Arts and Culture Commission - Regular Meeting

Welcome very much all, one and all, to the November Parks and Recreation Commission meeting. It's November 6, and I declare the meeting. Alright. The next agenda of the business is let's do the roll call to, please.

Commissioner Kumarapan? Commissioner Suryukhan? Aye. Commissioner Stanik? Aye. Vice chair Bono?

Here.

Chair Svami?

Here.

Alright. Let's do the next one. We have some exciting presentations. The next topic is parks and recreation department team programs, and we will be receiving a presentation on team commission, youth activity board, and recreation event volunteers. We're very excited. The floor is yours.

Oh, thank you very much.

I would like to introduce Robert Coffin, our recreation coordinator in the youth teen events and facilities division.

And can I add one more add additional introduction to him? Robert has just been an amazing, amazing person who's just all over the place taking care of everything. So we'll more on that later, but an excellent coordination. Thank you.

Very much. I did not ask her to say that. I don't know who told her to say that. Good evening, approximate commission. My name is Robert Kaufman. I am the rec coordinator in charge of programs. Tonight, we're just going to go over and give you an overview of our big team programs. I have a representative here for each one of the groups. Some of them has taken part in multiple and can speak to them and experience. Hey.

Quite down a bit. To my left, I've just kind of in talking order here. We have Sanj Rao, the president of the youth activity board. We have Joyce Chang, the president of recreation event volunteers group, and then we have Anushri Misra, the chair of the team commission. And then, these two have some experience in the leader in training program, so they're also gonna help me kinda share some of the story of that program. Yeah. That's pretty that's pretty pretty much it for me. I'm gonna hand it over to Rain to San to talk about the youth activity board now.

Alright. Yeah. So for some background on the youth activity board, it is a board that was created in '28 to further engage the teens and the youth of Cupertino and address the growing teen stress epidemic. We are a group of 13 teen volunteers who work alongside the Cupertino staff to create and plan all the logistics behind events for the youth and teens of Cupertino. For some background on some of our events, most recently, we have hosted the teen speaker series, which we will look into a little bit more later.

Pizza and politics, we host in collaboration with the city of Campbell and the city of Saratoga, and that does include a very engaging mayor's roundtable. Spelling Bee is catered towards elementary schoolers in grades second through fifth, and teen resource fair is also held in collaboration with the Fremont Union High School District's intradistrict council. And that is a very engaging event for the youth of our community to learn more about resources and opportunities that are available. Hack is a hack hackathon for teenagers, and it

is a very fun overnight hackathon where they learn a lot about coding, a lot about the community. Cupertino cafe is a study session held right before finals in December with snacks, tutors, lots of activities, teen movie nights, and our summer kickoff are more casual events for teens to hang

out with their friends and have a great time. So for some more background on Teen Speaker Series, which is our most recent event, it was started last year and we it was a one part series, but it was focused around business. And this year, we expanded it to a three part series with industry specialists in the topics of college planning, financial literacy, and tech careers. Our first event was held just last weekend on the topic of college planning, and it was very successful, had plenty of people come and enjoy. It was a very engaging discussion. Our next event is actually in a week, and it's on the topic of financial literacy. So looking forward to that.

You're also invited to join us, of That's why we love to plug that for you guys.

Thank you. For some numbers,

some of our larger events include the team resource fair with 250 participants. We also have Cupertino Cafe in Tac Cupertino with a 100 to a 130 participants, p ten politics with around 60, and then spelling bee with around 80 participants. And, again, team movie night and slash bash or summer kickoff bar are more casual events with around 40 participants.

Perfect.

And then, next, we're gonna have Joyce Chung go over our, our newest group, the recreation event volunteers organization. She, along with Pranav Gupta, helped me start this organization last year, and we're very proud to bring this to you today.

Yeah.

Thank you, Robert, for that introduction. But yeah. Hi. My name is Joyce Chang. I'm currently here at Lindbrook. My journey actually with the city started on team commission. So I served two years on team commission as their vice chair. And we're gonna make the distinction a little bit later, but team commission largely plays an advisory role. And while I was on the team commission with miss Sonya, we had an idea to start an official city volunteer group where we have a we have high school volunteers formally partner with the Cupertino Parks and Rec Commission to form a formal volunteer group. This kind of originated with the idea because we noticed that there are a lot of frequent volunteers who volunteer with the city.

And so this organization was created to kind of give recognition to maybe a lot of people who volunteer behind the scenes and give them the formal recreation. So REV was created in September 2024, so this is definitely one of the newest student organizations that the city has.

Next slide.

So this is actually our second year with REV. In our first year, we had 24 members with over 332.5 collectively amounted by just 24 volunteers. And this year, we've seen more than a double in membership. So we Robert and I are extremely proud of that. We are so excited that we have so many passionate youth in our city.

And while this is only our second year event, we really hope that our membership continues growing because recreation parks and rec, their events are amazing, and having volunteers at them is really I think, as of having volunteered at so many parks and rec events, it's so fun working behind. And speaking of those events, here are just some of the events that Rev participates on. Just two weeks ago, we had our first event of the season, Monster Mash. That is one of my personal favorite events. It is so cute seeing all the families together in their costumes.

And Red is mostly separated into kind of seasons. So that was our fall season event, and then usually, around the holiday times is when we have the most events. And something that's really special and unique about Rev is that we have volunteers who maybe show up to one to two events depending on their schedule because definitely as high schoolers, around that holiday season is finals time, so maybe some volunteers don't volunteer as much. But we definitely do have several committed volunteers to go to every single event. So Rebel gives volunteers the opportunity for students to participate as much as they like or kind of have a casual commitment to it.

So following the holiday events, include tree lighting, breakfast with Santa, and signing Santa, we have spring events, which include big bunny five k, the Earth Day celebration, and finally, the summer events, which include John fourth and Cupertino Campau.

And more. I put

in more out there. Yes.

Just to kinda add on to that, Joyce, Rev is also kind of a resource for our department to tap into in case we do want to if anybody another program coordinator is running an event and they feel like staff our our staff resource could be supplemented with volunteers. The idea of Rev, it's a little more mobile. It's it's able to quickly recruit some members and see if they've put in some hours for our events. And, you know, teams love to volunteer. They need volunteer hours.

And for us as a parks and rec department, we love kind of providing opportunities for volunteers to get that gauge with their community. That's it's mutually beneficial for everyone. That's that's what I meant by add more. I really think Yeah. Oh, yes.

I was gonna take the slide. So before Anushree talks, leader in training is our summer volunteer program. This is not exclusively for the younger younger teens, but, generally, younger teens, gravitate towards this program. It's, often seen as kind of a a great first step into kind of volunteering experience as well kind of work experience too. Our younger teens develop their leadership skills, but also their, you know, personal and just really, like, reliability that they show up and, you know, on a schedule throughout the summer.

Their main role as LATs is learning from our older, aid staff recreation leaders on how to run camp, how to work with children, facilitating games, and they do it all all summer long. Can we go to the next slide? Each year, I recruit over 30 LITs to supplement our summer camps. That summer camps here at at Finland, you know, our our usual recreation camps with the dodgeball, but also, the Miles Nauman over here, over at McClellan. They also supplement our nature camps over there as well.

Sorry. Actually, we can go back to that slide. I was kind of looking at some of the stats recently, but each summer, these LAT put in a combined total of around two thousand hours of summer camp. So once again, volunteers are a vital resource for us and our department in regards to running our programs, providing the service that our community expects. Yeah. Let's go to the next slide. So these are the three camps that they support each summer. And, Anushri and Sanj, I believe, have experience in all three of these camps. I don't know if you guys wanted to share a quick tidbit about any of these and your experience.

Yeah. Sure. Hey, everyone. I'll reintroduce myself in a little bit of an out of industry, and I was an LIT in my rising sophomore summer, so 2023. And I have experience with being an LIT in all three of these camps, although preschool adventures was only a day.

But I'll talk a little bit about that one. Preschool adventures is a mostly indoors camp, that happens during the summer for preschool aged kids, and it's actually right down the hallway in our preschool room. It's a very engaging program. As you can see, it's very hands on with the smaller aged kids, and it's one of the most unique experiences because usually high school aged volunteers don't get to work with preschool aged kids. So it's a very rewarding experience in that way.

And for me, I have been a YAD member for the past four years, and alongside that, I was a member of LIT for two years. So for those, I participated in both adventure camp and the summer science fun or nature camp. And for nature camp, that is hosted at Blackberry Farm. So we go on a lot of fun hikes.

McCollin Ranch.

Yes. McCollin Ranch.

