Santiago Creek Commission - Regular Meeting

Hey, Pamela. Pamela. Good one. I'd like to call the regular Santiago Creek Commission meeting of 04/22/2026 to order today on Earth Day. Today, we will have the Pledge of Allegiance led by Vice Chair Pamela Gallera.

Thank you, Vice Chair. Roll call, Ms. Woolsey, will you please call the roll?

Vice Chair Gallera? Commissioner Adams?

I am here.

Commissioner Hillman? Here. Commissioner Knight? I didn't realize he was in here. Commissioner Tullu? Present. Chair Moeller?

Here.

A quorum is present with Commissioner Baca absent and Commissioner Knight absent.

Okay. Thank you. At this time, members of the public may address the commission on matters not listed on the agenda, which are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Commission, provided that no action may be taken on an off agenda item unless authorized by law. Public comments are limited to three minutes per speaker unless a different time is announced. Do we have any public speakers? No? Okay. Thank you. First, I'm going to call for the approval of the minutes of the Santiago Creek Commission regular meeting held on 01/28/2026.

I move to approve the minutes as written.

Got it. Thank you.

Do you have a second?

Did the motion. Can I second it after I've done

the motion?

In that case, I'll

be the second. Thank you, Commissioner. Any discussion on it? No. Here we got it.

Item passes, five-zero. Thank you. Next, we have item 4.1, review the proposed Santiago Creek strategic plan implementation strategy for future city council approval. I'm going to ask staff for presentation.

Thank you, Chair and members of the Commission. I have a PowerPoint presentation that will pull up. All right. So as the Commission's likely aware, after almost two years of hard work, the city council has approved the Santiago Creek strategic plan. They did that at the February 24 council meeting.

They were very complementary of this commission and all the work that has been put into the plan. Now, a part of that approval, they did have some direction that they gave to staff that they would like to come back with an implementation strategy. And there's two key elements that really came out of that. One was to work with Townsend Public Affairs, who we have Jake Leishner from Townsend Public Affairs here tonight. And there will be a presentation that he has prepared.

They do work for us not only as an advocate for us when it comes to legislation, but also our grant writer. And so knowing that they've done great work for us, the council said go and use them as much as we can to try to find funding opportunities. So Jake has reviewed the plan, and he has a presentation about funding opportunities that we can look at. The second part was to work with community groups on the implementation of the plan's projects. And so I'll go into that a little bit more.

But what we're going be looking at when it comes to that second item is to break out into subcommittees that will be very narrow in their scope. We'll have less than a quorum on each committee. And we'll have a clear end time frame. By doing that, per the Brown Act, that is something where we do not have to, say, post agendas. It's something that we can work on an ad hoc basis to work with and there would be an advisory capacity to work with staff, to work with Townsend, to work with community groups on implementing these projects.

There are two ways we can do it, and I'll go through that as we get to that place. But first, I wanted to bring Jacob, who has researched the draft or the final and adopted strategic plan. And he has developed a presentation that I will bring up about different funding opportunities that we can look at as we move forward. So I'll put this up. All right.

Awesome. Thanks, Jack. And thank you to all the commissioners. Like Jack said, my name is Jake Leishner. I'm with Townsend Public Affairs.

We work with the city on both state legislative advocacy and then grant writing. I am on our grant writing team, so pretty narrowly focus on identifying funding opportunities and then applying and submitting applications on behalf of the city. Just to give a quick overview of our agency, we were founded in 1998 by Christopher Townsend. We represented three sixteen clients, two fifty one of those being local public agencies, primarily cities but also counties, special districts, school districts, anything that falls under the umbrella of local public agency. We are also the only top 10 lobbying firm in California that does both legislative, advocacy, and grant funding in both Sacramento and DC.

So we have a team here in Southern California where I am, up in Sacramento, and then in DC as well, all working together to get these priorities done. Very proud that we just recently passed over the threshold and have secured over $3,300,000,000 in competitive public sector funding for all of our clients since 1998. What I want to do today is sort of go through, as Jack mentioned, a few different upcoming funding opportunities that the commission could be eligible to apply for that line up with a few of the different projects that are outlined in that strategic plan. I know some of you are familiar with different grant funding opportunities. We'll try to keep it high level and then obviously open to questions at the end to get into some more of the details.

This first one is from the California Wildlife Conservation Board. They've actually just recently consolidated their application into one general grant. This is a process by which you would submit a pre application sort of outlining what your needs are, what the project proposal is. You would then work with the Wildlife Conservation Board in developing a full application. So this is a good avenue to explore a lot of different opportunities that are listed in the strategic plan.

