucalyptus tree. Different species than what we have on Albany Hill or the um ones up at Solano, but um it's a very large tree. And boy, this isn't moving. Um there you go. There it is. Way too jumpy for me right now. Let me um let me see if I can scroll through it this way. Um so this gives you a sense. This tree came down and let me see if I can move.

That's looking north. Yeah, this is looking north. Here I can get So this came down as you can see on there's a it came down hit a vehicle. Um no one was thankfully hurt. Um, but it did cause some damage. Um, and the photos I took, I walk by here all the time and yeah, I noticed noticed it down.

Thank you. And and John uh got out there and spoke with um Wells Fargo had an arborist out there pretty quickly. Um they talked about it and determined the tree needed to come down. So they they took it took it down. I think I have a picture of the work, but I um but it does bring up some interesting issues of it's a it is a private tree. It's on private property, so we really don't have a jurisdiction over it, but that um the public still has access to it, but Right. So anyone can walk through there, cut through the parking lots and so yeah,

one one of the things I did and I spoke with uh Dena earlier in the week. Um when we see something like this, I think we would handle it very similar to a dangerous condition on a private property, whether it be a um broken window or you know, whatever whatever it might be. And we would if if it's reported, we can go through our code enforcement process to to alert the property owner and have them take action to to address the issue. Um, that does that's that's not us getting into their business necessarily or mandating certain, you know, tree surveys at certain intervals, but um I think that would be the way to handle when issues like this come up. So, the city's moving to proactively potentially proactively pruning the what the trees in the public rideway. Um, but there's trees like this that

um the public has access to. And so one question for me is, you know, should it be agendaized for us to is a future agenda item to um uh you know, what what role should the city have, should this commission have, uh for considering trees on private on private land where the public has access to it. Um, and because there on online discussions about this when when I posted my photos, uh, people were, you know, wishing the tree could be saved. Other people worried about the safety, you know, and um, so and what if the property owner had done nothing and but yet the tree was, you know, completely rotted to the core or then again, what if this was a fluke and the tree is totally fine and they just cut it all the way down. So what what role does the city have I thought maybe should be agendaized? I think this this and and we might be getting a little further into discussion, but um a similar issue came up during the street tree management plan because there are private trees not necessarily on on um areas of you know public access but pe trees in people's backyards that someone wants to you know remove or do something with it and you know is should we have some oversight on it. So I think this this question's come up in a number of um contexts but um I don't know if we would agenda when we would agenda something

I think that's a topic for the lawyer. I don't think that's a bigger that's a us because if if we if we say that we are I mean we're now into discussion on an item on the agenda uh but it seems to me that if we say we are going to be in charge of this we're liable now even though it's private property we by saying that we have a role here we are now liable so I don't think that's just something that comes into the context of like a a private tree ordinance and that so so so I think that's I think that's a question for the lawyer that's not a question for this or let us get the first master management plan done before we there was a storm because I there were several large limbs that dropped about the same was it just I don't remember that big of a storm it just

it was surprisingly strong winds maybe it came from a different direction I know that can cause problems too but I was surprised at uh the level of there was several there was on on what Nilson and Solano there's that there was there was that and then there was a number on um uh Masonic for closer to Dartmouth. Okay. Yeah. Anyway, interesting. If a building's unsafe because of a like a tree fell through like the can't the the police or fire red tag a building or something like that?

Yeah. So one question is is there a role for the city to red tag a region that the public can just walk through if there's so is there so I would look at this as um if there's obviously a safety issue we would then have code enforcement and be able to restrict access um that's different that that's responding to something in my mind and that's different than us proactively managing it. And again, we're getting way into discussion now. I think we need to move on. Any other suggestions? Yeah, I

have one one announcement. We have uh compost giveaway comes on Saturday morning um at Memorial Park. It's uh starts at 8 a.m. Uh people start queuing up much earlier. And you guys run out or you pretty much have plenty. No, we usually it so I don't need to queue up. We usually run out, but it there there have been times where there's been a couple bags left and quite frankly, we just leave them out on the street and and by Monday when we come to pick them up, there's not much to be picked up. So, cool. All right. Well, thank you everybody. Thank you. Close this meeting.