We go on a

lot of fun hikes and spend time looking at the different animals inside the farm and inside the center there. And we spent a lot of time looking at so many different interesting things that are at the nature park and and for adventure camp, that is out here in Memorial Park. So those are a lot more outdoor activities, whereas preschool adventures and nature camp are a lot more indoor activities. So that is where all of these kids really get their energy out, spending a lot of time at the playgrounds, and all three of them are a lot of fun.

Yeah. And I I what I personally love about this program is that there is a different experience for the type of team. Right? On the application, I I give them the chance to kind of specify what are you interested in, and we find that, you know, some teams really want to work with kids. I think that they wanna grow up. They wanna work with kids, and Adventures is a great place for them to get their feet wet working with young children. The nature nerds obviously gravitate towards McClellan, and they get a ton out of it. I feel like they're some of the most passionate volunteers. It's the ones that, like, on their application, they're like, I love spiders. They got tarantulas.

Right? They're gonna love they're gonna have a great time that summer. And then the sportier teens love adventure camp because you're you're playing dodgeball. You know? You're just throwing balls at children, and and they're throwing balls at you as well. So, they have a great time during the summer. Okay. I've talked enough. Moving on to Anushree.

Everyone, again, my name is Anushri Misra, and I'm the chair of sorry. The at Cooperville. So the committee commission is a formal commission with the city of Cupertino comprised of nine resident teams, and our primary purpose is to serve as an advisory sort of body to city council on youth related issues. We serve two year terms. So every year, there's a couple of returning members and some new members.

This year, we sworn in five new commissioners in September. Commission participation goes a little bit beyond just the meeting room for us because we also do a lot of public facing kind of participation, like speaking, moderating, and judging in certain events and especially as MCs or masters of ceremonies. And some of these events that we do this kind of participation at are listed on this slide. And as you will notice, a lot of these are common with the Rev and Yap events because all the team programs kind of have their own, like, specific purposes, but we also all come together to cohesively work towards bettering community experience for all, like, city teens. So you'll notice that a lot of these events are actually directed towards many different age groups, not just limited to teens.

The teen speaker series, pizza and politics, and hack and teen resource fair are all very, teen middle school, high school focused programs. But we also have things like monster mash and the Big Bunny five k, which is geared towards whole families. So we get to engage with the community at all levels, and that's a very exciting part of the the job, you could say.

There should also be an and more on this slide too. They also support Earth Day celebration, inner GenConnect, the senior centers, intergenerational, conference that they ran last couple of years. They're also supporting that. So our team commissioners are are passionate about being out there, engaging with our community, and, you know, being the faces of some of our events and value that.

So another unique thing we do at the commission is recognizing youth led organizations or YLOs. Basically, the recognition entails us posting kind of a shy shout out on the city Instagram. And a YLO is a organization started by middle or high schoolers that primarily serves the city of So these are the kinds of organizations that submit a written application to us, and then they also come and present at the team commission meetings. And then we basically decide on whether or not they get to have a shout out on the official c page. These are some of the wild organizations that we have recognized pretty recently.

And, also, we choose to go with Instagram because that has the most, by far, youth reach in terms of all the social medias, at least in Cupertino. So here are a couple things like Cyber for Youth and Lyft have expanded to several states across the country, but they all started in the city of Cupertino. And that's one of the things that we really look at, who they serve, and it should come in really be our city. That's all for the team commission.

Yep. That's all for team commission. This is our last slide. Just wanted to give you kind of a snapshot of team events for this year. Please feel free to come out and and, you know, participate or to see them. Feel free to reach out to any one of us if you have any questions about them. We'd love to have you. So and then

Commissioner Wait.

And then before

I it we I think we'll hold the questions after the end that we are done.

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. And then I think we're done. But I just wanna get to this yep. There you go.

Now go ahead.

Go to the previous or the previous one. Yeah. Of all, I wanna say I'm sure the chair also has has recognition, but I want to say that awesome, amazing presentation. Great work you all are doing. I have a quick question. The organizations that you have listed, are they locally formed organizations, like Cupertino based?

Yep. These are all based. And as Supervis have expanded quite a bit, some are almost international at this point. They're all headquartered in Cupertino, and that's what we really focus on.

Amazing. It's really impressive. And all the work you guys are doing is really impressive.

Thank you.

You know, you talked a little bit about the lift. So I to fall back on to what commissioner was asking, can you briefly talk to us about the eight organizations? Just a sentence describing what it is that that each of them does that have recognized them.

So it seems

amazing. Like, good for the community to have that visibility as well.

Putting a little bit on the spot in New Street because she wasn't on yet for a couple

of months.

Whoever know whatever you know, if you don't know, we can always get that.

Yeah. I was gonna say we

Do the one afternoon, New Street and Bobby and

Whatever. Yeah. Yeah. I can give

you Yeah. For sure. So thank you for the question. Here. Cheers for me.

I was not on the commission for some of these, so I will give you a little intro of the ones that I was there for. Tino Echo is an organization that, unlike the name suggests, is actually not officially related to Cupertino High School, but they are based sort of out of Cupertino High School, and they work on ecological and environmental conservation projects locally. Like trash cleanups and adopting parks is one of the thing or a couple of the things that they presented to us recently. Lyft is an organization started by, I believe, a Lindbrook senior who the organization focuses on educating teens within the juvenile justice system who are currently incarcerated or awaiting trials. And Cyber4Youth is an organization that focuses on cybersecurity for the youth age group.

ActiveCircle, I do not recall that particular organization. EcoValley, I'm not exactly sure if I was there, but I do know EcoValley does, similarly to Kimo Echo of environmental converse conservation projects. But instead of focusing entirely on the hands on part of it like Kimo ECO does, they also work on slightly, like, bigger projects and initiatives that they roll out across, I think, cities. Those are the ones that I can give a few words to, but they kind of you can see, like, these organizations are spread out over a lot of different areas. So we try to highlight a lot of diverse kinds of initiatives in the in the program.

What is the process for recognizing them? I'm They're all doing amazing work, clearly. Yeah. How do you pick them, and what form of recognition do you give them?

Yeah. So the YLO program application is available to anyone on the city of Cupertino website. It starts as a written application that the organization or a representative from the organization can submit to us. And then Sonya goes through the applications, and then they come in and present to us as well. And once that presentation is done, where we get to ask them a couple of questions, face to face, we also go through the written application separately, and we come to a consensus. I guess we vote on whether or not we think the organization should be highlighted. So it is a two part process with the written application and the actual presentation that they give to the entire commission. Excellent. Thank you.

Alright. Any any other commissioners have any questions?

I just wanted to say great presentation, and I wish I was as smart as

you when I was. How

about now?

Absolutely. Very

impressive. I have I'd like to actually go back to the slide where we do you have any questions? To the slide where you have the volunteers because it's very impressive, I'd like to highlight that slide where the number of volunteers has increased more than 100%. And I've actually seen these people work. They are so passionate, and they are there in all these occasions, monster bash, I mean, and even in the camp out.

There were so many people, and they all wanted to just there are more people than you need, but that's the that's what I love, kind of passion to give back and to do something. And that could also maybe result in more activities because they're all wanting to do so much. There's so many of them who want to contribute. So I just want to kind of highlight the program itself and how well it has been managed.

So much. Appreciate that. And

I'm I'm I I mean, it's it's all of them. Like, they're the ones putting in the time and the effort.

And Yeah.

I have to, of course, give a lot of recognition to Joyce and Pranav for really Yes.

We're very proud of you young ladies and the rest of the commission members who are not here. You're doing amazing, amazing work. This is exactly where we this is leadership and training as well, what you guys This

is future

leaders. And I just say, I'm I'm honestly, I'm it's amazing. You guys were talking about stress epidemic and all of that. It's fantastic. And focusing on mental health at that young age

Yeah.

To recognize it and to do to go to the root cause. I mean, it's fantastic. I'm very proud.

Yeah.

Thank you for everything you do.

And even the fact that you have so many volunteers, you might even encourage them to come up with any other activities. If there is I'm not suggesting if you don't know about stats and situation, but my god. How many people are swarming, and they're just there? Literally, one is to just a handful of people.

Well, those people take a lot. I will say just to commend Joyce Pranav for founders of Rev, and it does take quite a bit of effort on a part of our team coordinator,

Robert Kappa Fine with the

coordinate. And and what they get back and I don't I didn't catch this in the presentation, but part of what they're getting back is it's it's formalization of their volunteer hours. And they have a record of that, and we can then speak to that, especially for, like, college applications. And they have, like, formal recognition, and that's what I think Robert and Joyce and Pranav really recognizes that it wasn't just about, like, hey. Come on down and volunteer.

They also wanted to have, like, a formal recognition of their hours and documentation of their hours to speak to it. And so that's the part that the work to have volunteers comes in, and they've done a great job of formalizing that.

That's excellent.