They do have any of the projects do have to follow one of these three benefits, protected or restored biodiversity, climate change action, or expanded public access to nature. They do have very multiple project types from planning all the way to implementation and sort of everything in between. They also do not have a minimum or maximum award amount and there's no required cost share. This makes it a really exciting opportunity because it really allows for you to design a project with a proposal amount that lines up with your needs and you don't have to follow a lot. A lot of other grant programs can be pretty restrictive in exactly what activities are eligible, exactly how much money you can fund requiring the city to also put up some funding.

This does not fall into any of those categories so it couldn't be a good opportunity for some of the strategic item plan strategic plan items that don't necessarily fall neatly into some other grant programs. This is also one that has a rolling deadline so they're always accepting pre applications. So it gives you plenty of time to prepare those materials or be upfront, submit those pre application materials, and then work on the back end to further refine them into a full application. I did pull out a couple projects here that I think would be the best fit for what the Wildlife Conservation Board does tend to fund. All of the creek habitat restoration ones are high priorities.

Before, like I said, they consolidated into this general grant program, they did have a Habitat Enhancement and Restoration Program or HEARP. That was a big part of their funding mechanism. So fitting some of the projects like the Habitat the Creek Habitat Restoration into some of those previous guidelines will definitely make it more competitive. This is also a program that will fund some of the scientific studies. So like Project two ten that was mentioned in the strategic plan could be a good fit or there might not be some other funding opportunities.

But there are a lot besides just these six that I mentioned here, there are a lot of other ones that would fall under this jurisdiction could be eligible to apply for. The next one is one that's actually currently open right now. This is the five star program from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. It's a public private partnership with a lot of government agencies. National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, EPA, USDA, USFWS, and a bunch of private sponsors, including FedEx and some other names you might recognize.

This is specifically looking to develop community stewardship of natural resources. So they really like to see projects that combine both similar to them, public private partnerships, bringing communities together to do the work. And I know that's something that was reflected in a lot of the strategic plan items. All the proposals do need to fall under one of those three priority areas they have, on the ground restoration, environmental outreach, education and training, and then community partnerships. I do not think any of those would be a challenge to meet in reading that strategic plan.

I think almost all of them fall under multiple of those, if not all three. This award range is not as high as some of the other ones. Dollars 150,000 is the maximum award range. This one also does have a required match of 1.75, meaning if you had if you're requesting $60,000 you would need to also put up a cost share amount of $45,000 I know the match can sometimes be limiting but a lot of grant applications especially from the federal and state government like to see that you are leveraging other local funds and not just requesting money to do the projects completely using grant funding. The timeline for this, like I said, it is currently open.

The deadline is May 14. They'll be reviewing until October of this year with the grant announcements estimated in mid to late November. I did also pull out a couple of projects here that could be a good fit depending again on the amount of money needed and the amount of time. I know it's a quick turnaround to May 14, so projects that are more shovel ready or have some more materials already in place would probably be a better fit here so you can hit the ground running. This is one, like I said, they have an emphasis on community development and bringing communities to do the work themselves.

So some of the community gardens projects would be good. I know a lot of the pickup projects and litter abatement emphasized community involvement. Those would be great fits here and really in line with things that we've seen them fund in the past. They also have an emphasis on riparian climates or habitats, excuse me. So this is another one that I think would be a really good narrow fit for what the commission is looking to do.

The next one is from the California State Parks, the Habitat Conservation Fund. This one is not currently open, does have an estimated deadline either later this year or in 2027. They haven't quite publicized when that next round will be. This one though every round does have seven distinct categories and you can see the repairing and habitat, trails, wildlife area activities are all their own distinct categories, all of which that I know there are strategic plan projects for. So once those guidelines are released, this could be a good opportunity to fund some of those projects that may not be shovel ready right now but in a year or two years when this is released, might be closer to application ready.

This is another one that does not have a minimum or maximum award amount and also does not have any match. Some of these projects, some of these programs that don't have a match will score you higher if you do include one as kind of a double edged sword. This is not one of those. This is really one that we can do a full project just using to grant funds. Like I said, that deadline is estimated to be later this year or next year and as we learn more, I can definitely share with the commission when we have more specific details.

This is one, like I said, they had that specific trails subcategory, so it could be good for this trail signage or the creation and closing of trail gaps. Any of the creek bed restoration projects or improving creek corridors all would be eligible here alongside a lot of other ones I didn't list given all of those different categories you saw earlier. The last one I have here is specifically for trails, the recreational trails program. This is technically federal money from the Federal Highway Administration that gets funneled down to states. So in California, distributed by Caltrans and the states parts and recreation department.