It it's also just providing, like, more opportunities for teens to to be in leadership positions or just have these other experiences. You know, once upon a time, we only had team commission. And so one thing, like, Sonya and I have thought a lot about since we took over the team programming is just, like, trying to expand that. I mean, the youth activity board we inherited, but you the youth activity board and, like, the awesome teams on there Yeah. And team commission really inspired us to just keep thinking, like, how do we how do we create new, you know, groups of of teams that are acting and engaging our community and

That's right.

Getting time you know, putting time and effort in, but getting something out of it too.

There's some opportunity as well to pursue Yeah.

The one thing is I remember, at least when my son was young, that the volunteering opportunities, they needed x number of hours for the college apps. Yeah. So I love the way you have formalized this program. But the the other offside of this is that the offshoot of that is they also get very involved with the Cupertino community itself.

Yeah.

You know? Not just the hospitals are outside, but also within the community, And you kinda get a deeper relationship because you're serving the needs of the communities.

Oh, absolutely. I mean, like, I think the incentive is pretty easy. Yes. Teams, right, they're just trying to put some bullet points on their college application. But to us, especially in Parks and Rec, like, any any one of us in this room could tell you the you know, their fave what turned them on to Parks Parks and Rec was being at an event, like, seeing a kid light up when they receive something or played a game at an event. Right? And so, like, sharing that with them while they still get to check those boxes off is kind of a kind of a no brainer for us. Definitely.

Thank you very much.

Much.

Service.

Of course.

And we wish you all the very.

Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Alright.

We are on to the next item on the agenda. We will be receiving a presentation on Parks and Recreation Department

Okay.

Yeah. Outdoor recreation division. Sonia, I I will

No. I am. I'm sorry.

I would like to introduce Molly James, our recreation manager in the outdoor division. Welcome.

Sorry.

I'm really excited to hear about it.

Great. Just give us one moment to get

so much for giving.

It's like in hockey.

Oh, yeah. Right?

And then

she come down.

Okay. It's our presentation. Alright. Well, thank you so much for having us. We are the outdoor recreation division. I'm Molly James, and I am a recreation officer who oversees this wonderful group of people. And our our division is composed of everything out in the Stevens Point Corridor. So we've got the golf course. We've got Blackberry Farm Park, and we have the McClellan Ranch Reserve. We also have the community gardens at McClellan Ranch and Wilson Park, and then a handful of special events.

So then I'd like to introduce our team to you before we get started. This is Jason Visalli, and Jason oversees Blackberry Farm Park. He oversees our park ranger program, and then a handful of our favorite events like Pooch Plunge and Finding Santa and the Veterans Day events. And Jason has been with this department if you include his part time hours for more than twenty years.

Oh, nice. That's impressive. And

I have I'm gonna skip down to Demiles because that's what I Just wanted to find. I'm going through. And Miles Salmon is our recreation coordinator and certified California naturalist who oversees MacFallon Ranch Reserve. And he's gonna tell you all about our wonderful programming out there, but he also was one of our very original park rangers, so he brings a lot of experience with us also. And then finally, the newest member of our team, this is Kayla Nakamoto.

She has been with

us for one year, almost exactly to the day. And she oversees our golf course, several special events, Urban Arbor Day, Cupertino Campouts, and our community gardens, amongst other things. And she comes to us with at least ten years of recreation background. And then just a quick shout out to our admin who is not here, but we have our administrative assistant is Christy Gomez, and she is the glue that gets us together. So we will throw it over to Jason to talk about Black Prairie Farm Park.

Good evening, commissioners. So I have

to speak BlackBerry Farm Park.

The BlackBerry Farm pools were open from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend this season, and then our picnic sites were also open the rest of the week in September. This was an especially cool summer, which you may have noticed, which is likely because for a little bit of a dip in our drop in swim passes. Although our membership sales did have an update this summer, it

was nice.

And our picnic site usage had a significant jump, which is also kind of a good deal. We had a lot of recurring picnics out this summer, and I think that kinda helps to explain where that number comes from. We had, 67 staff working at Black Friday Farm this summer, seasonal staff. This includes our park and pool managers, our assistant managers, our customer service attendants who run the kiosk, and, you know, picnic sites out for people who've

been out

there, and, of course, our lifeguard swim instructors. And of those 67 staff, this is a really exciting number. We had 50 returners from previous summer functions. Really awesome. It's kinda helping to keep that consistency out of BlackBerry and, you know, recruiting their friends to work for us in future summers, which is a positive.

And, swim lessons, we're we're proud of our swim lesson program, which we, for the second consecutive, season. We're able to, increase our offerings by kind of fine tuning the schedule and fitting more, lessons in. This is also the second year that we've offered LapSwim. We're kind of since the replastering project down at BlackBerry, we have

lane lines now.

So we're kinda trying to fine tune what hours work best for people and what's what's gonna help many more people out to lack some of going very far. And just to circle back to our swim lessons real quick, we do offer private swim lessons, semi private golf lessons, then our parent child water introduction classes on Saturdays and Sundays just for the the really little guys, like, first get nothing but it's great. And then my last thing that I

also want to check on

everybody's favorite day of the year. Now Yay. Two days of the year. This was the first year that we offered a preseason Pooch Plunge in spring. And so now we have Pooch Plunge sort of bookending our full season. Dog owners love it. People who aren't even dog owners love to come out and just watch the dogs run around water. We call it the happiest day of the year. We're pretty consistent with numbers. And now that the spring session is kind of established, I think we'll expect to see those numbers start to come up and it'll be like the same

numbers at that store.

So that kinda concludes my portion for Blackberry Farm. So I'm gonna kick it over to Demias now.

Alright. Here we go. McClellan Ranch, Missouri. It's an honor and privilege to continue the legacy of McClellan's education and learning. This year, we have Chriselle Alvanzo on the corner over there joining the team and bringing her. She her experience, she already was working here with adventure camps. Her leadership, her strength, her guidance has brought so much to McClellan. And our goal of engaging nature programming. Thanks. The Environmental Education Center, such a place of fun.

Hands on nature activities, local ecology education. We have a rotating display. We have an Enviroscape. I don't know if you know what that is. It shows a watershed and how pollution all goes in there during pollution prevention week. Right now, we have fungus, all the different things that are popping up right now in fall. Earlier, we had bones. It would be around the Halloween theme. So we have a lot of fun different hands on activities and education opportunities. Meeting the animal ambassadors is always fun.

So you can see Ranger Austin with the tarantula. DZ with the snake pretzel. It can average from on a rainy day, like, maybe 45 visitors to a 150 plus, especially when the Cupertino Historical Society is out there with the blacksmith, and we have that trifecta of so much activity happening. Thank you. We started group reservations in McCollin.

We have nature walks, and we have the environmental education center visits. We can also combine them, which is really fun, as well as dynamic, and it could be combined in different ways depending on what people wanna learn about. So over here at the bottom slide, you see that Sunnyvale Middle School, 70 middle schoolers. That was a lot. It was a lot of fun too. It was really cool getting them engaged about learning. We did the Enviroscape. You could see them with macroinvertebrates and learning about the steelhead. They've really got really involved in us. Really impressed with that group.

They were avid students and really went next level with it. On the top, you see NatureWatch. That's Builders Home School, which is really great to be able to offer a program to a homeschool, environment, bring them out, and be able to have a program with them. Another one was the small ones with, New World Preschool. So it's amazing how much little ones can have such a dynamic learning experience out there and how we can adjust to avid learners, middle schoolers, all the way to just little ones really excited about learning about nature.

And this year, we had Wonderledge Farms come out, and we switched it up, and we did a blacksmith demonstration for them. So we did a group visit that way because they have a blacksmithing exhibition at their historical site, but we had our our blacksmith do a demonstration to teach them about real blacksmithing and seeing it. So that was really thank you. The third grade creek tours. My voice is a little hoarse, from having so much fun in a creek tour today.

And so it's a lot. It's a lot of fun. Really working as a former teacher to align it to the third grade standards, which the teachers love. Really focusing on stormwater pollution prevention and the watershed environment education. So many people in our community don't understand that we have a protected species, and at Stevens Creek is the natal waters or the spawning grounds of steelhead that are going out to the bay, to the ocean, and coming back.

We have Valley Water out there too. She's just all kinds of great facts about the steelhead, and then we communicate it to the kids. Here, we're doing an invertebrates study or macroinvertebrates study where we can gauge the health of the water or the kids to actually use, the students, the adventurers. They're gonna be the ones who do a pollution tolerant index rating for what kind of macro vertebrates they find, and they actually come up with the water quality, which Grassroots Ecology used to do and Valley Water does, and they do it at high school or college level. So and third graders are doing it today.

So we kind of built the program to make it more and more challenging, but yet enriched and fun. The kids really love it. Oh, I'm sorry. Chico back. I I got a little too chatty. You could if you notice 2023, we had 700 students. That was 13 visits. And then in 2024, 2025, we had 823 students, which was actually 23 visits. And now we're up to 852 students booked for this year. So we actually kinda made it a little bit smaller so we could be more engaged with the students and also safer around the freak environment as well as more engaged. So just increasing the learning and the fun out there. Thank you.

Sorry about that.

Okay. Yeah. Well, we heard about this from the LITs, and we love having the LITs out at McClellan. We have nature camps, summer science fun camp. They're really very similar.

I would say science camp is more, experiments, more things that are gonna be nature oriented, but and they have a theme for the day, but it's gonna be kind of along the lines of science and experiments and using the perception of the scientific method and hypothesis and challenging their thinking, but still crafts. And then when we get to the nature camp, it's gonna be very similar with the activities, but we're gonna do more like leaf rubbing, things that would be more engaging as far as getting them into nature, but also understanding the principles of nature and how to be good naturalists at a young age. So it's a city run program, which is really amazing. Chriselle, her campaign was for me. Jake, the snake, was back for another year as our staff assistant, and they they trained a brand new group of, recreational leaders, which is a really challenging thing to do.

But it was phenomenal. Such a hit with the campers and the parents, and it was a dynamic, incredible learning experience. It highlights what's in the preserve our ecosystem and helps this next generation wanna protect it, but also wanna just I think if you looked at a lot of the presentations we saw from the teams, this involvement in the environment and environmental studies and protection. So the stewardship part is amazing. And we're all starting to make the content more creative and revamp it. K. Thank you. Okay. Blacks oh, okay. Yeah. Summer can partner in collaboration. Adapt being adaptive is one of the very

big things. So

okay. The summer camp partners, up at the top corner here on the left, we have the Master Gardeners, which these are all partners that are on-site in the corridor. So they really are great at bringing so many things to the young ones that they wouldn't normally get engaged about or have, experience with, and so many lessons that they teach out at Marshall Koddle, if you're familiar with that, where the that's their home base for this. And then they come out, bring the lessons out to those, campers, and it's really dynamic. Then we have four h, which is one of our partners out there and on-site.

But, the four h on the in the center top is gonna be, the ones where we're talking about animals and learning husbandry. And some of the kids actually are either in the h program or become members of the four h program as a parlance. Grassroots ecology on the top right. One of my favorite things about McLeod is the restoration work that they do and the habitat restoration, get rid of the vases and bring back the natives. I've seen such a huge difference and the increase of biodiversity coming back, like the black chinned hummingbird nesting there after forever not being there.

Then if we go to the bottom right underneath grassroots, we have the Santa Clara bird alliance, Santa Santa Clara Valley bird alliance. Caroline Knight does such a wonderful job connecting with the kids and having so many different projects in nature and learning and observation. And birds are so fascinating, but she also really just ties it into the preserve. We have Karen, the bead lady, from the four h b program, which you see the hives out there. What's going on with the hives?

She's gonna bring it to them, and she is incredibly brilliant. And I learned something from her every time I listen to her. Then she comes out and will tell you amazing things about bees, and bees are so important. And she loves to do that, and the kids love it as well. And then Eric, our blacksmith coming out and doing the blacksmithing with the kids. I mean, he's not he he like, right there, he has just showing them how he'd heat up metal, and then it would bend, and then sometimes maybe lose its magnetivity when it's heated heated and then chilled, the properties of metal, how it works. So we use clay instead of actually forging in front of them, like,

right there.

You don't want that. But he does fire up the torch like a a good distance, safe distance. He's very safe. He's very well trained. But he we do have a demonstration with Blast in the Shop as well. So it's really cool. The kids love that day. That's a wonderful one. And more Eric. Eric has been such a phenomenal addition to our blacksmithing, but just McClellan as a whole and the bare blacksmith shop.

He's our inside house blacksmith. We have a beginners and an intermediate blacksmithing course, and they are super popular. I cannot relate how much people love Eric. And he works with them on their own projects, and they email him back and forth. And he just kept, oh, we'd like to build this.

Okay. Well, you need this metal, and I'll help you buy it, and you could bring that in. And he's just so dynamic and fun and really customizes the experience to what people wanna learn. And then we have our monthly demonstrations. And then with the Cupertino, historical society there, it's like you're learning about history, then you have active history happening, and then we have our, environment environmental education center all at the same time. So it's just a trifecta of so much great things happening. Okay. Oh, the augmented augmented reality app is on its way. So we did the yes. We did the joint arranger program with the nature walk combined with it.

So you might have people who love nature, but are learning about technology or people who love technology or learning about nature. So it kinda cross pollinates, but it really gets people out there. And it's really we added into an addition to our earthquake creek tour program. So at the end, we talk about it, and that gets traffic to that as well. And it's always posted up out in front of the environmental education center in an opportunity for people to see hidden gems within McClellan, through the app when you can't really see that.

So it's been really amazing to have that. And then additional classes and programs. Nature journaling is something that I incredibly love teaching. That's in the bottom right there, and that's a father and his son taking the nature journaling class together. I love the family friendly one. It brings so many people together. We had Audrey and her grandmother, and she's an incredibly gifted young artist. And she ended up taking our herptology one zero one course and drawing all kinds of reptiles and had a great time with that. And she does little sketches and brings them in. She comes to our open houses, and it's a a wonderful connection.

But it was just amazing how much seeing the family dynamic. And even we'll have an adult go into the class who's not bringing a child and have an incredible time. So the nature journaling has been a very fun one for a lot of us. You got Austin over there with our really popular night hike and flashlight tours. All the joint arranger programs are incredibly successful, and you people love them.

They're just and everybody loves having a ranger around and listening to a ranger. A native tree tour, raptures of the corridor tour. So much fun. The night hike, they can actually also bring out a black hike, and you could see the different creatures glow at night, like millipedes and things like that. Oh. Okay. And then on the far end over here, this was one of my favorites. This was the Bay Area older adults. We created a program just for them for their VIP program. They're visually impaired persons, And we had a whole touch sensory kind of learning experience.

And that was one of the most dynamic things I think we've ever done, and rewarding, as well as, the active aging nature walk with the senior center. It was reserved through the senior center and, so much fun. And we just had a great time walking through the corridor and seeing what we discovered. So those are just some of the magical things happening in McClellan, and I think I'll turn it over to my amazing colleague, Kayla. Thanks, Michael. Alright.

Up next, we have community gardens. So like Molly said, I one of the things that I oversee is our community gardens program. So there are two different locations, Wilson Park and McClellan Ranch. We have a total of 107 plots at McClellan, and we have a total of 15 at Wilson Park. Cupertino residents can apply for a garden bed at either of these locations or both.

And then they are limited to one per household. So if a plot becomes available, we go onto our waitlist. And we kind of skipping ahead, I apologize. If there is a garden bed that is available, the way that we prioritize who gets the plot is by a couple of things. So who has the most points?

They're asked two questions. If you live in high density housing, and then if they are enrolled in the PG and Eggers program, they would have two points. If not, they would have one or zero possibly. Once they get placed, it's a five year permit, which is new this fiscal year. The cost of the program is a $150 deposit, and then a $110 is the annual fee.

And then they can apply to renew their plot if they would like to. That is what we are currently kind of transitioning that going through that process. And then I just had a couple of two different highlights that I thought were kind of fun. So 60% of our active gardeners are 50. And then also a new thing, we have a new e newsletter that will go out quarterly to the current, the active community gardeners. Our first one went out on October 15, and Branson, our marketing coordinator said that it was a 75% open rate, which is a really, really good number is what

I was told.

So excited about that. And then on our next slide, here are just kind of a breakdown of the numbers, but a status update, if you will, for what we have at the gardens right now or last week. As I said, it's kind of a moving constantly moving as we're moving people off the wait list or somebody else applies. If we are able to move somebody into the garden plot and watch. Okay.

Alright. Next, we have the golf course. So this is very new to me. During the pandemic, I got to pick up golf. And I'm very grateful that I did because it gives me a little context into our team at the golf course.

Okay. So we had 32,715 rounds of golf that were played this past fiscal year and a 183 memberships sold. I wanted to make just a note for the membership sales because the number may look significantly lower, which is actual. But last fiscal year or April 2024, the memberships the different membership packages were consolidated. And so there's less options for them. But we're kind we're tracking some more in unique users, if that makes sense. Okay.

Next slide.

Sorry. We'll go back. I forgot it's not on this slide, but I thought it would highlight when our teams were talking. We have we work with Yukon course. And so this is anyone that is a Yukon course member can go golf at many different golf courses around the state. And they can do it for $5 So these long course members, or rounds that we had this last fiscal year were up it was 3,289, which

is up

about four and fifty rounds from the last fiscal year. So I thought that was very

exciting. Next slide.