It's specifically funding for recreational trails and trail facilities for both non motorized and motorized projects. So I know this would cover both the the creation of trails and all of the trail head, trail side facilities that are mentioned in the plan as well as some of the e bike projects as well. This will fund anything from the acquisition of land to use for trails, the construction of new trails or like I mentioned, development or rehabilitation of the trails themselves, trail side facilities or trail head facilities, which is not something you often see in a lot of the environmental grants. They're pretty focused on the trail and recreation. So this being an opportunity that will also fund some of the facilities, know bathrooms, benches, some other amenities were mentioned in the plan.

This could be a good opportunity for some of those that you won't see in other programs. This is another one where the estimated deadline is later this year or 2027. They have not released any draft guidelines, so the maximum and minimum award amounts have not been publicized. So that's TBD. Given though that it is a federal program, there is a required 12% cost share required, and that's 12% of the total project cost, not just 12% of what you're requesting from the government.

Again, I've listed a couple of the projects here that could be a good fit. Really anything related to trail closure, trail creation, trail development, the facilities, all would be eligible and competitive here. One thing I will note is federal programs generally have a higher level of environmental review that's required just because once you have federal funding in, you also are required to complete NEPA in addition to CEQA. I know that can be an additional burden or barrier to entry, but putting that on your radar early. So then finally, just to sort of wrap it all up, the five star program is the only one that's open right now but happy to answer questions or provide some more information for that to hit the ground running if that's something that would be of interest.

It is an annual program, so if now is not a great time, this is one that will be coming back next year as well that we could prep for. In general, I know it seems weird for me to be talking about a lot of programs that aren't open now, but grant programs usually have very short windows from release to application deadline. So getting materials together early, getting as close to as possible to being shovel ready by completing any studies, design, kicking off environmental reviews, doing community outreach so you have those materials all ready for submission when the guidelines are released are all great ideas. And then also just ongoing monitoring, putting this on your radar so that when it pops up and when it is released, these aren't totally out of the blue and surprises you at least have some familiarity with what they do and what they could potentially fund. One other thing I wanted to mention too is there are a lot of state agencies from the state that have a lot of funding mechanisms that aren't always as well publicized as they are in like a grant program.

For example, the State Coastal Conservancy and State Parks have pots of discretionary funding that can sometimes be accessed without having to do a full grant application. But a lot of that is relationship based. So reaching out to program officers or legislators that are involved in the Coastal Conservancy or State Parks is always a good idea. Taking meetings, let walking them through the strategic plan, what some of the priority projects are, letting them be aware of that. They'll sometimes be able to find pots of money or offer support with some of the grant applications.

It's just a good idea to be sort of getting on their radar sort of when those funding opportunities become available even if they're not in the moment, they're able to think of you and remember what projects are a priority for the commission. That's everything I got. Happy to take any questions. My contact information is there. I also have cards if that's easier. I also have the email for our Vice President and CEO, Corey, who's down in our Southern California office, very familiar with the area, has worked with the city in the past And then my colleague, Elisa, who does the legislative advocacy for the city that I discussed earlier. So if any of us can be of help or supportive, you got all of our emails. If there are any questions, happy to answer.

Yeah. Thank you, Jake. I have a quick question or two. Just tracking, there's no limit on how many things we can apply for, correct?

There are

no limit on things you can apply for, yeah.

And then just so for my situational awareness,

and then maybe it's a better question for

you, Jack, the grant money gets to the city, does that then take staff time to implement or coordinate and do all that aspect as well?

Yeah. So if that's understood. I mean, if the second part of tonight's item is going to be with the subcommittees, I mean, it's envisioned that if the commission moves forward and council moves forward with everything, those subcommittees would work with staff in Towns of Public Affairs to identify projects. There could be some existing projects, but it's going to be definitely there'll be staff time involved. Once that grant money comes through, there's grant administration that there's and then actually implementing, getting contractors on. So this certainly would require some staff time. Okay.

Thank you. Any other commissioner? Vice chair?

Yeah. I have a question. There you go. I was wondering if you had investigated the urban greening grant under Prop four.

Yes. That's actually one that I've talked to Jack about, previously. That's when they just closed their public comment section, we're updating the guidelines, that's expected to be released next month.

Right. And so the pre application is probably going to be due in June. And so I from my investigation, I think that would probably be a perfect grant for us to apply for, especially for the Wandaspur. That grant is really focusing on heat island and carbon sequestration. And I think that would be a wonderful grant for us to apply for for the Wandaspur.

Yeah. You're right on every count there. Like you said, they are looking the biggest priority is going be combating the heat island effects, so planting trees, enhancing the tree canopy, all of that stuff that you mentioned. I didn't include in the presentation just because we had already had some internal conversations about it, but you are right on in every front.

So on that particular grant, we would get more points if we can engage the California Conservation Corps.

Mhmm.

And And I wonder if the city has a relationship with the CCC. Do we

It's probably if we do, it's going to be through our community services department. I can check with our director to see if they have any contacts through them.