Perfect. We can collaborate. Okay. So then a couple of upcoming events that will be happening at the golf course. I just wanted to highlight a football tournament.

So something that, as a previous non golfer, I probably would have never gone to a golf tournament in fear that I would be out of my league. So we're gonna try something new and do a foot golf tournament in hopes that it brings out community who would not typically set foot on the golf course. Also, if you didn't know, that is a I think we're one of the only football courses in the area. And so we do get a lot of, like, companies that will come out and book tee times to to play football. Anyways, so that will be this spring.

And then next summer, we will have an intergenerational golf tournament. So this would be encouraging people to build their teams, their foursomes with someone from a different generation, in theory, three or four. This would be in partnership with the senior center. So working with Chris over. Okay.

Up next, have Earth and Arbor Day Festival, which I believe transitioned to our department this last year. This is my first Earth and Arbor Day Festival and my first event here at the city. So it was quite the experience. It was really fun planning and also seeing it come to fruition. It was the seventeenth annual Cities Earth and Arbor Day festival.

This is a free citywide event that came from the sustainability department and public works. And so now we will get we're working on it now for 2026. Anyway, we had 72 different organizations. We had each booth was a 10 by 10. So there was there were technically more than that, but I wanted to highlight kind of our unique community organizations.

And then up here, we have our five performers, our main stage performers. So they were scheduled to go up on the big solar stage that is brought up for Earth and Hunger Day and very local here. And then lastly, we we guessed or estimated that there was probably three hun 3,700 people who attended, but that is an estimate. And, like, it's hard to tell throughout the day. Alright.

That's okay. Last yes. Lastly, I have a question of camp out. So this is a family friendly event that some of you already know. Participants checked in on Saturday afternoon, and they got to set up their tents. They played some games, s'mores, and then they also got a chance to watch a movie. This was all at Creekside Park. And then they get to camp overnight. And so on Sunday morning, they wake up and are provided with an opportunity for continental breakfast. And then they pack up and head home.

This year, we had a 161 participants. And with within that, it was 65% more residents. We received a lot of positive feedback. So I'm really excited to work on that one for 2026. Think my favorite comment might have been how it gives young families an opportunity to go camping and see if their kids will have a good experience or if not yet.

And so I I think this is a really cool one. I think it's also something that as I look at numbers, I wonder if some of them had such a good experience that they went out camping elsewhere. Now that's what they do in the summertime. But that's just a guess. Alright. Well, this concludes our presentation. And if

you have any questions, I think we'd all be happy to answer. Excellent presentation. Amazing number of activities that you're all doing. I know I have a number of questions, but I'd like to first ask, do any of the comment vice chair Bono? Please go ahead. Thank

you for your presentation. First and foremost, I like to say my rescue dog would freak out if

she can see

any jumping in a pool to

wonder, like, what are they doing?

But I look forward to coming and seeing it. In regards to McLellan, about sixteen months ago, and you did speak about the augmented reality. Yes. Did I I think I heard you say it's almost coming up, or is it ready or not? It's out. And then we

had the joint arranger program from January. The first five months, we did nature walks where the ranger led them while I did the first two where I walked to kinda help people navigate the AR while the ranger did the, naturals part. I think that we've had really good good success where the ranger can now leave those. We did it for five months, and now mostly people show up and you could just use the QR code or, we have a pamphlet to help describe it, at the Environmental Education Center, and they also kind of advertise it at the open houses as well as at the end of the creek tours.

Yes. Does that help getting more school involved and participate thanks to that knowing that everyone's on their phone?

I think our goal at the end of like, to pass it out to the kids at the end of the creek tours was just for them to be able to bring something home to say, hey, mom and dad. This was so cool. Could we go back out? It's not something that they do during creek tours. It's we don't have phones or anything during the creek tours. It's just something that maybe they wanna bring their families back to experience something, and there isn't a naturalist led program at that time.

Copy. Alright. Thank you. Regarding the $110 annual fee for the, planting and just the $150. You know it's not a lot. A $110 for a platform garden. I mean, we could double it, and it would because it's per year. I'm just I'm seller. Sorry. I'm just saying we could bank a little bit more. I think it's a wonderful place to be, especially for those living in high rises that wants to have that. For the pricing, if you do 112, it's really outside.

I own a plant.

Because it's so cheap. I won't want it. You know?

We spent a lot on top of that one time fee as well because we have to buy, you know, organic. Everything has to be organic. You cannot use some. So you have to bring organic fertilizers, organic seeds, organic plants, everything.

But you know what? You save a lot on therapy.

Uh-huh. Yep. Yes. Therapeutic to be there.

Yeah. No. Absolutely. I mean, what what works for the city, if they increase, definitely, you go for that. Definitely, it's a pleasure. And I've been working with Kayla. It's really a pleasure working with you. She's spot on. If anyone leaves any, weird, she's, like, immediately on us. Yeah.

But thank you for your presentation. It's always good to see

you guys.

Thank you.

Do you have any questions?

No. Just a comment. I'm out there every day. As you know, you see me out there walking my dog. So I appreciate everything that you do out there. And, you know, we have conversations all the time. If there's something that I see or you're always on top of it or telling me new things. So I really appreciate everything that you guys

are doing.

Thank you.

Your passion and your enthusiasm. I mean, you must have been a wonderful teacher as well. I would love to have had you as my teacher.

Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah.

That is very infectious. Thank you. Commissioner Shikanth, do you have any other questions? No.

I'm good. Thank you. Alright. I have a few.

I wanted to know how big is the plot for each person on the community garden? Because you said there are 91 plots. Correct?

There are 91 was what was currently being used. When we sorry. When I was doing the PowerPoint slides, it has changed because we have actually been able to get people through the residency verification process, which means that they will get enrolled as soon as they pay for that permit. Sorry. Your question was how how big are the plots? Correct.

I think it's, like, five by eight.

Five feet by eight feet.

Is this at my collar? Yeah. Yeah. There's a so the Ray Fets are 16 by six by 18. It sorry.

That's that's one and a half. Yeah. Are these mostly used for vegetables or anything? Yeah. So half of it needs

to be produced. Per per the guidelines, half of it should be produced.

Half of it should be produced. So, basically, the everyone who wants a community garden gets access to the land. Is that what I'm hearing you say?

We have had a we've had people on the wait list for at least since I've been here only maybe, like, the longest was three months. I I don't know from the past, but from that, it's because the timing of people transitioning out has worked out.

Does that sound zero on the wait list in McLeod and

Sorry. It's because I had already known in my head. So we will have zero once we do all of our residency verification, and they've all paid for their permits. So I put that there because I know where they're going. And I wanted to just identify that we wouldn't have anyone on the wait list. However, we could have somebody go on there tonight if you want a garden and you want you're you're interested, you could join the wait list.

We have done a good job of turning it over pretty quickly. And so it's not like I don't know if you remember before, but before we redid the gardens, there was a really, really, really long wait list. And so Kayla's done a really good job of managing the wait list. And it's funny because a lot of people will sign up and put their name on the list and then decide that they don't wanna do it. And so if we get through the wait list quicker than it seems like we would.

I'm just trying to understand the demand and supply. It seems like it's whoever needs it or wants to do it is likely able to find the lot to do it. Correct? Yes. And the water and everything, all this is taken care of by the city, so it's covered in the $150 deposit and $110 the one time

annual fee? Well, the deposit gets returned if you

Correct. So it's only $110. And the water and everything is free of Correct. Yes. Okay. Covered in that. Yes. I think it's a very good program. It's really wonderful. Yeah. So I don't see a need to even prioritize people since we don't have a wait list.

No. Probably not.

No. Sure. Yeah. I have a question in your time.

Kamisha, stand up. Please go ahead.

Yep. Yes. So when we when we did decide to do the prioritization for those in multiunit so that was because we knew those people don't even have an opportunity to get back here. Do we know what's the percentage of people who are in that? In the

high who are high density? Yeah.

Of the 91 or 95 that we have available.

Everyone that I have processed so far has been high density. Let me double check my my thoughts, Serena. Yes. Because we use the GIS system to verify their residency or to verify high density units. And so I wanna say we are, like, 95%. I want this no. Because there were people before.

Yep.

I could

get back to you on that.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm completely curious. That was that was something that we specifically wanted to make sure that those people who don't have germ in their backyard can do even have a backyard, have that opportunity. So I think, however, we're marketing it. That's great. I'm really glad to see that those people are getting that opportunity to use it. And then the other thing you said you changed this year was to allow five year time frame. And I know that was really important for the gardeners who

were putting in a lot of

money to upgrade their crops. So I was just wondering about that decision and how you came to that.