And then in addition, if we have contact with the local tribes, we really get a lot of points with that. And so by making those two relationship connections, I think that we would get more points for that. I'm sure you've seen the plans that we drew up for the WANDA Spur, and so we already have a conceptual plan, and we already have completed a lot of community input for that. So I think that would be a great project for us to apply for.

Totally. Yeah, at the direction of the city, I'm happy to pursue that project for this program. One thing I can mention too on the conservation corps is there's a lot of grant programs in the state that sort of you get additional points if you consult with them. So they actually have a very simple form online that you put in your project, all of your contact information and then within two weeks, they reach out to sort of say, yes, we're happy to help or no, we don't think it's a good fit. And either way, you can take that copy, submit it to the grant program and that will get you the additional points for saying that you did a consultation.

That said, you're right on the tribal side as well, having those relationships might take a little bit more effort but would get us a lot of points there too. So happy to facilitate that, however, can be helpful. But I think you're right, having the conceptual design and community outreach already completed will put us in a very competitive place with the application.

And I would like to volunteer to assist with that. It's a very simple pre application.

I would love as much help as we can get.

Commissioner Tillett.

I had a couple of questions. One is just more administrative. When you mentioned the match requirements or the project share, that's we're a city in financial crisis, so that's a little bit of a blockage point. But have you ever seen a case where that funding can that whatever it is, the $0.12 on the dollar or 7 quarters of a dollar, whatever it was, over percent, is raised by another group, like an NGO, and put forward on behalf of the city?

Yeah, so there are every grant program has different requirements. With the federal ones, for example, their only requirement is that the matching funds are non federal dollars. So that can be from donation, from an NGO, from a different group. That's all sometimes even from a different state grant, for example, as long as it's not federal funding. State grants can be a little bit more complicated in what those where that funding is coming from.

But I wouldn't say that I've ever seen a program where they would be turning down money just because it's not coming from the applicant itself as long as those funds are committed to the project and we would submit some sort of letter or MOU to say, yes, the funding is secured and yes, if we get awarded, we'll be able to spend it. But yeah, I don't believe for any of the programs that I discussed would be any moratorium on using funds that weren't directly from the city's budget.

Okay, great. And my second question was, you know, these look really great for some of the initiatives we had and that you mentioned around restoration, around signage. Did you have any suggestions and what would they be around like cultural, historical, archaeological type funding we can look toward?

Yeah, that's a great question. What I will say is a lot of the sort of cultural and heritage grant programs were from the federal government. With the change in administration, I'm sure you saw on the news at the beginning of last year, The administration was doing a lot of work changing where grant funding was going and what sort of programs were being prioritized. And so things like the National Endowment for the Humanities lost a lot of that funding. That's been being battled in court and so we're actually seeing a couple of those coming back sort of in fits and spurts.

So there's not a whole lot of prediction I can do on that front other than to say a lot of the court battles have been going in the way of the grant programs, and hopefully we'll be seeing more of them come out. There's also from the states some very narrow ones, things like art in California parks, which seeks to create new art exhibits in existing state and local parks. But a lot of those are very narrow in exactly what sort of heritage things they're looking for. I'm happy to do a little bit more research and see if we can identify any. I do know there were a number of projects in the strategic plan that we're looking at the specific history of Orange and the surrounding communities. So yeah, definitely happy to look a little bit more in-depth if those are higher priorities as well.

Yeah, if I could just suggest, I mean, we have an agricultural history, so there may be something around agricultural historical preservation. Also, Camino Real coming through or the Portola expedition, some, you know, Spanish missionaries or, you know, there are a lot of angles, And I again, as Vice Chair suggests, I'm happy to work with you on that too.

Awesome.

Yeah. Go ahead, vice chair.

You had mentioned earmarks. And of course, there's opportunities for, you know, earmarks from congress, state, but then also the County Of Orange. And you may not know that the Santiago Creek Bike Path was partially funded through County Of Orange. And so I'm wondering if we had a cut sheet, a promotional information on these projects? And if so, which projects would we want to bring forward to either county, state, or federal have that request in?

Yeah. That's a great question. We stay pretty actively engaged with the city on federal, state, and county earmarks. I know we just applied in this most recent cycle for FY '27. So definitely something that is open to us in an option.

Like you said, having some materials prepared, a one pager to send the legislators, either local or federal to show them what the outline is, what the request is, what the funds would be used for is always super helpful. Projects that tend to be discrete and with one fund could be completed in a set period of time are usually the most competitive. They don't always like to send funding for things that are on an ongoing basis and would require refunding. But some of the projects like the Gap Trail Closure, bike lanes, anything like that, where we would say, here's the end date, we'll use this funding to complete it, and then the legislator can come take a picture at the end. Those are always the most appetizing to legislators no matter the level of government.