Well, we we heard from the gardeners. I also think that, you know, originally, when this rolled out, it was we were trying to follow guidelines from other cities and just kind of trying to to to maintain what the standard was. Mhmm. But as the gardeners, you know, it takes at least a year to even get established in the bed and for you to, you know, get the soil that you want and all of the things. And so once we were hearing from people that they're like, it's been, you know, year two, and I feel like I just and now I'm gonna have to reapply next year.

And so, you know, loud and clear, we we heard and revamped that. Kayla's also in the process of redoing our guidelines in general. They just need to be updated slightly. There's some things in it that aren't working for the gardeners currently that we've gotten feedback on. And so we're in the process of just changing a

couple things to

make it a little

bit Five years now? Yeah.

So what happens after the Pfizer's? They can apply again. And but if there's someone on the wait list, that person will come on before them?

Or

So they're renewing. They can let's say that Jason's slot was expire his permit was expiring last October of this year. He can go one month before and put himself on the wait list and no sooner. So it would have been August 1 for anyone that was expiring November 1, for example, if that makes sense. And then that way, it it does at least how I understand it is that does give others a chance to get in there. And I will say you just Jason, before I got here, had done a lot of, like, work on getting the first round of renewals back into all of their same plots. The the part

of it

Oh, go ahead.

Part of that was set up with the termination date for plots as the same so that we could try to get gardeners back in their same plots. Yeah. And so the the other thing about getting back in plot, not only if there's people on waitlist, would also be the priority. So people on the waitlist don't have any points in the priority system that somebody who's a current gardener does. When they put themselves back on wait list, they at the top of so they would get their Gardner plot back if they have they have cheap bites, and people don't make this.

Okay. Because they have

done it.

Okay. So, yeah, one of the of the points of having the time frame is to allow more people in the community to do it. So if the people who have the plus always get to the top of the wait list, then then it it looks like it's not an issue right now. Are the are the terms, like, staggered so that there's people coming up this year and so many people coming up next year? So it

So the first set of gardeners started in the last 07/2021. I was there. Three years later. So last year is when their first lots came to term. But since then, there's been gardeners who've joined the plots every year. So that's that's kinda it's created sort of a natural. So last year, there were gardeners coming up to their their end of their term because they were the first group. But because not everybody wanted to review their plots, we kinda it's now kinda developed a natural thing.

What sort of reupgrade?

I Like that. Like that.

Yeah. So

commission I'm not to my what I will get back to you. Alright. Thanks. I can try to pull it out too.

Yeah. But but I

Commissioner sorry. Vice chair Oh, no. Please.

I just had a quick question. Are you guys using the Parks and Recreation magazine to advertise on that? And do you also aware that now we're gonna do QR codes? So if you want any any database and get information who would want to be on the waiting list, you could use that.

I don't know that that's been rolled out to us just yet.

So the QR code is gonna be

Remember, QR code for database purposes, but that we can also include for residents to advise them that, for example, we have the waiting list in Wilson Park just saying give

them the price.

And it's almost like free advertisement with a questionnaire of the QR code, blah blah blah. All of that can be done.

That's that's not currently how the plan the plan for how the QR code will be used. It's gonna be used as a feedback QR code. And then if they scan it, they can give direct feedback on all parks and recreation programs is what's planned with the marketing Correct.

And communications. Yeah.

I'm a snow there.

I

can't Yeah. So Sorry. So something we can take back and and certainly check-in with a person that would do that.

Commissioner Shikha, I was gonna say this the post, I think, 2020 or 2019, it was closed completely down for a couple of years, and then you redid the the garden and open it up. Since then, it's been much more streamlined. Previously, I I have waited for a year or two years to get a plot, but everything is really fast now and streamlined, and Kayla is on top of everything. And before Kayla, was Chris. Yeah. Really, they are doing a great job. Thank you so much.

Yeah. I have a couple of questions with regard to the cost. For the city, how much do we spend on average per plot for water, soil? Do we put any soil? Do we have because I know that the city has a program for compostable soil that people can come and fill it. Do we do we provide that for the community gardens and drop some soil there for people to use?

We do have a compost delivery. I think it's a 16 yard debris bin. Does that sound right? That comes at the beginning of each planting season, so twice a year. And that comes I I'm not sure what the cost that is. We work with our sustainability team who works with Recology, but I could I'm sure we can pull those numbers and get that back to you. And then water It would

be nearly impossible for us to know the amount water each gardener is using. No.

I didn't mean that. Like, just on average, like, each garden, how do we Yeah. Do we track how much water is going into each of these set? I would assume it would

be really hard to know because there's also other watering systems that are out there. I guess they're probably the same. So it'd hard to be it'd be very specific. So this is just going into the garden.

Yeah. No. I get that. I was just thinking about the cost of $110. What is it that it's covering? And is the to talk to kind of elaborate the idea that vice chair Bono was talking about, whether it is cost effective for us right now or not.

And we're happy to look at fees as we work through the the guidelines coming up. But when we did establish those fees before, it was because that was sort of the standard through others.

So I'm not recommending increasing or decreasing. I was just thinking about the cost and the overall dosing. Do we know how much produce is generally generated? Do we have just a guesstimate? I I

can speak to that. Oh my god. You walk in there. It's a feast for the eyes, and you can also fantasize eating them all. The the people go really, you know, outperform their their, you know, residents, but they they are almost like farmers. Every plot is filled with, especially now in the season Yeah. All kinds of vegetables. I walk in there. I rule over others. Even I also grow a lot, but I rule over every plot. And then there are some people who are creative. They put flowers, sunflowers, and Yep. You know? You know? Some prasanthamums with roses to beautify their plots. Mhmm. But produce is a lot every plot produces a lot.

Are we still donating to West Valley Community Services for the excess?

So the gardeners, they that is something that went out in the newsletter, actually, that if they did have an overabundance of crop, that they could that was one of the lenses that

they could donate to. So

they have to harvest it themselves and then go and drop it off?

Yeah. I see. Well, because it's gated, not everyone can access. And also people And what is

the access? Do people have a code? Only the card works. Correct.

Yeah. So once they pay, they get a welcome email, and then they also get the code.

Go ahead, Commissioner Stanick.

When we were designing this, the council members made a stipulation, and it wasn't implemented early on, that because it's gated, that one day a month or periodically that the gardeners would be required to have an open house day that the community could come walk through and see what's going on there. And

are we doing anything about that? Do we have any plans to ever do that?

We we will do that. But it it didn't happen because it was COVID for a while. So then we just kind of pushed that off.

Right.

And then it took a while for us to get a designated coordinator, in. So now that Kayla's here, we're working towards what that looks like. The gardeners do have a lot of concern about people stealing. And it has actually been a problem in the garden.

Between the South. Right. Between the South.

From the outside coming in, they are very concerned. So it

But there

was Yeah.

Opportunity to figure out what that Yeah.

I get it. I'm hoping that we can roll that out next summer with the summer planting season.

And we have an active WhatsApp group. You are part of it? No. So there's all the gardens have a active WhatsApp group where we discuss the safety and exchange it. Exchange would make a lot of sense. Yeah. Exchange. Yeah. A lot of discussions are, you know, to keep to keep up to the city's expectations. They discuss their, oh, left it here. This is mine. Pick it up. Those kind of things. So, yeah, people know that otherwise Kayla is in the back.

One more question. Not about the gardens, but about the creek right there at the bridge on the clock where

where the water is

backed up, and on the top of it,

it looks really gross. It looks really bad. Well, yeah, what is the quality? Good. So I'm in constant contact with Valley Water on that. So it started last year

Yeah.

After the big debris flow with a big rush of water. And I was concerned on my end that we have concrete on one side and that debris flow that it could cause flooding, or it could wash out the abatement on the other side by the parking lot. And the supervisor came out. An engineer came out. They looked at it, and they also let me know that they actually built another dam like that further down the creek for it benefits the creek to be able to fill the, the ground table with water and also to, for, like, we have a western pond turtle and for the steelhead to have a natural habitat like that.

I reached out to him again, maybe three weeks ago and requested again to have an engineer. Well, first, I told them my concerns are that it looks like yeah. So what it is is to even with pristine waters like we're in the Sierras, you'll get that because it's biological. So a lot of that that kinda like kinda like film

Yeah. It's gummy. From film

is gonna happen, like, even if you see in the ocean. And when you see it, like, you could be in, like, pristine waters, but still gonna do it because what's happening is there's stuff under there that's decaying and bubbling up. There is a little bit of litter, and our rangers do at times pull some of that out. And the biologists are out there quite a bit from valley water. And they are constantly monitoring it, and they wanna leave it there, for habitat, for the steelhead, and especially because there's a bridge right there.