And of all of our projects, which ones do you think would be most competitive?

That is a good question. I think it would depend. Think that answer would change based on what level we're looking at. I think the gap, the trail gap closures are probably going to be the best suited for the county because I think they're going to have the most direct impact on mobility for local residents and I think it has the most pull for the county itself especially given that the creek transcends multiple jurisdictions throughout the county. So that's probably what I would target there.

Looking at the state level, I do think some of the history and heritage, more cultural stuff would could be a good fit there. And then federally, honestly, I think that would probably come down to request amounts. We can get the most money from the federal government versus the others. So my advice would honestly be to try and find what might be the most expensive and the hardest to get funded from other programs and try and funnel that to the federal side.

And when you're referring to the gap closure, are you referring to Cannon to Santiago?

There were a couple that I saw in there, that one, and then clot as well. Or maybe that was just a continuation and not a gap closure. But I think both of those would be good fits.

Thank you. You guys commissioner? Yeah.

Thank you for that presentation. I'm curious how the sort of cost works as far as applying for grants and paying Townsend Public Affairs. Is this an ongoing contract with the city? And is the more grants that get prepared, the more money it costs to prepare them? Or how does that work?

No, it's a retainer based agreement. So Townsend's on retainer with us for $9,000 a month, and we can use them as much as we need to.

Oh, that's nice. So we don't need to be scarce in our applications. Oh, yeah. That's great. Okay. And then I saw one had a deadline May 14, which is really close. Is that just letting us know we're going to miss it? Or is there any chance to get in there?

I would not put it up there if we couldn't do it.

Oh, Okay. So we might

be able to get

in there. Okay.

Yeah. It's definitely one, it's not a super complicated application by any means. We also have a full team. I mean, I'm on our just one member of our grants unit. We have 19 registered state and federal lobbyists who we very much work as a team. So, can pull other people in. We can definitely make that happen by the deadline if it is something that we want to be going forward depending on how close the eligible projects are, to being shovel ready and application ready.

And I'll note on that one too because we haven't adopted strategic plan with projects in there, I could work with our Public Works and Community Services staff to submit that application. I know the second part of tonight's presentation is talk about subcommittees, which the council would like to see come back to them. So given we're already working on the May 12 city council agenda, so knowing that that's coming up, we already have this plan adopted. I can work with our staff to see what they have so we can do it on the staff level, knowing that we're in process of potentially creating these subcommittees.

On that topic, Jack, how does requesting a grant work? Does this commission or a sub commission ask for the grant? Or does that go back to the city council and then they ask for the grant?

So that's kind of the second part of it, knowing that that would be kind of arduous to wait quarterly and to have grant applications go back and forth. That will be the second part. So that's the whole creating the subcommittees to work with staff and implementing these and working with Townsend Public Affairs. So those subcommittees will work on an advisory capacity about, hey and of course, with the expertise of Townsend going, we think this would be a great grant opportunity with input and advice from those subcommittees, working with staff and different community groups that have interest in those projects. By having it in that capacity, and it's truly an ad hoc subcommittee, we wouldn't necessarily have to keep going back to the council.

The subcommittee part, that is all subject to the council saying, that sounds like a great idea. Please move forward. So that's how we're trying to have this

work going forward. Thank you. That's it for me.

Just a follow-up question on that, if it's okay. But if the council has given they've approved the general plan, of which some of these ideas would go into that grant funding application. And if the council has already said there's a direction for us to work with Townsend, that covers off on the ability to move forward. Apply for grant funding for one of those projects approved. But the only question might be the match requirement, which is a budgetary thing which counsel would need to look at, right?

Yeah, and a lot of times if we have a grant opportunity there, part of the acceptance of the grant would be there has to be a request for appropriation for the match funding. That would come to the council at that point in time. But to your point, yeah, we have an adopted plan right now. And so fact that we have projects in place in our CAP that match what those projects are, and some I know are more general statements and things that we can work on on a maintenance standpoint, staff can move forward just on its own with these projects, assuming that we're not exceeding dollar thresholds that counsel would

have to

approve. The second part of this presentation has to do with subcommittees, is ensuring that this commission can have involvement on an official basis without violating the Brown Act.

Yeah, for sure.

Did you have anything

else? Commissioner Hillman?

Let's see. Is one of your services being the grant writer? Or are you going to team with city staff in that regard?

Yeah. So we think of ourselves as extensions of staff. Obviously, we need to work and collaborate pretty closely with staff to develop things like the budget, to gather internal materials, data, that sort of thing. But I am the one who is writing the drafts, obviously sending to staff to review and all of that. So I would characterize it as a team effort. But at the end of the day, I am a grant writer and happy to write as many grants as the city needs.