So the combination of the bridge and the water lets it get high enough that the steelhead can stay in cool ponds through the summer to make it through till they're two to three years old to make it out.

Oh.

Yeah. So the all the bridges throughout the corridor have at least eight feet depth and under the bridges. So that's where they'll they'll be under there. It's like you hardly ever jump. Is there a steelhead in there? You don't see them because they're black from the top when you look down. You might see little fish like sickle backs and California roach and suckers. You would you see those and you don't really see the steelhead, but we went with Valley Water and they used the electrification and they the fish like it stunned and they catch them, and they found over 500 steelhead in there this year. So they're in there all the way from, like, little fry. Like, we get those when we're working with the kids with the meds to nothing.

No way.

Yes.

Wow. Wow. So

and they're coming back, and they can go under that debris field. Like, that's the thing is people look at that and go, well

It's like stuff.

It's and then so the biologists talk to me like, yes, they they flow under it. So you could see the water going through and it's very natural and it's if we had beaver like we do in a lot of other places, they would have it. It'd be there too. So it cost he's like, it's so nice to add it because it cost them I forget the figure of how much it cost them to build a BDU, like, a a human beaver dam. It cost him an incredible amount of money to build one, burn her down.

Just happened.

And then he's like, we have one, so let's not destroy it. So he's like, it's really beneficial. And there was a Western Pond Turtle that really loved that area. I haven't seen it recently, and they are a really unique precarious species. So, he's continually monitoring. Just sorry. I got so so long when you know it. But he's continually monitoring, and I'm really Ray is his name. I'm always in contact with Ray, and he's worked there for twenty five years. So and then the biologists come out, and they talk to me, and they meet me, and we go out, and we look at it, and we walk the creek.

So we're constantly on that one. And I don't like the way it looks, but then the benefit to the steelhead, and it's a protected species. It's kinda like, oh, and once the water once the rains get going, then and it might just blow out. Know, it's not fun looking down and seeing that. I know. Well and then if the kids cross the creek, they're like, they didn't talk

about it.

Oh, yeah. No. I saw the kids there this morning.

Yes. They

were all there. They were right at the bridge

when I

was by this morning.

Yeah. Great question. And I'm so on top of that.

Okay. So has a comment.

Oh,

yeah. I was wondering if it's important and what you just explained is, I think, would be of interest over so many people. So wouldn't there be any kind of a signage with a little explanation that could be put out there for curious people? Because it would make sense and remove the complaints, the ignorance, and and actually encourage. That's so cool. You know? That's really good. You know? And we have to come from Valley Water

because what's really interesting about the corridor is if you look at it, how many different partials are different. Like, you got the Valley Water, then you got the water districts. Then you have, like, us. Then you have the HOA actually comes down, and part of it is, like, right on the border. And so it's this hodgepodge of different ownership.

So they do they did they did have a sign right out as you pull out from the colon, and it's blocking people's view, and then it's such a high visibility problem. So, like, a small sign, like, they do have, like, a little gosh. They do have a bench where it talks about the waterway, and I think this is new. So I don't know. I think we'd have to wait. I'll talk to Ray about it, but I think we might wanna see if this is actually gonna stay or go. Because it's amazing once the waters kick up, how everything breaks loose. So this has only been there a year. I don't know if it'll stay or if it'll just usually, we get

a big storm, and you just hear it, and everything just starts breaking. The property is Cupertino. Right? Is on Cupertino land owned by the city or not? The waterway is owned by Valley Water. Right. But before the waterway, we can put a sticker with a QR code, and people can look into it and get all that information. It doesn't have to be a sign.

It's Awesome. It would still have

to come from Valley Water, though. So we we can we can run it by.

Yeah. Because it it it's it's we would be commenting on their oh my god. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, we'd be commenting on what they're doing.

Well, if you need any assistance, let me know.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

I appreciate can work.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Well, it's still flowing because, yeah, the top part's stagnant, and now we have to get these mosquitoes right at our yard.

Right? Yeah. So Yeah.

But there'll be spray next to my neighborhood. Yeah.

May we open the public comment period? Oh,

sure.

Just one last question about the Okay. Golf. We saw a drop off in the golf. That one question, do we know why? And the second one was in terms of the homeschool kids walking, how do you reach out to them and let them know this is the day? Do you reach out individually to homeschool kids? Okay. No. They come to us.

Yeah.

Yeah. So they

can contact us. So the information's on the website. And then you do get groups that are already walking through, and they're like, this is so great. How do we can we get a tour? And now that is the reason we created this program was there were so many questions consistently on how can I get

a tour of the EEC? How can I

get a nature walk? And for a long time, we were just doing it if people had availability. And so now we've attached a small fee to it to at least cover time. And then sorry. You're The both one. I would say that the biggest reason we've seen a little bit of a decline was because we raised fees last year from Wow. Insignificantly, went up by, like, dollars Very small. That's definitely why you saw a decrease in the number of memberships because we went from having, like, no joke, 40 different options for memberships down to maybe what is it?

Like, we

have now 10. But 10. Yeah. So there's a lot fewer options so that and people are buying, like, bigger packages because that's cheaper for them. So when you're looking at the membership numbers, that's why you see a decrease.

Thank you very much. And I, yeah, I think she was Just to close on that.

I think, you know, D Cliff is much bigger than BlackBerry. So people graduate, and they start playing 18 holes, and they go to D Cliff.

That's a very good point. Yeah. Yes. Yes.

I have three golfers in my home. And they go to BlackBerry almost every day.

Oh, thank Oh, wow.

Great. That's great.

That's a commission. Wow. Thank you. So should we open it for public comment?

Is that

what you were saying? Yes. We are opening this for public comment. Is there anybody?

We don't have any

We don't have.

So glad we did.

Excellent. Alright. Let's move on to the next topic, and thank you for Thank excellent.

Thank

you. Presentation, I think he was super engaged, as you can see. And we loved every bit of all the stuff that you're doing for the

Great. And if you have questions, we're all at the border, so stop by and say hi

to us. Absolutely. Thank you, Samantha.

Thank you. Hello.

Alright. Next part of business is

approval of the meeting minutes that she had on 09/04/2025.

May I put a motion to approve renew and approve the minutes and parks and recreation for September 7.

Who wants to second it? Can second it. Excellent.

Okay. One comment. We

also need to open the floor for public comment on this.

For the approval of the meeting minutes? Yes. So we are actually Yeah. In the past, we did. Okay. Any comments, public comments for approval of the meeting minutes? Go ahead. On 09/04/2025, Parks and Recreation Commission.

We have no comments in person and no comments on Zoom share.

Thank you very much. So should we go ahead and ratify the approval?

I have

a comment on the

Commissioner Stanick.

Go ahead. Thank you.

So I think it was on item four. We were talking about the organic the native plants. And somewhere in there, the notes say that commissioner opened it up for public comment. And I couldn't have done that because I'm not the chair. If you could go back and look at that, I think that's what it says. I

I do believe we we actually took faith on that. It it just so happened that

I asked about it.

You asked about it. And so it technically, that was how we checked on the public comment. So that's how it got written.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

So on that point, is the public works department or that particular group coming and giving a presentation to us?

So let's finish this item, and then I will actually address that in my update.

Excellent. Yeah. Alright.

So should we go ahead and now that we have a proposal and a second, should we go around and That's all. Approve it? Yes. Commissioner Kumarapan? Not here.

Commissioner Sripen?

Aye. Commissioner Samit?

Yes. Vice chair Bono?

Yes. Chair Swamy? Yes. Passes unanimously with one commissioner absent.

Alright. The next item on the agenda is postponements. Do we have any postponements? Oral communications. Do we have any oral communications? We have no speakers

in person

and no speakers on Zoom chair.

Do you have

any old business?

Yeah. Some.

Do you have any in your business? Ready? Staff reports.

K. Second to back up here and going.

Alright.

Just make sure. Good evening, commissioners. My liaison update. I'll actually start with an update in regards to the public works. I did touch base with the brown supervisor, and he has said he didn't have any information to he doesn't have the data that you're looking for because it's not really tracked.

However, I asked if he could give the information to me to give to you regarding if there is any issue with non native plants. And as of right now, they do not feel that there's an issue. However, he did say that they are working with grassroots ecology in the corridor to there specifically is where they're kind of focusing their efforts to make sure that they replace any plants that are needing replaced with native plants in the corridor. And then throughout the parks, they're looking at, adding some pollinator gardens. So, he didn't have any specifics on the specific parks, but he said that's basically all the information he has at this point.

So Yes. That's And

I think we had already, as our commissions, recommended to, you know, prioritizing native plants over non native invasive plants. So that's stats. Yes.

Right. Yeah. Excellent.