Jake works with all of our departments. I know our fire department's been using him quite a bit recently. And then on the legislative side, we have Elisa up there. She helps us with our federal earmarks. So they're fully staffed and able to help us in many capacities, and they work with staff from all across the city.

Very good.

Great.

Well, thank you, Jake. We appreciate it.

Awesome. Yeah, thank you all for your time. Like I said, feel free to email, talk to Jack, whatever is most convenient. I'm happy to answer any other questions that come up and make some of this stuff happen. Thanks so much for your time. Thank you. And Jack, I think it's back to you now.

Yes. I have the second part of the presentation. It should be good. There it is. So as Jake mentioned, those are some federal or not just federal, but grant funding opportunities that are going to be coming up.

And as I was mentioning, we have an adopted plan, which is great, that's going to help with the grants that are going to come forward. On a staff level, we can move forward. But one way to be able to incorporate the commission and not necessarily have to wait for quarterly meetings is to develop what are ad hoc subcommittees. And so that was the other part of this, is to staff's recommendation is to work with the commission and to recommend that we create three different ad hoc subcommittees. Per state law, there are certain criteria we would have to meet for those subcommittees to essentially be exempt from the Brown Act.

And so that would allow for a little more flexibility and allow us to work with community groups, which was one of the recommendations of the councils to work with community groups. So there's two options that we can consider in creating subcommittees. One, given that we have seven members of this commission, we're likely looking at no more than three subcommittees with no more than three on a given subcommittee. So you would have, say, two, two, and three on three different subcommittees. Now, it's the matter of what's that topic going to be.

One way we could do it is you can have three subcommittees that focuses on a given segment. That's a pretty clean way of doing it. You have all the projects detailed within that segment. That's focused within that given subcommittee. The other one is to look at a given topic. And so when we look at the vision statement that we have, there are four different items in there. You have preservation, restoration, recreation, and safety. I tried to put those into three different categories of and I'll have this on the next slide ecological preservation and restoration, historical preservation, and then recreational enhancement and safety. So putting safety with the recreational side. So in speaking on that, if we segment by segment is pretty clear.

We already have gone through that over the past couple of years in developing the by segment projects. But if the commission would like to create three subcommittees based on topic, here's how we can do it where you have the three different areas. And I went through and put the different project numbers that could be assigned to those areas. So it's a very clear, focused approach on what that subcommittee would be looking at. And again, the different topics, they're based on the vision statement that this commission and the public have put together as a part of the strategic plan.

So what we're looking for tonight, Jake's presentation was more of a receiving file for this commission just to get an idea of the different grant opportunities out there. But really what we're looking for is that, one, tonight that we create three subcommittees that focus either on each segment or category, which is the previous slide, that we appoint two to three commissioners to each of those subcommittees. No more than three, given that there's seven. You're probably going to have two with two and then one with three. Once we have that, I draft a write up.

This will go to the council. I put that it's likely going to be the May 26 council meeting because we're already working on the May 12 council meeting. I know that we have some grant opportunities that are coming up. But like I mentioned, an adopted plan already, staff can move on those outside of this. Now, the council support that implementation plan, and we already have members that are appointed to subcommittees, then the subcommittees should be able to start moving at that point.

So we wouldn't have to necessarily wait until July to bring anything back to the commission. Part of having subcommittees is it does have to have it has to be temporary on top of being focused. And so I have an end date of January 2027. Likely, they would come to an end at that January 2027 Santiago Creek Commission meeting, at which point we will develop a progress report that we can bring back to the council. I think at that point, we will have months of or these subcommittees will have months of working with staff, working with Townsend, working with the different community groups, and should have a good idea of different recommendations we would like to provide to the council.

So that concludes my overview. Again, really, and two items under the recommended action are what we're looking for tonight. Would be happy to answer any questions that the commission may have.

You guys have any?

I do. I really recommend that we work on category because I think that we have such different backgrounds and such varied backgrounds and to really use our expertise. So I would recommend category, not segment.

Yeah, I agree, Vice Chair. What about do you agree, Commissioner Tula?

I agree too. I think categories and topics because when we get to things like safety that cross multiple segments, it would feel duplicative or triplicative if we have three different groups of people working on the same thing. So, yeah, totally agree.

How about you guys?

I see the benefit of both options. I'm having a hard time having a preference. So pros and cons, I suppose. I certainly know some parts of the creek a lot better than other parts as an example. But yeah, categories sounds good.

Okay. So I think we will go with categories for the subcommittees. And then the categories, I like these three. These were the three I had written down independent of seeing this. Kinda do, like, vegetation, habitat, ecology, and then I did history culture, so historical preservation fits. And then I had written down, like, amenities, so, trash signs, benches, safety safety stuff, which fits into this last category. Do you guys have any other ideas or recommendations?

Yeah. I would just add historical culture and archaeological.

Okay. Yeah.

In case that's and then maybe recognition or I guess preservation or recognition. One sounds more active than the other.

Point of interest.

Yeah, the other almost sounds like just a marker and signage.

Yeah, I agree. Generally, the topics are great.

You guys agree?

And I might add these are different grant funds. So there are different types of grants that target these different topics.

Yeah, so I guess that's a question I had because at one point, and it may have been like an early version of what was released on the website for our agenda, but I or maybe I'm guessing, that one included signage and funding. So would that fall into one of these groups or each one would separately work on funding?

I had signage as a part of this, I had signage as being a part of recreational enhancement and safety lumped into that, just because we had some items on there as an example of different types of signage, was really educational elements for the local habitat. But most of it has to do with safety along the trail, which seems to fit best with the recreational element.

Yeah. And the funding. I saw signage and funding. So funding will actually each of these working groups will work

Oh, yeah, there'll be funding on all of these, yeah. So each of them some of them are going to be, I think, it's going to it's advisory in nature. These subcommittees would be going to be helping staff and working with community groups on things that we're already doing. Like on the safety side, the Orange Police Department's already active along the creek. But then there are those specific projects where we're going to be working with Townsend in securing grant funding to help put these into place.

Okay. Good. I guess now we need to pick who wants to be on which subcommittee. So we'll just go down. Do you have a preference, Commissioner Toole?

I do. Historical, cultural, and archaeological would be

Okay. My

Let's guess, yes. I probably would want to be ecological, but I could also be recreational.

Okay.

I'm indifferent. I'm leaning towards recreational.

I'd like to be on recreational and safety. Trails are really dear to me.

I would definitely prefer recreational and safety.

Might I add that Michael Knight, is not present since he is also a landscape architect, maybe he and I could work together on the ecological.

Okay. No, I think that so Vice Chair and then Commissioner Knight on the Ecological Subcommittee.

Would we need him his

approval? Just we can change him if We'll

he volunteer him. And I know Commissioner Baca has expressed an interest in some of the sort of heritage and Yes. Yeah issues. So happy to be paired with him.

So why don't we do Commissioner Toulou and Commissioner Baca on historical? And then us three on recreation enhancement and safety.

I think that's perfect.

Yeah. This has been an easy conversation. Yeah.

I think we have everything we need. So I'll make the change to the historical preservation topic label. And then we have Commissioner Knight and Vice Chair Gallera on ecological For the historical side, we have Commissioner Toulou and Commissioner Baca, Recreational Commissioner Hillman, Chair Moeller, and Commissioner Adams.

Yes. Correct. Okay. Do do I need this is just direction to staff. There's no motion for this, correct?

It seems safer to vote on that. Okay.

Let's take a vote. Do we have a motion?

Not yet on the screen. When we do, I can do it.

We have Commissioner Toluse motioning, Vice Chair Gilera seconding. We will vote. Great, five-zero

passes.

And I do have a follow-up question on some of the grants that are due really quick. Can some of us volunteer to assist with the grants? But I think there's one that's due in May and one that's maybe due in June.

For our city attorney, do you see any issue with that?

I don't see any issue with them volunteering and and working with their staff liaison coming into City Hall and working with staff on the document, like, eight hours a day during the room. Probably not. But if they want to work with you and any other staff liaison to review the final documents and the final grant application before they go out, that's fine. Yeah.

And so then I will volunteer to help with the California Wildlife Conservation Board, which looks like it's due in May. And I would love to assist with that. And then the urban greening grant, we suspect the pre application may be due in June. Are there any others? I would love to help.

Okay. Thank you. And then as they find things or things come up, can it just be communicated to us as a commission?

Yeah, so what Townsend has done for us citywide is they develop a grants memo that I put out monthly. And so staff thinks, I'm interested in this. They'll work with Jake. So what I'm going to have him do is to focus on the Sunnyvale Creek strategic plan and go just look for these. If you see anything that's coming up, let me know. And then so we can submit it that way. Yeah. So there's yeah.

So that'll yeah, so quick responsiveness to when things come up. So like you said, we're not missing deadlines. Yeah. Okay, perfect.

Go ahead.

I have a somewhat related, now that we've voted on what you put before us. For the recreational, I guess more or less all, but recreational and ecological preservation committees. I read in Orange County and shared with a few people an Orange County Register article on March 15 about herbicides being dumped into creeks that ultimately hit riverbeds and the ocean. And that it's something to the tune of 100,000 gallons per year just in Orange County. And I also read and understood that the permit to do that at the county level has expired in 2018.