K. And then I'll just start my my update with the monster mash recap. And thank you so much, Cheriswamy, for coming to the event. And I definitely had to drag Cheriswami away from the trick or treaters and make her go see the rest of the event, but I'm so glad that I did. But that was on Saturday, October 25, and we had a great time.

We all all the staff and the volunteers really loved this event. It's so fun. And we sold out, our sellout is 200, and then we squeezed in another 10. So that happened again this year, and we just have some fun pictures. And the the event, just to say, because I know you had, acknowledged Robert Kaufman, but the event was actually, headed by our, youth coordinator who is currently on family leave.

So the interim youth coordinator actually headed up this event, and it's one of our biggest ones. Natalie Garcia. And this is Natalie. Was one of the also leads on the event. He was here, so, unfortunately, he left. We couldn't recognize him. And, our facility attendant that's here at Quinlan, Randy Vihar. And so the three of them were kind of the leads, but lots of support from the rest of the staff and, obviously, all of our volunteers. So we just had a really great night. The little girl right here happens to be our family leave.

It's her oldest. It's really fun for her to come because she's done it the last three years, and she was like, this is amazing to be able to just be a participant. And so she had a great night. Anyways, really fun event, and I'll move on. We already kinda addressed this, but team speaker series, coming up and, our speaker topics.

The one thing I did wanna add about this is that, we do always go to the team commission for advice on our programs. So when we wanted to expand the speaker series, which is a very easy program to implement, easy, low cost, all of that, and everybody really loves it. We went to the team commission, and they gave us a list of, topics, and then they gave them in, priority order of how they'd like to see them. So college planning, financial literacy, and tech careers were the top three. And so really exciting for us to be able to implement that this year, as our series and, just a a fun event.

And also just to add that, you'll see with each of the series, you probably can't see on this flyer, but each of the series is hosted by one of our team commissioners, as the moderator for the series. So they have set questions, and they'll sit and put it kind of in the interview style. So it's it's a really great program. And once again, Robert Kaufman is just really amazing at putting together these programs. Upcoming.

We love the holidays here. We really, really love Santa too. So we have tree lighting coming up on Friday, December 5. That will be 6PM here at Quinlan right out front. Our tree is, three quarters of the way, with the lights, installed on it. The very next day, we have breakfast with Santa, and that will be here in the morning. That's a a registered event. It's an hour at a time. Families come in. They have their breakfast, which is, provided by the De Anza Optimist Club.

And then they get their photo with Santa, and there's crafts and activities for them. And then they enjoy their time, and then the next group comes in. So we usually sell out on that event as well.

Any tickets do we have for that? Pardon? How many people can sign?

Oh, that's a great question. It's a 100 sittings per hour, and we have three hours. So 300 people that can register. A continuation of our holiday events, and this, again, is a registered event, but we have the Santa visits for our home. And that's Friday through Saturday, December 12 to the fourteenth, nineteenth to the twenty first from five to 08:30PM.

That's actually also implemented by Robert Kaufman, and we have Santa and the elf drives the Santamobile around. When we had the pandemic times, we stopped. They used to go into the house and kind of have a brief visit in the house. But during COVID times, we kinda did it more like Santa drove up and the kids would come out and take pictures. And so we now decorate a car with, like, lights, and it's really fun, like, when they're driving through the town with the lights all on and there's Santa and an elf, and they pull up. A lot of times, people will have the gifts, there for Santa to give out to the kids. They'll have a party

Oh, okay.

When Santa comes by. It's a really, really great program. And that I I think it's somewhere around, 40 visits total, that can be paid for for Santa to come, and we usually fill on those as well. And then on December 13, we have signing Santa, and that's signing for hearing impaired kids. People just automatically read singing for some reason.

So everybody thinks they're singing with Santa, but they're actually signing with Santa. And that will be on the thirteenth here at Quinlan from ten to noon, and that is a registered event as well. Not to be outdone, the senior center is gonna have all of their holiday events. They have holidays in Hawaii, and, I believe that's they usually have a band that comes and performs on Wednesday, December 3 at 1PM. And then the holiday sing along, Monday, December 15 at 01:30PM.

Their season's greetings cookie box, they have boxes that people can then pick up and then give to families and friends instead of having to make it in their home. So pickup is on December 19 from 02:30 to 04:30PM. And upcoming is our winter recreation schedule. Residents registration is open now. The activities start January 5, and you can, look at the schedule at cupertino.gov forward slash rec schedule.

We also have some upcoming city office and facility closures, this coming Tuesday, November 11 for Veterans Day. The the offices will be closed, but Blackberry Farm Golf Course and the Sports Center will have normal operating hours. And then on Thursday, November 27 and Friday, November 28 in observance of Thanksgiving, All offices will be closed, but the sports center will be closed just on Thursday. And then after everybody has their turkey dinner, they can go to the sports center to work out on normal hours on Friday. And the golf course will have adjusted operating hours on Thursday and normal operating hours on Friday so people can go and play.

And that concludes my update. Great.

So there is commit there are commission reports. Does anyone have any commission reports?

I'll just say it was great to be at the Crest Award. I I witnessed some of the commissioners, unfortunately, but it was a great event to match so many great people. That's well done and well attended, and I had a great time.

Excellent. So I have a couple of reports. One is a monster bash. And while Sonia was giving a lot of credit to a bunch of people, Sonia, you did a phenomenal job organizing all the volunteers. And the way everything was set up, know just how much work went behind it. I was completely it was completely mind boggling how wonderful the whole environment was for children. And I was doing my little bit in sitting and handing out the candy, and Sonya was there's a whole bunch of stuff we have done. You this. And it was just absolutely stunning. So should take a bow as well by giving a whole bunch of people. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you. I'm really proud of the staff. It's a great event.

Yes. And I was feeling so great about the whole city of Cupertino, and I felt so proud being part of this.

Yeah.

Second thing is, of course, the Cresta Awards. We talked about it in the mayor's meeting, the most recent mayor's meeting. Pretty much the whole meeting was about identifying who the Cresta winners should be. So the chairs of various committees were there. And for the first time, we said that when there was a tie, let's just give it to both of them. So we had two rising star awardees, and we had two home heroes. We had two of them, the heroes.

One was a hometown hero.

Hometown hero.

One was a lifetime Yes.

Yeah. We just yeah. But they were you're right.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So there

were two names that we just decided to, and then I think we just give them different labels. But what I wanted to say is the number of applicants and the quality of the applicants was really good. And it feels great to be part of the city with so many people that are doing such creditable work. So and, yes, at the Crested Award, I know commissioner Shrikanth who has just come from India, did our test and lab there. It was just right after the the event had ended, so we missed you by a few minutes. Yeah.

No. I was there at, like, right after the photoshoot of Parks And Rec. I missed the photoshoot, but I I saw some of the awards. Yeah.

So I came back, and we took some pictures and And Sean. Yeah. Vice chair Bono. We tried to bring him. But, anyway, all good. We missed you, commissioner Stanik. And commissioner Kumarapan was probably in India, so we missed him. But it was really a wonderful experience.

Well organized.

Really well organized.

And on time.

Yes. On time, and it ended on time as well. And we got to have pictures with Sonya as well. That was great. Thank you, Sonya, for all that you do. I really appreciate it. So the next item is future agenda setting. Does anyone have any items that they would like to be considered in a future meeting? I

wanna say that in the past, people have proposed for like, we all have discussed some future agenda setting items. Some of them haven't related to the table yet. Is there any way we can review what those topics are? Because it's not on We will

take a look at that. Sonia and I will take a look at that. That's right. And we will we will prioritize based on what we have. Today, I think we had a pretty long agenda because of that which is why it's almost we said eight, but it's almost nine. So so by the time, it's good question. So we will look at that. And, certainly, Commissioner, Shikanth, in our next agenda items, let's take a look at that. Yes,

Commissioner. One comment is we used to have a calendar for the whole year and set out when we would be expecting different departments to be presenting. Can we get that back? Yeah. We can

You had it at the beginning of the year. I believe Jessica sent a put out a calendar. So there's certain things that are kind of set on certain months. Right. Right. And so that does exist. And sure, definitely

nice to have it attached to each monthly agenda so that we can look at it and

if things

change or, you know, think, oh, this should go with that. It's a good reminder.

Yeah. I think it's it's put out at the beginning of the the year. And then because then, obviously, we're adding some Right. Agenda items. Yeah. I mean, I I can I can look into that? And then, like, it's already set that in December, you'll have the sports center presentation Right. At recreation manager.

Yeah. Because then you can start thinking about things in advance too.

Sure. Definitely. Yeah.

And we also get the agenda about a week ahead of time as well. That also helps. Thank you. So if there's there are no other additional items, I will call with the meeting ended, and I'm adjourned.