So I'd like to see if short of a January committee recommendation point of view, and maybe this is advice from our city attorney, how we could potentially recommend that the city council look at, you know, any permits allowed for doing this or not allowed for doing this. And if we can sort of make an earlier recommendation potentially to cease and desist. Because it feels like if our mission here is preservation and enhancement of the Greek, this feels quite destructive. And it seems like there and maybe it's just because of my point of view. It feels like there's very little community notification this is happening.

And across the board from, you know, if this is done during the day, recreation, you know, people breathing herbicides. It's breeding time, so local wildlife, endangered species limitations, even the flora that it's killing along with weeds or whatever the attempt to, you know, apply pesticides and herbicides are. It feels like it's a concern and something that at the county level, you know, San Juan Creek and Tribuco Creek, they've ceased doing herbicides. So I'd like to see if we can sooner than a January recommendation send a more urgent request to counsel through staff to see if permits are active. And to bring it to their attention as an advisory committee to them.

We can certainly look into that. And then as we have a subcommittee that's going to be established for the ecological purposes, it falls right into the wheelhouse of that. We have projects within the strategic plan that speak to that directly. So I think that subcommittee will certainly be involved and could advise staff on that.

I agree. But, you know, if they have active plans and they bought you know, it's like Roundup and serious chemicals that are lifetime chemicals. So if they've pre purchased, you know, tens of thousands of gallons that are going be applied in our city, we should have awareness. And if they're operating without permit, I wouldn't recommend, and I'm very interested to hear what other commissioners say. I wouldn't feel comfortable waiting until January and another year of those being deposited into our creeks and riverbeds and ultimately the ocean. Especially when other parts of the county are already acting quickly on it. So I'd just be curious what other commissioners have to say.

I think there should be some research into whether that's actually happening. Because if it is happening, there's some of the things that we're trying to implement that that would very much go against planting of oak trees and Yeah.

And I would just say I do know that there are very strict laws in California pertaining to these chemicals. And I am sure that the city of Orange is complying with these strict laws.

From what I understand and what I've read from public records, it looks like they're operating under an administrative continuance. But the requirements are that they apply for a permit renewal, which was not done. And that the fault would be on the issuing party of the permit, the delay on their part. And there's no delay when the permit's not done. So operating under a continuing an administrative continuance feels a little falsified.

And I just feel like as a member of the public, well as a commission looking at the creek, we need to bring this to the attention of the council. And I would just suggest we or I can make a motion to request that the council look at this, look at if a permit is active to do that in our city, and that they discuss or if they are seeking our recommendation, I'd be happy to make a recommendation.

I think just because it's not necessarily on our agenda tonight, I don't know if we could take action on it tonight. Don't know, city attorney, if

you have Yeah, I don't think we could take a formal action. You've we've But staff has been alerted. I can certainly look into it if city manager's office wants to issue an RLS. Additionally, just like any member of the public, you are free to alert counsel of issues you feel like they're a community through the normal methods like any other member of the public, either speaking at city council or sending them in communication. And through that, they can direct staff to take action at the next meeting if they believe that's appropriate.

Yeah. So it wouldn't fall under what is already approved in our remit to preserve the creek?

I think this is a very specific action that's calling for investigating the county and their body. That could involve significant staff time, especially mine specifically, looking into whether all these permits are not. So I don't think that investigating the county would fall under that the county's permits would fall under that tonight. I

get it. It's more just a question of if they're operating and doing it under a permit in our city.

And also, I know the so January 2027 date, I kind of saw that as like more of a holistic progress report to the council. If under this you have a subcommittee under this particular topic of ecological preservation, and this is something that's been publicized, I know, in the OC register. If the subcommittee would direct or not, I wouldn't say direct, but advise staff that they bring this to the council's direction earlier, I don't want that January 2027 date to be like, that's the only time we can report anything back to the council. If there's something like that and the subcommittee wants to advise staff to bring something to the council, we can certainly do that.

Yeah. Just the last point on that. I don't mean to drive this into the ground. But you know, just reading through that article, it looks like the community multiple communities across our county have risen up on this issue. And since we are unique in the county and having our own commission protecting, you know, a waterway in our city, I feel like it's our job to advise on these things. So yeah, just understanding if there's a permit would be helpful. Okay. Thank you.

And then can you let us know whatever you guys find out about that? Just instead of waiting until three months, just whenever you find out the information on it.

Yeah, can report back and work with the subcommittee to let them know what we find. Thanks.

Okay. Perfect. Thank you. Anything else? All right. This meeting is now adjourned. The next regular meeting will be held on Wednesday, 07/22/2026 at 05:30 p. M. Here in Council Chamber. Thank you, everyone.

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